The Cure’s Roger O’Donnell reveals he was diagnosed with cancer

1 September, 2024

Roger O' Donnell of The Cure. CREDIT: Barry Brecheisen/WireImage

Roger O’Donnell of The Cure has revealed that he was diagnosed with blood cancer last year.

The keyboardist shared the news today (September 1) to mark the first day of Blood Cancer Awareness Month.

“In September last year I was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of lymphoma,” he wrote on Twitter/X. “I had ignored the symptoms for a few months but finally went for a scan and after surgery the result of the biopsy was devastating.

“I’ve now completed 11 months of treatment under some of the finest specialists in the world and with second opinions and advice from the teams that had developed the drugs I was being given. I had the benefit of the latest sci fi immunotherapy and some drugs that were first used 100 years ago.”

O’Donnell told fans he’s since recovered, writing: “Im fine and the prognosis is amazing, the mad axe murderer knocked on the door and we didnt answer.”

“Cancer CAN be beaten but if you are diagnosed early enough you stand a way better chance, so all I have to say is go GET TESTED, if you have the faintest thought you may have symptoms go and get checked out.”

He went on to say: “Lastly if you know someone who is ill or suffering talk to them, every single word helps, believe me I know. I would also like to thank my Drs, rockstars everyone of them, all the nurses and technicians, my friends, family and my partner Mimi, sometimes its harder to be on the other side of this…..”

Last year it was announced that O’Donnell would sit out of the band’s Latin American tour due to unspecified “health reasons”. In a statement, the band said: “We are sure you will join with us in wishing him the speediest of recoveries.”

O’Donnell joined The Cure in 1987 but has left the group on two occasions previously, in 1990 and 2005. He rejoined the line-up in 2011.

Back in 2022, Smith revealed the album title of The Cure’s next album in an interview with NME. 

The band have long teased the band’s much anticipated “merciless” new record and previously told us that two new albums were on the way back at the NME Awards back in 2020. Smith revealed in 2022 that one of them would arrive “very soon”.

“It’s called ‘Songs Of A Lost World’. It’s got artwork, it’s got a running order, it’s almost done!” he said at the time.

Discussing the themes and character of the long-awaited follow-up to 2008’s ‘4:13 Dream‘, Smith said that the album “doesn’t have very much light on it” and that it sounds “more like ‘Disintegration’ than ‘Head On The Door’.”

“It’s pretty relentless, which will appeal to the hardcore of our audience, but I don’t think we’ll be getting any Number One singles off it or anything like that!” he told NME, explaining that it was informed by lockdown. “It’s been quite harrowing, like it has for everyone else.”

O’Donnell previously described the album as the band’s “most intense, saddest and most emotional record” to date.

Talking to Classic Pop magazine, he said: “Four years ago, I said to Robert, ‘We have to make one more record…it has to be the most intense, saddest, most dramatic and most emotional record we’ve ever made, and then we can just walk away from it.’ He agreed. Listening to the demos, it is that record. I think everybody will be happy with it.”

He continued: “The problem is, it’s 12 years since the last album so it becomes precious. When you’ve got a back catalogue like The Cure, it’s a lot to live up to. Robert has said, ‘if The Cure say any more, it had better be important and it had better be fucking good’.

“It is, it’s going to be an amazing record. I just suggest a little patience.”

Back in 2022, The Cure kicked off their 2022 world tour in Latvia, debuting two new songs and welcoming guitarist and keyboardist Perry Bamonte back to the band. At this, the band debuted two new songs, ‘Alone’ and ‘Endsong’.

Other new songs followed on the tour including ‘I Can Never Say Goodbye‘, ‘Another Happy Birthday‘ and ‘A Fragile Thing‘.

On the sound of the new songs live, NME wrote in a four-star review: “The ticking clock piano rhythms and rolling bass of ‘A Fragile Thing’ accompany the promise that there’s “nothing you can do to change the end”, while ‘Endsong’ is a stunning, sprawling soundscape to portray Smith utterly lost in a universe where there’s “Nothing left of all I loved”.

“The truly devastating heart of the new material previewed comes with ‘I Can Never Say Goodbye’ – where howling guitars match the singer’s fear of “shadows growing closer now” as “something wicked this way comes, to steal away my brother’s life”. You feel that these songs are for those who mean the world to him.”

More recently, the band announced the release of two brand new songs as live recordings that will be a double A-side for climate charity ‘Earth Percent’.

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