Ian Astbury is not your average rock star: he never had been. Not through his earliest punk days. Not during The Cult’s meteoric rise on the wings of Electric and Sonic Temple. Not while he was singing the music of the Doors with the band’s Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek. And certainly not now as The Cult sows it’s still fertile creative fields, producing two superb albums, the most recent being 2016’s Hidden City.
That the band released it’s first album, Dreamtime, thirty-three years ago and is still producing music of significance, both lyrically and sonically, is not lost on anyone, Astbury being one of them. He continues to absorb his surroundings and wrap his thoughts and observances into a mini melodic memoir of the world today. It is what Astbury does best.
Hidden City again brings the listener close to the heartbeat of a world in chaos. One of it’s most powerful lines comes during the song “Birds Of Paradise,” where Astbury states, “How will you feel when it comes to an end?” It’s certainly not a line to be taken at face value. Astbury has more swirling around his brain than just a simple rhetorical question. It’s the same when he’s on the other end of the phone line waiting for you to ask him questions. His answers will always be full of symbolism, insight and subconscious explorations; not just, we made a record in this particular studio and the songs are about love, hate and good times. So since Hidden City is full of blood imagery and ramifications of soul laziness, a flippant two-word response is far from what you’ll get from Astbury.
With another leg of the ongoing Cult Live 17 tour about to begin on May 3rd in Baltimore, Glide spoke with Astbury about the human and spiritual aspects of the album, opening for Guns N Roses last summer and where he sees hope in the future.
Now that Hidden City has been out a while and you’ve been on tour with it for a while, are you rejuvenating the songs or are the songs rejuvenating you?
They constantly evolve. Every one is different, every performance is different. A live rendition of a song is never the same twice. It’s impossible, based upon the environment, different rooms, different states of emotion in a performance space.
Do you hold the concert goers accountable for what happens onstage?
Accountable? (laughs). They’re not accountable for what we do. That’s our job, that’s our responsibility.
You are doing Meet & Greets this time out. Is that something you normally do?
We’ve done them off and on. I mean, it’s something that’s been by request. People have come to shows and requested Meet & Greets and it’s a way to have a more intimate relationship with our audience, having that kind of access to us. It’s all really great. It also helps production costs on the road as production costs have skyrocketed. To go on the road is pretty intensive and costly. When you stop to fill up the bus it’s a thousand dollars.
But fans love the personal interaction with the musicians who create the music they love.
Yeah, that’s another aspect that has been evolving. I mean, the Rolling Stones have been selling tickets onstage for twenty years now, to sit on the stage with the band. I honestly feel that way was just another way to monetize the live experience and get access to individuals who want to have that experience, which is an amazing experience being able to sit onstage with the Rolling Stones. I mean, that’s an incredible opportunity, a really unique experience, a memorable one, to have that available. I mean, we wouldn’t be able to do that (laughs). Maybe we could. It would be very interesting (laughs). You know, we put a lot of care into this so I make sure it’s a great experience for people in the audience. One of the most amazing things is getting feedback from people. Like, they’ll give us their insight of what they’d like to see or what their experience was of the event, of our music, and that’s really important.
Well, I’ve never been to a Cult show I didn’t like
That’s good. I’ve been to a few I didn’t like (laughs)
I saw you last year opening up for Guns N Roses and there was such a vitality and a spark onstage from you guys. Then I saw you at a club date a few months after that and that same spark was still there.
Yeah, I mean, we can perform in any environment. We performed in a club in London that held like literally 150 people, crammed into a room. It was an old drinking club in London, an old speakeasy in London, a place where Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, would drink in there. The Scotch Of St James it was called, a very, very famous club, tiny stage. I mean, literally tiny, the size of your average bathroom. Tiny little stage, tiny little room and it was an amazing show. It was like the audience was onstage, you couldn’t not be. I mean, everybody was like squished in there. And then, obviously, we did the tour with GNR with 50,000 plus a night, and those stages are huge, but we connected.
Some people say, “Why didn’t you play these certain songs?” Some don’t work as well in a live environment, in terms of what you try and achieve in a performance environment. The material that you choose allows you to put a certain narrative, create high points in exchange with the audience, an emotional exchange, it’s really important. It’s interesting with GNR, with all respect, they went on and did like five covers in their set and they’re drawing from three studio albums and we’re drawing from ten. We continually made music and we’ll continue to make music. Our most recent record was released in 2016. A lot of work went into that record; as much work went into that, if not more than Love, Electric, Sonic Temple, those records.
Your album is called Hidden City. What is a hidden city and why is this body of work indicative of that?
Well, hidden city is really representative of an inward journey, which is something that has interested me since I was a child, the existential meaning of life. I see so much change, experienced so much change – birth, death, loss, material gains, experiences accumulative – there’s such a mystery to it and I’m really fascinated with covering more in terms of awareness around the mystery of life and hidden city refers to that. It’s a place within. Everybody has their own personal philosophy of self, of relationship to others, of relationship to the great mystery, universal mysteries. Some people believe the world is flat, some people believe the world is an orb, some people believe that the entire cosmos is created by one omnipotent force, others believe that it was an explosion. Why can’t we have many different viewpoints? And they are all valid, everyone’s opinion is valid, everyone’s experience is their experience. I’m only speaking about my individual experience, the way I’m facing the world. My experiences have led me to, not conclusions cause nothing is definitive ever, so trying to remain open and keep learning and Hidden City is definitely a journey within.
Why is blood such a main image on this album?
Blood is our life force. Take blood out of a human being and we ain’t going nowhere (laughs). If you want to get down to basically like Jungian symbolism, it’s sexual, it’s mystique, it’s a life force. Blood is like the sun. These are basic archetypes that we all depend on every day – air, water – and I do believe they are creating synthetic blood now in laboratories.
How do you feel about that?
It’s happening. I mean, all these ideas that we can stop the evolution, perhaps we can direct it in a certain way, that’s part of human consciousness, something hopefully to make better choices. But it’s great having all these bio breakthroughs and biotechnologies for human beings but then look what we do to the planet. With all respect, you travel, you do see the pollution, you do see it’s effect on the environment globally. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I mean, within my own family I’ve lost my parents to cancer because of the industrial environment. The pollution that came out of those factories that went into the atmosphere, that went into the soil, that went into the food supply, that went into the water chain. And my parents contracted cancer and passed away. And then the impact that had on my family and the impact that had on many families.
Now we’re in a situation where we have a rise in cancer, we have a rise in people’s anxiety levels, a rise in dependency upon pharmaceuticals to combat anxiety. People are saying we’re in the middle of an epidemic, a pharmaceutical epidemic. People are turning away from meaning of life, etc, and just numbing themselves out and in some cases it’s fatal. We’re seeing a crack in society, and they’ve always been there, but now it just seems so much more amplified. I honestly believe we’re in a place where we are in a bit of a crisis, an existential crisis. So exploring through meditation or prayer or exploring yourself a little bit more and having the curiosity and the courage to learn a bit more about yourself can really empower yourself and give you a much more fulfilled life and hopefully have a positive effect on the environment around you and people around you.
We are in this TOGETHER. There are no line drawn barriers, borders. If you know anything about history, societies have built walls around them but those walls got pulled down. Isolationist societies eventually either get invaded or they implode. We’re in this together. We all breathe the same air. We all depend upon the source of the sun every day. Without the sun we’re done, there is no life on this planet. Without the atmosphere, the food chain, you ain’t going to be complaining about the fact that people aren’t buying music anymore. It ain’t like the old days (laughs). The earth is polluted, these high toxicity levels are all around us.
We’ve talked before about you going to Tibet and about you going through the sweat ceremonies. Does music naturally come from these experiences or do you actively use the experience to create the music?
Certainly, the music is the mode of communication. The experiences find their way into writing, you know. They definitely find their way through into the record, a piece of music. The experiences define my psyche, my person, they formed me, challenged me, as an individual. It’s the same for everybody – how we dress, how we speak, how we act is through our experiences, life experiences. I’ve just been inquisitive enough to travel, inquisitive enough to scratch the surface and see what’s going on. There is so much that I don’t know and so much that I want to know, so much that I want to experience, so much I’d love to create. In the creative process, so much is revealed, some of it revealed that you didn’t even know were within you. But ultimately you bring it to where all of a sudden you’re exposing yourself in a way and you’re putting it all out there and I think when you go to a show and you experience a performer who is earnest and is revealing themselves in a way you can connect with or identify with, that’s an incredible event, an incredible, intimate experience you can walk away from and realize you’ve been part of something that’s memorable and life-changing.
One thing I really love on Hidden City is the way the piano is in there on “Birds Of Paradise.”
That was a very difficult, very vulnerable moment in the studio when I kind of walked in and said, “I honestly feel we should start this record, not start the record literally with the piano, but let’s move away from guitars for a minute and let’s start working things out. Let’s go to the piano and see what kind of information we get from that. Let’s go directly to piano and see what comes out of that and then we can embellish with guitars and etc, etc, you know; not just start with riffs and chords.” And we were lucky enough to have an incredible musician in the studio named Jamie Muhoberac, a pianist/keyboard player, and we were immediately able to access a certain sentiment and feeling I had that I really wanted to articulate and put over on this record that really captured this dystopian vulnerability in this place we’re in right now. So many people, fans, family members, strangers that I meet, we’re all kind of sharing this, what the fuck is going on right now? How did we get here? How did we get to this place?
I was watching this like short clip and it shows you nuclear explosions since 1945. I don’t know if you’ve seen this but it shows you the amount of nuclear explosions, nuclear detonations, since 1945. It starts off with White Sands or wherever it was, where they did the tests, and then it goes to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. That would have been enough but we’ve crossed the line. With our technology and everything, this isn’t a good place for us to be. But no, between now and 1945, there’s been literally like 3000 plus explosions, nuclear tests, and this is shocking and earth shattering to the core. And now people want to bring children into this world? This goes way beyond our generation, the repercussions of technology, you know.
I don’t know where we’re going but evidently, we’re going into outer space so that’s interesting. I don’t think it’s going to go back to the way it was cause the regular programming is not going to continue. It’ll continually evolve and evolve and evolve and evolve. One of the ideas, one of the intentions, with the record sleeve, if you open it up, there’s a luxury car there that’s been destroyed. We found it in a scrapyard and I wanted to have it a symbol. If someone came across our cultural civilization in a thousand years and found these artifacts, archaeologists, what would they say about our culture, what would they say about our times, like right now, today, when this record was made? What did we aspire to? Did we aspire to awards and luxury items, material items and iconography? I had this idea of this car being like this future relic, like something someone would discover in a tomb. It almost actually looks to me awfully like a white rhino, an endangered species, poached right now. If you know anything about the story that happened recently in the Paris Zoo, the white rhino was executed and had it’s horn removed with a chainsaw. What does that say about who we are? What does that say about where we’re at? I know people out there are having a rough time making ends meet and they can’t go any much further than putting food on the table for their family and I appreciate that. I’ve been through that, when I was growing up with my family and our experience. But we’re in this together. I can only report from my experience, share what I see and experience.
I’m grateful we had David Bowie to give us some kind of guide or text on how to live an exemplary life and death. You know, Hidden City is very much a part of the culmination of all of that. I mean, there are so many layers to it, so many levels to it. There’re songs like “GOAT,” for example, “Greatest Of All Time.” That song just kind of came up as a riff that Billy Duffy had. It just kind of came out of nowhere. This song was put together in three minutes. I didn’t even write a lyric. I just got on the mic and jammed on it. That was it. Bang, it was written on the spot. But then like “Birds Of Paradise,” it evolved over a period of time. It evolved over quite a long period of time, because new layers, new levels, started revealing themselves, the song was evolving. It was a cathartic experience and then we’d go back to it and then there was another line written and something was taken away and it evolved into this. It was almost like Picasso’s Guernica as a piece of music; so many different layers and interpretations. But the piano is definitely the core, emotional sentiment of the record. I think it’s probably the most naked, revealing moment for The Cult. We took the outside track and turned down career opportunities to try and maintain this metaphysical center of the band.
Are you seeing the next album form?
I’m constantly putting down ideas. I’m a compulsive writer. I try to, no I don’t try, I do take on a lot of information. I guess I’m an information junkie. I try to put the good stuff in there. Recently I’ve been falling in love with an Australian painter called Brett Whiteley, who I knew very little about. I was in Australia recently and read the biography of Brett Whiteley. Incredible painter, a contemporary of Francis Bacon, a phenomenal artist, and I became really immersed in everything I could find out about him.
What drew you to him?
I think he was a real seeker. I feel he was a really authentic seeker. He went really inward and left no stone unturned. He was definitely a master of his craft and he worked in so many different mediums. He definitely challenged most perceptions of what is art, what is good art. He loved music. He felt like a real kindred spirit and someone I would loved to have met. Like the perfect dinner party, you think who you’d want, and I think I’d definitely want him at my dinner party, opposite of like Nina Simone and opposite of David Bowie. I love painters. My father painted and I’ve always been interested in painters and the image of performance. Authors as well. Individuals who scratched the surface to see what was there and brought back some really good information for the rest of us. It’s constantly evolving and constantly changing and that’s something we know to be sure is that there will always be change. I wish I could go back to my pre-internet life some days and have that experience of not as much information coming in. One of my favorite places to go is galleries. I’ve gone to galleries to see real works, as much as I like live performers. It’s a priceless experience, life enhancing.
Is spirituality something you get from paintings, from art?
I think we need to get past this term spirituality like it’s something separate from our experience. Spirituality is just a way of talking about something other than ego and attachment to material things. I think it’s time to instead of trying to objectify everything, just try and experience everything. Instead of standing there on the sidelines objectifying or commenting, drop that and jump in, jump into it, have that experience. As Bowie said in “Where Are We Now,” “The moment you know you know, you know.” And you don’t have to articulate it. Just the knowing you experienced it. That’s incredibly valuable. That’s my experience. I wouldn’t advocate how people see a work of art or their own lives or choices they make but certainly for me I know that it’s authentic. I’ve touched it, I’ve felt it, I had my own experience of it and it goes into my work, it goes into my life. Whether I’m better than or less than, it’s the choice I made. And I think a lot of that comes from moving around a lot when I was a kid. I wasn’t like the typical Brit; in fact, when I was in the UK, I had a Scottish mother and an English father; well, it was actually Irish background on one side and Scotch on the other. But even within Britain, I got polarized in my experience as a child cause I was always objectified as coming from somewhere else, always. When I immigrated to Canada, I was from somewhere else, and people were seeing me a certain way and I couldn’t make assumptions without knowing anything about you. But it’s just how we’ve been conditioned. So music has been my most liberating experience. I’ve learned more about different cultures because of music, different perspectives, different points of view through music and the love affair with music and that continues.
There’s more in the music than just music
Yes, there’s energy, it’s an energetic exchange, a real intimacy in music, especially your music. Everybody has got their own music they love. I love when people say like, “My guilty pleasure is listening to this.” It’s not a guilty pleasure. It’s a pleasure. If music makes you feel a certain way, that’s beautiful, that’s incredible. Who cares if other people don’t like it. If you identify with it and it gets you to where you want to get to, that’s incredible, that’s a gift. There is no one size fits all. We live in a multi-faceted, diverse world. We live in a multi-cultural globe. We all depend upon each other.
Where do you see hope in the world today?
Certain technologies that are rising, practicing diet and yoga and meditation, exploring themselves, self-help, trying to be the best possible they can be, getting away from regular programming; also taking responsibility for yourself. Someone is not going to knock on your door and give you a million dollars. You have to go out and make it happen yourself. Technology has given us all a level playing field, in the west at least. And youth, I see some incredible young people with these brilliant imaginations and incredible aptitude to navigate a very difficult world and showing great courage and great character. I’m an eternal optimist. We’ll work it out. These young artists, they’ll have the courage to put their work out there in the world and be open to criticism and rejection. It takes a lot of courage.
Some people don’t have that courage
I appreciate that but there is always a way. I always say, there is always a hole in the fence somewhere, you just always have to keep looking for it.
Live photographs by Leslie Michele Derrough
