Let There Be Rock The Cult’s Billy Dutty

Rip It Up, Issue 144, 1 July 1989, Page 14

Let There Be Rock The Cult’s Billy Dutty

The phone rings in an unknown hotel somewhere in America’s mid-west. “Hello, reception.” '

Can | have Billy Duffy's room —it's 628.

~ "Is he with the band?” Yup. ThA%E “There's no Duffy registered on thatfloor, butthere's one on the seventh.”

Okay, give me his room, there can'tbe two Duffies intwo separate bandsin the one hotel. “Hello.” Billy Duffy¢” “No, thisis Tim Duffy, tour . accountantfor Metallica. You're looking for Billy Diffy the guitar - player.” Righton.Tryagain. Give me room 628. “Hello, Billy Duffy here.” : Awlriiight. What's your alias? “Dirk McQuigley — one of the Rutles. We're travelling under the Rutles.” Naturally. :

The Cultare in the process of conquering the US of A where young people have an insatiable appetite forhard rocking. “Thisis your hard work, do your

gigsin the mid-west and build up those fans kinda tour. We're playing places with Metallica that bands wouldn't normally go to — small mid-western fowns that are overlooked.”

Soyou'll be playing little halls? “Little sports arenas, municipal halls. The smallestis about 6,000 up to about 16,000 in Minneapolis. From there we go into the summer open air venues and they can go up to 25,000." :

Are you filling them? “Any decent circuit city where gigs happen, then they're full. The smaller towns vary. In a few towns we've struck a Christian protest thing, which is kinda funny. It didn’tamountto much.” :

Wasthe protest in response to the Cult's past Gothic connections? “No, it was more to do with Metallica and the association between Heavy Metal and the Nightstalker guy they had. And there's been a few suicides that have been blamed on Ozzy Osbourne’s lyrics. We're just catching a bit of that and usually it doesn’tamount to anything and the Christians end up going fo the show and realising that theiryouth won't be terribly corrupted.” “They are — we're special guests.

Their album’s been out ayear and they've sold two million and a phenomonal number of T-shirts. It sa real street thing, it has to be seen to be believed and they don't getradio play. They're friends of ours and our album’s only been out eight weeks and it’s nice for us to start as special guests as we can get out and play to people atvery little expense, get exposure and getthe band in

shape.” The band must be getting more popularin the States than in Britain? “It's getting that way. We do very wellin Britain—we've had seven Top 20ssingles there. It's not like we're deserting our homeland because we weren't doing well

there. We had to expand. You do really well in Britain and you sell

300,000 albums and a tour of Britain forthe Cultnowadays is four gigs of around 10,000 capacity.”

The Penny Dropped The Cultare an abbreviation of Southern Death Cult, a band that singer lan Astbury formed in Bradford seven years ago when

northern psychedelia a la Bunnymen had spilled over into the smaller

towns. Their single ‘Fat Man’ had them picked to be the next big thing and Astbury’s Red Indian fantasies encouraged even more crifics fo believe that here was a new post-punk messiah. Five years later he's still wearing a coonskin hat on the band's third album, Electric, but the music is second-hand hard rock and far from visionary. Duffy played guitar for Kirk Brandon’s Theatre of Hate —

another confused early 80s conglomeration of pretension and politics. And then he met Astbury: “Back then there was a post-punk Gothicscene in Britain and we left because we were in bands with

people who didn'thave the foresight to realise that being in a band took a lot more than just being haircut of the week. And when we gottogetherwe realised what we had in common — | was a bluesy rock-orientated guitar player and he was a bluesy singer, notinthe David Bowie mould but the stand there and bellow-type. Aswe became more competent musically the songs took over and dictated the direction of the band. 4

“The key was around the Love album when we wrote ‘Love’ and The Phoenix’ which we though were

pretty heavy rock for 1985 in that scene. That's when the penny dropped.” :

Hard rock or metal in its various forms ain't my particular meat, partly becauseit'stoo predictable but

mainly because anybody over 30 grew up with the originals like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and the rest and the second generation are mostly too derivative, aping poses and riffs that were barely credible evenbackinthe 70s. Butthat aside, metal and the likes of the Cult are the only alternatives left for white kids hungry for heroes andinstant adrenalin:

“Hard rockis going througha greatrevival and there's alot of new kids outthere, 16 to 18 and they

wannarock out. | suppose there's some basic attraction to loud guitars. | just callit rock. ' “Ithink the early 80s was a bit of a vacuum— like, ‘Shit, what do we do

after punk— wear big red glasses andbe the Buggles or be Howard Jones, and wear a white doctor’s suit andsiton a keyboard and go on like arobot? How can a kid who's 16 relate o some middle-agedman with his art-schoolness? Now | think i's gone back to the street, certainly with Metallica, Guns n’ Roses and the Cult. The metalin Americaiis like a new kind of punk thing.” Are the kids aware that your music is very derivative, that you're basically the second generationists?

“| don'tthink so. ljustturned 28; | grew up listening to Deep Purple In Rockand Led Zeppelin IV— classics. It'shard to put myselfina 17 ‘

year-old's head but all they wantis something real and tangible that they cangetinvolved withandnot

something that's dusted off in a closet. “They're not bothered that Robert Plantwas singerin Led Zeppelin. He had a successful tourin America

because he made a good album recently, and that's basically it.” - To what extent do they identify with you? Do they have long hair and strike fennis racquet guitar poses@ “No. Punk destroyed all that and we don't get that. In North America we're seen as being very cool, very hip— don't ask me why. We

crossover different boundaries, like skateboard kids are into us and there's still and element of Gothic

fansbutthey'redyingout. “Most of the Goths are probably

now info rock n’ roll and they've probably got a very extensive AC/DC album collection. The hair ain'tspiky —it's just grown out and it's long. And when you go to clubs now there's a fusion of music between contemporary and good cuts from the past. | like it, it's better than it was afewyears ago when itwas one-dimensional with Killing Joke, Siouxsee & The Banshees and the Bunnymen. But we're not heavy metal, contrary to popular opinion.” I see the Cultfeature prominently

in Mick Mercer’s Gothic Rock Black Book ...

“Yeah, and it brings out the cynicin me. Of course we're included in it because we're a multi-million dollar album band and putting usin it means Cultfans are going to buy it.

“Ithink we're the one band from thatscene that has led a way forwards info something new and fresh and we happen to have joined up with bands like Guns n’ Roses. There'sloads of rock bands coming outright now that are into good quality rock like Zeppelin and AC/DC. Our perspective is different since we came from the English Gothic scene and we're identified

with that so we've probably given the kids a change and a chance fo get into differentforms of music.”

Expectations The Cult's fourth album, Sonic Temple has justbeen released. If'sa vastimprovement on the dull rock basics of Electric:

¢ < It's more mature, we took more time over production and songs.

Electricwas fun for what it was —an attitude record. It was us backin 1986 going, ‘No, we're definitely fucking well not a Gothic band, thank you.” We're not psychedelic, we're not anything you like, we are rock and rollers. \

“We did the ‘Love Removal' video with the fucking wall-to-wall Marshalls to be utterly blatant. Electricis very fresh and v unpretentious sounding — no fricks, nofrills and no bullshit and that's what we needed to do career and

songwriting wise fo clear the decks. And from Electricwe could go to Sonic Temple which harkens back to the textures and moods of the Love album.” S

Sonic Temple hastwo songs— - ‘Sun King’ and ‘Fire Woman' that haul ass with commendable dynamics and guitaring that overcome their obvious influences. And ‘Fire

Woman’ made number one here.

“Thatwas funny especially since we'veneverplayedinNew

Zealand. ltwas our firstever number n W one. ,

Had you heard of New Zealand priorfo that? “Yes, of course —it's off the south-east coast of Australia and it's two separate islands and there are a lot of sheep. I've met the odd New Zealanderin our global travels. You bump into New Zealandersin very odd places— ‘Oh, I'm justtouring the world with a back-pack.’ About six weeks ago | wasin Thailand and | met a few New Zealanders, all of

whom knew the band immediately, whichsurprisedme.” The Cult may be selling platinum quantities but favourable reviews

fromthe English press are hard to come by. ; “Itvaries. We went through a bad period with the Love album when we were dumped on by everbody but the opposite was true in America. Electric predictable got good pressin England because Rick Rubin produced it— he was involvedin the very hip Beastie Boys / Def Jam thing in New York which was seenin London as being very cool. Sonic Temple's got a couple of five-star excellent reviews, a mediocre and a bad review.” ' Whichwasthe bad one2 “One of the big three, Melody Makeror Sounds.” |

OrNMEZ “NMEhave always treated us equally—they've never gone overboard pro or minus. It doesn't matter— they’re not asimportant as they once were.”

Metal or hard rock have never been fashionable in the English b -

“They don'tlike to dig it, but it's the metal papers like Kerrang and Raw that are on the up and Melody Maker, Soundsand NMEare all on this downward spiral. People are getting bored with these eclectic bands who never live uptothe - expectations of the magazine.” Who's Next? . Partofthe mythology of the hard rocker s the strain of life on the road. Play hard, live hard, die young and Hendrix - Joplin truisms romanticised for popular consumption. How do the Cultcope? g “The novelty has worn of. We toured heavily with the Electric

album. This time | don't drink as much as | used to and that tends to help but we've only been on the road about a month so talkto me in a few weeks when we've finished this tour.

“We're just starting and Metallica have been touring for ayear. The singer’s gone deaf but they've sfill got ittogether. You've justgotto learn a little moderation if you're gonna stay the course, if you dontwanna trash andburn.”

People must have pre-conceived ideas asto how you live, caused by the type of music you're playing? - “Yeah, particularly with the phenomenal success of Guns n’ Rosesthere seemstobea

resurgence in the shadowy little bit of drug use and lots of Jack Daniels and being the elegant wasted rock stara la Keith Richards. The only thing Ifind disturbing about that s that, okay, Gunsn’ Roses are genuinely like that, butif kids take that as a role model thenthey're fryingto cramin 10to 15 years of living into a couple, and that ifthey’re in a group they've gotta live

like that. “Ifthe drugs and things happen, they just happen, you don't sit down and calculate it. Nobody remembers Keith Richards as a goofy guy with big ears playing guitarin 1965 wearing a suit. They remember Keith asthe guy in the early 70s falling out ofthings with the drug busts because thatwas the most controversial and flamboyant period of the Stones. “We've toured with Guns n’ Roses andthat's the way they are.” So The Cultkeep themselves clean? “Well, as we speak here today, last nightthere was a litle damage done tothe hotel and, I'm not making it up, there was a room trashed. Three floors of the hotel were evacuated when afire alarm went out, the police were called and the fire brigade were here. It still goes on, it happens with all the bands on all tours. | don’tknow who the guilty parties were but | think it was one member of Metallica and a couple of members of The Cult. It happens, but alittle less frequently than it used fo.” While other members are wrecking hotels, what do you listen to¢ What tapes do you carryin your travel bag? “It'sright here. One of my roadies built me aflight case which has gota stereo and a CD. What can | see from here, I'm lying on me bed and looking ... Iggy’s Raw Power, Alex

Harvey Live, Bad Company's first album, Nazareth's Greatest Hits, Prince’s Sign Of The Times, three

Mottthe Hooples, Pink Floyd and Led Zep'sfirstalbum.” . What about new bands? “|like Badlands, formed by Jake E Lee who used o be in Ozzie's band. | like the new Blue Murder album — I'm a big admirer.of John Sykes' guitar playing. | like a band called the geo Hags and the Circus of Power a it.” What band would you like The Cult to be classed alongside? “The Who — probably the greatestrock n’roll bandin the world. But not in their mod period.” Around the time of Live At Leeds and Who's Nex# “Yeah, they're the albums I've got, funnily enough. | had them when was 14 and | bought them again. “We're touring as a four-piece again— guitar, bass, drums and singing, and | often say to people that the Who and Led Zep made plenty of noise with that lineup. You don't need two guitar players. On stage we don'ttry to re-create the album andin fact the live performance is truerto the original naked forms of the songs than the album versions. “Butwe want to keep up that tradition of all those bands like the Who coming out of Britain. Guns n’ Roses are American. | feel good that we're the one band out of England right now who're young enoughiin the market place to hold the tradition ofthe Who. There's Def Leppard, U2 and us— and we're the new kids on the block.”

“The early 80s was a bit of avacuum, like ‘What do we do after punk? Wear big red glasses and be the Buggles or be Howard Jones? How can akid who's 16 relate to some middle-aged man with his art-school-ness?”

“Ifeel good that we're the one band out of England rightnowwho are young enough in the market place to hold the tradition of the Who.” :

“If the drugs and things happen, they justhappen. Nobody remembers Keith Richards as a goofy guy with big ears playing guitar in 1965 wearing a suit. They remember Keith as the guy in the early 70s falling out of things with the drug busts, because that was the Stones’ most flamboyant period.” Ty

GEORGEKAY