The Cure’s bassist and keyboard player, Simon Gallup has announced via a social media post that he has left the group.
The 61-year-old musician shared the news via a public post on his Facebook account on 14th August 2021, within the post Gallup expresses his feelings of sadness whilst wishing the remaining members luck.
Replying to a comment left by a Facebook friend, Gallup replied with the cryptic message “Im ok Vicky ..just got fed up of betrayal.”
This is not Gallup’s first departure from The Cure, the bassist previously left the group in 1982 during the band’s Pornography Tour. It was reported that his initial departure was due to various events, but the most prominent incident cited occurred after a concert at Hall Tivoli in France. After the live performance on 27th May 1982, an alleged physical incident between Gallup and Smith took place at a nightclub in Strasbourg, it is alleged that they entered a fistfight, reportedly due to an argument concerning a bar tab. A second incident occurred after the initial confrontation within a concert in Belgium in which led to Gallup’s official departure. Within the performance, Garry Biddles, roadie and friend of Gallup, began to sing an improvised song and belted out ‘The Cure Is Dead’, after this event Gallup would form a new band with Biddles called Fools Dance in 1983.
In 1984 Gallup returned to The Cure after Smith had asked the bassist to re-enter the group and Gallup accepted the offer. Since Gallup’s return, the two have remained on good terms, with Smith’s 1998 wedding, Gallup was even the lead singer’s best man. Gallup briefly departed the group again in 1992 during their Wish Tour, however, the bassist did not officially leave the band as the musician’s departure was due to an illness.He was hospitalised after the tour due to pleurisy.
The iconic group’s long-term band member has been a part of the ‘Friday I’m In Love’ performers since 1979. Upon initially joining the group Gallup was recruited to replace former bassist Michael Dempsey. The bassist also worked with The Cure’s lead singer Robert Smith within the singer’s side project Cult Hero; the duo joined forces in 1979 on the project. Gallup and Smith have had a long-standing musical and personal relationship, before joining The Cure Gallup was part of the group The Magazine Spies, sometimes known as Magspies, whilst working on his side project with Gallup, Smith also produced recordings by Gallup’s previous group.
The Cure has famously had several line-up changes over the years, Gallup has remained the second longest-running member of the band. In 2019 Smith had given an interview to NME concerning his relationship and friendship with Gallup. Within the interview, Smith was asked who the most dangerous combination within the group was, to which Smith answered, “Without question, me and Simon.”
During the interview, Smith also gave further insight into the pair’s relationship. “For me, the heart of the live band has always been Simon, and he’s always been my best friend, It’s weird that over the years and the decades he’s often been overlooked. He doesn’t do interviews, he isn’t really out there and he doesn’t play the role of a foil to me in public, and yet he’s absolutely vital to what we do. We’ve had some difficult periods over the years but we’ve managed to maintain a very strong friendship that grew out of that shared experience from when we were teens. When you have friends like that, particularly for that long, it would take something really extraordinary for that friendship to break. You’ve done so much together, you’ve so much shared experience, you just don’t want to lose friends like that.”
In other news, during June 2021 Smith had spoken with The Sunday Times regarding the group’s new material and next album. In the interview, Smith alludes to the next album being the group’s final release and also describes their new music, “The new Cure stuff is very emotional,”
