4. The CultElectric
This one is the opposite of eclectic! I was a Cult fan anyway. A lot of people at school were into goth and I wasn’t so popular because I was into rock, but I felt like the Cult fell right between the cracks of those two scenes. And then there was the Manor Sessions and the stuff that they recorded for Electric that was recorded in the more traditional cult style. And I love the story of Rick Rubin telling them to throw all that stuff away and to use Les Pauls and simple sounds – basically trying to make them sound like AC/DC. A lot of bands tried to sound like AC/DC, but the Cult doing AD/DC is its own thing, and it’s really brilliant I think. The first band I was ever in played ‘Lil’ Devil’ and that’s a pub classic, and if you’re writing pub classics then you’re doing something right I think. ‘Wild Flower’ is definitely the one for me, I love that song. The way the drummer [Les Warner] approaches it… it’s like, you know exactly what’s coming, there’s only one fill in it that’s unexpected and then you listen to it twice and you know when it’s coming. But every time the chord changes, he pushes so that he comes in slightly before the bar. And that’s actually brilliant. That’s how all rock drummers should approach rock drumming. It’s a masterclass.
