LONDON REPORT: The Cure is set to...

LONDON REPORT: The Cure is set to begin work on a new album after concluding a bitter legal battle with its former keyboard player and co-founder, Lol Tolhurst. Tolhurst sued the band, claiming that he had been pressured to leave in 1986 and to agree to a deal giving him only 2% of royalties from Cure records. The judge in the case rejected the claim, ruling that Tolhurst “had very serious problems with alcohol addiction . . . which were, at the time, severely limiting his ability to perform as a musician.”

During the trial, Cure leader Robert Smith claimed that toward the end of his time in the band, Tolhurst had placed colored dots on the keys of his instruments to remind him which ones to press. Tolhurst had counter-claimed that all the band members had been heavy drinkers and had once run up a bar bill of $3,000 during a single trip to Vienna on the Orient Express.