Robert Smith (R) and Reeves Gabrels of The Cure in Austin, Texas in 2019.
Photo: Getty Images, Gary Miller. All rights reserved.
Robert Smith wants to release a new album before The Cure’s next tour. If that doesn’t work, the singer “doesn’t want to play at all”. The band is scheduled to tour Europe from October to December 2022, including seven concerts in Germany.
“We’re going to play songs from a new album at our next concert…or we won’t play at all!” Smith wrote via Twitter. “I’m dying to perform… well that means… my desire to release a new album is overwhelming!”
WE WILL BE PERFORMING SONGS FROM A NEW ALBUM WHEN WE NEXT PLAY… OR WE WON’T BE PLAYING AT ALL! AND I REALLY WANT TO PLAY…SO THAT MEANS…X
— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) February 4, 2022
…IT MEANS MY DESIRE TO RELEASE A NEW ALBUM IS OVERWHELMING! X
— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) February 4, 2022
“I struggled more with myself to finish writing the songs on this Cure album than ever before”
The band’s last long player, 4:13 THE DREAM, was released in 2008. In the meantime, Smith has spent a lot of time working on a new album. However, it wasn’t easy, as he said last year: “I struggled more with myself to finish the songs on this Cure album than ever before. We recorded twenty songs and I hadn’t composed anything. So, I was already writing something, but I ended up looking at it and I was like, ‘This is rubbish’.”
As a result, the musician almost threw in the towel. But really only almost: “Last year I gave up. I thought I can’t do this. That’ll all be instrumentals. And this year I slowly rowed back. Last year was difficult for a variety of reasons, not just the pandemic. But this year I wrote something I like.”