Editing Robert Smith (musician) (section)

===School bands: 1972–1976===
Smith has said that his first band when he was 14 consisted of himself, his brother Richard, their younger sister Janet, and some of Richard's friends. He remarked, "It was called the Crawley Goat Band – brilliant!"<ref name="Smash Hits, May 1986"/> However, while the Crawley Goat Band may have been Smith's first regular group, he would have been just 13 when he and his Notre Dame schoolmates gave their first one-off performance together as the Obelisk, an early incarnation of what would eventually become the Cure. The Obelisk featured Smith (still playing piano at this point) alongside Marc Ceccagno (lead guitar), Michael Dempsey (guitar), Alan Hill (bass), and [[Lol Tolhurst|Laurence "Lol" Tolhurst]] (percussion) and, according to the Cure's official biography ''Ten Imaginary Years'', gave their only performance at a school function in April 1972. Jeff Apter, however, dates the performance to April 1973,<ref name="Apter, p. 26">Apter, Jeff. ''Never Enough: The Story of the Cure'', (2009), Omnibus Press, p. 26; {{ISBN|978-1-84772-739-8}}</ref> which is at variance with Smith and his bandmates having already left Notre Dame Middle School by this time.<ref name="Barbarian, Sutherland & Smith, 1988, p. 121"/>

During the latter part of 1972, the nucleus of Smith, Ceccagno, Dempsey and Tolhurst had gone on to secondary school together at St Wilfrid's Comprehensive, where they and their friends continued playing music together. Smith said that they were known simply as "The Group" "because it was the only one at school so we didn't need a name."<ref name="Smash Hits, May 1986"/> Dempsey, who eventually moved from guitar to bassist for the Group, said that another name they toyed with was the Brat's Club – a reference to [[Evelyn Waugh]]'s ''[[A Handful of Dust]]''.<ref name="Apter, p. 26"/> Smith said that "the group" eventually became Malice, "sort of a sub-metal punk group -with Michael Dempsey, Laurence and two other blokes."<ref name="Smash Hits, May 1986"/> According to the band's ''Ten Imaginary Years'' biography, between January and December 1976, the shifting line-up for Malice featured several "other blokes", with founding guitarist Marc Ceccagno being replaced by [[Porl Thompson]], an early drummer known only as "Graham" replaced by Lol Tolhurst, and "Graham's brother" replaced by vocalist Martin Creasy. By 1977, Malice had become [[Easy Cure]].