Early history (1981–1984) The band's origins can be traced to 1981, in
Bradford,
Yorkshire, where lead vocalist and songwriter Ian Astbury formed a band called
Southern Death Cult. The name was chosen with a
double meaning. It was derived from the academic term
Southern Death Cult, used to describe a cluster of 14th-century Native American groups now classified as the
Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. The name Southern Death Cult also inspired by what the band viewed was the centralisation of political and economic power in Southern England (including the power of the music industry); there has long been a perceived notion of an England
North–South divide based on social, historic and economic reasons. Astbury was joined by guitarist Buzz Burrows, bassist Barry Jepson and drummer
Aki Nawaz Qureshi; they performed their first show at the Queen's Hall in their hometown of Bradford on 29 October 1981. The band were at the forefront of an emerging style of music, in the form of
post-punk and
gothic rock, they achieved critical acclaim from the press and music fans. toward a total of 500,000 copies throughout Europe, as well as 100,000 in Australia and 500,000 copies in the United States.
Love reached number 20 on the charts in the Netherlands, where it remained for 32 weeks. To date, the record has sold over two and a half million copies worldwide. From late September 1985 to June 1986, the band went on a worldwide tour with new drummer Les Warner (who had played with
Julian Lennon and
Johnny Thunders). Two more singles from the
Love album followed; "Rain" (charting in the UK at No. 17) and "
Revolution" (charting in the UK at No. 30). Neither charted in the US. Another single, "Nirvana", was issued only in Poland. The album version of "Rain", as well as the remix "(Here Comes the) Rain", were used in the Italian horror film
Demons 2 (1986). Once back in England, the band booked themselves into the
Manor Studios in Oxfordshire, with producer Steve Brown (who had produced
Love), and recorded over a dozen new songs. The band were unhappy with the sound of their new studio album, titled
Peace, and they decided to go to New York so producer
Rick Rubin could remix the first single, "
Love Removal Machine". Rubin agreed to work with the band, but only if they re-recorded the song. Rubin eventually talked them into re-recording the entire album. The band's record company, Beggars Banquet, was displeased with this, as two months and £250,000 had already been spent on the record. However, after hearing the initial New York recording, Beggars Banquet agreed to proceed. The first single, "Love Removal Machine", was released in February 1987, and the new version of the album appeared in April that year, now renamed as
Electric, reaching No. 4 and eventually outselling
Love. The band toured with
Kid Chaos (also known as "Haggis" and "The Kid") on bass guitar, with Stewart on rhythm guitar. Two more singles, "Lil Devil" and "Wild Flower", were released during 1987. A few tracks from the original
Peace album appeared on the single versions of "Love Removal Machine", and "Lil Devil". The full
Peace album would not be released until 2000, when it was included as Disc 3 of the
Rare Cult box set. In the US, the Cult, now consisting of Astbury, Duffy, Stewart, Warner and Kid Chaos, were supported by a then-unknown
Guns N' Roses. The band also appeared at
Roskilde Festival in Denmark in June 1987. During the Australian part of the world tour, 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 been certified Gold in the UK, and sold roughly 3 million copies worldwide, but the band were barely speaking to each other by then. Haggis left the band at the end of the
Electric tour to form
the Four Horsemen for Rubin's
Def American label. Astbury and Duffy fired Warner and their management team Grant/Edwards, and moved to
Los Angeles with Stewart. Warner sued the band several times for his firing, as well as for what he considered were unpaid royalties for his performance on the
Electric album, resulting in lengthy court battles. The Cult signed a new management deal and wrote 21 new songs for their next album. For the next studio album, Stewart returned to playing bass guitar, and John Webster was brought in to play keyboards. The band used Chris Taylor to play drums during rehearsals and record the demos, with future
Kiss drummer
Eric Singer performing 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. Recorded in
Vancouver from October to December 1988, and released in April of the following year,
Sonic Temple went Top 10 in both the UK and the US, where it was certified Gold and Platinum respectively. The band went on tour in support of the new album and new single "
Fire Woman" (UK No. 15) (NZ No. 1), with yet another new drummer,
Matt Sorum, and Webster as keyboardist. The next single, "Edie (Ciao Baby)" (UK No. 25) has become a regular song at concerts for many years. In Europe, the band toured with
Aerosmith, and in the US, after releasing another single "Sun King" (UK No. 42), they spent 1989 touring in support of
Metallica before heading out on their own headlining tour later that same year. The fourth and final single, "Sweet Soul Sister" (UK No. 38), was released in February 1990, with the video having been filmed at
Wembley Arena, London, on 25 November 1989. "Sweet Soul Sister" was partially written in
Paris and was inspired by the
bohemian lifestyle of that city. Released as a single in February 1990, the song was another hit in the UK, and reportedly reached number one on the rock charts in Brazil. After playing a show in
Atlanta in February 1990, the band's management told Astbury that his father had just died of cancer; as a result, the remainder of the tour was cancelled after a final leg of shows were performed in April. After the tour ended, the band were on the verge of breaking up due to Stewart retiring and moving to Canada to be with his wife, and Sorum leaving to join
Guns N' Roses. In 1990, Astbury organised the
Gathering of the Tribes festival in Los Angeles and
San Francisco with artists such as
Soundgarden,
Ice-T,
Indigo Girls,
Queen Latifah,
Iggy Pop,
the Charlatans,
the Cramps and
Public Enemy appearing. This two-day festival drew 40,000 people. Also in 1990, a ten CD box set was released in the UK, containing rare songs from the Cult's singles. The CDs in this box set were all issued as
picture discs with
washi paper covers, housed in a white box called
Singles Collection, or a black box called ''E.P. Collection '84 - '90''. In 1991, director
Oliver Stone offered Astbury the role of
Jim Morrison in Stone's film
The Doors. He declined the role because he was not happy with the way Morrison was represented in the film, and the role was ultimately played by
Val Kilmer.
Ceremony and the lawsuit (1991–1993) By 1991, Astbury and Duffy were writing again for their next studio album. During the demo recordings, Todd Hoffman and
James Kottak played bass guitar and drums, respectively. During the actual album recording sessions, Curry was recruited again to play drums, with
Charley Drayton on bass guitar, and various other performers. Astbury and Duffy's working relationship had disintegrated by that time, with the two men reportedly rarely even being in the studio together during recording. The resulting studio album
Ceremony was released in September 1991 to mixed responses. The album climbed to US No. 34, but sales were not as impressive as the previous three studio albums, only selling around one million copies worldwide. Only two official singles were released from the record: "Wild Hearted Son" (UK No. 34, Canada No. 41) and "Heart of Soul" (UK No. 50), although "White" was released as a single only in Canada, "Sweet Salvation" was released as a single (as "Dulce Salvación") in Argentina in 1992, and the title track "Ceremony" was released in Spain. The Cult's Ceremonial Stomp tour went through Europe in 1991 and North America in 1992. In 1991 the Cult played a show at the
Marquee Club in London, which was recorded and released in February 1993, packaged with some vinyl UK copies of their first greatest hits release. Only a handful of CD copies of it were ever manufactured originally, however it was subsequently reissued on CD in 1999. An incomplete
bootleg video of this show is also in circulation. The band were sued by the parents of the Native American boy pictured on the cover of
Ceremony, for alleged exploitation and for the unauthorised use of the child's image. The parents stated that the boy felt he had been cursed by the band's burning of his image, and was "emotionally scarred." This image of the boy is also burned in the video for "Wild Hearted Son". This lawsuit delayed the release of
Ceremony in many countries including South Korea and Thailand, which did not see the album's release until late 1992, and it was unreleased in Turkey until the Cult played several shows in
Istanbul in June 1993. A world tour followed with backing from drummer
Michael Lee (
Page & Plant,
Little Angels), bassist Kinley "Barney" Wolfe (
Lord Tracy,
Black Oak Arkansas), and keyboardist
John Sinclair (
Ozzy Osbourne,
Uriah Heep) returning one last time, and the Gathering of the Tribes moved to the UK. Here artists such as
Pearl Jam performed. The warm-up gig to the show, in a small nightclub, was dedicated to the memory of Nigel Preston, who had died a few weeks earlier at the age of 28. Following the release of the single "The Witch" (No. 9 in Australia) and the performance of a song for the 1992
Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie soundtrack entitled "Zap City", produced by Steve Brown and originally a
B-side to "Lil' Devil", two volumes of remixes of "She Sells Sanctuary", called
Sanctuary Mixes MCMXCIII, volumes one and two, and in support of
Pure Cult: for Rockers, Ravers, Lovers, and Sinners, a greatest hits compilation which debuted at No. 1 on the British charts and later went to number one in Portugal, Astbury and Duffy fired the "backing band" and recruited
Craig Adams (the Mission) and Scott Garrett for performances across Europe in 1993, with some shows featuring
Mike Dimkich on rhythm guitar. This tour marked the first time the band performed in Turkey, Greece, and the Slovak Republic.
The Cult and first break-up (1994–1998) With the same line-up still in place, the band released
The Cult in October 1994, produced by Bob Rock. In late 2002, Ian Astbury declared the Cult to be "on ice" indefinitely, after performing a brief series of dates in October 2002 to promote the release of the
Music Without Fear DVD. During this second hiatus, Astbury performed as a member of the Doors (later dubbed the Doors of the 21st Century, later still renamed D21c, and most recently known as
Riders on the Storm) with two of the original members of that group. D21c was sued numerous times, both by Jim Morrison's family and by drummer
John Densmore. Astbury supposedly started work on recording another solo studio album that later became the backbone for the Cult's
Born into This (2007). At the same time, Duffy was part of Coloursound with bassist Craig Adams and ex-
Alarm frontman
Mike Peters, then
Dead Men Walking (again with Peters) and later Cardboard Vampyres. Sorum became a member of the hard rock
supergroup Velvet Revolver. In 2003, all of the Cult's records were issued on CD, with several bonus tracks being issued on the Russian, Belarusian, and Lithuanian versions. These eastern European releases had many printing mistakes on the jacket sleeves and lyric inserts. In October 2004, all of the Cult's records were again remastered and issued again on CD, this time in Japan in different cardboard foldout sleeves. "She Sells Sanctuary" appeared in the 2001
video game Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, in the NTSC-U version and 2002 videogame
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, playing on rock station
V-Rock.
Second reunion, Born into This and Capsule EPs (2006–2010) Despite Astbury's previous statement from 2004 that a reunion would not happen, The Cult announced in January 2006 that they were reuniting for "some limited gigs" throughout the year. A month later, the band made their first live appearance in three-and-a-half years on
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Their line-up consisted of Astbury (lead vocals), Duffy (lead guitar),
John Tempesta (drums), Dimkich (rhythm guitar) and Wyse (returning as bassist). Their first stage show was held in March 2006 in San Francisco, California, at
the Fillmore. The entire tour was recorded by
Instant Live and sold after each show. In May, they did an eight date tour in Canada. Later that summer, they toured central and eastern Europe and played their first concerts in Bulgaria, Poland and Serbia. An eleven-date UK tour followed as well as several more dates in the United States, finishing with a South American tour in December. That year, Duffy began the band
Circus Diablo with Billy Morrison, Sorum, Brett Scallions and
Ricky Warwick. During these tours, the band occasionally played an extended set, including several songs the band had not performed in decades: "King Contrary Man" and "Hollow Man", neither of which had been performed since 1987; also, "Libertine" was performed approximately three times, for the first time since 2000, and "Brother Wolf, Sister Moon", which was only performed one time since 1986 (for this particular song, the band played an abridged version which has never been performed before or since). Astbury announced in February 2007 that he was leaving Riders on the Storm and returning to the Cult. He stated: "I have decided to move on and focus on my own music and legacy." The Cult was featured on Stuffmagazine.com's list of ultimate
air guitar players. On 21 March 2007, it was announced that the band would be touring Europe with
the Who. The first confirmed tour date was in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in early June, with at least a dozen shows set to follow. The band played a gig in London's West End at the CC Club on 7 June 2007, along with nearly two dozen shows across continental Europe during summer. The tour also includes the first performance in Romania and Croatia. On 29 May 2007, the band signed a deal with major metal label Roadrunner Records. Their eight studio album, titled
Born into This was released on 16 October, and was produced by
Martin "Youth" Glover, bassist for
Killing Joke.
Born into This was released as regular single disc and limited edition double disc, the second disk being a bonus 5-track CD holding the following tracks: "Stand Alone", "War Pony Destroyer", "I Assassin (Demo)", "Sound of Destruction (Demo)" and "Savages (Extended Version)". Prior to the album's release, the band played festival and headline dates, and supported the Who in Europe through summer 2007, with a US headline tour to follow. The band's appearance at
Irving Plaza in New York City in early November 2006 was filmed and was released in 2007.
The Cult New York City, issued by Fontana North and is the Cult's first high definition DVD release. Meanwhile, Astbury lent vocals on two tracks of the 2007
Unkle studio album "
War Stories", one of them being the first single from the album, "Burn My Shadow". The band performed a UK and European tour in late-February and early-March 2008. On 24 March, they began their North American tour including a major 13-city tour in Canada. During September 2008, the Cult did a brief series of dates in the northeast United States, and they toured in Brazil as part of the South American tour in October 2008. By May 2008, according to
The Gauntlet, the Cult were no longer under contract with Roadrunner Records. In October 2008, it was announced that the Cult would headline the inaugural Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in San Antonio, to be run 16 November 2008. The Cult announced plans for a tour showcasing their 1985
Love album across the US and then the UK in October where they would play at the
Royal Albert Hall. Coinciding with the remastered
Love album and four-disc
Omnibus boxed set, the Cult kicked off the long-awaited
Love Live Tour in late summer. Performing their classic
Love album in its entirety, each show was played with the
Love tracks opening with "Nirvana" to "Black Angel". A quick intermission followed, then other Cult hits were played (varying by venue): "Sun King", "Dirty Little Rock Star", "Electric Ocean", "Illuminated". Then followed the favourites "Fire Woman", "Lil Devil", "Wild Flower", and lastly "Love Removal Machine". In the evening of 10 October 2009 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the band performed a second encore with original Cult bassist
Jamie Stewart and drummer
Mark Brzezicki, who played drums with the band during the
Love album recording sessions in July and August 1985. The band sold
Love Live USB flash drives for each show during the tour. The Cult continued their
Love Live Tour and played dates in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan during 2010. The band finished recording a four-track "Capsule" with producer
Chris Goss.
Capsule 1 was said to be the first of three or four to be released sometime in summer 2010. Release formats include CD-DVD
DualDisc, 12-inch vinyl, and digital downloads.
Capsule 1 was released on 14 September 2010. The band officially announced the release of its first new studio recording since 2007, "Every Man and Woman Is a Star". The new single was released through the
iTunes Store on 31 July 2010. On 1 August 2010, the band played the sold-out music festival
Sonisphere, which marked their first UK performance since the tour for their
Love album. During the performance they debuted their new single, "Every Man and Woman is a Star", which was released on 1 August 2010. On 14 September 2010 the band embarked on a new US tour and released
Capsule 1 in conjunction with media technology company Aderra Inc. and made it available in multiple formats including a CD-DVD DualDisc,
USB flash drive, 12 inch vinyl, FLAC download and MP3 download. The collection includes a short film made by Ian Astbury and Rick Rogers. On 26 October 2010 the band and Aderra Inc. announced the release of a new song, "Embers", for 1 November 2010 and
Capsule 2 available through their web store on 16 November 2010. Pictures from the Cult's tour stop in Chicago on 28 October 2010 can be seen at a local radio station website. On 17 September 2010, the band performed live at the Fall Frenzy concert at the Tempe Beach Park in Tempe, Arizona. Other bands that played at this concert were
Stone Temple Pilots,
Shinedown, and
Sevendust. On 4 December 2010, the band performed a live set for
Guitar Center Sessions on
DirecTV. The episode included an interview with the band by program host,
Nic Harcourt.
Choice of Weapon and Hidden City (2011–2017) (left) and
Billy Duffy performing in 2016 During the Cult's concert at the Hammersmith Apollo in London on 21 January 2011 Ian Astbury declared that the Cult would be recording a new studio album directly after the tour. They also announced that they would be working with
Chris Goss, who performed with
Masters of Reality as an opening act the same evening. On 11 May 2011, it was announced that the Cult were signed to
Cooking Vinyl Records, who would release the new studio album in early 2012. Commented guitarist Billy Duffy: "We are very much looking forward to returning to our U.K. roots in many ways working with Cooking Vinyl." Lead vocalist
Ian Astbury added, "We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with Cooking Vinyl." By May 2011, the band had been writing and recording new demos at its Witch Mountain studio hideaway in the Hollywood Hills, and began recording their new album at Hollywood Recording Studios. In October 2011, bassist
Chris Wyse stated the album was almost finished and expected to be released in April 2012. Wyse also described it as a "
Zep/
Stooges mix of energy." On 29 November 2011, it was announced that the album would be produced by Bob Rock, who provided the same role on
Sonic Temple,
The Cult and
Beyond Good and Evil. The studio album, entitled
Choice of Weapon, was released on 22 May 2012. The band partnered with
Rolling Stone to premiere the first song from the album titled "Lucifer" on 30 January. On 5 February 2012, the Cult song "She Sells Sanctuary" was used as the soundtrack for a
Budweiser beer commercial in a mashup with
Flo Rida aired during
Super Bowl XLVI. In May 2012 the Cult appeared on
Jimmy Kimmel Live! and played "For the Animals". On 28 September 2012, it was announced that the band would release
Weapon of Choice, a "prequel" album to accompany the band's latest studio album,
Choice of Weapon. The digital-only release, available exclusively on iTunes for two months only beginning 16 October, features the songs that were ultimately included in
Choice of Weapon at an earlier stage of development. Explaining the motivations behind the release, lead vocalist Ian Astbury said that "These songs were turned over and over, forged in long rehearsals and writing sessions, and emanated from challenges both personal and professional. We put our guts into this; [Producer Chris] Goss was able to create an environment where the songs were born through playing and turning over lyrics, through hard work and intense sessions." Astbury added "These songs have an integrity and rawness of their own. In many ways it's a different album to the one we released and reveals the foundations of
Choice of Weapon. We were able to close the doors and begin to explore spaces we had not been in for a while." In 2013, Mike Dimkich left the band and joined
Bad Religion to replace guitarist
Greg Hetson.
James Stevenson, from the ''Beauty's on the Streets'' tour in 1994, replaced Dimkich as the Cult's rhythm guitarist. The band were expected to begin work on the album after they finish their 2013 world tour, where they played the
Electric album in its entirety. In August 2014, Duffy added that the next album, which was not expected to be released before 2015 at the earliest, would "be more guitar heavy". On 5 November 2015, it was announced that the Cult would release their new studio album, entitled
Hidden City, on 5 February 2016. The album is said to be the final part of a trilogy that began with
Born into This, and marks the fifth time Bob Rock had produced a Cult album. The band also announced that they had hired Australian-born bassist Grant Fitzpatrick (ex-
Mink) as the replacement for
Chris Wyse.
Chris Chaney (
Jane's Addiction,
Camp Freddy) and producer Bob Rock performed session bass on the album. In support of
Hidden City, the Cult opened for
Guns N' Roses on the
Not in This Lifetime... Tour. In an October 2016 interview with
PopMatters journalist J.C. Maçek III, Cult guitarist Billy Duffy spoke of the band's playlist while on tour, saying "Obviously you want to make an impactful [show]," he continues. "There are some practical, pragmatic decisions made. If you're playing to a crowd who are not very familiar with you, there's no point of going too deep but we do always make sure we play a new song. Like on Guns N' Roses' [tour] we had fifty minutes which is ten songs all in. So, you know we just made sure that in those ten songs we played '
Deeply Ordered Chaos' which we're proud of and it makes a certain statement. And it just alerts people to the fact that, yes, we have made a record in the last 30 years. You know and that's a good thing. Psychologically, that's the blood transfusion that we need. And we're very mindful, we have a very loyal fan base. We don't pander as you well know."
Under the Midnight Sun (2018–2022) In an April 2018 interview with
Guitar World, guitarist Billy Duffy was asked if an eleventh studio album by the Cult was in the works. He replied, "Never say never! Ian and I enjoy the process of making new music, and we feel it's vital to keep the band healthy, even if it's pretty much in the law of diminishing returns area now. Who knows if it will be a whole album a series of singles or an EP? I can say new Cult music will be forthcoming, but these days we don't rush it as there's no point. Quality is key. We are past the point of having to release stuff so if we feel it's good enough, then we will release it in some shape or another." On 2 April 2018, a tour of the United States of America called "Revolution 3 Tour" was announced for the summer. They performed as one of the three headliners, along with
Stone Temple Pilots and
Bush. In April 2019, the Cult announced that they would celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of their fourth studio album
Sonic Temple with a world tour, which began on 2 May in
Houston, Texas and was expected to wrap up in 2020. In a June 2019 interview with
LA Weekly, lead vocalist Ian Astbury stated that the Cult were "long overdue" to release new music. He was quoted as saying: "We do have some stuff we've been working on, but it's yet to see the light of day." Six months later, Astbury told
Atlantic City Weekly that the band was going to start working on new music in 2020: "We've got a few pieces lying around in various stages of completion. The intention is to get together in the New Year and take a look at what we've got and decide how we are going to go about moving forward. It's an essential part of any creative lifeblood." On 6 May 2020, the Cult announced on their
Twitter page that they had signed to Black Hill Records. On 15 August 2020, Duffy announced on his Twitter that the band were recording their eleventh studio album with producer
Tom Dalgety at
Rockfield Studios, where the Cult had recorded their debut studio album
Dreamtime 36 years earlier. Progress was slow for nearly two years, hampered by the
COVID-19 pandemic, and the album being recorded remotely, with the half of the band tracking it at Rockfield Studios and Astbury in the United States. In May 2022, Duffy told
The Yorkshire Post that the "main bulk" of the album was finished and mastered. On 7 July 2022 the band announced
Under the Midnight Sun as the title of their album, released on 7 October, and "Give Me Mercy" was released its first single. Prior to the release of the album, the Cult embarked on a co-headlining six-date UK tour with
Alice Cooper and
Creeper in May and June 2022, and in the following month, they toured in North America with
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and
Zola Jesus.
Reunion of Death Cult, hiatus from touring and potential twelfth studio album (2023–present) On 14 August 2023, Astbury and Duffy announced a twelve-date tour of the UK, along with a single US date in Los Angeles, under the title "Death Cult 8323". Whilst concentrating on the Death Cult material, the shows also covered
Southern Death Cult and the Cult's first two albums,
Dreamtime and
Love. On 5 October 2023,
The Spokesman-Review reported that the Cult were working on new material for a possible 2024 release. Astbury confirmed in February 2025 that new music from the band was in the works, but expressed uncertainty about releasing another studio album as the Cult: "Albums are dead, pretty much albums are finished. Albums are dead, the concept of making an album, I like the idea of making — if you have a piece of music and it's fresh, put it out." On 15 July 2025, the band announced a North American tour featuring a set performing music from Death Cult in addition to the Cult. On 23 October 2025, the Cult announced a hiatus from touring for an "undetermined amount of time" with a focus on "writing, recording new music and exploring other projects that shall be revealed over time." ==Artistry==