The artist Siouxsie Sioux called “a lightweight” to work with
Despite establishing themselves as alternative pop royalty across the 1980s, Siouxsie and the Banshees were always plagued by a brittle line-up.
The core trio is without question. Joining for 1980’s Kaleidoscope, former Slits drummer Budgie cemented the Banshees’ key personnel from then on with founding bassist Steven Severin and, of course, Siouxsie Sioux fronting the exotic affair. Yet throughout, a revolving door of guitarists has passed through, everybody from brief Clock DVA member John Valentine Carruthers, Magazine’s John McGeoch, and even a young Marco Pirroni before his highwayman fame with Adam and the Ants.
An urgent vacancy for the ever-fragile guitarist role struck the Banshees midway through 1979’s Join Hands Tour. Promoting the namesake sophomore album, John McKay decided to call it quits, as did drummer Kenny Morris, resulting in a frantic nab for anyone in the punk orbit to fill the gaps, pronto. In came Budgie to sit behind the drum kit, and Robert Smith to pick up the guitar.
It was a fairly easy choice. The Cure were supporting the Banshees for several dates and were friends with the band, and later on, Smith’s Banshees sojourn would yield the fantastic Cure B-side ‘I’m Cold’ featuring Sioux in backing vocals.
Smith’s services would be recruited again after McGeoch’s nervous breakdown in 1982, wrought from the pressures of touring and a bout of alcoholism. Following Pornography’s gothic pummel that year, The Cure entered a fractured and semi-active chapter, existing as a mainly singles exercise with founding member Lol Tolhurst’s presence just about keeping The Cure as a semi-cohesive band.
Around Cure hits like ‘The Walk’ and ‘The Lovecats’, Smith pursued a second and more substantial stint with the Banshees, standing as an official member for their ‘Dear Prudence‘ cover, the Nocturne shows at The Royal Albert Hall, and cutting 1984’s Hyæna album. Yet, echoing the touring headaches of 1979, Smith walked away from the Banshees just as preparation was underway to organise that year’s Hyæna Tour, citing too many projects on his plate.
“It wasn’t like he was ill,” Sioux curtly spat at Uncut in 2005. “He was one of those people who just didn’t say ‘no’ to anything, so when it’s self-induced, it’s hard to have sympathy. To actually say two days before a tour that’s been planned in advance that he can’t do it – fuck off! What a lightweight.”
The fact is, Smith was busy. The Cure had picked up again with The Top album, he and Severin had indulged in their psychedelic side-project The Glove, and he’d even lent some uncredited studio help on music video director Tim Pope’s only single, ‘I Want to Be a Tree’. Something had to give, although ‘jumping someone else’s train’ on the eve of the Banshees’ planned tour understandably soured relationships.
While Sioux seems to have held a grudge for many years after, Smith offered a more nonchalant feeling about his need to escape the Banshees at such a crucial time. “I think Severin understood and, by then, my mind was made up,” he reflected on 1988’s The Cure: Ten Imaginary Years. “After all, I’d given them two weeks’ notice, which was longer than any guitarist had given them before!”
