Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Glove, and collaborations
Robert Smith met Steven Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees at a Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire gig at the London YMCA on 3 August 1979. Both the Banshees and the Cure had been signed to Polydor and its imprint Fiction, respectively, by Chris Parry, and Smith was already a fan of the Banshees. The pair hit it off, and Severin invited Smith to accompany the Banshees on a UK tour in support of their second album Join Hands. The two bands embarked on the tour later in August, and meanwhile in September Banshees singer Siouxsie Sioux contributed backing vocals to "I'm Cold", the B-side to the Cure's next single "Jumping Someone Else's Train" (released in November), A few dates into the Join Hands tour, however, Banshees' guitarist John McKay and drummer Kenny Morris quit the band hours before they were due to go on stage in Aberdeen, placing the tour in limbo. Determined not to let the tour end, Smith volunteered to replace McKay temporarily on condition that the Cure remained the opening act, while ex-Slits drummer Budgie joined on drums. The tour resumed on 18 September, with Smith playing in both bands each night. At the tour's end, Smith returned full-time to the Cure.
Severin has attributed Smith's transition from a reticent figure to a more enigmatic front person to Smith's early experiences playing with Siouxsie and the Banshees: I think he learnt how to be a front person, just by standing next to Siouxsie for a couple of months every night. I think he completely changed his persona on stage because of that; he came out of his shell. I think that he learnt how to be a bit more flamboyant, and how it was okay, and I think he saw how, y'know... how should I put it... Siouxsie's more "diva" moments were kind of acceptable because they were the front person, and I think he learnt how to get away with stuff. And just a bit about stagecraft, and how to use the audience a bit more. Because if you look at early clips of their performances you can see he's sort of much more shy and retiring than he becomes a bit later on, and of course, his whole look changes as well.
Smith meanwhile conceived the Cult Hero side-project to collaborate with bassist Simon Gallup of the Magspies, recorded at Morgan Studios in October 1979. With some leftover time in the studio from the Cult Hero sessions, Smith also produced recordings by the Magspies and a young vocal and percussion duo the Obtainers (described by Steve Sutherland of Melody Maker as "two 11-year olds banging on pots and pans"), for the fledgling independent label Dance Fools Dance co-founded by Robert Smith and Ric Gallup, elder brother of Simon. The Cult Hero single was released on the Fiction Records label in December 1979, while the Magspies/Obtainers split single appeared on Dance Fools Dance the following year.
On 3 and 4 April 1980 at the Rainbow Theatre in London, Robert Smith and Matthieu Hartley (also of the Magspies, Cult Hero and by this time, the Cure) were among the many guest members of a unique line-up of the Stranglers to play two protest concerts for Hugh Cornwell, who had been imprisoned on drugs charges in late 1979. Joy Division were also one of the support bands on the second night. Recordings from the event were later released as The Stranglers and Friends – Live in Concert in 1995. Also during April, Smith provided backing vocals for the Associates' debut album The Affectionate Punch, released in August 1980. At the time, the Associates were also signed to Fiction Records, and had been joined in late 1979 by former Cure bassist Michael Dempsey. The Associates' front man Billy Mackenzie was a friend of Smith's for more than 20 years, and the Cure song, "Cut Here" (from 2001's Greatest Hits album), was written in response to Mackenzie's suicide in 1997. As Smith told Jam! Showbiz following the release of "Greatest Hits": I kept passing on the opportunity to sit down and have a drink with him, have a chat ... I was very regretful. I had never used the words. I wrote them down to get it out of my system ... It is nice to sing a song that meant something, and to think it is going to be a single is a good thing. Strangely enough, it turned out to be the record company's favourite one (of the new songs).
During 1981, the Cure received a home demo tape from And Also the Trees and immediately became friends. Front-man Simon Huw Jones later told Abstract Magazine that the Cure were AATT's "biggest fans, the first people who came up to us and said 'we think you're great'" and that the two groups were mutually influenced by one another. The group joined the Cure in support of the Eight Appearances tour of Scotland and Northern England during November and December 1981, together with 1313, featuring Steve Severin and Lydia Lunch, and the following year Robert Smith together with Cure/Banshees co-producer Mike Hedges co-produced And Also the Trees' 1982 cassette release From Under the Hill. Smith was initially to have also produced the band's debut single "The Secret Sea", but instead Lol Tolhurst stepped in as producer between 1982–84, both for the band's first two singles, and for their self-titled debut album. Smith would again collaborate with And Also the Trees in 1991.
In the wake of the Cure's Fourteen Explicit Moments tour, which culminated in the departure of Simon Gallup and the temporary dissolution of the Cure, in June 1982, Smith began collaborating with Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees again. Although released under the name of the Cure, the only personnel to perform on the original Flexipop single release of "Lament" in August 1982 were Smith and Severin as co-producer, and soon afterwards, Smith admitted that the Cure as a band now existed in name only. That August, Smith briefly resurrected the Dance Fools Dance label to record and release the single "Frame One" by Crawley gothic/post-punk outfit Animation. In September, Smith with
Tolhurst (now on keyboards) and session drummer Steve Goulding went into the studio to record a "blatant pop single" at the instigation of Fiction Records manager Chris Parry. Smith was reportedly so unhappy with the resultant track "Let's Go to Bed" that he attempted to have the single released under the name of Recur, feeling that the single let Cure fans down. During October, Smith and Severin also recorded early demos for what would become the Glove's "Punish Me With Kisses" single, at Mike Hedges' studio "The Playground".
Smith also returned to touring as a live guitarist with Siouxsie and the Banshees from November, following the collapse of then-Banshee John McGeoch from nervous exhaustion one week before the band were due to go on tour. His return to guitar duties with the group prompted Smith to remark: Once a Banshee, always a Banshee. He later said that he was "fed up" and "really disillusioned" with the pressures of playing in the Cure, and that "the Banshees thing came along and I thought it would be a really good escape". Journalist/biographer Jo-Ann Greene noted that Smith's replacement of McGeoch "left a bad taste in many people's mouths, as [McGeoch] was informed of his sacking only a week after his recovery from a brief spell of clinical depression".
Returning to England from the Banshees' tour of Australia, New Zealand, and Japan in January 1983, Smith was approached the following month by Nicholas Dixon, a young choreographer with the Royal Ballet, to score a choreographed adaptation of Les Enfants Terribles. To test the idea, Smith and Severin recorded a reworking of the Cure's "Siamese Twins", with Tolhurst on drums, and Anne Stephenson and Virginia Hewes (later known as Ginni Ball) of the Venomettes on violins, which was performed on BBC Two's music programme Riverside in March 1983, featuring two dancers choreographed by Dixon. Despite a positive critical reception, however, neither Dixon nor Smith were happy with the results, and the Les Enfants Terribles project was shelved indefinitely.
Smith and Severin meanwhile co-wrote the music to Marc and the Mambas' song "Torment", which appeared on the album Torment and Toreros. Between March and June 1983, Smith recorded with the Glove and (ostensibly) the Cure; prompting him to remark: "I need a holiday ... I keep making plans to go every week, but every week I'm in another group."
Smith and Severin had first discussed collaborating on an external side-project in 1981, although their respective commitments to the Cure and the Banshees had previously left no time for the project. From May 1983, however, with the Cure on hold and Siouxsie and Budgie working together as the Creatures, recording of the Glove's album Blue Sunshine began in earnest. Budgie's then girlfriend Jeanette Landray, formerly a dancer with Zoo, was recruited to perform vocals, while Andy Anderson from Brilliant was brought in to play drums. The Venomettes with Martin McCarrick were hired to perform strings in studio. The Glove took its name from the "murder mitten" from the Beatles' animated feature Yellow Submarine, while the album title came from a B-movie by the same name about a potent strain of LSD that caused people to lose their hair and turn into homicidal maniacs many years after their first trip. Severin said of the project: Obviously there was an interest in psychedelia. We didn't have any set idea of what we wanted to do. After a few pointless discussions we just went in and started writing songs, and eventually honed in on shared interests, one of which happened to be late 60's garbage, but nothing hippy-dippy. The problem for us was how can we get Barbarella onto a record sleeve and not be seen as idiots. Smith described the creation of the album by saying: I thought it was a real attack on the senses when we were doing it. We were virtually coming out of the studio at six in the morning, coming back here and watching all these really mental films and then going to sleep and having really demented dreams and then, as soon as we woke up at four in the afternoon, we'd go virtually straight back into the studio, so, it was a bit like a mental assault course towards the end ... I mean, God, we must have watched about 600 videos at the time! As well as Barbarella, Yellow Submarine and the eponymous Blue Sunshine, films cited as having fuelled the project included The Brood, Evil Dead, The Helicopter Spies and Inferno. Retrospectively, the Melody Maker's Steve Sutherland described the Glove as "a manic psychedelic pastiche".
The Glove's Blue Sunshine album and its lead single "Like an Animal" were both released in August 1983, followed by the Siouxsie and the Banshees' single "Dear Prudence" (a cover of the Beatles' song) in September, all on the Banshees' own label Wonderland Records. Smith officially became a member of the Banshees. According to the Banshees' authorised biography, "Dear Prudence" had been recorded at Smith's insistence to document his time with the group, and it became their biggest UK hit, reaching number 3 on the Singles Chart.
Shortly before the group's scheduled Royal Albert Hall concerts in September and October 1983, Siouxsie and the Banshees were also invited to participate in an episode of Channel 4's television series "Play at Home", which they agreed to in order to take advantage of having the upcoming concerts filmed. The band with Smith decided to adapt Alice in Wonderland to tie the theme with the Banshees' Wonderland recording label. The result was a 45-minute television programme featuring performances from Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Glove and the Creatures, in which all four members of the Banshees appeared in a recreation of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party dressed as Alice, while each individual member scripted their own solo character performance and monologue. Musical interludes included the Glove performing "A Blues in Drag", the Creatures playing "Weathercade" and the whole band performing "Circle". The programme (which did not air on television until the following year) concluded with live footage of Siouxsie and the Banshees playing "Voodoo Dolly" and "Helter Skelter" live at the Royal Albert Hall. Meanwhile, both the Glove's second single, "Punish Me with Kisses", and the Banshees' live double album and companion video, Nocturne from the Royal Albert Hall shows, appeared in November. In March 1984, the next Banshees single to feature Smith on guitar and keyboards, "Swimming Horses" was released; Smith co-composed the new material with them. This was followed by "Dazzle" in May, and finally the album Hyæna in June – Smith having left the Banshees the month prior to release, citing health issues due to his overloaded schedule.
Meanwhile, in between commitments to the Cure, the Glove and the Banshees, Smith also found time to perform on Tim Pope's Syd Barrett-inspired "I Want To Be A Tree" single. Pope at the time was the regular director of promotional videos for the Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Marc Almond, among others, but was taken aback when his fame on American MTV as a video director began to rival that of the bands he worked for. He described the project as "a real piss-take of what was going on in America", prompted by people referring to "Tim Pope Videos", and said that he "felt really strongly that they were not Tim Pope videos, they were Cure videos or Siouxsie videos or whatever". Over the 1983 Christmas holidays, Pope and a friend, Charles Gray, recorded what Pope described as "this really stupid song" that they had co-written years earlier as teenagers. Pope made an accompanying video for his showreel, asking several of the artists he worked with (The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Soft Cell, Talk Talk, the Style Council, Paul Young and Freur) to "come along and slag me off on the showreel". He then played the artists the song, while filming their reactions to it. The Old Grey Whistle Test screened the video, which Pope says resulted in several record deals being offered. The song was re-recorded with Robert Smith playing most instruments in January 1984, produced by Chris Parry, and was released on Fiction Records (with a new video) in June.
With the completion of the Blue Sunshine project and his departure from Siouxsie and the Banshees, by 1984 Robert Smith had returned to recording and touring with the Cure as his full-time primary band. Between 1985 and 1996, his musical outings beyond the Cure were comparatively rare, with notable exceptions including remix work for And Also the Trees and Cranes. During 1989, Smith and producer Mark Saunders remixed 7″ and 12″ versions of the song "The Pear Tree", by And Also the Trees. The "Round Mix" of the song also appeared on the band's album Farewell to the Shade in 1989, followed by a US-only release of The Pear Tree EP the following year. In December that year while mixing the Cure's live album Entreat, he also recorded a solo cover version of Wendy Waldman's "Pirate Ships", originally intended for Rubáiyát: Elektra's 40th Anniversary; a compilation album celebrating the history of the Cure's US label Elektra Records. Instead, however, the full band line-up of the Cure recorded "Hello, I Love You" by the Doors for Elektra, and "Pirate Ships" did not see official CD release until Disintegration's "Deluxe Edition" reissue in 2010.
In 1992, Smith invited Cranes to support the Cure live on the Wish Tour. For one of the French dates of the tour (Stade Couvert Régional, Liévin, 15 November 1992), Cranes' vocalist Alison Shaw was ill and the group had to revise their entire set, with Robert Smith replacing Alison's vocal melodies on 6-string bass, and joined by the Cure's guitarist Porl Thompson. Cranes wrote most of their next album (1993's Forever) while on the Wish Tour, and the album's title was partly influenced by touring with the Cure. In 1993, Smith and Bryan "Chuck" New remixed the extended 12" version of Cranes' single "Jewel" from the album; Smith again contributing his trademark Fender Bass VI sound and additional guitars to the remixed track. The single gave Cranes their first Top 30 single in Britain and Norway, and also became their biggest commercial breakthrough in the US.
From 1993, Smith's primary musical engagement was the recording of The Cure's album Wild Mood Swings, released in 1996 and followed by the Swing Tour, concluding in early 1997. He was meanwhile invited to perform at David Bowie's 50th Birthday concert at Madison Square Garden (9 January 1997), where he duetted with Bowie on "The Last Thing You Should Do" and "Quicksand". Here Smith met Bowie's guitarist Reeves Gabrels and co-producer Mark Plati, leading to their collaboration on the single "Wrong Number". Although released under the name of the Cure, "Wrong Number" was one of several "one-off" studio projects recorded during this period by Robert Smith either performing solo, or with guest musicians from outside the full-time line-up of the Cure. Earlier versions of the song had already been recorded by the band, but Plati and Smith completely reconstructed the track, built around a sampled drum loop by Cure drummer Jason Cooper. Smith and Plati added keyboards, effects and new vocals, while Gabrels laid down "a gazillion guitar tracks".
In February 1998, Robert again collaborated with Reeves Gabrels in the studio, co-writing, singing and playing on the song "Yesterday's Gone" (eventually finding its way to CD release in 2000). The following month, Smith was again recording solo between RAK and Outside studios, assisted this time by co-producer Paul Corkett, whose production credits included Nick Cave, Björk, Placebo, Tori Amos and Suede. These sessions produced "More Than This" (not to be confused with the Roxy Music song) for The X-Files: The Album, and a cover of Depeche Mode's "World in My Eyes" for the tribute album For the Masses. Again, both were released under the name of the Cure, but were essentially Robert Smith solo recordings. Having made a guest appearance on an episode of South Park earlier in the year, Smith again collaborated with Trey Parker under the name COGASM, featuring Reeves Gabrels and Jason Cooper, releasing the track "A Sign from God" for the film Orgazmo. Smith's contribution to "Yesterday's Gone" appeared on Gabrels' solo album Ulysses (Della Notte) released in 1999 via Internet and in 2000 on CD by E-magine Music.
In 2002, as Exclaim! magazine's Cam Lindsay later observed, the Cure became "the band to namedrop as a musical influence, sparking rejuvenation for their career. Artists such as Deftones, Mogwai, Tricky and Thursday praise the band and stress their influence, while others like Hot Hot Heat and the Rapture receive constant comparisons". From 2003–2004 a steady succession of guest vocal performances were released with other recording artists "feat. Robert Smith". Smith wrote the words and sang "Perfect Blue Sky (feat. Robert Smith)" for Dutch electronic music producer Junkie XL's album Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin, released in June 2003; "All of This (feat. Robert Smith)" for Blink-182's self-titled album released in November, and "Believe (feat. Robert Smith)" on veteran Bowie guitarist Earl Slick's Zig Zag album, released 9 December 2003. Slick meanwhile contributed guitars to the Mark Plati mix of "A Forest" featured on the Join the Dots box-set on 27 January 2004. Although issued under the moniker of the Cure, the "Mark Plati mix" was in fact an entirely new recording resulting from the studio collaborations between Slick, Plati and Smith. Smith had also recorded vocals for another completely new version of "A Forest" during 2003, this time billed as a cover version by the German electronic duo "Blank & Jones (feat. Robert Smith)". Released in September 2003, the single reached number 14 in the German Top100 Singles charts, and three separate remixes later appeared on the 2004 album Monument; "A Forest" being described by AllMusic's Rick Anderson as "the centerpiece of the album".
January 2004 also saw the single release of Junior Jack's "Da Hype (feat. Robert Smith)", which also appeared on the Belgium-based Italian house music producer's album Trust It in March. During the same month, an exclusive re-recording of the Cure's "Pictures of You", remixed by Australian electronic musician/producer Paul Mac and released under the banner "Robert Smith – Pictures of You (Paulmac mix)", featured in the soundtrack to the Australian "rave culture" film One Perfect Day. "Truth Is (Featuring – Robert Smith)" appeared on former Nine Inch Nails drummer and co-founder Chris Vrenna's second Tweaker album 2 a.m. Wakeup Call, released 20 April 2004. In 2004, on 17 September at Old Billingsgate Market in London, Smith joined Blink-182 live onstage to perform "All of This" during the MTV Icon tribute to the Cure. On 21 October, Robert stood in as one of three guest presenters for John Peel on BBC Radio 1, just days before Peel's death. Near the end of the year, Robert Smith made two guest appearances live at Wembley Arena; first joining Placebo on 5 November on their song "Without You I'm Nothing" and the Cure's "Boys Don't Cry", followed by Blink-182 on 6 December to perform "All of This" and again, "Boys Don't Cry".
In June 2005, Smith appeared on Smashing Pumpkins/Zwan front man Billy Corgan's solo debut TheFutureEmbrace, sharing vocal duties during the refrain for Corgan's cover of the Bee Gees song "To Love Somebody". In November 2006, Robert appeared on UK trance and trip hop act Faithless's album To All New Arrivals, on the track "Spiders, Crocodiles & Kryptonite", featuring prominent samples of the Cure's "Lullaby", for which Smith recorded a new performance of the original vocal. Another guest vocal on Paul Hartnoll of Orbital's song "Please" was released as a single and appeared on The Ideal Condition in May 2007. Placebo's Steve Hewitt meanwhile announced plans to launch a solo dance/drum'n'bass-influenced album under the working title of Ancient B to feature Smith singing some tracks, and bassist Jon Thorne of Lamb.
From 2010 to 2012, as well as continuing to collaborate with other artists as a guest performer, many cover versions were released by Robert Smith performing solo. Unlike his previous solo covers (such as "Pirate Ships" and "World in My Eyes"), these were officially released under the name of Robert Smith, rather than the Cure. In 2010, he contributed a cover of "Very Good Advice" from the 1951 film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland to the album Almost Alice; a companion release to Tim Burton's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, while "Pirate Ships" from 1989 also saw release on CD for the first time. Further guest vocalist/lyricist collaborations "feat. Robert Smith" during 2010 included the single "J'aurai tout essayé" (a reworking of Smith and Earl Slick's "Believe") by French Canadian rock singer, guitarist and fellow Bowie/Mark Plati/Earl Slick collaborator Anik Jean and the single version of Crystal Castles' "Not in Love", a cover of Platinum Blonde's song of the same name, released on Fiction Records, 6 December 2010. In June 2011, electronic dance act the Japanese Popstars from Northern Ireland released their album Controlling Your Allegiance in the UK, including the track "Take Forever (Ft. Robert Smith)", and the following month, a solo cover version of "Small Hours" by British singer-songwriter and guitarist John Martyn (1948–2009) was released on the tribute album Johnny Boy Would Love This. On 25 October 2011, instrumental rock band 65daysofstatic released the track "Come to Me" featuring Robert Smith as a free download, coinciding with the release of their album We Were Exploding Anyway. In 2012 Robert again recorded a solo cover version for a Tim Burton project; this time covering Frank Sinatra's 1957 hit song "Witchcraft" for Frankenweenie Unleashed!, a 14-track collection of songs "inspired by" the filmmaker's stop-motion film, Frankenweenie, released on 25 September 2012.
In 2015, Smith contributed vocals to the song "Please" from the album 8:58, a project by Paul Hartnoll. The track is in fact a reworking of the track of the same name from The Ideal Condition, which he also contributed vocals for. On 15 June 2015, the Twilight Sad released a single featuring Smith covering "There's a Girl in the Corner", originally from the Twilight Sad's album Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave. In 2015, Smith also contributed vocals to "In All Worlds", a single from Eat Static's album Dead Planet.
In September 2020, Smith appeared on the Gorillaz' song "Strange Timez" from their Song Machine series and also appeared in the song's animated music video.
In December 2020, Smith took part in two live stream charity events, including The Cosmic Shambles Network's "Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People" 24-hour charity live stream, 12 December 2020. Smith played three songs from the Seventeen Seconds album: "In Your House", "M" and "Play for Today". On 22 December 2020, Smith played three songs from the Faith album, "The Holy Hour", "The Funeral Party", and "The Drowning Man", for the live stream the annual Second City 24-hour improvisation charity event for "Letters to Santa"
In June 2021, Smith appeared on the Chvrches song "How Not To Drown" from their album Screen Violence.
In October 2023, Smith appeared on the Crosses song "Girls Float † Boys Cry" off the album Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete.
Smith appeared as a guest during Olivia Rodrigo's set at the 2025 Glastonbury Festival, and performed "Just Like Heaven" and "Friday I'm In Love" with her. Smith appeared on Rodrigo's song "What's Wrong with Me" from her album You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.
Smith appeard on Foreign Tongues, a studio album by The Rolling Stones which was released on 10 July 2026.
