The Cult have been onstage for half an hour now. Worcester Centrum is on its feet, and the rock ’n’ roll roar gets increasingly louder after each successive salvo from the “Love Removal Machine.” You can feel the heat rising, the limbs twitching, the sweat pouring and the smiles spreading.

Ian Astbury tosses back his black mane, swaggers to the front, stands with black-leather legs well spread, and asks a question:

“How many of you own Cult albums?”

Several hundred voices answer to the affirmative.

He then asks: “How many of you are going to buy a Cult album?”

Several thousand voices roar in ecstatic affirmation.

“Good, then there’s hope for rock ’n’ roll in the future.”

He took the words right out of my mouth.

Worcester, Massachusetts, is just another night in the Cults’ 1987 campaign for total rock ’n’ roll domination of the States (notice how I’m saying “rock ’n’ roll” a lot—better get used to it!). They might be opening for Billy Idol, but every night literally thousands are converted to their shiny new, stripped-down rock ’n’ roll (heee!) killing machine.

Idol audiences aren’t alone in falling into their raunch hands. Radio and press are reacting with unheard-of enthusiasm and record buyers have snarfed up more copies of Electric in one week, than its predecessor, Love, has done to date.

It’s inevitable and obvious—soon the Cult will not be a very apt name at all for these five English renegade rockers undergoing an astounding regeneration. And, for once, you really can say that rock ’n’ roll saved their souls. Or at least their future.

“Peace is a dirty word” sings Ian Astbury on “Peace Dog.” Sure ’nuff, but let’s face some facts. For the past 10 years rock is the word that’s been the filthiest, most taboo utterance on the planet. Dismissed as the dank domain of dinosaur dullards and swept under the carpet by a flimsy broom of synthesized gloss and grey “pop” elitism. The flag was still flown by the faithful and, out of view, there was a vast army playing air guitar in their bedrooms. For many, it was the music you wanted to like but couldn’t publicly endorse without being deemed square or retarded.

But in the last couple of years, there’s been a noticible swing, as metal has come above ground and a huge movement—fronted by the rampant likes of Motorhead, Metallica and Slayer—has become impossible to ignore. Then along came Rick Rubin and his Def Jam label. Rubin was a terminal metal maniac crazed on AC/DC and Aerosmith, but he made his name producing the hardest hip-hop to ever boom out of a beatbox— mainly by infecting it with murderous slabs of hard rock.

Rubin—at the time a student at NYU— literally struck gold when he spiked the raucous rap vandalism of the Beastie Boys (for whom he first deejayed as DJ Double R) with slaveringly AC/DC raunchchords and blew the charts apart by letting mega-rappers Run-DMC loose on Aerosmith’s ’70s classic, “Walk This Way.” He then proved his true metal by making Slayer’s Reign In Blood, the most extreme black thrash album to date.

These ground-breaking antics didn’t go unnoticed by England’s Cult, who, 18 months ago, were suffering something of an identity crisis. They’d started life in 1982 as the Southern Death Cult, rode the wave of so-called “Positive Punk,” which mutated into the rather silly “Gothic” movement. The SDC merged Red Indian visuals and imagery with spunky-punky music and caused quite a dent with “Fatman,” their first 45. In ’83, the group dissolved and singer Ian Astbury re-emerged with a new lineup and attitude. From Theatre Of Hate came guitarist Billy Duffy, while defunct doom-rockers Ritual gave them bassist Jamie Stewart and drummer Ray Mondo, later exchanged for another TOH exile, Nigel Preston.

In early 1984, the new lineup pruned its name to the Cult and released their last indie records single, “Spiritwalker,” and album, Dreamtime. There was now a sparkling presence which transcended the the gloom of the Gothic movement, but they still had a long way to go.

By 1985, the Cult were well on that road. As Ian’s hair grew longer, the music got stronger, and by the “She Sells Sanctuary” single and Love album, they were embracing late ’60s and early ’70s elements with kaftan-covered arms. “Bone Bag” was like an epic early-’70s Zepbailad—and dynamically powerful live. There were beads everywhere, while the ghosts of Hendrix and Joplin beamed down. 1986 saw Les Warner take over on drums as the group toured extensivelygetting bigger and steadily harder. It was like they had to go through their own 1967 of hippy-dippy splashing about caterpillarfashion before they could sprout butterfly wings and realize the True Path. The Cult’s obsessions now looked way beyond the possessive limitations of their identified style.

“Bad fun sister, time to go, life’s too short, on with the show. ”

—“Bad Fun”

Last year in Canada, a deejay passed Ian and Billy a tape of the Beastie Boys’ “Rock Hard,” a cranium-pummelling rant which rotated blatantly and brilliantly around the crunching riff of AC/DC’s “Back In Black.” This was it! Someone had dropped the bomb for a Phoenix to nest in the ashes.

The next Cult album, they decided, would be a rock album.

With Brit-pop softening into a sanitary towel of squeaky clean soppiness, there was an increasing groundswell realizing that Led Zeppelin did make an awesome noise. The Cult decided they were the ones to run the gauntlet and put the meat back into music, give it a sex-shot of strutting axe-mania and make the first classic ’80s rock record. Exactly how was to be the problem.

At first, they decided to stick to the tried-and-true recording methods they’d used on Love—whack down the tracks with Steve Brown producing at the Manor Studios in rural England. They recorded the whole lot and got to mixing, but something wasn’t right. “The vibes,” according to Ian, “were wrong.” New rockin’ stuff like “Outlaw” and “Love Removal Machine,” the proposed single, sounded like the flowery Cult of old, drenched in guitars and billowing effects. They needed someone like Rubin to inject the balls he’d booted into the Beastie-buttocks.

“Mayhem children take no lip, Rev your engine from the hip”

—“Bad Fun”

Halloween, ’86, and I’m at New York’s Palladium to witness the U.S. launching of Sigue Sigue Sputnik. I spy the familiar figure of Rick Rubin standing in the corner, deep in conversation with new soulmate Ian Astbury.

Rick ambles over and says—“I might be working with the Cult.. .gonna hear the new stuff tomorrow. What do you think of them?”

I tell him: good attitude and songs but never properly realized on record. They could be a great rock band, but they need their spark fired rather than dulled (or words to that effect).

Rubin smiles.

Next day: Rick, Ian and Billy meet, hit it off and—in retrospect—I now realize I witnessed a piece of rock ’n’ roll history that night.

Originally, Rick was just gonna remix “Love Removal Machine” with the group in New York. Two months after the Palladium, I bump into Ian Astbury on the street near Electric Lady studios, the spiritual studio pet of Jimi Hendrix. He tells me that not only have they remixed the single, they’ve re-recorded it! Not only have they remixed a couple more tracks, they’ve re-recorded them! In fact, they’re re-recording the whole bleedin’ album! Having seen the light at the end of the tunnel after Love, the group decided to go the whole way, bugger the cost! They had to make the monster rock album. It could be nothing else. Otherwise they’d never be able to live with themselves and the knowledge of what could have been.

Working 18 hours a day in Electric Lady—even Christmas Day—the electric dream took shape, a streamlined machine of monolithic power. When we stroll in one evening halfway through the session, there’s a liquid buzz darting through the air.

A few weeks later, the recording finished, the Cult are still about town smiling the smiles of men with big guns up their sleeves. They’re just wondering a bit what their old fans are going to make of it. “We hope they like it,” says Billy. “But it’s what we’re doing now—and we think it’s great!”

Rick Rubin feels that Electric is a natural successor to Back In Black, Toys In The Attic and Led Zeppelin IV—“ I wanted Electric to be a classic rock album for the ’80s,” he says. His technique involved stripping the Cult sound down to its basic ingredients—and no effects. They just needed some sanding down and shining up to make that killer album. Rick felt so strongly about this that he turned down working on Mick (“I need some street cred”) Jagger’s second solo album to do Electric.

Until now, the Cult have enjoyed a reasonable following in the U.S.A. They sold about 200,000 copies of Love. Electric did that in its first week. It was obvious to both the Cult organization and Sire Records that the new album had the potential to bust the country wide open. They could’ve done another club tour and come out the other end as... a cult. They needed to hit the giant rock audiences in places like the Midwest, who, whether they knew it or not, were crying out for Electric.

When Billy idol asked them to support him on his first tour in three years, they jumped. It would be perfect! Idol’s audience is mostly teenage girls and rock ’n’ roll boys—the same audience that elevated Led Zeppelin to the heights back in the ’70s.

Billy Idol’s Whiplash Smile tour was to last over two months. Playing to audiences of up to 15,000 every night. It turned out to be the best move the Cult ever made.

As Billy Duffy explains: “No matter how loyal the fans are—and they’re a pretty loyal bunch—to be realistic, we’ve got to get across to bulk America. We just had to make a decision that we wanted more exposure and this is why we’ve done it. We thought ‘Hold on, we need to get across to more people quickly to give the necessary impetus to what the band’s doing’—and this was a good way of doing it. They come along to see Billy Idol, ostensibly, but they see us too. After tonight, though I don’t know...”

“Tonight” being Duffy’s reference to the second gig I saw the Cult play in Worcester, Massachusetts—about an hour’s drive from Boston. The Cult were about a week into the tour when I hitched up with them for the two days. Despite the pitfalls of being the lowly support band—waiting hours to find there’s no time for soundcheck and having to cut their set in half—they were obviously more than asserting themselves. An encore every night, great press, much radio play and the entire audience seated in the hall before they’d finished their second song.

Sitting on the shuttle plane to Boston, Sire’s on-the-road force (Karen Moss and Mary Hyde) fill me in on the Cult campaign and the story so far. Seems that the gigs are killers, the media is falling over itself to feature the boys, and the record is flying out of the stores. “They’re this far from cracking the States in a very big way,” says Mary.

Arriving at the massive Centrum arena, I stroll into the backstage area and bump straight into Billy Idol!

Although we did a lengthy phone interview early last year, I haven’t seen him in the flesh for more like six, so it’s something of a reunion. I dunno, all those stories about superstar attitudes and stuff, but he still seems to be the same amiable chap I used to see down at the Roxy 10 years ago, though now surrounded by minions and management and cocooned from the crowds. I like the fact that Idol is obviously still a fan. When the Cult charge through their one-song soundcheck, he’s out there with girlfriend Perri, clapping and dancing, obviously charged by the rock action ripping from the stage.

I enter the Cult’s dressing room and say hello to Billy Duffy—one of the nicest chaps in rock ’n’ roll. Billy’s the quietly staunch musical backbone of the band: articulate, dry-humored and totally committed to furthering the Cult.

Bassist-turned-guitarist Jamie Stewart ambles in (another highly likable chap, I’ve never seen him pissed off). Jamie’s switching to rhythm guitar has given Duffy more space to carve those red-hot solos from his big white Gretsch.. .and also made room for guest bass-player Haggis, aka The Kid. Haggis was Kid Chaos in Zodiac Mindwarp’s Love Reaction but up and left to the sound of frying brain-cells after hanging with the Cult during the Electric sessions in New York. He’s the proverbial life and (ass) soul of the party, donning cigarette-deformed facemasks, hurtling ’round on a skateboard, hurling plastic dog turds and—at one pointtottering into the Cult’s backstage reception for local deejays on a pair of homemade Steve Stevens-style high-heels: paper cups tapped to the soles of his sneakers. “Hi! I’m Steve!” he beams to the assembled media with manic glee.

Drummer Les Warner strolls in to get changed. Ian and Billy hail from the North of England and carry suitable accents. Les is a Londoner and tells me he’s been drunk after every show of the tour so far, but has now decided he’ll knock this rock ’n’ roll behavior on the head. He is wrong.

Lastly, Ian Astbury bowls in on his new skateboard, grinning wildly. Onstage he might come across like the ultimate Rock God, but otherwise, Ian is a regular guy. He’s committed to the Cult to the point of passion, though normally pretty quiet with a penchant for a psychedelic turn of the phrase. In conversations with Ian, things are beautiful or groovy and heads explode.

The Cult have to be onstage early— everything spot-on, timewise. I leave them in the hands of Ian’s girlfriend, Renee, who’s on the tour as their makeup artist. Leather trousers and cut-offs are being eased on and there’s electricity in the air...

A roar goes up as the lights go down. It’s amazing: this place knows the Cult and the audience stands and claps as they steam into “Wild Flower,” the strident lurch which also kicks off the album. The set, truncated by support restrictions, consists of a weighty clutch of Electric music for the mind and body. “Peace Dog,” “L’il Devil,” “Outlaw,” “Electric Organ” and “Memphis Hip Shake” steamroll the hordes into an increasingly ecstatic reaction.

There are just two nods to the old days: “Rain” and a storming “She Sells Sanctuary.” And they’re great. Compared to this onslaught, the old Cult seems like a different group. Dividing the formidable wall of Marshall amps, Les impersonates a Bonham-beatbox about to avalanche. Jamie’s stage-left, hacking out pure grime while indulging in a little formation dancing with Haggis, who never budges from his spot by the amps and rarely looks up. Stage right is Billy, now the classic guitar hero, ducking, lurching and wrestling a string of killer solos—the perfect man in the middle.

Tonight, Ian wears his mutated Davy Crockett hat. His movements meld Jagger, Plant and Paul Rodgers into a rubberlegged frenzy of hair flying. He struts and preens and his announcements taunt and tease, half-sung to keep the pressure boiling. And as I watch, one thought keeps flashing in giant neon brain letters: these guys are gonna be huge.

“It was hard coming from the British tour,” says Billy Duffy—“We had about five days between Brixton Academy in London and the first gig on this tour. You do an hour and three-quarters when you’re the headline act; you get all the special effects. So it’s hard to come in and do an opening call-it-what-you-will spot. It’s a hard mental adjustment. Perhaps we’ve been spoiled. It’s probably a good exercise for the band.

“We’re learning a few tricks of the trade. We’re avid watchers and learners. We’re flexible enough to be able to see how things are done differently. There’s not a point in doing a very coy Englishtype thing and going ‘Oh well, we’re only an opening act, therefore we’re gonna just stand there and be miserable.’ It’s like ‘Have as much fun as you can with it,’ which is the whole new thing with the record and everything..”

There seems to be a new spark firing through the Cult’s cylinders these days. Electric chemistry.

“Yes, it’s very much like finding your feet and thinking ‘Yeah, actually we’re quite good at this,’ and not having to worry about much about any outside pressure to please fans or whatever.

“We’re very much doing it for its own sake. There’s a very boring Wayne Hussey saying: ‘Music for music’s sake.’ It’s like we’re doing it because we feel it’s really good and, luckily, people are picking up on it.”

Before teaming up with Rick Rubin, the Cult always seemed to have latent rock power coursing through their veins—but it was as if they were holding it back. Consequently, their direction seemed somewhat muddled at times. Now, it’s all systems go and it looks very much like Led Zep’s long vacant boogie shoes are being assertively filled.

“Yeah, people were always hinting: ‘Oh, yeah, you could be a really good rock band,” says Billy. “We thought, ‘Well, it’s about time we made a really good rock record.’ It’s the ultimate thing. If you get it on record, then that’s the point of it. It’s no good talking a great rock ’n’ roll career. You’ve gotta do it and it took getting involved with Rick Rubin to finally put it into focus.

“I think the whole thing of finding Rick, who’s the same age as us essentially, is you don’t have to really try very hard because he knows what was good about Led Zeppelin records back then. You don’t have to explain: ‘We don’t like it because they’ve got long hair or we don’t like it because everybody disliked them.’ We liked them because they made purely good records. There was a lot of common ground, so basically we could get on with creating good records. And there’s a lot of understanding. You were there— you saw a bit of what was going on. It was a very friendly, constructive sort of thing. We didn’t have to explain a lot and that was half the key to it. Before he worked with us, I think he realized we had something to offer. He said it in interviews. He just heard the stuff and thought These are good songs.’ Once we established we were both talking about the same thing, we were laughing.”

It seems that with Electric, Rick made his perfect record. (I recall the Def Jam launch party in London last year—Rick insisted I bring along my AC/DC records for him to spin—much to the horror of the trendy assembled hip-hoppers waiting for rap.)

Ian and Billy are pleased to agree. “Yeah,” says Billy. “I think he was looking because half the reason the public liked the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC was the rock stuff, that fusion. That breaks down the barriers. I don’t think those bands would have got that success if that element had been taken away and everything else had stayed the same. I think he just wanted something total with a ‘real band.’ ”

Ian Astbury speaks quietly but forcefully from under his big skull-fur hat: “We never felt cap-in-hand about this record. With all our others, we kind of felt we were sorry for the bits where it’s not and happy for the bits where it is. Now we keep looking at each other and going, ‘We really are fortunate, we’re not shitty, y’know?’ It was just coming to terms with the fact that we were being influenced by electric blues and the fact that it was pre-punk music. It’s kind of taboo and we were going ‘Why’s it taboo?’ Because somebody said so?

“What’s happened since punk? In the last few years, the only major, major things that have happened have been probably Prince, Madonna and maybe Springsteen. Certainly, in terms of innovation, Prince is probably the only thing that’s happened. At least he’s tried to fuse black music and rock music together, which is kind of intriguing. Everything else has been kind of a dishonest copy of something else. We like Billy Idol because in a way, he’s like an individual who came through the whole scene.”

I mention the crowd reaction to the Cult, which seems to indicate that hugeness is just a kiss away—kids wandering in to catch the Limey support band, and, after half a song, turning to their companion and uttering surprised words to the effect of “Wow, this group kicks ass!”

“It’s kind of scary in a way,” says Ian. “Today we did a couple of interviews and the feedback from the radio stations is ridiculous. And the reviews in the papers. . .it’s kind of weird.”

When the Cult were getting their bad press in the U.K. at the time of Love, the common jibe was that they’d gone hippie (easy, cheap shot what with the hair and occasional string of beads in view). Whatever that means, there is some kind of parallel here with the way a lot of ’67 psychedelic groups charged through the acid summer with innocent abandon but hardened up as the decade went on— until by ‘69 groups like Zep and Free were emerging as tough-assed rockers (Beatles and Stones too, come to think of it). I see this with the Cult and the way the flowerly layers of Love peeled away to reveal the rockin’ bones of Electric.

I put this to the chaps and Ian reflects: “The psychedelic period was a real period when everyone kind of looked at themselves and realized what height they were on—like the Stones. And they looked down and kind of freaked out a bit and their heads exploded. The scene got very weird and then out of that explosion, the focus became Zeppelin, Purple, Sabbath ... even Bowie came out of that scene.”

Billy: “I can read about what Zeppelin were like when they started, especially in America. They were like the band who all the young kids liked to see. No serious fans like Led Zeppelin, just hundreds of thousands of youngsters. I think a lot of people in punk rock ignored that aspect of it, ignored the fact that they refused to put out 45s.”

To the emerging punks spitting at rock’s bloated carcass (or more like blatantly dismissing any group that’d gone before, with the possible exception of Alice and the Stooges), Zeppelin epitomized the rich dinosaur rock star. Maybe by ’77, they had lost the stunning creativity and relentless force of earlier albums, but it was to be nearly a decade before a new generation discovered that they were, in fact, a hotshit band. And the new audience didn’t have to live by punk’s old, and equally blinkered, rulebook. Play “Black Dog” loud now and it towers over most of today’s wimpy radio-fodder.

Ian: “By ’77, Zeppelin were pretty unavailable. Then again, there’d been eight years of Led Zeppelin and they’d put out some damn good records. Nothing lasts forever. That was then, this is now.”

Billy: “But that’s the real key to it. It’s like what you were saying about 1967; everyone went ‘woooaarghl’ and it was a real explosion. Nobody really put two and two together. It was just ‘poof!’ A couple of years later, people started honing it down into specific areas...”

Ian: “When music first started, it was all just music. And then there were so many different aspects of it. People just took off—there was heavy rock, psychedelic rock, jazz-rock, R&B, blah blah blah. Because of the ’60s it was kind of like an ‘us and them’ kind of thing. In the ’70s, it was like mod, punk, skinhead. Now I guess it’s back to us and them again.”

Billy: “It’s just anybody relatively young with a very good similar attitude. This is why we often mention bands like Anthrax and Metallica particularly—they’re the same age as us. Regardless of the way the music ends up or what they do, we like it—and we know they like our stuff. There’s a certain common understanding. Like we were saying about Rick. You just know you don’t have to qualify yourself. Def Jam is the lifeblood of a lot of things. It’s successful. Look at the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC—millions and millions of records.”

Ian: “It’s the first serious young record company for maybe 15 years.”

Billy: "We feel like the English carriers out there doing our own version. Flying the flag in our own way.”

Ian: “We’re definitely an element of it.”

Talking of Led Zeppelin and Rick, I have to mention the awesome “Memphis Hip Shake.” The track is like a controlled four-minute explosion on vinyl and the most exciting indication of where all this can lead. I gibber on in this fashion for several hours and... Ian?

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

“You know, when some guys get to do some serious blues-rock...”

Billy: “It was so weird. It was like half of a song called ‘Go Go Go’ and it had a chorus. Rick just said ‘Well, you don’t need a chorus, it’s from a different song. Slow it down, expand it out and dig in there and get into that bit. There’s enough in there to make a great rock track.’ That was his input to that song. I really enjoyed doing it. I really like that one.”

Ian: “I think it’s kind of sexy as well. Sensual.”

The opener—“Wild Flower,” with its razor-slash rhythm assault (not fast, just deadly)—is pure Rubin-economy as well. As Ian told Melody Maker: "Rick came along, scraped all the crap off the top and found the shining, beautiful bits underneath.”

But you obviously feel very comfortable playing this stuff, like you’ve been let out of a cage and can finally get down to sheer hell-for-leather fun.

They agree. Ian: “The hardest thing is going onstage and realizing that you gotta educate. Not only just playing places but you’ve got to educate them as well, because nobody else is going out and doing it. We were the first ones out there with a record and you’ve gotta tell these people: ‘It’s fine, do what you wanna do, relax, it’s fine.’ ”

Billy: “Well, anyway, we have a lot more fun with it now. I think it was important, because I don’t think we could’ve gone on much more making records like Love, however much I like it. It’s not rubbish, it’s a good record. It’s just we finally made a record that’s close to being as good as we are.”

Ian: “Love was like trying to run before we could even walk. The Electric album was going right outside of ourselves, when we really took a good look at it and thought ‘What haven’t we done?’ We haven’t made a basic record.’ ”

Billy: “We’re not trying to do ballads or seriously affected stuff. We hadn’t even made a ‘basic record.’ A stripped-down naked record. So we just said, ‘Fuck it, let’s do it!’ The attitude is very much ‘give people less,’ but you’ve actually giving them more.”

Ian: “It’s always been a test. As soon as somebody comes out with something new-^-not brand new, but an important concept—there’s always 20 people waiting in the wings who do zero work, and they’re the people that commercialize it and take it all. If any of those people come near us, I’m gonna shoot them!”

What the Cult have done is so simple and obvious that it hurts—but the pain is a sweet feeling buried for years under music’s eternal barricades of snobbery and categorization. The Cult are blowing them all away. As I said, they are gonna be huge.

Free your mind and your ass will follow, someone once said. Welcome to the electric church.

Or you can just boogie. ©