The Cult behind the music documentary
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Transcript
00:00They were a band built on crackling tunes during outrageous times.
00:09Alcohol, condoms, kiwi jelly, it was like non-stop, completely non-stop.
00:20They were a party band, they liked a good time all the time.
00:29The cult won legions of followers with the crunching chords of guitarist Billy Duffy
00:35and the mystical allure of frontman Ian Askberry.
00:45I'm gobbing off about poets and Native Americans and shamanism.
00:51He's got bells on his feet with moccasins and we're like, who's this guy?
00:59In the late 80s the cult became arena gods, only to be threatened by a schism from within.
01:07It was very much like, we need to get the band bigger, and Ian wasn't so comfortable with that.
01:12I'm 30 pounds overweight, I'm miserable, I've gone so far from the person I thought I was.
01:17I'm not the product of fun, I'm not the chosen one.
01:24The more devotees the cult received at their sonic temple, the unhappier their lead singer got.
01:30I was becoming totally unmanageable, I mean I definitely got lost in the whole circus.
01:35I just think something inside him snapped.
01:38He came in like a tornado.
01:43Everything was being broken, pictures off the wall.
01:48Now enter a world of musical worship and woe.
02:00Everyone was looking at me going like, the nutter has finally gone over the top.
02:06The cult, the story behind the music.
02:37More than two decades after their formation, the cult's rock and roll sermons are as powerful as ever.
02:47One, two, three.
02:52Probably the cult was one of the last rock and roll bands that went out and had real fun on the road.
02:57And that's something that will never leave them.
03:04As long as a band is creating good music and putting on a good live show, then they're happy.
03:10It's the way that you feel.
03:13It's the truth in your eyes.
03:16The energy that sustains the cult lies in the unusual bond between two very different men.
03:22Frontman Ian Asbury and guitarist Billy Duffy.
03:28I thought we complemented each other well. I thought we were two halves of Ever Whole.
03:33Billy's just a straight up rock and roll guy. He likes to play his guitar and get laid.
03:41Ian's kind of off in his own world. I consider him the mystery man.
03:47I think that balance between the mystical interest and the pragmatic, rocking powerhouse is a really great combination.
03:59I'll beat you if I try.
04:03Show me the truth, yeah.
04:07With his talent for tune-making, Billy supplies the band's infectious licks,
04:11leaving Ian to bring a cryptic air to the cult's lyrics and on-stage look.
04:16More interested in life's mysteries than in making money, Ian may be music's most misunderstood frontman.
04:22I believe in liberation. Why don't you liberate me?
04:27There's always a mystique about him. Ian always had this aura that just made him mysterious.
04:32His mystique always fueled the cult.
04:34I always wanted to find out what the truth was.
04:36Because I didn't believe the way that I'd been brought up that that was the truth.
04:39I just felt there was another way to live.
04:46Ian Asbury was born in May of 1962 into a working class family in Merseyside, England.
04:52His father, Robert, was a merchant seaman who hit hard times soon after Ian was born.
04:57Originally, we had a quite nice little house, but my father's business went bust.
05:01Unemployment came up in the early 70s in Britain. It was pretty heavy.
05:05So the family was quite modest.
05:13For most of Ian's childhood, Robert Asbury kept the family on the move in search of work.
05:18One of the few constants in Ian's life was the rigid discipline of the schools he attended.
05:23You used to get hit. I got belted. I got caned in school. Corporal punishment.
05:28We were bullied and terrorized because we constantly moved to what was like the new kids at school.
05:36By the time he was eight, Ian burned with resentment against authority
05:40and the hardships he and his family suffered every day.
05:43I didn't believe what was being taught at school.
05:46I didn't believe that myself and my family should be subjected to what we were subjected to
05:51because of social status.
05:58Ian didn't find a place he felt he fit in until his family moved to Ontario, Canada in the fall of 73.
06:04There, Ian met two Native American kids belonging to the Six Nations tribe.
06:10Invited to their reservation, Ian became fascinated with Native American culture and mythology.
06:16They accepted me immediately, and I felt extremely accepted.
06:19So my love affair began with those people.
06:21It's an intuitive spiritual thing, something of a warrior spirit, something brave and new.
06:26And I think that's why Ian adopted it the way that he did,
06:29why he felt so attached to it the way that he did.
06:32From then on, Ian identified himself with outsiders.
06:35So in the summer of 1977, when punk rock seized control of the music scene back in England,
06:41he quickly took notice.
06:51When the Sex Pistols album came out, Never Mind the Bogs,
06:53he would have been about 15 at the time, and he actually asked for that as a Christmas present.
07:02And I think that made a real big difference to him.
07:11The Pistols changed my life, because that band spoke what was in my heart.
07:15And when I heard the Sex Pistols for the first time, that was it.
07:19I was like, I'm now a punk rocker, straight away, back in 77.
07:24At the age of 16, Ian quit school and moved back to England alone,
07:28scraping together a living with occasional odd jobs.
07:31Crashing in abandoned buildings with other young punk followers,
07:34he spent most of his time following hardcore bands.
07:37It's basically, if you're a freak or you're an outsider, you're accepted.
07:41I was like Buzz against the world, and it was just this incredible power.
07:44And it's this sentiment that was all around me, all the kids were feeling it,
07:47all the working class kids were feeling it.
07:50In August of 81, a band called Violation was auditioning new lead singers
07:54and asked Ian to try out.
07:56It was a moment that would change Ian's life.
07:59I obviously had a lot of anger inside of me.
08:01There was a lot in me.
08:02So when I hit that stage, it was an explosion.
08:04I just went nuts. I went insane.
08:06And all of a sudden, I was like, I can't do this.
08:08I can't do this. I can't do this.
08:10I can't do this. I can't do this.
08:12I can't do this. I can't do this.
08:14I can't do this. I can't do this.
08:16When I hit that stage, it was an explosion.
08:17I just went nuts. I went insane.
08:19And all that energy, all that stuff that was in me as I was growing up
08:22all came out in one thing.
08:28I can remember standing off to the side of the stage.
08:31Ian jumped off the stage, grabbed the chair,
08:34hit a guy around his head,
08:36and got back on stage and finished the gig.
08:39And I was like, this guy's a lunatic.
08:41She glances at her reflection
08:45Ian quickly took control of the group,
08:47renaming it Southern Death Cult
08:49and hitting the stage dressed in Native American garb.
08:52It was a look that set him apart from the very beginning.
08:59The fashion in England at that time
09:01was kind of like a pseudo-rockabilly look
09:04with bleached hair and dyed black hair
09:07and, you know, some Gothic stuff.
09:09And Ian just turned up looking like an American Indian
09:12with, like, pom-poms in his hair and the side of it shaved
09:15and, you know, he'd have his nuts hanging out of his trousers.
09:24And everybody basically knew that Ian was going to be
09:27a huge star if he wanted to be.
09:29People would meet Ian and then stop working
09:32and just follow him around.
09:34He'd just got that aura where people would just go,
09:38Oh, I love this band, I love Ian.
09:41I just want to follow him everywhere.
09:43And they did.
09:47By 1982, Southern Death Cult had gained
09:50a zealous following on the punk scene.
09:52That spring, they toured with another popular punk band
09:55called Theatre of Hate,
09:57quickly making an indelible impression
09:59on Hate guitarist Billy Duffy.
10:01The three guys in the band come on stage
10:03and they look kind of weird
10:05and they have this strange tribal kind of sound.
10:07No singer.
10:09And then suddenly this guy comes, dances across the stage.
10:13He's got bells on his feet and moccasins.
10:15And we were looking at each other,
10:16couldn't believe what we were seeing.
10:18We were like, Who's this guy?
10:21At 22, Billy Duffy was already a seasoned guitarist.
10:25A Manchester native, Duffy had been in punk bands
10:28called The Nosebleeds and Slaughter and the Dogs.
10:31He brought a unique edge to his axe work.
10:34Even then, you could tell it was Billy
10:36when he started to play, he has his own style.
10:39I think all the great guitar players do.
10:45When the tour was over,
10:46Billy and Ian Astbury went their separate ways
10:49and Southern Death Cult continued on a fast track to success.
10:58In November of 82, the group signed with indie label
11:01Beggar's Banquet and put out a hit single called Fat Man.
11:05Impressed, CBS Records offered them
11:07their first major label deal.
11:09In 1983, we were the It band in Britain.
11:14And I was the focal point of the whole thing.
11:17So I started to feel some kind of pressure with that.
11:20I thought, I want to do this for the rest of my life.
11:22I want to make music for the rest of my life.
11:24If I sign that deal and stay with these guys,
11:26it's going to last six months,
11:27which is going to be too much too soon.
11:29And Ian decided he was going to quit the band.
11:31And that was, for me, it was a total shock
11:34and I couldn't understand why he was doing it.
11:35Next thing I know, Ian comes down with a plastic
11:38kind of a grocery bag with a few things in it.
11:41And he goes, I've left Southern Death Cult.
11:43Do you want to form a group?
11:45And that was how, that's how we started.
11:47Ian Astbury had taken the hard road
11:49by starting a new band with Billy Duffy.
11:51It wouldn't be the last time he turned away from success.
12:01Next, the cult's rocky start.
12:05He pinned me up against the wall by my throat and said,
12:07if a mic ever falls on the drum kit again, I'll kill you.
12:12And later, doubts of a feathered front man.
12:15I thought I was so, so bad at what I did.
12:19I wanted to go kill myself.
12:22When Behind the Music continues.
12:35In the spring of 1983, former rivals Ian Astbury
12:38and Billy Duffy formed a new punk group called Death Cult.
12:42But with punk on the wane,
12:43they soon shortened their name to The Cult
12:46and embraced a style more rooted in mainstream rock.
12:53The Cult came at a time where
12:55they were kind of doing their own thing.
12:57There wasn't really a scene there for them to be a part of,
12:59so they kind of created their own.
13:01My vision was to take the band to the next level.
13:03And that was the beginning of, like,
13:04the classic rock tradition of The Cult.
13:10After a flurry of failed lineups,
13:12bassist Jamie Stewart and drummer Nigel Preston
13:15were recruited to round out The Cult's roster.
13:18It was a volatile mix from the start.
13:20I was the shy, retiring, nervous type.
13:24And Nigel was the big party animal,
13:26and let's go out and do some drugs.
13:29He was the only person I ever came close to
13:31smashing a bottle over his head.
13:33He was just always very, very hyper and very intense.
13:37I mean, it's hard to imagine a hyperactive heroin addict,
13:40but he was that, you know?
13:41I can remember one gig in particular at Nottingham Rock City
13:45where a microphone fell onto his drum kit.
13:48And after the show,
13:49he pinned me up against the wall by my throat and said,
13:52if a mic ever falls on the drum kit again, I'll kill you.
13:56Despite the turmoil,
13:57the group quickly signed with Southern Death Cult's old label,
14:00Beggar's Banquet,
14:01and in September 84, The Cult released their debut album.
14:05Dreamtime spawned an underground hit with Spirit Walker,
14:08and Ian continued to put audiences under his spell.
14:14You couldn't go to a cult show
14:15and not have women squealing all around you.
14:18He had a stage presence
14:19that reminded a lot of people of Jim Morrison.
14:23The thing about being on stage is that you've got to make it
14:25so the girls want to f*** you and the guys want to be you.
14:29And half the time, I think the guys want to f*** him as well
14:32because he's so sexy on stage.
14:34But many music critics didn't see Ian as sexy.
14:37They saw him as a fraud,
14:38questioning the sincerity of his mystical bent
14:41and the Native American references in songs like Horse Nation.
14:46I used to get ridiculed, laughed at, whatever.
14:48It was cool, I didn't mind, you know.
14:50It was just, like, sort of straight culture,
14:52not being able to understand it or accept it.
14:54It was quite horrific,
14:55questioning the validity of what he had to say
14:59and whether he was a fake.
15:01I mean, he got quite personal and pretty nasty,
15:04but he was a good guy.
15:05He was a good guy.
15:06He was a good guy.
15:07He was a good guy.
15:08He was a good guy.
15:09He was a good guy.
15:10He was a good guy.
15:11He was a good guy.
15:12He was a good guy.
15:13I mean, he got quite personal and pretty nasty.
15:21By the summer of 85,
15:22critics weren't the only ones questioning the band's direction.
15:26After supporting the cult and its earlier incarnations for years,
15:30Beggar's Banquet was chomping to feast on a major hit.
15:33We were just a regular band on the road,
15:35making records and not having a hit,
15:38and the pressure started going,
15:39like, you guys need to produce.
15:43Up against the wall,
15:44Billy and Ian came up with a signature song for the cult.
15:47Released in the summer of 85,
15:49She Sells Sanctuary was the perfect fusion of music and mysticism.
15:57And it quickly became a radio sensation in the UK.
16:06Sanctuary was massive.
16:08You know, I mean,
16:09even people in this country who don't like rock music,
16:13to hear Sanctuary, they sort of like rock music for four minutes.
16:16It's become sort of a classic, really.
16:25Flush with success,
16:26the band quickly released their second album, Love.
16:30Rising to number four on the British charts in the fall of 85,
16:33the record greatly expanded the cult's congregation.
16:37We were selling out every gig we did in England.
16:39It was one of my happiest times of my life,
16:41was doing the tour that we did on the Love album.
16:44We were very much all kind of one gang together,
16:47you know, at that point.
16:48We had some money in our pockets for the first time in our lives.
16:51We weren't wealthy by modern standards,
16:53but, you know, we could buy our own drinks and stuff,
16:56which was great.
16:57And socks.
17:07The group made plans to record their first major video
17:10for She Sells Sanctuary,
17:12but on the day of the shoot,
17:13mercurial drummer Nigel Preston was nowhere to be found.
17:17Nigel had got himself in some trouble, as Nigel always did,
17:20and was locked up that night.
17:22I think he was driving a car that wasn't technically his,
17:25without a licence, cos he couldn't drive properly,
17:28and he was, you know, it was all bad.
17:30Nigel just didn't show up at all, you know,
17:33and then a phone call happens and, you know,
17:35your drummer's in prison.
17:38On the spur of the moment,
17:40the cult were able to get big country drummer Mark Berzycki
17:43to sit in on the video.
17:45But they knew they faced a tough decision
17:47about Nigel's future with the band.
17:49So when I'd sit down with Nigel and say to him,
17:51we can't have you in the band anymore,
17:52you're too much of a liability cos you're a heroin addict,
17:54that was heartbreaking.
17:56And I was crying, I was crying more than he was,
17:59during the thing.
18:00They were consoling me.
18:03And Nigel's departure wasn't the only thing troubling Ian.
18:07So, ironically, was the cult's growing success.
18:10At that point, that was the first real big,
18:13big-tasted, big celebrity that I'd ever had,
18:16and that kind of freaked me out quite a lot.
18:18Being a big pop star never seemed quite so important to Ian.
18:21That was the vehicle for him to experience other cultures,
18:26make friends in other places.
18:29It was almost like he didn't want to turn
18:31and embrace the success that they were getting.
18:33It was a situation where the success was there,
18:35but he didn't want to have it change him,
18:37and it was almost like he went more and more into a shell
18:40the more popular the band got.
18:51When the cult completed their tour in the winter of 85,
18:54most of the band was in the mood to celebrate,
18:57but not Ian.
18:59Smashed up the hotel room,
19:01and then left a note saying, I'm gone.
19:03Got on a train.
19:04I woke up on a train pulling into London.
19:06I was 250 miles away from the city of Carlisle,
19:08where I'd just been.
19:09I had a knife and a pistol, like a replica pistol,
19:12in a plastic bag with a load of beer.
19:14And I sort of woke up and went, oh.
19:17Oh, dear.
19:24The incident was quickly forgotten,
19:26but as time went on,
19:27Ian's demons would catch up to the cult.
19:37Next, life on the road.
19:40I'm just jumping on the bed and glass everywhere
19:42and just going crazy.
19:43Then he drops his drawers.
19:45He's going to do something nasty.
19:49And later, a prank pushes the cult apart.
19:52To be in the centre of that was pretty painful.
19:54That's pretty vicious and cruel.
19:58When Behind the Music continues.
20:04There's a revolution
20:08There's a revolution, yeah
20:12Two records into their career,
20:14the cult seemed on the verge of stardom,
20:16but they still weren't satisfied with their sound.
20:19So in the summer of 86, the group went to New York,
20:22where producer Rick Rubin
20:23was asked to bring a harder edge to their next album.
20:26He sort of sits there and nods.
20:27He says, so you guys don't want to play
20:29any more of that English music, do you?
20:31I went, so you want to rock, right?
20:33I went, can you show us how to do it?
20:35He went, like, follow me.
20:43So he kind of helped to liberate where we wanted to go.
20:46It was really quite a radical departure from the Love album.
20:49You know, we went very rock.
20:51We wanted to make, like, a really bold statement.
20:54Released in April 87,
20:55Electric sent a jolt through the music scene.
21:14With a top 20 hit in Love Removal Machine,
21:17the platinum album gave the cult a new reputation
21:20as heavy metal heroes.
21:26This was the album that really made them start
21:29to become a worldwide presence
21:31rather than just, like, a UK phenomenon.
21:34You've got a band that found their sound.
21:42In the fall of 87, the cult began a triumphant world tour,
21:46hitting the road with only one rigid rule.
21:49No drugs.
21:54Alcohol, condoms, kiwi jelly,
21:58everything else but not drugs,
22:01and that was really unusual, and it was great.
22:04The cult may have rejected drugs,
22:06but they had no qualms about drinking,
22:08and the party started as soon as they hit the stage.
22:13I used to put the band's drinks out on stage,
22:15and it was always Bacardi and Coke for Billy
22:18and four bottles of wine for Ian, which he'd do in,
22:20you know, an hour-and-ten-minute set,
22:22he'd do all four bottles of wine.
22:24They were a party band, they liked a good time,
22:27all the time, as they say in Spinal Top.
22:30It was, like, non-stop, completely non-stop.
22:33I think that at that time,
22:34you don't realise that there's a potential for a problem,
22:38and everybody was just having a really good time.
22:43But for Ian Astbury, things weren't always that simple.
22:46During one tour stop in coastal Italy,
22:48his drinking dissolved into a session of self-doubt.
22:53I thought I was so bad at what I did,
22:55I wanted to go kill myself,
22:56so I took all my lyrics I had at the time
22:58and just ripped them all up and just,
23:00that's not good enough.
23:01I had a mad little artistic temper tantrum.
23:03Well, all I remember is the security guy
23:05coming and banging on my door at about 3 o'clock in the morning,
23:08and he says, you've got to come to him, you've got to come.
23:10Ian's trying to kill himself,
23:11he was doing handstands on the balcony of the hotel,
23:14and now he's run off and swam out to sea
23:17with just a pair of cowboy boots on.
23:20He ran out to the ocean and dragged me back,
23:23coaxed me back,
23:24look, I've got something to drink,
23:26come back, OK,
23:28and I'll do it tomorrow.
23:33In the fall of 88, the cult returned to the studio.
23:37Intent on making the group's fourth album a smash,
23:40Billy Duffy insisted on a rigid production schedule
23:43and a slick song list.
23:45I was very much like, we need to get the band bigger
23:48and make it, you know, maybe a bit more commercial,
23:50and Ian wasn't so comfortable with that.
23:52It was becoming everything I didn't want it to be.
23:54You know, it was becoming like a commercially driven entity,
23:57and I just hated being confined and being told
24:00what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.
24:03In the end, Billy got his way,
24:05and Sonic Temple, released in April 89,
24:08quickly enjoyed massive success,
24:10becoming a top ten American smash within weeks.
24:21It was a classic alternative rock album,
24:23almost probably the classic alternative rock album,
24:26the one that really cracked it for them in America.
24:29But not everyone was paying homage to Sonic Temple.
24:32Ian Asbury felt that some of the cuts on the album
24:35were consciously commercial,
24:37and a betrayal of his punk past.
24:41MUSIC PLAYS
24:51I wasn't entirely happy with Sonic Temple, to say the least.
24:54I thought we'd solved that.
24:56I was still trying to retain some element of, I guess, our roots,
24:59you know. That was a very painful record for me to make.
25:02I think Ian felt a little manipulated,
25:04and I think he reacted subsequently on the road
25:08to not baby-taking the best care of himself,
25:11not really fulfilling his potential.
25:13That's when I did get pissed.
25:15MUSIC PLAYS
25:22As the cult hit the road in support of Sonic Temple,
25:25new drummer Matt Sorum witnessed Ian's drinking demons firsthand.
25:31I was told at the beginning of the tour,
25:33when Ian was up late and drinking,
25:35he comes knocking at your door, 2 or 3am, don't answer.
25:39We were all drinking a lot, but Ian was really drinking.
25:42And I'm getting, go away.
25:44Three or four doors, go away, leave us alone.
25:46Go away, go to bed.
25:48Of course, I'm the new guy, I don't want to befriend this dude,
25:51I want to be his buddy. So I let Ian in my room.
25:54When I was told not to!
25:58And he came in like a tornado
26:01and went straight for my furniture, my lamps.
26:05Everything was being broken, pictures off the wall.
26:08So I'm just jumping on the bed, there's glass everywhere,
26:11I'm just going crazy.
26:12Then he drops his drawers.
26:14He's got his pants down to his knees
26:16and he's going to do something nasty.
26:18So I run down the hall, I get the fire extinguisher, right?
26:21I got the fire extinguisher.
26:23I run back to the room and I spray him with fire extinguisher,
26:26just nail him with the thing, it's white powder everywhere.
26:30The powder set off the sprinklers
26:32and the alarm went off on the floor
26:34and then it's 4 in the morning, so the hotel's empty.
26:37So I just start packing my clothes
26:39cos I know we're getting kicked out of the hotel.
26:42The cult quickly paid the hotel for the damages,
26:45but they faced a larger problem
26:47in Ian's growing estrangement from the rest of the band.
26:51I'm gobbing off about poets and Native Americans and shamanism
26:57and, you know, what Jim Morrison had for breakfast.
27:01And everyone else is like, he's cracked.
27:04The kid's cracked.
27:06He got very difficult to talk to in normal, everyday terms.
27:10And Billy was trying to make the best of a rock and roll career.
27:14And the two personalities just didn't get on at the time.
27:17By the fall of 89, Billy and Ian were barely speaking.
27:25Instead, Ian was spending virtually all his time with Renee Beach,
27:29a Canadian hairdresser that he cast in the cult's video for the song E.D.
27:35Renee was very proper, very prim and proper girl.
27:38I thought she was just like a spirited person and an outcast as well.
27:50He picked up with a girl who then became his 24-hours-a-day companion.
27:55Never, not there. Never. Ever. Not there. Ever.
28:05At one point, it was a bunch of guys together who all had girlfriends who used to come and visit.
28:09Then it's a bunch of guys plus the singer who's with his girlfriend 24 hours a day.
28:13And it's a different energy. It's just totally different.
28:18The more successful the cult got,
28:20the more Ian seemed to distance himself from the group.
28:26Next, a watery gag divides the band.
28:29Matt Sorum jumped off his drum riser and started stamping on the fish and eating them.
28:33And the whole place was in chaos.
28:36And later, Ian flees the cult.
28:44I just think something inside him snapped. He just was like, I'm done with this.
28:47When Behind the Music continues.
28:55So, sister, you're born for shame.
29:00Tear a girl away.
29:03In the spring of 1989, the album Sonic Temple was being hailed as the cult's classic.
29:08The group had become an arena rock hit.
29:11And lead singer Ian Asbury had never been more miserable in his life.
29:16At that point, I was becoming totally unmanageable.
29:19I mean, I definitely got lost in the whole circus.
29:23I'm 30 pounds overweight. I'm miserable.
29:26I've gone so far from the person I thought I was, this idealistic punk rocker.
29:30I've become this quasi-pseudo-sex symbol, gothic rock,
29:34Jim Morrison-esque, Frankenstein's monster thing.
29:38As the cult continued to tour, Ian became increasingly withdrawn,
29:42spending almost all his time with his girlfriend, Renee.
29:45There were two camps within the band.
29:47There was the Ian and Renee camp, and then there was the Billy camp.
29:51And it was always a bit of a struggle.
29:57In the summer of 1989, the cult were playing a gig in Allentown, Pennsylvania,
30:01when someone threw a live goldfish on the stage.
30:04Renee quickly ran to the rescue.
30:07Ian's girlfriend, at the time, runs on, saves the fish.
30:10They become like the tour pair.
30:14As the tour continued, the incident became infamous.
30:17At a gig in Seattle, a group the cult was performing with
30:20decided to bait Ian and Renee with a prank.
30:23They went out and bought every fish in Seattle
30:26and climbed up on our lighting rig,
30:28and at the last song, dumped the fish on stage.
30:31We're talking dozens of fish, and they're just raining down, flapping.
30:36So this is like that video, Bad Faith No More.
30:39Pretty ugly, actually.
30:42Matt Sorum jumped off his drum riser
30:44and started stamping on the fish and eating them,
30:46and Renee ran out from stage right with a Gatorade jar
30:49trying to rescue them, and the whole place was in chaos.
31:03To be in the centre of that was pretty painful.
31:05That's pretty vicious and cruel.
31:07I joined a band to get away from people like that.
31:10I just felt more apart from everybody.
31:12They just pushed me further away from the whole thing.
31:16In June of 89, in a search for solace,
31:19Ian travelled to a Sioux Indian reservation
31:21outside Rapid City, South Dakota.
31:29There he met a tribal elder, and the two struck up a conversation.
31:33He said, what are you doing?
31:36And I went, well, I used to.
31:40And it hit me, I said, I'm doing nothing, man, I'm just getting drunk.
31:44I ain't doing nothing.
31:47And he went, sounds like, you know, you've got some things to work out.
31:51And we had this, like, summit, and I felt reborn.
31:55All of a sudden, I was reconnected with that original energy.
32:00Within weeks, Ian was off the road for the first time in years
32:04and realising that it was time for a change.
32:07I remember being at my dad's house one night,
32:09and I was drunk in his house, and he was sick, he was dying of cancer,
32:12and I thought, I just felt, I felt disgusted with myself.
32:15I thought, I can't be like this, my father's dying.
32:18All my relationships were in shreds, they were all tarnished,
32:21so I thought, right, stop drinking.
32:23I didn't go to AA, didn't do anything, I just stopped.
32:25Didn't want to drink, that was it.
32:28Ian's newfound sobriety didn't solve the problems within the cult.
32:33In the summer of 1990, the tension within the band was still so great
32:37that long-time bassist Jamie Stewart decided to quit.
32:41It seemed like a strange time to leave when things were still going on.
32:46But I got sick of Ian and Billy not talking to each other.
32:49It got to be pretty depressing, really.
32:52Soon afterwards, Matt Sorum also quit,
32:55becoming the new drummer for Guns N' Roses.
32:59Reduced to a core of two, Ian and Billy began working on the album Ceremony,
33:03but they spent more time wrangling than writing.
33:06I'm a real boy in my time
33:09Just to get on through
33:13I couldn't really see the logic in changing our style.
33:16The Ceremony album became kind of a negative effect
33:19of a tug-of-war between me and Ian, and nothing happened.
33:22It was just down the middle.
33:24Neither of us got what we wanted.
33:26To the heart of soul
33:29You've got to bleed a little while you see
33:34There was an Ian direction on the record, and there was a Billy direction on the record,
33:37and they weren't resolving the direction between themselves.
33:40Ceremony was not only a commercial disaster,
33:43but the subject of a major legal dispute.
33:49The cult had used a photo of a four-year-old Sioux Indian boy
33:52named Eternity DuBray on the album cover
33:55and in the video for the song Wild Hearted Son.
33:59Wild hearted son
34:03Wild hearted son
34:06In the spring of 92, the boy's family sued,
34:09claiming the photograph was used without permission
34:12and displayed great insensitivity to Native American culture.
34:15It was a shame for Ian because the last thing he wanted to do
34:18was hurt any Indian tribes, people, or culture because he was really committed to it,
34:21and he ended up being seen as the bad guy when in fact it was completely the opposite.
34:25In an out-of-court settlement, the cult were allowed to keep using the photo,
34:29but Ian's anguish lingered for months.
34:32There was a great amount of emotional pain and distress during that.
34:35Nothing hurts worse, I think, for any artist.
34:38For some little egghead to come along and say,
34:41you're inauthentic, that's like a knife straight to the heart.
34:48In the summer of 92, the cult received another unexpected blow.
34:52Word arrived that their friend and former drummer, Nigel Preston,
34:56had died of a heroin overdose.
34:59He was only 31 years old.
35:02I loved him. He's my buddy. I still think about him a lot.
35:06It's like one of those things, woulda, coulda, shoulda, wish I coulda said something,
35:10wish I coulda helped him with his addiction, wish I coulda been there for him.
35:14For a time, Ian wasn't even sure the cult should continue.
35:18Then in February 93, the greatest hits album, Pure Cult, was released
35:24and shot to No. 1 on the British charts.
35:30Billy and Ian decided to regroup and open for Metallica during a three-month tour,
35:35but the metal mix proved a bad one.
35:43You'd have these just hardcore fans in the front
35:46who just didn't want to say anything about Metallica, and then here we'd come.
35:49We'd get beer cans and coins thrown at us every night.
35:52Just kind of shouting and screaming abuse at us.
35:55I got hit with something and I didn't know what it was, and my arm was all wet.
35:58And I asked the bass player, I go, what is that? Oh, that was a bag of piss.
36:02Urine, poo.
36:04Somebody threw a pig's head on stage. It must have been in Chicago.
36:07I mean, honestly, after that thing, I thought for sure they were gonna break up.
36:10I almost felt like I was putting a nail in the coffin
36:12because nerves were frayed and tensions were high.
36:16In October of 94, the cult released their self-titled sixth album,
36:20but it sank without a trace.
36:29As the band hit the road to tour,
36:31Ian began drinking again after almost three years of sobriety.
36:35And in March of 95, after a concert in Brazil, everything fell to pieces.
36:40I don't think I could handle the pressure anymore.
36:42It was just, I was burnt out.
36:44I was spiritually, physically exhausted, and I just wanted a break.
36:51I just think something inside him snapped.
36:53He just was like, I'm done with this.
36:55I was drunk and emotional one night,
36:57and, you know, it was basically sort of like a, you know, like a cat fight.
37:01Suddenly, Ian just went mad, you know.
37:03Punched me, kicked somebody else, threw a couple of tables over.
37:07I said, that's it, I've had enough, bastards, you know.
37:11And we thought he was like, oh, you know, we'll be fine.
37:14We'll let him have a bit of time to himself.
37:16Next, a deadly scare, and the cult reborn.
37:20My life kind of passed before my eyes.
37:22And I thought, if I get out of this, I'm going to do something with myself.
37:26When Behind the Music continues.
37:47Tommy Creed is here.
37:50After years of building tensions,
37:52frontman Ian Astbury finally quit the cult in the spring of 1995.
37:57After leaving the group in mid-tour, he returned home
38:00and destroyed everything bonding him to the band.
38:03We took all my platinum discs and everything,
38:05and we just had a big barbecue.
38:07Set it all on fire.
38:09Melted platinum discs, gold discs, just everything demolished.
38:14Threw it all on there, didn't want anything to do with it.
38:18Hated it all.
38:23Ian shed the glitz and glam of arena rock
38:26and returned to his rugged roots.
38:28Only six weeks after abandoning the cult,
38:31he formed a garage band with friends called the Holy Barbarians.
38:37We didn't set the world on fire.
38:39We travelled around in a van, we didn't care.
38:41Nobody told me what to do, what not to do. It was insane.
38:47While Ian relished his independence,
38:49Billy returned to his hometown of Manchester, England.
38:52Having quit drinking, he took stock of his life and his past.
38:56I just had a hard look in the mirror.
38:58For me, it was personally really, really good.
39:00It was kind of a cathartic moment.
39:02I saw a lot of Billy at that time,
39:04and he was doing a lot of walking in the mountains
39:07and a lot of camping.
39:09I guess he was doing a lot of soul-searching.
39:13For several years, Ian and Billy barely spoke.
39:16Ian spent much of his time fulfilling spiritual pursuits.
39:20Interested in Buddhism, he decided to join a group trek
39:23in the mountains of Tibet in the spring of 1998.
39:27But soon after he arrived, the trip turned deadly.
39:31There was a storm front moving in,
39:33so it was like almost this icy rain coming in.
39:35Blackout, you couldn't see anything.
39:37And the truck couldn't go any further, so we had to walk
39:40eight kilometres through snow, sometimes up to the waist deep.
39:43We were totally disorientated.
39:45We had altitude sickness, incredible headache.
39:47As the storm intensified,
39:49Ian found himself struggling to keep himself and others alive.
39:53We still had to carry these people and drag them,
39:56and my life kind of passed before my eyes.
39:58And it was sort of like this regret coming up
40:00about things I wish I'd done
40:02and people I wish I'd said something to,
40:04like maybe Nigel or, you know, things I wanted to do.
40:06Say to Billy, and I thought, if I get out of this,
40:09I'm going to do something with myself.
40:12Ian and his group had nearly lost hope
40:15when they stumbled upon a small Tibetan hamlet.
40:18Embraced by the villagers,
40:20Ian felt he had been given a new lease on life
40:23and found himself ready to embrace everything he'd left behind.
40:27When I came back, from there, there was this kind of burning desire
40:31to get back into the mainstream again, to get busy,
40:33to get up front with something that was very serious.
40:35That's when I started to reach out towards Billy,
40:37and we found ourselves in March 1999
40:40talking about putting the cult back together again.
40:42I mean, you know, within five minutes, we're scheming.
40:44It was very emotional, like, right then.
40:47Rolled our sleeves up, we got into it.
40:49How are we going to do it? What are we going to do?
40:51Just the two of us again, it was great.
40:54Within months, the cult were on the road again,
40:57and in June 2001,
40:59they released their first new album in seven years.
41:02Critics described Beyond Good and Evil
41:04as a record shaking with vitality.
41:12It was everything anyone could expect
41:14from a comeback record for them.
41:18The cult never lost their credibility,
41:20and that makes them extremely viable with today's young audience
41:23because there's something cool about listening to them.
41:26Thank you. This is the Love Removal Machine!
41:31Reborn and revitalised nearly 20 years after they began,
41:35the cult seem ready to create a new history for themselves,
41:39stronger together than they ever were apart.
41:48As long as Ian Asbury wants to make music with me,
41:52then I'll always be there to make music with him,
41:54you know, because I love it.
41:57As for Ian Asbury, it has taken a lifetime of searching,
42:00but he finally seems comfortable with his calling.
42:07Music and creativity is so incredibly precious to me
42:13that in the future, I intend to treat it
42:16with that kind of respect that he deserves
42:19because the people around me that I love and care for
42:22have all had to make sacrifices being around me.
42:26So...
42:28isn't the book still open?
42:31Thank you!
42:51If you missed the cult behind the music, see it at 8, 7 Central.
42:54But now, it's VH1's 10 years that rock the world.
42:57Follow along at vh1.com on the interactive timeline,
43:00The Home Game.