It would be easy for Ian Astbury, who grew up in Hamilton, and his fellow Cult band members to take the nostalgia route and hit the casino circuit. But the easy route has never been their thing. Sure, the band will trot out their huge hits from their ’80s heyday, but they also continue to turn out new albums of solid original rock tunes. We chat with Ian Astbury ahead of their stop at the Danforth Music Hall on Dec. 7 as part of the Electric 13 tour, in part a celebration of their groundbreaking 1987 album.
How is the tour going so far?
It’s going. We’re about 58 dates in. The real impetus, between albums, is that we’ve just got to maintain motion with this band. As soon as we stop, the energy just dissipates.
So you’ll be concentrating on songs from the Electric 13 album?
The first set is Electric, the second will be songs from Choice of Weapon through to Death Cult; in between sets will be a short film, Elemental Light, by Kostas Seremetis. It’s a stop-gap between two sets. After Electric, we clear the energy, and it is like the very beginning of the evening again.
Tell me about what made Electric unique.
Before we even called it Electric, we were at a club in Toronto where Chris Sheppard was DJ. He was playing “Cookie Puss” by the Beastie Boys; it was late 1985 in Toronto. And I was like, “What is that music you’re playing?” I had to find out everything about them and that led me to Rick Rubin.… This was instant, vital. It punched me in the gut. It was primal, sexual. And I said, “We should be produced like this.”
So you went to New York with Def Jam and remade the record?
We went for six weeks. We re-recorded it. When we got back and told the record company, jaws hit the floor. “You've done what?” Nothing else sounded like it. It split our fans in half.… We were engaged in a primal art form, post-modernist urban decay.
How did NYC impact the band's direction?
NYC was like Mecca. We went to the Algonquin Hotel, same as James Dean, stood on 6th Avenue for the first time smoking Marlboro cigarettes, drinking cans of Budweiser. In my mind, it was Taxi Driver: that grit and immediacy, the Dolls, Velvet Underground, Stones, all of that. It was New York in its most violent, volatile and dangerous state. God, it was so exciting in that city.
What keeps you motivated to make new music and keep you from becoming a nostalgia act?
We travel so much, see new things, film, art, just walking down the streets of Paris recently, looking at kids and the way they dress, the music coming out of their cars a mix of Japanese, American and French — 21st century multiculturalism at its highest point.
What are you listening to these days?
I have over 2,000 pieces of vinyl, I usually play music in our house on turntable. The new Arcade Fire on vinyl, I love it. I mean, they do that and make it look so easy. But it isn't easy to constantly come up with really good work. You know what? They threw down. "Reflektor" is my fave track right now. And that Bowie sample? Icing on the cake — brilliant.
What's the first album you bought as a kid?
I know the first single was "Life On Mars" by David Bowie. The first album was a Bowie record too, might have been Ziggy Stardust. I think I bought it at Sam the Record Man.
The Cult plays the Danforth Music Hall, Dec. 7, www.thedanforth.com.
