Creativity Quote by Robert Smith

Stage fright gets reframed here as stage fuel. Robert Smith isn’t confessing a weakness so much as staking out a creative method: tension is the current that keeps him upright, alert, and interesting. The joke lands because it’s self-deprecating and slightly absurd - the nightmare of the rock frontman reduced to a mundane image of someone nodding off mid-set. That bathos is the point. It punctures the fantasy that performance should feel natural or restful, a fantasy pop culture loves to sell even when it’s obviously untrue.

Smith’s subtext is a quiet defense of discomfort. For a band like The Cure, whose best songs simmer with unease, romantic dread, and nervous energy, “completely relaxed” would be a kind of artistic death. He implies that the stage isn’t home; it’s an arena that needs a little fear to stay alive. The line also pushes back against the macho mythology of the effortless frontman. Instead of swagger, we get vigilance. Instead of “I own this crowd,” we get “I’m staying awake.”

Context matters: Smith’s persona has long been built on controlled intensity - big emotions delivered with restraint, a look and sound that turn anxiety into style. The quote treats that posture not as branding, but as maintenance. Relaxation would mean the signal drops, the performance goes soft, the spell breaks. So he keeps the nerves, makes them useful, and calls it professionalism with a punchline.