In mid-1979, Robert Smith, the singer-guitarist-leader of the Cure, started hanging out with Simon Gallup, bassist for the Magazine Spies. The pair got together every Saturday night at a pub in the English town of Horley to beer it up. It was during one of those evenings of inebriation that the idea of making a record with “Frank the Postman”—a local mail carrier—came to be.

Full-figured postman Frank Bell was one of Horley’s stranger legends. When not stuffing letter boxes he was often hanging out with the local wrecking crew, decked out in a t-shirt that proclaimed: “I’m a Cult Hero.” Robert Smith had met him and was taken by his bold personality. Smith was convinced that the mailman had all the makings of stardom. When Bell’s name was mentioned in the pub one night, Smith had a brainwave: “I thought, ‘Get him in the studio and write a disco song.’”(from Never Enough: The Story of The Cure)

For the Cult Hero recording session, Smith, Gallup and Bell were joined by the Cure’s drummer, Lol Tolhurst, and Magazine Spies keyboardist, Mattieu Hartley; former and future member of the Cure, Porl Thompson; as well as the pre-teen duo, the Obtainers, who Smith had recently produced. Smith’s two sisters and a selection of Horley residents also took part. The Cure’s bass player, Michael Dempsey, who just happened to be on holiday at the time of the session, later added synth. By this time, Smith had begun to weigh his options regarding Dempsey, as the two had a chilly relationship and Smith couldn’t stand the thought of going on another tour with him.
 

 
The Cult Hero 45, “I’m a Cult Hero” b/w “I Dig You,” was released in December 1979 on the Cure’s UK label, Fiction Records. The A-side is post-punk bliss, with Bell essentially talking his way through the tongue-in-cheek lyrics, while the B-side is a playful hybrid of disco and punk, with amusingly vapid words, again coming from the mouth of Bell. The single appeared on different labels in a couple of other countries; the Canadian issue on Modulation Records actually became a hit, selling 35,000 copies in the Great White North.
 

 
The Cult Hero project, as purely whimsical as it seemed to be, had a meaningful component, as it functioned as a way for Smith to gauge whether he could work with his new drinking buddy. The scenario wasn’t lost on Dempsey—who could see the writing on the wall—and by the end of the year he had quit. Simon Gallup would become the Cure’s new bassist. Mattieu Hartley, Gallup’s Magazine Spies bandmate, also came aboard.
 

 
During the encore of a hometown show in Crawley on March 18th, the Cure, joined by Porl Thompson, played “I’m a Cult Hero.” On March 23rd, Cult Hero performed their only gig, opening for another group at the Marquee Club in London. Frank Bell joined the members of the Cure for a set of covers, including Sweet’s “Blockbuster” and Thin Lizzy’s “Whiskey in the Jar,” which were played alongside both cuts from the Cult Hero single. Everyone got good and soused, and a great time was had by all.
 

 
The Cure’s next record, Seventeen Seconds, was released on April 22nd, 1980. It produced the group’s first hit single, “A Forest,” though Seventeen Seconds would prove to be the only LP by the Smith/Tolhurst/Gallup/Hartley lineup, with Hartley leaving before year’s end. 
 

 
Fast forward to 2004: On March 5th, the Cure played a charity gig at the Barfly, a tiny club in the Camden Town district of London. Only 200 hundred people were in attendance; “Frank the Postman” being one of them. During the encore, Frank Bell, along with Porl Thompson, came out for “I Dig You” and “I’m a Cult Hero.” One fan’s account:

Frank Bell was hilarious, the generously proportioned chap jiggled around sweating profusely, with beer in one hand and mic in the other, as the fans egged him on.

 

Smith and Bell, March 5th, 2004.

In the band’s official biography, The Cure: Ten Imaginary Years (1988), Smith reflected on the Cult Hero project.

It did very little except in Canada where it sold about 35,000 copies, so there it worked; there Frank is a cult hero!

Both sides of the 45, plus live versions of those songs from the lone Cult Hero performance, were included on the deluxe edition of Seventeen Seconds.
 

The 1980 Cult Hero gig and the 2004 reunion.

Last year, we told you about the amazing footage of the Cure that was captured during a Boston club show on April 20th, 1980, the night Robert Smith turned 21. Only a selection of songs were available, but since then, a 13-song version of the multi-cam video has shown up online, complete with remastered audio. Dig: