Cover songs from American Football are practically non-existent. Across three decades, the Illinois band has stuck almost exclusively to writing their own quiet, interlocking guitar records. When they do look outward, it tends to mean something specific. Their newly released version of The Cure's 1979 classic Boys Don't Cry proves the point, arriving with the rare distinction of Robert Smith's enthusiastic seal of approval. Smith went out of his way to praise the take publicly, describing it as one of the most heartfelt and beautiful Cure covers he had ever heard.
The recording came together during a SiriusXMU session earlier this summer, taped during downtime on the band's No Feeling World Tour. Titled Wake Her Up / Boys Don't Cry (SiriusXM Session), the two song package pairs the Cure reimagining with an unadorned, acoustic treatment of Wake Her Up. That original cut appeared on their latest studio album, LP4, where shoegaze artist Wisp contributed guest vocals. In this stripped setting, American Football present both tracks in an exposed, live configuration that highlights their knack for subtle dynamics.
Reworking Boys Don't Cry was never intended as a casual studio experiment. Frontman Mike Kinsella explained that The Cure, and that song in particular, served as a foundational touchstone for him while growing up, shaping him both as a musician and as a man. For Kinsella, the track presented an open invitation for a group of melodically minded, emotionally vulnerable grown men to pull the structure apart and assemble it on their own terms.
The overhaul strips away the energetic, jangly post punk stride that made the 1979 original famous. American Football slow the pace down to a crawl, weaving their signature spindly guitar lines through the spaces where the rhythmic bounce used to sit, while adding a mournful trumpet line to anchor the melody. Kinsella noted that despite the drastic changes in tempo and atmosphere, the direct adolescent longing at the core of Robert Smith's lyrics stays entirely intact.
Outside compositions have historically had virtually no place in the band's catalog. In thirty years of making music, this SiriusXM cut represents only their second official studio cover. Their first arrived in 2021, when they tackled Mazzy Star's Fade Into You. That level of restraint makes this new release feel deliberate rather than decorative, showing how selective the group remains whenever they choose to voice someone else's words.
This creative run comes after a complicated period of transition that led up to LP4. Guitarist Steve Holmes recalled that following the release of LP3 in 2019, the members planned to step back for a year to focus on family life and jobs outside the band. The pandemic interrupted those timelines, pushing them into remote songwriting sessions. Along the way, around 2021, Lamos chose to exit the group. Despite the upheaval, the resulting record materialized, even pulling in Turnstile singer Brendan Yates for a guest spot that the band described as a happy accident.
American Football are staying on the road behind the music. Their No Feeling run covered ground across the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom, Asia, and Mexico over the summer, featuring surprise stage appearances from Soccer Mommy, Hayley Williams, and Wisp. At the end of November, the band travels to South America for dates in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru. From there, they will finish the year with eight shows across the United States, concluding in New York just before the holidays. The remaining dates continue their partnership with the PLUS1 initiative, which routes one dollar from each ticket to organizations working to defend immigrant rights and assist refugees, migrants, and deportees.
Instead of preserving the late seventies classic under glass, American Football treated the material as a personal canvas. By pulling Boys Don't Cry into their distinct vocabulary of patient rhythms, delicate phrasing, and brass accents, they managed to craft an homage that feels genuine, unhurried, and entirely their own.
