“IT WAS TORTUOUS TO MAKE, BUT NONE OF OUR ALBUMS HAVE FELT EASY, FOR ONE REASON OR ANOTHER”
BILLY DUFFEY THE CULT
IT WAS 1984 when Billy Duffy defined his own idea of the indie guitar hero on the Cult’s debut album, Dreamtime. Playing a Gretsch White Falcon through a Roland JC-120, with a judicious use of delay and chorus, Duffy created epic soundscapes. It was but a prelude to the group’s next album, their 1985 commercial breakthrough, Love, where Duffy eschewed traditional blues-rock stylings for an approach that combined open drone strings and densely layered guitars. His sweeping aural pictures were the perfect backdrop for singer Ian Astbury’s thoughtful lyrical approach.
The intervening years have seen the Cult adopt more of a hard rock approach, but for those who love the sound of those first two albums, there is good news. The Cult’s latest record, Under the Midnight Sun, finds them returning to the approach that was their signature in those early years. “We definitely wanted to recapture some of that older stuff that had been left behind, and explore it to see if we could get back into that space,” Duffy tells Guitar Player. “Way back then, when we were making our first records, all we wanted to do was sound like a rock band.”
Admittedly, the Cult threw fans a left curve with 1987’s , on which they adopted a reductive, riff-based approach. Rick Rubin’s bone-dry production only served to enhance the grinding, direct attack that the band adopted, with Duffy’s classic, nailed its colors firmly to the old-school rock and roll mast with its cover shot of Duffy about to crash out a power chord.
