Paul Weller attacks The Cure frontman Robert Smith: “F**king fat c**t”
Paul Weller, former frontman of The Jam and often regarded as one of Britain’s coolest musicians, lost that cool in a recent interview when the topic of another singer came up. It would appear the name of The Cure’s morose melody maker, Robert Smith, is not one Weller takes too kindly to hearing.
The Modfather, as he is most affectionately known, has been seen as the pinnacle of British rock for many decades. First launching his career with The Jam before moving on to The Style Council and his solo material, Weller has rarely been seen as anything other than an icon. However, this personal attack on Smith may deter some of his fans from thinking of him so fondly.
Within the pages of a Paul Weller special edition of Record Collector, the ‘Going Underground’ singer was speaking about one of his many Britpop disciples, Noel Gallagher. Weller and the former Oasis man have long shared an affinity regarding music and fashion. However, it would seem that Gallagher’s recent move into a more experimental sound has not been so well-received.
The interviewer tells Weller that a song on Noel Gallagher’s upcoming record has a resemblance to The Cure’s post-punk masterpiece ‘A Forest’, to which Weller replies: “Really??! I can’t fucking stand them. Fucking fat cunt, with his lipstick and all that bollocks. He is my age as well, isn’t he?”
“He’s a fucking knob end,” the clearly enraged singer continued. “I don’t like him. There you go. There’s someone I wouldn’t work with. I’d fucking slap him, or something.” It’s unclear what has rattled Weller so fervently.
The connections between The Cure and The Jam go back decades, all the way through to being discovered by the same A&R man, Chris Parry, for Polydor. Smith would later note that their connections continued, telling Rolling Stone that the Crawley band had surreptitiously used The Jam’s instruments during the recording of Three Imaginary Boys: “The Jam were recording their album during the day, and we used to sneak in at night and use their equipment – we knew the bloke who was looking after it – to record our album. We just borrowed tape and stuff”.
In 1985, Smith, who isn’t exactly known for keeping his thoughts to himself, reflected on the political nature of punk and suggested that it was simply a reaction to prog-rock rather than a statement: “You’d have to be particularly stupid to believe someone like Paul Weller. You’d have to be particularly stupid to believe someone like me.”
It may be that these old comments have tainted any friendship the two singers may have endured in the past or simply that Weller thinks “all that bollocks” is not the done thing by those in their 60s.
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