THE CULT Frontman Ian Astbury Says Beyond Good And Evil Was "An Overproduced Record"

September 17, 2007, 17 years ago

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The following report is courtesy of Wes Orshoski from Billboard.com:

If THE CULT's 2001 reunion album, Beyond Good And Evil, was a heavily produced, muscular rock affair, the band took the opposite approach on the forthcoming Born Into This, due October 2 via New Wilderness/Roadrunner. The Cult cut the disc in 36 days with a mind toward re-embracing its punk-rooted past.

"Our last record, with all respect to [producer] Bob Rock ... we were guilty as much as he was, it was an overproduced record. We just went too far with it. It took about a year-and-a-half to make [and] an exorbitant amount of money," singer Ian Astbury tells Billboard.com. "This one was far more economic. We didn't want to get entrenched in debates of whether this is working or is this not working. If anything got a little bit drawn out, we just moved on to the next track."

The band, now featuring bassist Chris Wyse (OZZY OSBOURNE) and drummer John Tempesta (EXODUS, WHITE ZOMBIE), began demoing the disc in Argentina last year, and completed the core of the album over three weeks in West Hollywood, co-producing with Youth.

Astbury says the new album is also much more personal lyrically, based on experiences he's collected splitting time between London and New York and traveling to India, the inspiration behind the track 'Holy Mountain'.

"Going there but a boot up my ass," he says. "When you see people at that level of poverty and what they make of their lives and that humility and humbleness, it wakes you up. All the nonsense we go through each day, it's like the MTV awards the other day in Las Vegas - that was obscene. Anybody who says that is cool needs their head examined."

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