Robert Smith can relate to Chappell Roan when it comes to setting boundaries with fans.
Two months after The Cure released its latest album “Songs of a Lost World,” Smith was a guest on the BBC podcast “Sidetracked.” When asked about Roan drawing headlines as an artist not taking abuse from fans and the media, Smith talked about his experience as the lead singer of the prolific British rock band.
Smith explained, “I think what you’re doing as an artist, you want people to feel like they’re engaging with you. But it is a modern-world phenomenon that there’s a sense of entitlement that didn’t used to be there amongst fans.”
When The Cure started out, Smith felt that “it was kind of enough that we did what we did. As a consumer, I didn’t expect something more. It was enough to see Alex Harvey or to see David Bowie. I didn’t expect to hang out with them or get to know them, whereas now it seems almost like that is part of the deal.”
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Over the years when The Cure became more popular, though, Smith experienced obsessive fan behavior. “It can feel quite threatening, honestly. If you have people sleeping outside your front door, it can get very weird … You’re dealing with people who perhaps aren’t quite right all the time. How do you respond to this? It’s impossible, really.”
Smith acknowledged how the experience for artists like Roan who rise to fame in such a short period of time can be even more difficult when “you’re not grounded at a lower level.”
For The Cure, “it took us years and years and years of touring, going around the world and doing stuff until we’d started to get properly famous … But being famous, if you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, I can’t imagine many worse ways of living. It’s horrible being gawked at all the time and prodded and poked and people expecting more of you.”