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THE CULT BIOGRAPHIES Formed in London in 1983, the Cult were like a punk version of all the great '60s rock bands, suffusing the electrifying psychedelia of Hendrix, the Doors and Janis Joplin, with the urgency and attitude of the Sex Pistols and AC/DC. Their music was always raw, fluid and exciting with a misanthropic aura that no doubt stemmed from the internal tensions which ultimately tore the band apart. It took a while for the Cult to develop their unique blues metal, though. Their mega-selling Love (1985), Electric (1987), Sonic Temple (1989), Ceremony (1991) and Cult (1994) albums were the culmination of a tempestuous gestation period which had begun with the Gothic rock of Dreamtime (1984) itself the refinement of the material they'd played with as Death Cult. Death Cult had formed in April 1983, when ex-Theatre Of Hate guitarist, Billy Duffy, teamed up with singer Ian Astbury (then known as Ian Lindsay), who'd recently quit the critically-acclaimed 'Positive Punk' band, Southern Death Cult. Despite their youth, both Billy and Ian had been part of the underground music scene for several years. Born in Hulme, Manchester, in 1961, Billy had cut his musical teeth in a late line-up of punk band Nosebleeds, who then included an 18-year-old Morrissey on vocals. (For the record, Duffy also gave the Smiths' Johnny Marr his first guitar lessons.) The group only lasted for two more gigs, and in 1979, Billy joined the semi-legendary Mancunian punk act, Slaughter & the Dogs, cutting a single with them under the more commercial name of the Studio Sweethearts, before settling in London to play in a Pretenders-influenced outfit, called Lonesome No More. After they folded, he joined Kirk Brandon's apocalyptic post-punk rockabilly band, Theatre Of Hate then big favourites of the weekly music press. "Theatre was a tough gig," recalls Duffy. "I learnt a lot about how not to run a band. They did every thing in an aggressive manner, and were unnecessarily mean to people. Even when I joined, they were at war with the drummer. They ran it like the Gestapo. It was really unpleasant. But Kirk Brandon could see rock was coming and so could I." At the end of 1982, Duffy quit Theatre and got himself a job in the Kensington market branch of the trendy boutique, Johnsons. Meanwhile, he hatched a plan for a new band with Abbo, singer with U.K. Decay, even going so far as to collaborate on a song - an early version of 'Brothers Grimm'. At this time, an increasingly frequent visitor to his Brixton flat was Ian Lindsay, whose band, Southern Death Cult, had become the focal point of the burgeoning 'Positive Punk' movement after their cacophonous October 1982 single, 'Fatman'. "Ian's brother came down to visit me one weekend and seemed unusually interested in what I was doing," recalls Duffy, who lived in Coldharbour Mansions, a hang-out for lots of the London-based post-punk bands of the period, like Sex Gang Children, Under Two Flags and U.K. Decay. "A week later Ian arrived with a bag of clothes and said he wanted to form a band with me." The truth was that the singer had become disillusioned with the hype surrounding SDC. "There was a rumour going around that we split because we couldn't handle playing large stages," Ian told the 'NME' at the time. "That was shit! It was being pressured into the foreground by people around me. I couldn't handle being their standard bearer when they couldn't be bothered to move with me." Born in Heswall, Cheshire, in 1962, Ian Astbury was a different character to Duffy - more intense, more mystical, more restless. After living in Merseyside and Scotland, his family emigrated to Canada in 1973, where Ian was first exposed to the plight of the American Indians on the Six Nations Reservation. Joining the army in his late teens, he bailed out after 28 days, disillusioned with the brutal reality of barrack-room life. On his 17th birthday his mother died of cancer. Stunned, he moved back to England, adopting his mother's maiden name, Lindsay, and forming bands in Glasgow and then Belfast. Eventually, he ended up in Bradford, where he began singing with Southern Death Cult. This cacophonous Goth rock band won a support slot with Theatre Of Hate, which is when Duffy first saw him. "He was louder than the rest of the band put together," remembers the guitarist. "I liked him because he was a rock singer, and not some mumbling Goth. I was a rock-orientated guitar player, which is why he liked me. He saw me playing Jimi Hendrix for a laugh at a soundcheck." Now intent on forming their own act, Ian and Billy had to find a suitable rhythm section. The players were eventually recruited from Ritual, a Goth band who'd issued two singles on the Red Flame and Warrior labels. "They initially asked Ray Mondo (Ray Taylor Smith) to join," explains bassist Jamie Stewart, originally from Harrow, north London. "He was a black guy doing all this Burundi-inspired drumming, which was quite unusual. Then, a couple of weeks later, I was asked to audition. I was a guitarist, and had to borrow a bass from my local music shop. We played stuff like 'Brothers Grimm' and 'God's Zoo', and they basically said I could have the job on the spot. I was a bit in awe of Billy at the time, because Theatre Of Hate had been my favourite band." Adopting the name Death Cult, to capitalise on the profile of Ian's former group, the band recorded an EP at Focus Studios, London SE1. The lead track was the TOH-inspired rocker, 'Brothers Grimm', featuring a fiddly guitar motif, pounding tom-toms and Ian bellowing, impassioned rock vocals. Equally collossal and thrilling were the B-sides, the pummeling 'Horse Nation', 'Ghost Dance' and 'Christians'. As the first post-punk 'supergroup', the weight of expectation hung heavily on Death Cult's shoulders, so they chose to play their first gigs far away from the U.K. press in Europe. "We didn't really know what we were doing," admits Jamie. "Everyone expected so much. We realised that we were trying too hard to be exciting, and eventually relaxed a bit. The only trouble was Ray Mondo. We were trying to do a straighter kind of rock, and he didn't want to change his style." After a low-key U.K. tour in September 1983, the problem was solved when Death Cult exchanged Ray for former Theatre Of Hate and Sex Gang Children drummer, Nigel Preston. Immediately, the band retreated to the studio to cut the upbeat 'God's Zoo', issued as a single in late October. A triumph of Goth-pop dynamics, it hinted that the band were setting their sights higher than the parochial confines of the U.K. indie charts. Their break came in January 1984 they were invited to appear on Channel 4's Friday night prime-time TV music programme, The Tube. For the first time, they wondered whether their name was really suitable. "We thought Death Cult wouldn't be right if we wanted to crack America," says Duffy. "That was our big plan - I'd been to New York on my holidays, see! The name had too many negative Goth connotations. So we dropped the 'Death' bit for the programme. Ian had just flown back from visiting his dad in Canada, and went on stage with half his face painted. I was dressed all in black, shitting it." That night, their powerful, incendiary performance brought their swirling Gothic rock to a nationwide audience. Sensing that a new era had begun, Ian reverted to his real surname, Astbury. Soon to become the greatest British rock act of the '80s, the Cult had completed their fiery genesis. The sparkling majesty of their debut album, Dreamtime, was just around the cornerä
Pat Gilbert, Record Collector magazine - London, May 1996. |
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