The tour that made Robert Smith leave music for years: “A break from it all”
You can’t fault Robert Smith for not sticking to his guns. He’s loyal to every project he is attached to, but he also knows when it’s the right time to walk away.
It’s a lesson to any artist who wants to take their status from mere musician to legend. Keep hanging around for long enough stretches of time that people learn to love you, but also be aware of when not to overdo it. It’s a talent which the frontman of The Cure has perfected down to a fine art.
In this sense, you would think that following the seismic success of his band’s most successful record to date, the fans and the label executives alike would be queuing up to eagerly chip at his door, starving for whatever morsel of musical scraps they could feast on next. But instead, Smith was nowhere to be found – and no matter what anyone said, after years of treading the boards, he was steadfast on stepping away.
It was clear that through the recording of The Cure’s seismic 1992 album Wish, along with the gruelling 111-date tour that ensued, Smith needed the time to decompress afterwards, as frankly anyone would. OK, sure, maybe a break of a few months, and then he could think about heading back to the studio? No, he was thinking about years.
And if there’s one thing that anyone can learn from Smith, it’s that if he has an idea lodged in his mind, he’s going to be hellbent on sticking with it. So despite what seemed like everyone in the world’s protestations, the long years dragged on without a care on Earth from the country’s most exciting frontman, who only felt compelled to create music again when the time felt truly right.
Reflecting back on that time in a 1996 interview, Smith explained: “After the last tour, the Wish tour in ’92, I just decided to take a break from it all and come back to it if I felt I wanted to, which is exactly what I did. And everyone was going, ‘Oh, four years is too long to be away,’ but everything I’ve ever done with the group has kind of reflected just how I feel.”
It also helped that no matter what he did, the world would still be waiting with insatiable energy for whenever his heart’s desire told him to return – or so he thought. By the time the band did make a return in 1996 with their album Wild Mood Swings, the ferociousness of that initial hunger had abated a little, and the downward turn of the record sales started a slippery commercial slope.
However, this never seemed to dwell on Smith’s mind to a massive extent, at least in an outward capacity, because he simply kept ploughing on with the things that took his fancy. Whether that was a string of collaborations with everyone from Reeves Gabriel to Suede to Nick Cave, it was a spirit of reinvention that showed, success or not, that Smith was always going to walk his own path.
Of course, you can never imagine that Smith is ever going to fully step away from the spotlight, even despite his protestations that he is determined to retire in 2029, when he turns 70. The bug is just too strong. But then again, we have seen this kind of him digging his heels in before – so although we can all keep hoping to the contrary, we have to realise that this time, he might really be serious.
