THE CULT BIOGRAPHIES

Part 1 (General)
Part 2 (Death Cult)
Part 3 (Dreamtime)
Part 4 (Love)
Part 5 (Peace)
Part 6 (Electric)
Live At The Lyceum

At its highest level, rock music is both fresh and aged. With no exceptions, the truly great bands of the last 50 years have all leaned on the music of the past while keeping a keen ear on the activities of their contemporaries. By tossing in their own personal guilt, joy, fixations and obsessive desires, they delivered an effective and consequently magical updating of rock's age-old and undeniable tribal stomp. By these criteria, THE CULT, born out of the musical and social upheaval of the late Seventies, were Britain's premier rock band of the Eighties and early Nineties - no argument.

Based on the fiery partnership of vocalist IAN ASTBURY and guitarist BILLY DUFFY, The Cult were blessed with an impressive pedigree. Duffy had paid his dues in The Nosebleeds (with the fledgling Morrissey), then the infamous Slaughter & The Dogs and the magnificently dramatic Theatre Of Hate. Astbury, having spent his early teens in Canada, got laid and flayed on the punk hotbeds of Belfast and Glasgow before coming to public attention in Southern Death Cult.

Duffy and Astbury first called themselves Death Cult, before resorting to the snappier and simpler Cult. They immediately leapt to the forefront of what was known as Positive Punk and, though Astbury would vociferously protest at the label, it turned out to be pretty accurate (if a tad limiting). From the outset, The Cult were kick-ass rockers, bloodymindedly and unashamedly set on their own idiosyncratic path, and in Astbury they possessed a spokesman of boundless optimism with a bent for the spiritual heavily marked by the plight of Canada's Native Americans, which he had of course viewed at first hand. Some called Astbury naive, others called him a visionary. He was both - remorselessly positive.

The Cult's debut LP, DREAMTIME (an appropriately earthy and religious title), made their intentions clear, with Astbury's grunting, panting, howling performances underlaid by Duffy's soaring, pulverising guitars and a thundering rhythm section that crossed the strut of Glam with an aggressive, pounding wardance. Success came rapidly, with the follow up album, LOVE, which featured the stand-out and still resonant singles SHE SELLS SANCTUARY and RAIN.

With the Native Americans' battle for compensation with the US Government now front page news, history was being rewritten in their favour. Beyond this, the merciless yuppie culture spawned by Reagan and Thatcher had seen millions begin to experiment with "religions" old and new in an attempt to find the togetherness clearly missing in Western society. This made The Cult perhaps the most contemporary band in the world, but that wasn't enough for Astbury whose love of cutting edge music is legendary throughout the industry. So in came Rick Rubin, the hotshot Def Jam supremo behind the raging success of Run DMC and The Beastie Boys. The result was ELECTRIC, a caustic melange of Duffy's killer riffing, Astbury's lupine shriek and Rubin's murderously hip rhythms. The singles - LOVE REMOVAL MACHINE, WILD FLOWER and LIL' DEVIL - were literally monstrous.

Astbury's indulgences and excesses were drawing him ever further from his songwriting partner - Duffy now being a straight edge fitness freak - yet the pair remained on a creative high. Next came the swirling, bludgeoning, Bob Rock-produced SONIC TEMPLE (only Bob was Rock enough), featuring the exceptional FIRE WOMAN and SWEET SOUL SISTER. Astbury now took the opportunity to put his money where his mouth was and organised the massive Gathering Of The Tribes, a huge 2-day festival in California that deliberately brought together some crazily varying genres. Starring Soundgarden, Ice-T, Iggy Pop, The Charlatans and Public Enemy, it was an inspired mix and an obvious influence on Lollapalooza which began the next year.

Sonic Temple was the artistic high tide mark but The Cult fought on. CEREMONY gave us the tremendous HEART OF SOUL and WILD HEARTED SON, while the Best Of collection PURE CULT powered straight to Number One in the UK. Astbury, ever abreast of the times, hacked off his famous locks and, though staying true to his spiritual leanings, led the band in a harder, brasher direction, with THE CULT album adding a grungey snarl to their pumping rock. The critics were now on their side, but the internal divisions were too wide, Duffy and Astbury were crossing that thin line far too often. The band dissolved when Astbury left suddenly during 1995's US tour.

It took years for the relationship between Duffy and Astbury to reach a bearable temperature, but reach one it did. 1999 saw the opening of Act 2 (which Astbury himself terms ?Cult RisingU`) as the band reformed for a US tour. They are currently in the studio working on new material due for release early in 2001. Mojos are working, love power is set at 11, it's looking good. The updated release of PURE CULT will serve to whet the appetite of the world.

In the meantime, there is SPIRIT LIGHT SPEED, Astbury's 10-track solo debut. Featuring a punchy reworking of The Cult's THE WITCH, the album explores the similarities between traditional hard rock and modern electronic music. Astbury employs slashes of screaming guitar, snatches of tinkling piano, a churning bass and a thrilling percussive barrage, plus an extraordinary selection of samples - soft, fuzzed and screeching, veering between oceanic ambience and rampaging techno. Imagine The Cult co-produced by William Orbit and The Bomb Squad; AstburyU`s tastes still reside at the cutting edge and Spirit Light Speed proves the depth of his intuitive knowledge of what`s musically right.