The Cure frontman Robert Smith says performing songs from the band’s newly-released album, Songs Of A Lost World, helped him deal with the grief of losing close family members in recent years.
Speaking to BBC Radio 6 Music’s Huw Stephens, he said singing live became “hugely cathartic” in escaping the “doom and gloom” he felt.
“You just suddenly feel something. You feel connection,” he added. “And that’s the reason why I still do it… that communal moment with a crowd. There’s something really, really wonderful about it.”
The band performed a live session before also playing a Radio 2 In Concert set to a small audience at the BBC Radio Theatre on Wednesday.
The London show included a performance of Alone – the group’s first new music in 16 years and the lead single from Songs Of A Lost World, released this Friday.
The long-awaited record is the follow-up to 2008’s 4:13 Dream and has been in production since 2019, following the band’s 40th anniversary shows.
Smith expressed relief at finishing the process, telling Stephens that completing song lyrics he deems worthy has become more difficult with age.
“It’s the one thing that as I’ve grown older, I’ve found much much harder to do – write words that I want to sing. I can write words but I don’t really feel like singing them.
“So to arrive at that point where I think that it’s worth singing these songs, it has become really, really hard,” he said.
