Perry Bamonte, guitarist and keyboardist in the Cure, dies at 65

NINA WESTERVELT/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Perry Bamonte of the Cure performing at Madison Square Garden in New York, in June 2023. Bamonte, a guitarist and keyboard player in the Cure, the seminal post-punk band that brought a dark, gothic sensibility to sparkly, upbeat hits like “Friday I’m in Love,” has died. He was 65.

Perry Bamonte, a guitarist and keyboard player in the Cure, the seminal post-punk band that brought a dark, Gothic sensibility to sparkly, upbeat hits like “Friday I’m in Love,” has died. He was 65.

The Cure announced Bamonte’s death in a statement on its website Friday that said he had died after “a short illness at home over Christmas.”

Bamonte was a roadie and guitar tech for the Cure before he joined the band full time in 1990. The Cure called him “quiet, intense, intuitive, constant and hugely creative,” and a “vital part of the Cure story.”

He played guitar, six-string bass and keyboards on the albums “Wish” (1992), “Wild Mood Swings” (1996), “Bloodflowers” (2000), “Acoustic Hits” (2001) and “the Cure” (2004). “Wish” included “Friday I’m in Love,” which spent 20 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1992 and peaked at No. 18 on Aug. 8 of that year.

He performed in 400 shows over 14 years during his first stint with the Cure, playing behind Robert Smith, the gloomily romantic frontman, who cut an indelible image with his black clothing, tangly mop of hair and smeared lipstick.

After a time away from the band, Bamonte rejoined the Cure in 2022. He played another 90 shows that culminated with the band’s “Show of a Lost Word” performance in London on Nov. 1, 2024, which was later released as a concert film.

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Perry Archangelo Bamonte was born Sept. 3, 1960. Details about survivors were not immediately available Friday.

Known as Teddy, Bamonte grew up in England as a huge fan of David Bowie and Jeff Beck but didn’t start playing guitar until he was 17, according to the book “Never Enough: The Story of the Cure,” by Jeff Apter.

He played in several bands before his brother Daryl, who was a roadie for Depeche Mode and later became the Cure’s manager, got him a job as a roadie for the Cure in 1984, the book said.

Smith’s sister Janet spent a month teaching Bamonte the rudiments of piano, the book said, before Bamonte joined the band, replacing keyboardist Roger O’Donnell, who left the Cure in 1990.

“We could have hired a professional to take his place, but why not use someone who knows all the songs?” Smith was quoted as saying in “Never Enough: The Story of the Cure.”

Bamonte, for his part, said that moving from backstage tech man to full-time band member was “pretty seamless.”

“My transition to band member was easy because I was friends with everyone already and spent all my time with them,” Bamonte said, according to the book.

The Cure was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2019 and performed a well-regarded series of shows in the United States in 2023, when a headline in Rolling Stone proclaimed, “The Cure Are This Summer’s Hottest Rock Tour. Yes, Really.”

That year, Smith also became something of an internet folk hero when he publicly took on Ticketmaster for adding a litany of fees to tickets his fans had purchased.

He also tried to limit scalpers’ resales to keep prices affordable. In a rare concession, Ticketmaster agreed to make partial refunds to some Cure fans.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2025 The New York Times Company

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