The guitarist who made Robert Smith want to be a musician: “Before that I wanted to be a footballer”
As the frontman of The Cure, Robert Smith has become synonymous with the world of goth, and is also celebrated as a hero of post-punk, chorus-laden guitars, and an era that is far removed from the classic rock period it was reacting to. However, like many artists who emerged in the punk epoch, his roots were firmly in the music of the previous period.
While Smith’s immense love of hard rock legends Thin Lizzy is one of the most surprising aspects of his life and times, with him dubbing Phil Lynott’s band as one of the best life, there’s another artist who made an even greater impact on Smith in that he inspired him to become a musician — Jimi Hendrix.
Although, musically, you might never catch Smith playing the blues with The Cure or bursting into frenetic solos, when scratching deeper beneath the surface, there are clear connections. One, is that the British band have heavily experimented with psychedelia on numerous occassions, such as on 1984’s deeply narcotic The Top. Another is that they have always followed their own path creatively, something Hendrix did from the moment he first picked up the guitar.
Smith credits his older siblings, Richard and Margaret, with exposing him to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones when just six years old. Then, aged eight in 1967 – when psychedelic rock was at its summit and Hendrix had burst onto the scene – they played him the otherworldly sound of ‘Purple Haze’, which proved a formative listening experience for him. He might have been a child, but his brother’s love of psychedelic rock opened his eyes to the transformative power of music.
Remarkably, Smith even saw Hendrix live. Aged only 11, he watched Hendrix deliver the storied show at the Isle of Wight Festival in August 1970, which occurred just three weeks before his untimely death. This was the moment that cemented Hendrix’s place as an icon, and it added more gravity to the event, knowing the young Smith was there, wide-eyed, and wanting a slice of the action himself.
In the years since that show, Smith has discussed the impact Hendrix had on him in making him want to become a musician and not a footballer, due to him conveying a clear sense of freedom and pure excitement with his work.
Smith once said: “Hendrix was the first person I had come across who seemed completely free, and when you’re nine or 10, your life is entirely dominated by adults. So he represented this thing that I wanted to be. Hendrix was the first person who made me think it might be good to be a singer and a guitarist — before that I wanted to be a footballer.”
Fittingly, in 1993, The Cure covered ‘Purple Haze’, in a gothic, droning tribute to Smith’s ultimate hero. This glacial rendition is included in the album Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix. Featuring an evil-sounding synth, the classic opening chord looped, a mechanical bassline, and a languid baggy beat, the originality The Cure showed in doing their cover this way tapped into the very essence of Hendrix’s innovation. It’s likely that if he’d have lived, he’d have greatly appreciated it.
