THE CULT Frontman: 'I'm Just Fed Up With Technology. I'm Fed Up With Applications.'

Soundspike.com recently conducted an interview with THE CULT frontman Ian Astbury. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Soundspike.com: Tell me about the release of the capsule. That sounds like a pretty innovative idea.

Astbury: It kind of came out of necessity and it kind of came out of self-awareness in the sense that you kind of get stuck on the album-tour cycle, which is the formatting of an old traditional industry that is no longer in place. ... I find that there's a lot of innovation in fashion. Seeing more and more capsule collections being released, especially in streetware, especially in Japanese subculture. You see more and more collaborations whereby you see two major brands or two major artists collaborate and they do a small collection together. Instead of doing a 200-piece fashion collection, they do like five, six pieces. It comes out, and it's available for a month or so, it disappears and then something else comes up. It's kind of exciting. You can see what new things are coming up. It's fresh and it's not stale. It doesn't hang around too long. I thought, "I wonder if that could be applied to music?"
We were kind of offered another record deal. It was another record deal where we could own our music. They were going to give us a very modest amount of money to make an album. Then we'd probably get the same lip service that we get — they work with you for six weeks and then you disappear into their roster of artists that they don't know how to work with and develop. We decided in this particular point in time, why don't we try to do something ourselves ... engage in our audience a lot more immediately, a lot more intimately. Really start to work with our social networks and in terms of our music, go in the studio, come up with songs, bundle it with two live songs that are current and also a visual element, a film element and release them in all formats. It's not an EP because an EP is an elongated play — it refers to a vinyl format. It's not just an EP vinyl format — it's not. There are visual elements and it's released digitally. It encapsulates all formats as well as different elements aural and visual. Interestingly enough, as we're developing this, we're being courted by some companies. The application will be the delivery system for the future, whereby you subscribe to a band's application and everything will come through the app. We're going to see within the next year — Samsung is releasing a television set that has apps on it. You flick on your TV and it'll come up like your phone or your iPad or whatever it is. Wherever you have your apps. You'll be able to do it from your home. The apps will come up on the screen. You'll have a huge, 52-inch screen. You can sit there and interact with your favorite artists. How many applications can we go through? There's something like a half million applications.

Soundspike.com: There's a ton of them, that's for sure.

Astbury: Oh my God. Ninety nine point nine percent of them are completely unnecessary. It's novelty. To be honest with you — certainly I know in my immediate circle of friends — they're bored shitless with their applications. I'm fed up. I like buying a book now. I'm excited about buying a book. Or go back and watch old Russian films. I'm just fed up with technology. I'm fed up with applications. I'm fed up with new format. I don't want another iPad. I'm just bored with these things. I've finally gone back to pen and paper. The whole thing about what we're doing, it's more guerrilla. It's more DIY. It's more in line with our punk rock roots. The way the album is cannibalized, you put your heart and soul into your body of work. You put it out and it's picked through and Pitchfork gives it a 4.7 rating and then you're done. Bye.

Soundspike.com: That's true.

Astbury: No, no, no. We're not done. [Laughs] By controlling how we release our music, we're controlling the environment and holding the space. OK, we've given you that, digest that. Here's another piece. It's like spoon feeding. We'll give it to you on a need-to-know basis. Maybe by the end of the whole cycle, we'll look at it like, "There's a body of a whole album here." But we'll see. Some of these songs will probably evolve into other songs. The entire capsule will be available November 16. We're going to release the song "Embers" on iTunes November 1. That's a very special song. It's a very intimate song. It's incredibly cathartic. It's the moment when we perform that song live when the whole room stops. The song that sucks the air out of the room when we play it.

Read the entire interview from Soundspike.com.