Roger O'Donnell

Roger ODonnell born 29 October 1955 is an English keyboardist best known for his work with The Cure ODonnell has also performed in The Psychedelic Furs Thompson Twins and Berlin as well as having an active solo career ODonnell was born in East London into a musical family next to the piano in his parents London home ODonnell attended art school but left to pursue a career as a professional musician with his first paying gig coming in 1976 at Oxford Town Hall backing legendary British pop icon Arthur Brown ODonnell joined the Thompson Twins as a live keyboardist in July 1983 playing alongside future Cure bandmate and drummer Boris Williams Both completed the Side Kicks Tour in 1983 and also played with the band on the Into the GapOut of the Gap tours in 1984 In the early 1980s while with the Thompson Twins Berlin and the Psychedelic Furs ODonnell was a big fan of synthesisers produced by Sequential Circuits which produced such classics as the Prophet 5 Prophet T8 and Prophet VS While on tour with the Psychedelic Furs ODonnell set the record for having the most Sequential models onstage at one time ODonnell first joined The Cure in 1987 after being longtime friends with drummer Boris Williams He played with The Cure during their Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me tour though he did not contribute to the album He does however appear in the music videos for Just Like Heaven and Hot Hot Hot and appeared in tour promo art With ODonnell on keyboards Porl Thompson was able to focus on guitar fulltime instead of assisting Tolhurst on keyboards for many of the songs Some of ODonnells performances from this tour can be heard on the deluxe edition of Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me For the next album Disintegration ODonnell became a fully integrated member of the band and his songwriting contributions can be heard on the songs Out of Mind and Fear of Ghosts which are the BSides to the hit singles Lullaby and Lovesong respectively He is also featured on the live album from this period Entreat Following The Cures Prayer Tour in 1989 ODonnell left the band in 1990 During the period of the Cures greatest success ODonnell was the bands only member to play piano and keyboards as his primary instrument Previous keyboardist Lol Tolhurst also played drums for a time and subsequent keyboardist Perry Bamonte later switched to guitar ODonnell rejoined The Cure in late 1994 and appeared on the albums Wild Mood Swings Bloodflowers and The Cure He also appears on the live DVD The Cure Trilogy During this period it is notable that ODonnell introduced the band to digital recording When ODonnell started working on his solo album The Truth in Me in early 2005 he stated that he had no plans to leave The Cure However later in that year Robert Smith decided to reconfigure The Cure as a trio without ODonnell or Perry Bamonte ODonnell would later confirm that the rumour of him being fired by Email was false and if The Cure hadnt been reduced to a trio he would have left regardless to concentrate on solo material Source Article Roger ODonnell from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30