Made up of Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin, Cults formed in 2010 when the two met in New York. Four years on they've release their second album to critical aclaim and are currently in the middle of a mammoth tour around the world. We managed to grab Brian for a quick chat when the two stopped off in London.
The Debrief: I feel like your last tour went on for about two years. And now you’re on a tour again. Is everything a bit more chilled this time around?
Brian Oblivion: Well that’s what we’re enjoying about this tour. In the States, the tours glaze right by, because you’re in a bus, you usually sleep overnight – you don’t drive. You usually wake up around 3pm, play the show and it’s hard to even get a grasp of where you are. To be out in Europe, and back in the van altogether, making weird jokes, checking out the scenery and hanging out with people before and after the show has been a real breath of fresh air.
DB: How do you find London?
BO: We had a really weird idea of what London is, because the first three or four times we stayed there, we stayed in the West End at The Colombia Hotel, which is a hotel that had a reputation for being a real rock-’n’-roll hotel. And we had this tour manager who would always book us there because he was like, ‘Oh yeah, let’s stay here, Jimi Hendrix stayed here.’ But it’s glory was a little bit faded. It was mostly just a bunch of elderly people. I remember one day, after being there for a week and not knowing where to go, we saw some dudes in the lobby who looked like band guys and we ran right up to them and were just like, ‘We haven’t seen anyone in so long!’
JC: Ha, excellent. Yes, maybe stick to east London? What’s next for you guys?
BO: We’re going to Australia to play a festival in the outback. Basically, a couple of places where the bugs will kill you.
JC: Sounds terrifying.
BO: I’m really excited about it. There are a lot of great UK bands on like, Disclosure and Dizzee Rascal, so we are just going to dance every night to those guys.
JC: Are you into dance music?
BO: I’ve always loved it for the purpose of dancing. Like, I don’t really listen to it in my house, but when I want to dance, I go see dance music. It’s made me a little uncomfortable how dance music has taken over and inserted itself into every genre now.
DB: Do you think there’s still a place for guitar music?
BO: Every five or ten years somebody goes, ‘Oh, the guitar is dead.’ But it goes in cycles. I think that the music that we make and the music a lot of our peers make is meant to be really personal and it’s not meant to be ‘main stage’. We’re OK with that.
DB: So, you guys ended up on the Only Lovers Left Alive Soundtrack. How did that happen?
BO: Well, Shane [Stoneback, part of director Jim Jarmusch’s band SQÜRL who did the soundtrack] explained the film to me – two vampires, one living in a recording studio in Detroit – and I was like, ‘I want to make a vampire rock song.’ He showed us some scenes from it, and there was that cover of the Wanda Jackson song and it sounded not right for the scene. So Jim Jarmusch, who works out of that same studio was like, ‘Hey man, why don’t you do it?’ So one day we smoked a bunch of cigarettes and just banged it out.
DB: Oh my gosh, the studio Tom Hiddleston's character works out of in the movie is amazing...
BO: That studio is actually almost a complete replica of the studio we made our record in. That’s where Jim works as well.
DB: You guys are both from California and ended up New York. Which coast is better in your opinion?
BO: Um, New York. The East Coast is better. There’s a lot of bands in North East LA doing cool and exciting stuff. But, generally, there is just so much laziness over there; so much ‘Hometown Hero’ grandstanding. You can probably compare it to Manchester and London. If you’re cool in Manchester, you are like the coolest guy, but if you come to London you are nobody. You still have to work. In New York no one is going to pat you on the back. And that is inspiring.
DB: It does feel like they’re all a little bit too perky in LA…
BO: Totally. They’re on their juice cleanse and in yoga pants and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, you look ten years younger than me but we are the same age, this is so weird.’
DB: So if we were coming to New York for the day where would you take us? Which neighbourhood do you live in?
BO: I live in Chinatown. I would not take you to my apartment. It is very esoteric. Honestly I am out of touch. I think I used to know what was going on in New York, but now I live a kind of Woody Allen-ish life. Kind of just wandering around not being attached to any scene. I sleep in Chinatown and then just sit in the park, and shoot the shit with my friends.
DB: You sound like an old man. Do you play chess in the park as well?
BO: Ha, yeah, you’d be welcome to tag along.
DB: Thanks. OK, one last question: you’ve got the most glorious hair I’ve ever seen on a man, what’s the secret to having such wonderful hair?
BO: What’s my secret? Oh, it started in seventh grade, I had a really horrible haircut. I was trying to grow my hair out, but it ended up just being one of those really horrible bowl cuts. This one kid at school told me my head looked like a dick, which hurt a little bit. Then my dad took me to have a haircut, but I was like, ‘I don’t want it!’ He said I had to get it, but if they messed it up I would never have to have a haircut again. So I took this wager and the first thing the lady did was just grab this huge piece of it and just cut three inches off. And I walked over to him and said, ‘Look what she did,’ and then I shaved my head down all the way, skinhead style. I was going, ‘Look what you did to me.’ So I haven’t really been getting haircuts since that day.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.