The Cure’s Robert Smith is in “awe” of “effortless” Olivia Rodrigo amid new collaboration
The Cure’s Robert Smith has heaped praise on his latest collaborator, Olivia Rodrigo.
Last year, Smith appeared as a special guest with Rodrigo when she headlined Glastonbury Festival, and since then, they have started a musical partnership with The Cure frontman becoming her very first collaborator.
During her surprise set at Primavera Sound in Barcelona at the weekend, Rodrigo welcomed Smith to the stage to perform ‘What’s Wrong With Me‘, which will appear on her new album, You Seem Pretty Sad For a Girl So In Love, on June 12th.
Introducing the track in Barcelona, Rodrigo said, “It’s really special to me for so many reasons… primarily because it’s my first collaboration. I can’t believe this song exists and with the person that it exists with.”
Now, in a new interview with BBC 6 Music, aired on June 8th, Smith revealed the collaboration was kept a tight secret, and his bandmates in The Cure didn’t even know it existed, sharing, “I didn’t tell anyone, I didn’t tell my band until yesterday night when we came off. They were like, ‘What?'”
Smith continued, “The same was with Glastonbury, everything we do is genuinely secret, and it’s just exciting when we do it. It proved the point tonight, I think.”
However, he has yet to hear her new album, explaining, “Her producer Dan sent me the link to her album a few weeks ago, but I haven’t listened to the album because I like to listen to the albums on vinyl or on CD and put them in and sit and listen to them.”
Then, heaping praise on Rodrigo, he said, “I’m slightly in awe of how easy she finds it all, it’s not really comparable to how I do things.”
Smith elaborated on what makes Rodrigo a special talent, “It just comes across as very effortless, very natural, and I’m not really a natural performer. I think when I write songs, I’m writing them for a very specific reason, and I agonise over them to be honest.”
Meanwhile, Rodrigo shared a handwritten note following the Primavera appearance, telling fans “Robert has been soundtracking my life for as long as I can remember” and “I am in disbelief that this song exists and I cannot wait for it to come out officially”.
Elsewhere in the new interview, Smith discussed The Cure’s place in the current musical landscape as headliners on bills such as Primavera surrounded by younger acts, noting, “We have found ourselves in a position where there are a lot of people who are just getting into The Cure, they have done over the years, we’ve always refreshed the audience, but it seems like in the last couple of years it’s become much more evident.”
He added, “I’m not really sure why, songs like ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ seem like they’ve really tapped into something.”
The rock icon also provided an update on new material from The Cure, confirming that their next album is “done” and revealed there is another further album on the way, which he described as “really poppy”.
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