The Cure‘s Robert Smith has revealed that he “lives at night” and has claimed to be the owner of “the only nocturnal sheep in Britain”.
Yesterday (October 30), Smith and co played shows at the iconic BBC Radio Theatre – one a live session for Huw Stephens on 6 Music, and another for the ‘Radio 2 In Concert’ series in front of an intimate audience. The shows took place ahead of the release of ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ their 14th album which marks their first in 16 years.
The frontman spoke with Jo Whiley for BBC Radio 2 ahead of the performances – which will be available to watch on Saturday (November 2) from 9:10pm on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.
During the interview, Smith shared: “I’ve got the only nocturnal sheep in Britain, seriously I’ve trained them to… I’m trying to train them because apparently, you can’t train sheep but I’m determined. I’ve trained one of my sheep to shake hands, seriously! No honestly at night, I will probably post at some point before the end of the year […] another viral moment for me! I can’t get ‘em to talk but they do listen though, they’re very good listeners.”
He also opened up about his nocturnal lifestyle and said: “I do live at night. I mean, my reason for being in a band was primarily so I didn’t have to get up for work, it really is. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to endure a boss and I didn’t ever think I’d be able to get anywhere on time in the morning… I couldn’t at school. It was like no, my mum’s voice just every day ringing up the stairs ‘You’ve got five minutes till that bus!’ One day I don’t have to do this.
“So it’s weird because the others all get up, they’re all daytime people and I honestly, I go to bed at like… I do listen to the Breakfast Show and I do watch the sun come out, and then I go to bed. I wasn’t joking, that’s actually how I live. […] It bothers me round about January, I start to get really miserable, oh if you think I’m miserable, God January! I don’t see daylight over the whole of January, so sometimes that gets to me… I don’t know, I just like being out at night.”
The BBC gigs come ahead of a one-off show at The Troxy in London tomorrow, which looks likely to be The Cure’s final show before they tour in autumn 2025. This comes after Smith revealed that the band have another new album that’s “virtually finished” – with a third new record also on the way, and that he’s aiming to complete one of the LPs before hitting the road again in 2025.
“We’ll start up again next year,” said Smith. “Seriously, I have to finish the second album. We were going to play festivals next year, but then I decided that we weren’t going to play anything next summer. The next time we go out on stage will be autumn next year.
“But then we’ll probably be playing quite regularly through until the next anniversary – the 2028 anniversary! It’s looming on the horizon. The 2018 one, I started to think about in late 2016, thinking, ‘I’ve got a year and a half, it’s easy!’ And yet I still didn’t manage to get there in time. Now, I’m starting to think, ‘2028, I must get things in order’; so [that’s] the documentary film and things like that.
In a five-star review of ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ – which is set for release tomorrow (November 1), NME concluded: “Merciless? Yes, but there’s always enough heart in the darkness and opulence in the sound to hold you and place these songs alongside The Cure’s finest. The frontman suggested that another two records may be arriving at some point, but ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ feels sufficient enough for the wait we’ve endured, just for being arguably the most personal album of Smith’s career. Mortality may loom, but there’s colour in the black and flowers on the grave.”
