In a rare interview with BBC Radio 6 (via Pitchfork), The Cure’s lead vocalist, Robert Smith, revealed to host Robert Keaveny that the band has booked studio time next month, for the purpose of demoing new songs. Smith says the studio time came as a result of curating London’s upcoming 25th annual Meltdown Festival. The Cure is set to headline on the festival’s final night.
Smith will soon follow in the steps of Patti Smith, David Bowie, Nick Cave and Guy Garvey as curator of the Meltdown Festival, which recently updated its roster to include Death Cab For Cutie, Frightened Rabbit, Low, Suzanne Vega, The Twilight Sad, The Joy Formidable and more. Smith revealed to Radio 6 that Meltdown served as a catalyst to write new songs, saying: “I’ve suddenly fallen in love with the idea of writing new songs.” The musician adds, “Funnily enough, doing this Meltdown thing has actually galvanized me and I’ve booked studio time for the band.” Fans can expect collaborations with other artists in Smith’s forthcoming work, as the musician has sent out handwritten letters to artists he’d like to work with.
Smith also hinted at possible appearances to celebrate The Cure’s 40th anniversary in 2019. The artist said, “What shall we do? Go back to Crawley, where it all started? Play in the pub where we did our first show as the Cure? Or should we go mega, play a show in every capital city in the world?” In light of the band’s success, the guitarists suggest that whatever body of work comes next for the band might be their last: “It’s the 40th anniversary of the first album in 2019,” Smith said. “I thought, if I don’t have something out new that year, that’s it for me. I don’t think The Cure will ever release another album.”
As previously mentioned, Smith and The Cure will headline Meltdown Festival’s final night, a show which Smith dubbed “Cureation 25” in honor of the festival’s 25th anniversary. The Cure are currently set to headline this July in London’s Hyde Park, a show which Smith says would “ideally” showcase some of the band’s demoed new music.
Hopefully, the band will be able to get the new music finished in time to share it with their adoring fans one last time. In the meantime, check out Paste Cloud audio of The Cure performing live in Washington D.C. in November of 1984 below.
It was recently announced that Smith had a few remixes in the works for Record Store Day 2018—find out more about those here.