Ian Astbury’s collaborations all come back to the Cult

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This article was published 20/09/2022 (1113 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Cult’s Ian Astbury can be as fiery on the phone as he has been on the stage for the past four decades.

His vocals and dramatic stage presence, heard and seen most notably on the 1985 hit She Sells Sanctuary and in the band’s arena shows and videos during peak heavy metal helped propel the group to stardom.

“It’s a miracle of that song, it has such a rejuvenating quality to it. The room is ignited every time we play that song,” Astbury says. “She Sells Sanctuary, it’s impossible to get it out of the set. It wouldn’t be a party without that song.”

Expect the same ’80s energy Wednesday night when the Cult, with Astbury and fellow co-founder Billy Duffy on guitar, plays the Burton Cummings Theatre as part of its Under the Midnight Sun tour

The show will be a prelude to an album of the same name that comes out Oct. 7, the first Cult record in six years and its 11th since it formed in 1984.

The Cult has had a couple of lengthy hiatuses, but don’t refer to the band as having been on and off during its 39 years. Astbury will have none of it.

“It’s never off. We’re always on,” he says. “If we’re not in public performing, we’re doing other things. The Cult has never been down. Maybe not on the road; Billy and I haven’t been in the same room.

“There’s always something to pay attention to with the Cult. Just because it’s not directly trying to be a live show doesn’t mean that we’re not working on it or thinking about it.”

The group has released two singles that hearken back to the Cult’s powerful yet accessible early sound. Astbury’s deep baritone, which separates the band from most of heavy metal’s shrieking pack, continues to blend well with Duffy’s power chords in new singles Give Me Mercy, which rolled out in July, and A Cut Inside, which came out Sept. 7.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a delay in the new album — Astbury says there were 20 songs ready to go in March 2020 when the entertainment world shut down — but they had to wait until August 2020 to begin recording.

“Billy’s at the height of his game. My voice hasn’t changed that much over the years,” Astbury says.

The Cult has a whole new group of musicians supporting Astbury and Duffy on the album and on the 2022 tour, including bassist Charlie Jones, who has backed a wide range of artists over the years, from a Robert Plant-Jimmy Page project and punk rocker Siouxsie Sioux to Manitoba-born folk singer Loreena McKennitt.

The Cult’s lineup has changed several times over the years; Astbury says that’s how the rock paradigm has been for a long time. Few groups of people, in whatever pursuit they are in, including making music, are able to stick together for the long haul.

“The more we go on, I think of it more as a collaboration than an actual band. It’s a collaboration between Billy Duffy and Ian Astbury,” he says. “The band, to me, is when you have four or five players on a stage, interacting together, that’s a band.

“The days of John, Paul, George and Ringo, they’re gone.”

That focus on collaboration resonates for much of Astbury’s career away from the Cult as well. He has been a vocal hired gun for many famous acts over the years, including for Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi and Slash of Guns N’ Roses (GNR opened for the Cult at the Winnipeg Arena in 1987).

From 2002 to 2013, Astbury also stepped in the role of Jim Morrison with Riders on the Storm, which teamed the singer with Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger of the Doors and Police drummer Stewart Copeland.

“I really enjoy collaborating with other individuals because it all comes back to the Cult. I feel like I’m getting an education outside the Cult,” he says.

“It’s incredibly gratifying in a sense, but at the end of the day you have to deliver or they won’t put it out.”

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall