I'm a Cult Hero

Cult Hero 45
"I'm a Cult Hero" b/w "I Dig You"
FICS 006
UK 1979

The West Sussex godfathers of dark wave goth rock, The Cure has been my favorite band since I was a young kid. Over the years I formed this rule with collecting their vinyl that basically forces me to find vinyl releases related to The Cure without the use of the internet (auctions, buying in general, etc). So as a testament to the actual obscurity of this record, I recently found and bought the first copy of I'm a Cult Hero I have seen in real life in over twenty years of noticing The Cure and The Cure-related releases.

The record consists of musicians Robert Smith (leads), Michael Dempsey (guitar), and Lawrence "Lol" Tolhurst (percussion).- three of the founding members of the proto-Cure project known as "the Obelisk" and later "(The) Easy Cure". Interestingly enough, Robert's sisters Margaret and Janet are also featured on the recording. Simon Gallup (future Cure bassist who would go on to be the most long-standing member of The Cure besides Smith) was playing in a band called Lockjaw at the time. He was asked to contribute bass to this record and the rest is history...

Besides the record being amazingly phenomenal and avant garde (in both composition and production), it has an entertaining piece of history behind it as well. The guys in The Cure had noticed that local Surrey postman Frank Bell constantly wore a shirt that read: "I'm a Cult Hero". The boys conjured up a plan and asked Frank to contribute vocals. What they ended up with was a very highly sought after piece of wax.

Record Mirror, October 27th 1979:
"Better than being an upstart, I suppose. The vivacious free form bass line is reminiscent of one of the other of Fiction's three signings, The Cure, and surprise surprise they provide Cult's backing. Apart from the somewhat repetitive title, this is one very engaging slice of vinyl.