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==Early life== Robert James Smith<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.timeout.com/london/news/robert-smith-is-curating-meltdown-this-year-020618 |title=Robert Smith is curating Meltdown this year |first=James |last=Manning |website=Time Out |date=6 February 2018 |access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref> was born in [[Blackpool]]<!--No counties need to be mentioned for such a major city, per format.--> on 21 April 1959, the third of four children of Rita Mary (nΓ©e Emmott) and James Alexander Smith.<ref name="Barbarian, Sutherland & Smith, 1988, p. 121">Barbarian, L., Steve Sutherland and Robert Smith. ''Ten Imaginary Years'' (1988) Zomba Books, p. 121; {{ISBN|0-946391-87-4}}</ref><ref>Apter, Jeff, ''Never Enough: The Story of The Cure'', (2009) Omnibus Press, pp. 3β4; {{ISBN|978-1-84772-739-8}}</ref> He came from a musical family, as his father sang and his mother played the piano.<ref name="Apter, Jeff 2009 p. 15">Apter, Jeff, ''Never Enough: The Story of The Cure'', (2009) Omnibus Press, p. 15; {{ISBN|978-1-84772-739-8}}</ref> Raised as a [[Catholic]],<ref>Sandall, Robert, "Disintegration" (Robert Smith Interview), ''[[Q (magazine)|Q]]'', May 1989</ref> he later became an [[atheist]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Celebrities in Hell |publisher=chelCpress |isbn=978-1-56980-214-4 |page=106 |author=Warren Allen Smith |date=1 May 2013 |chapter=Robert Smith |quote=...Smith told one reporter, "I don't believe in God. I wish I did." In ''The Face'' (1989), Smith said, "I used to lay myself open to visions of God, but I never had any. I come from a religious family, and there have been moments when I've felt the oneness of things, but they never last, they fade away, leaving me with the belief that it's only fear that drives people to religion. And I don't think I'm ever going to wake up and know that I was wrong."}}</ref> When he was three years old, his family moved to [[Horley]], where he attended St Francis' Primary School.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y6O0Pv8aG44C&q=St+Francis+Primary+School+robert+smith+the+cure&pg=PT23 |title=Never Enough: The Story of The Cure |last=Apter |first=Jeff |date=2009-11-05 |publisher=Omnibus Press |isbn=978-0-85712-024-3 |language=en}}</ref> When he was six, his family moved to [[Crawley]], where he attended St. Francis' Junior School.<ref name="Barbarian, Sutherland & Smith, 1988, p. 121"/> He later attended Notre Dame Middle School from 1970 to 1972, and [[St Wilfrid's Catholic School, Crawley|St Wilfrid's Comprehensive School]] from 1972 to 1977.<ref name="Barbarian, Sutherland & Smith, 1988, p. 121"/> He and his younger sister Janet received piano lessons as children.<ref name="Revolution, September 1989">Simmons, Sylvie, "Everything Falls Apart", ''[[Revolution (magazine)|Revolution]]'', September 1989.</ref> He later quipped, "[Janet] was a piano prodigy, so [[sibling rivalry]] made me take up guitar because she couldn't get her fingers around [[Neck (music)|the neck]]."<ref name="Guitar Player, 1992">Gore, Joe, "Confessions of a Pop Mastermind", ''[[Guitar Player]]'', September 1992.</ref> He told ''[[Smash Hits]]'' that, from about 1966 when he turned seven years old, his older brother Richard taught him "a few basic chords" on guitar.<ref name="Smash Hits, May 1986">Heath, Chris. "Robert Smith This Is Your Life", ''[[Smash Hits]]'', May 1986</ref> Smith began taking classical guitar lessons from the age of nine with a student of guitarist [[John Williams (guitarist)|John Williams]], whom he called a "really excellent guitarist". He said, "I learned a lot, but got to the point where I was losing the sense of fun. I wish I'd stuck with it."<ref name="Guitar Player, 1992"/> He has said his guitar tutor was "horrified" by his playing.<ref>Thompson, Dave, and Jo-Ann Greene. ''The Cure β A Visual Documentary'', (1988), Omnibus Press, p. 5; {{ISBN|0-7119-1387-0}}</ref> He gave up formal tuition and began teaching himself to play by ear, listening to his older brother's record collection.<ref name="Revolution, September 1989"/> He was 13 or 14 when he became more serious about rock music and "started to play and learn frenetically".<ref name="Les Inrockuptibles">Tellier, Emmanuel, "Les Attrapes-Coeurs de Robert Smith, The Cure", ''[[Les Inrockuptibles]]'', pp. 22β28, October 1997</ref> Up until December 1972, he did not have a guitar of his own and had been borrowing his brother's, so his brother gave him the guitar for Christmas. Smith said of this gift, "I'd commandeered it anyway{{emdash}}so whether he was officially giving it to me at Christmas or not, I was going to have it!"<ref>Hermanson, Wendy, [http://music.yahoo.ca/read/news/12032678 Robert Smith Remembers a Christmas Gift]{{dead link|date=November 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, Launch.com/Yahoo! Music, 6 December 1999.</ref> Rock biographer Jeff Apter maintains that the guitar Smith received for Christmas of 1972 was from his parents, and equates this item with Smith's [[Woolworths (United Kingdom)|Woolworths]] "Top 20" guitar that was later used on many of the Cure's earliest recordings.<ref name="Apter, 2009, p. 25">Apter, Jeff. ''Never Enough: The Story of The Cure'', (2009) Omnibus Press, p. 25; {{ISBN|978-1-84772-739-8}}</ref> Smith was quoted in several earlier sources as saying he purchased the guitar himself for Β£20 in 1978.<ref>Thompson, Dave, and Jo-Ann Greene. ''The Cure β A Visual Documentary'' (1988), Omnibus Press, p. 8; {{ISBN|0-7119-1387-0}}</ref><ref name="Spiral Scratch, 1992">Doran, Rachel. "The Cure β A History", ''Spiral Scratch'', 16 April 1992</ref><ref name="The Gothfather">Staff. "The Gothfather", ''[[Guitar World]]'', June 1996</ref> Smith described Notre Dame Middle School as "a very free-thinking establishment" with an experimental approach, a freedom he claims to have abused. On one occasion, he said that he wore a black velvet dress to school and kept it on all day: "The teachers just thought, 'Oh, it's a phase he's going through, he's got some personality crisis, let's help him through it.'"<ref name="Smash Hits, May 1986"/> He said "four other kids" beat him up after school, although Apter notes that Smith has given several conflicting versions of the story. Apter also reports that Smith put in just enough effort at Notre Dame to pass tests, and quotes Smith as saying, "If you were crafty enough, you could convince the teachers you were special; I did virtually nothing for three years."<ref>Apter, Jeff, ''Never Enough: The Story of The Cure'', (2009) Omnibus Press, p. 21; {{ISBN|978-1-84772-739-8}}</ref> St Wilfrid's was reportedly stricter than Notre Dame.<ref>Apter, Jeff, ''Never Enough: The Story of The Cure'', (2009) Omnibus Press, pp. 23β24; {{ISBN|978-1-84772-739-8}}</ref> In the summer of 1975, Smith and his school bandmates took their [[O Level]]s, but only he and [[Michael Dempsey]] stayed on to attend [[sixth form]] at St Wilfrid's from 1976 to 1977.<ref>Bowler, Dave, and Bryan Dray, ''The Cure β Faith'', (1995), Sidgwick & Jackson, p. 12; {{ISBN|0-283-06229-0}}</ref> Smith has said that he was expelled from St Wilfrid's as an "undesirable influence" after his band Malice's second live performance shortly before Christmas in 1976, which took place at the school and allegedly caused a riot: "I got taken back [in 1977] but they never acknowledged that I was there [...] I did three [[A level]]s{{emdash}}failed biology miserably, scraped through French, and got a 'B' in English. Then I spent eight or nine months on [[Welfare state in the United Kingdom|social security]] until they stopped my money, so I thought, 'Now's the time to make a demo and see what people think.'"<ref name="Smash Hits, May 1986"/> According to Cure biographers Dave Bowler and Bryan Dray, the school expelled ex-Malice co-founder Marc Ceccagno along with Smith, whose new band Amulet played the December school show.<ref>Bowler, Dave & Bryan Dray, ''The Cure β Faith'', (1995), Sidgwick & Jackson, p. 11; {{ISBN|0-283-06229-0}}</ref> Smith has given conflicting accounts of his alleged expulsion, elsewhere saying that he was merely suspended and that it was because he did not get along with the school headmaster,<ref>Black, Johnny, "Curious Case of the Cure", ''[[London Times]]'', 26 April 1989.</ref> and on another occasion saying he was suspended because his "attitude towards religion was considered wrong".<ref>Wilde, John, "Lipstick Traces", ''[[Melody Maker]]'', 29 April 1989.</ref>
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