THE CULT Is 'Long Overdue' To Release New Music

THE CULT frontman Ian Astbury has told LA Weekly in a new interview that the band is "long overdue" to release new music. "We do have some stuff we've been working on, but it's yet to see the light of day," he said. Astbury also cited David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Iggy Pop as some of his inspirations — artists who were never content to rest on the glories of their pasts, instead striving to create something new and exciting.

"You can't get up and put on the same clothes you wore when you were 24 and try to recreate the mindset," he explained. "To me at least, probably more so with individual artists than bands, they've produced some of their best work in their later years. Iggy Pop is one of the artists Billy [Duffy, guitar] and I bonded over. We opened for him in '87 and he appears on 'Sonic Temple', guest vocals on 'New York City'."

In a separate interview with Global News, Astbury was asked how the songwriting process has changed since he and Billy first met and started DEATH CULT over 35 years ago. He responded: "Well, when we first met, we were living in his flat in Brixton; I'd sleep on the couch. [Laughs] So yeah, you could say it's very different. We spent a lot of time together and we were immersed in each other every day. We were always exchanging ideas but now we have very separate lives. We both have different lifestyles so when we do come together, we bring whatever it is that we've been musing on outside of that. Then we come into an intensive writing period. It's a different way of writing as opposed to like a gradual thing when we were younger because as you get older, your life takes over. But we've been managed to maintain a relationship over 10 studio albums and three decades so it's still there; there's still a chemistry that works.

THE CULT's last collection of new material, "Hidden City", was released in February 2016 via Cooking Vinyl. The follow-up to 2012's "Choice Of Weapon" was written by Astbury and Duffy and was produced by Bob Rock, who has previously worked with METALLICA and MÖTLEY CRÜE.

Last month, THE CULT kicked off a North American tour in celebration of the 30th anniversary of its "Sonic Temple" album.