His family later settled in Crawley, West Sussex, where he was a school friend of future bandmates Robert Smith and Lol Tolhurst.
[1] Upon the official formation of the Cure in 1978, Dempsey was the band's bassist starting with their first single "Killing an Arab" and then their debut album Three Imaginary Boys in 1979.
[2] Dempsey has the distinction of being the only member of the Cure other than Smith to perform lead vocals on a released track, doing so for their cover of the Jimi Hendrix song "Foxy Lady" on the 1979 album.
In the early 1990s, Dempsey made several guest appearances with band Presence, which featured his former Cure bandmate Lol Tolhurst.
[1] In 2008 he toured with an orchestral group assembled by Ron Geesin to perform the Pink Floyd album Atom Heart Mother.