The Cult was born out of the UK’s post-punk movement. Ian Astbury fronted the band Southern Death Cult and he partnered up with guitarist Billy Duffy who played in the band Theater of Hate.
By Astbury’s own admission to Canada’s Much More Music, his bandmates in Southern Death Cult were more into getting girls than playing music and having already met Duffy, he was in awe of the guitarist’s musicianship.
Ian Astbury Forms The Cult with Billy Duffy
It was following the dissolution of Southern Death Cult in the early ’80s that Astbury hopped on a bus and travelled to London with sheets of lyrics to meet Duffy and talk to him about forming their own band Death Cult. The name was eventually shortened to The Cult so people wouldn’t mischaracterize the band’s style of music.
Enlisting drummer Nigel Preston and bassist Jamie Stewart, the band released their debut album Dreamtime in 1984. It was a modest success on the Indie charts, selling 60,000 copies with “Spiritwalker” topping the UK Indie Dance charts.
“We’ve always had a punk-rock attitude, but it’s less reactionary and more dynamic.” – Ian Astbury
Despite a solid start, The Cult hadn’t yet zeroed in on their signature sound. That came with their next release, 1985’s Love. The band looked back a decade to find inspiration. Frontman Ian Astbury told, Loudersound, “There were certain guidelines in the post-punk, new wave movement, and that was to stay clearly away from long hair and guitar solos. So for us, that was like, ‘Great! That’s exactly where we’re gonna start!’ If that’s where we’re not supposed to be according to some journalist, then that’s exactly where we’re starting.
I wanted to find out what the taboo was all about. Then you hear Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin and The Doors, and suddenly it’s like, ‘What is this? We’re not supposed to listen to this? You’re kidding me!’ We’ve always had a punk-rock attitude, but it’s less reactionary and more dynamic.”
The band assembled in Barnes, London at Olympic Studios to cut their first track for their new album. The plan was to work with producer Steve Lillywhite but due to a misunderstanding with their label, the band found themselves in the studio with producer Steve Brown. What should have been an unproductive recording session resulted in the perfect pairing between the band and producer.
“She Sells Sanctuary”
It was at these sessions the band recorded the song “She Sells Sanctuary”, which gave the group one of their most recognizable hits of their career. The track peaked at No. 15 on the UK charts.
It was a song that came together pretty quite quickly. Astbury recalled in 2010, “Sanctuary came together very easily, in fact. I took the bass line from a song called ‘Spiritwalker’… Billy came up with the melody, and we worked out a vaguely psychedelic guitar sound which seemed to fit it well. We were heavily into 60s psychedelic music.
The producer, Steve Brown, had had a lot of pop success so he really knew how to structure a song. It’s funny, you write a song like that where everything comes together far beyond what you could’ve expected and then you spend the rest of your life trying to write another one as good.”
As for what the song was about, Astbury, according to Songfacts, said “Sex. Plain and simple, it’s about sex. I’ve had sex and I’m very proud of that fact.”
The Cult Fires Drummer Nigel Preston
The band ended up giving drummer Nigel Preston the boot following his erratic behaviour and enlisted a new drummer. The band spent 4 weeks in the summer of ’85, recording Love. The lyrics on the album were introspective, dealing with subjects ranging from life and death to spirituality and materialism.
Love sold north of 2 million copies and produced several hits including, “She Sells Sanctuary”, “Rain” and “Revolution”. The band capped off the ’80s releasing several more hit albums including Electric and Sonic Temple.
“I think this guy saw us as breaking the code by not pretending we couldn’t play our instruments or for having success.” – Ian Astbury
Despite the band’s new commercial success, they alienated some of their early fans. Astbury would tell Loudersound, “I remember going out when ‘She Sells Sanctuary’ got in the charts and some kid came up and punched me right in the face at a concert.
There was so much hatred in his eyes, and all that was because we came from the streets in Brixton, we came from punk rock and I think this guy saw us as breaking the code by not pretending we couldn’t play our instruments or for having success.”
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