The Cult TShirTS

The Cult PosTerS

The Cult are an English rock band. In the mid-1980s, the Cult was one of England's leading heavy metal revivalists, a hard rock band with slight psychedelic flourishes, influenced primarily by the Native American mysticism of The Doors and the hard guitar rock of Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. The Cult also touched upon post-punk goth rock, a relatively new style at the time.

The Cult had hits in Britain in the mid-1980s, such as "She Sells Sanctuary”, "Rain", and "Revolution" and in the late 1980s, the Cult broke into the American heavy metal market with the song, "Love Removal Machine". Although 1989's Sonic Temple is The Cult's most commercially successful album to date, by the late 1980s and early 1990s, The Cult was fraying behind the scenes, due to alcohol abuse and off-stage tensions. In early 1995, the Cult split up, citing unspecified problems on a recent South American tour.

Between 1999 and 2002, The Cult reformed to record the album Beyond Good and Evil and reissued all of their albums in Asia and eastern Europe in 2003 and Japan in 2004. In 2006, The Cult reformed to perform a series of worldwide tours, and a number of dates were captured for posterity by InstantLive. The Cult is set to record new material starting in February of 2007. The Cult is set to perform in California in late February, with the possibility of more dates in the Spring. The Cult will be touring with The Who in Europe in June 2007 and are also reportedly looking into scheduling another headlining European tour in July 2007, with additional dates to follow in August in the United States and Canada. There has also been interest in getting The Cult to appear again at the "Big Day Out" festival in Australia.

Since The Cult's inception in early 1983, no lineup has lasted more than 2 years.

In 1981, singer Ian Astbury joined a local band in Brixton, England, as the lead vocalist and renamed the group, "Southern Death Cult", after a Native American tribe from the Mississippi delta in the 14th and 15th centuries. The band's first performance was at the Queen's Hall in Bradford, England, on October 29, 1981. The band was together for about 16 months, releasing a double A-sided single, "Moya", and touring with Bauhaus and Theatre of Hate before breaking up after a performance in Manchester in February 1983. The compilation album by Southern Death Cult was released by Beggars Banquet but was essentially a mish mash of the single, radio sessions and live performances- one of which was recorded by an audience member with a tape recorder. In 2006 Ian Astbury said he would love to record the album "Southern Death Cult" never made.

In April 1983, Astbury teamed up with guitarist Billy Duffy and formed the band, "Death Cult". Duffy had previously been in The Nosebleeds, Lonesome No More and then Theatre of Hate. In addition to Astbury and Duffy, the band also included Jamie Stewart (bass) and Raymond Taylor Smith (later known as Ray Mondo) (drums), the two having come from the Harrow, London based post-punk band, Ritual. Death Cult made their live debut in Oslo, Norway in late June 1983 and released the Death Cult EP in July 1983, then toured throughout Europe.

In September 1983, Mondo was deported to his home country of Sierra Leone, and replaced by Nigel Preston formerly of Theatre of Hate. The single "God's Zoo" was released in October 1983. Another European tour, with UK dates, followed later that autumn. To tone down the gothic connotations of their name, and to gain broader appeal, the band changed its name to "The Cult" in January 1984 before appearing on the Channel 4 television show, The Tube.

The Cult's first studio record was recorded at Rockfield Studios, in Monmouth, Wales in 1984. The record was originally to be produced by Joe Julian, but after having already recorded the drum tracks, the band decided to replace him with John Brand. The record was ultimately produced by Brand, but guitarist Billy Duffy has said that the drum tracks used on the record were those produced by Julian, as Nigel Preston by that time had become too unreliable.

The band recorded the songs which later became known as; "Butterflies", "(The) Gimmick", "A Flower in the Desert", "Horse Nation", "Spiritwalker", "Bad Medicine (Waltz)", "Dreamtime", "With Love" (later known as "Ship of Fools", or also "Sea and Sky"), "Bone Bag", "Too Young", "83rd Dream", and one untitled outtake. It is unknown what the outtake was, or whether it was developed into a song at a later date. Songs like "Horse Nation" showed Astbury's already intense interest in Native American issues, with the lyrics to "Horse Nation", "See them prancing, they come neighing, to a horse nation", taken almost verbatim from the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, while "Spiritwalker" dealt with shamanism, and the record's title and title track are overtly influenced by Australian Aboriginal beliefs.

On April 4, 1984, The Cult released the single "Spiritwalker", which reached #1 on the independent charts in the UK, and acted as a teaser for their forthcoming album Dreamtime. This was followed by a second single, "Go West (Crazy Spinning Cirles)" that summer, before the release of Dreamtime in September, an album which reached UK #21, and sold over 100,000 copies in Britain alone.

On July 12, 1984, The Cult performed five songs live on the BBC, Maida Vale 5 studio. Both before and after the album's release, The Cult toured extensively throughout Europe and England before recording another single, "Resurrection Joe" (UK #74), released that December. Following a Christmas support slot with Big Country, The Cult toured Europe with support from the Sisterhood (andrew eldricht's solo project), Dreamtime album was released initially only in Britain, but after its success, and as The Cult's popularity grew worldwide, it was issued later in approximately 30 countries.

In March 1985, The Cult recorded their fourth single, "She Sells Sanctuary", which charted at #15 in the UK charts. It later re- entered the charts at #56 in September 1986, overall spending 41 consecutive weeks on the charts. The song was recently voted #18 in VH1s Indie 100.

In the US, The Cult, now consisting of Ian Astbury, Billy Duffy, Jamie Stewart, Les Warner and Kid Chaos (Haggis), were supported by the then unknown Guns N' Roses. The band also appeared at Roskilde Festival in Denmark in June 1987. When the world tour wound through Australia, the band wrecked £30,000 worth of equipment, and as a result they could not tour Japan, as no company would rent them new equipment. At the end of the tour the Electric album had gone platinum in Britain, and sold roughly 3 million copies worldwide, but the band was barely speaking to each other by then.

For the next album, Jamie Stewart returned to playing bass, and John Webster was brought in to play keyboards. The band used Chris Taylor, to play drums during rehearsals and record the demos, then KISS drummer, Eric Singer, performed during the second demo recording sessions. The Cult eventually recruited session-drummer Mickey Curry to fill the drumming role and Aerosmith sound engineer, Bob Rock, to produce.

Sonic Temple (1989)Recorded in Vancouver, Canada in October, November and December of 1988, the Sonic Temple record gained multi-platinum status worldwide. The band went on tour in support of the new album and new single "Fire Woman" (UK#15) with yet another new drummer Matt Sorum, and John Webster as keyboard player. The next single, "Edie (Ciao Baby)" (UK#25) has become a regular song at concerts for many, many years.

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The Cult - Love Album TshirT