Cult

“Creating ‘Love’ we were trying to make a flower instead of a barbed-wire fence”

(Ian Astbury)

There are records which, for various reasons, we now consider "milestones," whose success at the time was anything but a given or a calculated outcome. We regard them as "seminal" because of the influence they exerted on an entire scene, on a substantial host of imitators, and because they dared to go against the prevailing conformism – which, even today, hardly lives only within the mainstream, quite the opposite… – by boldly dusting off sounds, atmospheres and imagery reworked with a modern touch, talent, taste, personality and intelligence. It's amusing to think that an album like “Love”, the second offering from the Cult and still their best-selling and most celebrated record (the band revived it on tour to celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary), turns out to be so convincing and cohesive despite an unpredictable production choice, complete with a qui pro quo, and despite the fact that the alternative press of the time – especially in the UK – could barely hide its grimaces of disgust at seeing, so brazenly, after the great revolution of punk and new wave, the proud, vigorous rock of the previous two decades resurface.

In short, it simply wasn't cool to reclaim the Doors, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin in a year like 1985. It's not as if there were many guitars in the charts: Sheffield's Human League, just the year before, had clumsily tried to work them into “The Lebanon”, the Eurythmics folded them into a menu that had previously been mostly synthetic, while the great bands of the punk generation, like the Clash, had already fired their last shots. While the general public swooned over the new romantic idols (that year, Duran Duran were busy with the Arcadia and Power Station projects), Trevor Horn was the Midas of electronic pop and the radio was playing hits by Howard Jones and King (remember his Dr. Martens and “Love And Pride”?), someone out there was preparing a revolution with the help of a top-shelf session man on drums, armed with one of the most powerful and stirring voices in all of rock and a tuning fork ready to sound the new pitch that many, in a moment of fatigue, had been waiting for.

The Cult rose from the ashes of another exquisitely darkwave band, Southern Death Cult. Billy Duffy, the blond guitarist, came out of punk and had been part of the Noisebleeds, a group briefly fronted by Steven Patrick Morrissey (though, due to line-up changes, the two never actually played together), and the band immediately stood out for a style that would serve as a bridge from new wave – the group listened to and admired U2, by then consecrated by “The Unforgettable Fire”, as well as the Psychedelic Furs and Killing Joke – to the hard-rock revival and on to the earliest seeds of grunge. Astbury, the histrionic singer, comes from a different background: in the Seventies he was won over by the theatricality and eclecticism of David Bowie, but he didn't limit his listening to what was happening on the English scene. That's because Ian soon became a citizen of the world: at eleven he moved to Canada with his family, and at school he developed a passion for Native American culture, which would stay with him for the rest of his life and would often permeate his lyrics.

“Love” arrived after “Dreamtime”, an indie success that had already pricked up more than a few ears. At the end of 1984, the Cult, signed to Beggars Banquet, expressed the wish to work with Steve Lillywhite (the producer who had forged a robust, recognizable sound for Xtc, the early U2 and the Simple Minds of “Sparkle In The Rain”), but made the mistake of leaving a tape of demos on his manager's desk without specifying a surname. “To Steve”. Just like that. By mistake, the demos ended up in the hands of London-based Steve Brown, known at the time for having worked with Elton John, with Abc on their first single “Tears Are Not Enough/Alphabet Soup”, and above all with Wham! on “Fantastic” (he would later also work in the studio with Manic Street Preachers, among many others). He listened to the tape and was captivated. At first there was some wariness, and it was decided they'd start with just one track, the 7” single “She Sells Sanctuary”. Then, depending on the results, they'd decide how to proceed.

Recording moved ahead at Olympic Studios in Barnes, chosen for having been the birthplace of records by Free, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones. Results weren't long in coming: a 12” version of “She Sells Sanctuary” was also released — dancefloor rock in the vein of Billy Idol — and it became the biggest alternative hit of the summer of 1985, knocking New Order off the top of the “independent” charts. But while the public showed they loved Astbury's clear, passionate roar and the band's unusual alchemy of past (hard-rock riffs, a Led Zeppelin-esque swagger) and present (dark and new wave), and wouldn't miss the band's live shows for the world, not all music critics quite knew which pre-existing pigeonhole to file them under: “where do they think they're going, ripping off the style of Page and Plant's band?” the laziest among them asked.

On drums for “She Sells Sanctuary” is Nigel Preston, later replaced by Mark Brzezicki — borrowed from Big Country — who plays on all the other tracks of the album being finished off. The song smoothed the way nicely for the Cult, and immediately showcases some of the distinctive traits of the sound and imagery Ian Astbury would keep returning to in the future: “the fire in your eyes” takes its inspiration from the 1972 book “Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions” by Richard Erdoes, based on the testimony of a Sioux medicine man born on the Rosebud Indian reservation, but it also echoes a line from the Doors' “The Soft Parade” (“Can you give me sanctuary? I must find a place to hide”).

The cover of “Love” itself is fairly telling, with its array of evocations: religious symbols emerging from a black background, a “thunderbird” from Sioux tradition (a bird of prey associated with storms), a Hopi symbol (from the Arizona reservation) representing a cloud, Egyptian and medieval symbolism, a scythe standing in for death, and the Yin and Yang symbol (later used for the video of “Revolution”, the third single). The inspiration for the dense, original artwork reportedly came from Theosophy, defined by Helena Blavatsky in her book “The Secret Doctrine” as “the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, tested and verified by generations of Seers.” The Russian philosopher claimed to have travelled to Tibet, then unknown territory, where the Masters of the White Brotherhood supposedly revealed and taught her occult arts — some scholars see in the Theosophical movement, and in its advocacy of a free interpretation of sacred texts, the birth of the “New Age”. It's no coincidence that the cover of the book in question was black, adorned with four religious symbols.

The second single lifted from the album was “Rain”. Once again the inspiration comes from Native Americans (in particular from the rain dances of the Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest), but Ian doesn't merely evoke the saving/religious power of rain — he anthropomorphizes it, addressing it as though it were a woman (“here comes the rain… here she comes again”). On several occasions Astbury, who grew up in a matriarchal family with a mother and seven sisters, has spoken of his reverence and admiration for the feminine universe, and has repeatedly voiced his hope that women's rights be recognized and that women play an ever greater role in political life. What a difference from the machismo of so many stars of that era and of those who would follow shortly after (just think of the misogyny displayed by a young Axl Rose).

The Doors and Led Zeppelin aren't the only touchstones on “Love”: “Big Neon Glitter” is a bizarre hybrid of Johnny Marr's playing on “What Difference Does It Make?” and The Edge's on “I Will Follow”, and drags in a childhood idol like Gary Glitter; “Phoenix” stands out for its use of wah-wah and its (literally) fiery, Hendrix-esque atmosphere — the lyrics recall another of Blavatsky's works, “Isis Unveiled”, nonchalantly mixing Egyptian symbolism with allusions to sex and desire (“Like a kiss from the lips of Ra that burns on/ The pleasure is getting higher/ A servant of desire/ I'm on fire”). The rousing “Nirvana”, which opens the record, bears a Sanskrit title meaning the “cessation of breath”, extinction, while the bleak ballad “Brother Wolf, Sister Moon” reveals the fascination wolves held for Ian Astbury (later dubbed a “wolf child”).

Billy Duffy is particularly proud of “Revolution”, even though not everyone in the studio agreed on how the song should develop (“the guys wanted something in the vein of Chuck Berry, while I had Mick Ronson and Phil Manzanera in mind!”), and “Black Angel” is the perfect killer ballad to close out a great album.

The reception from the independent press, as we mentioned, wasn't the warmest. Chris Roberts in Sounds bluntly called “Love” “rubbish”, while the main expressions of admiration for the Cult came from Kerrang. Later on, after the triumph of “Love” (it reached number four on the UK charts and introduced the band to audiences worldwide), two more excellent albums followed, moving ever further away from the dark/new-wave weave of their early work (“Electric” and “Sonic Temple”). Although recognized as an inspiration for bands like Soundgarden and Alice In Chains, Astbury and Duffy failed to break through during grunge's dominance, and re-emerged — after a split and a long hiatus — only in the 2000s.

It would be too easy, and it's simply wrong, to draw comparisons between Astbury and Jim Morrison — Oliver Stone offered him the role in his film, but the Cult frontman turned it down after reading the script, leaving the part to Val Kilmer — just as it's unfair to brand the two of them as opportunistic or inconsistent. The Cult's story didn't end with “Love”: fashions have changed, as have producers and the rhythm section, but their sound remains, for many, an unmistakable trademark. Ian Astbury today is a man in his fifties, back on the scene with new material that's more than respectable (even if his voice isn't quite what it used to be), and who every now and then has fun reuniting with the surviving Doors or guesting on Slash's records. Ever wiser, and far less cynical and trite than many of his peers, he's undoubtedly among the artists who've received less recognition than they deserved.

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16/09/2012