The Cult – Spiritwalker

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week

Today I’m gonna have a look at the debut single from The Cult, who would go on to become a force within rock music later in the ’80’s. But they got their start in earnest in 1984 with this initial single.

And, in order to fill up space, I also get to dive into the very confusing naming history of The Cult. There was initially a band that singer Ian Astbury was in called the Southern Death Cult. Astbury ended that band and then joined up with guitarist Billy Duffy and formed Death Cult. The Southern Death Cult and Death Cult are two distinct bands, though as we’re about to find out at least one song migrated over from one to the other. Death Cult would eventually change their name to The Cult, and they are the ones as we know them today from that one song they play in every strip club across the country. The band were originally joined by bassist Jamie Stewart and drummer Ray Mondo for their first album.

Spiritwalker was originally conceived in Astbury’s old Southern Death Cult. The band performed something called The War Song in 1981 with lyrics that would go on to be used in Spiritwalker. Then moving to Death Cult, the new band reworked everything and came up with Spiritwalker. The early version was much different musically, though finding any actual performances is very hard to do so I don’t have anything on hand to offer. While there was a Death Cult EP, it did not contain any version of this song.

So anyway, we now get to the name change to The Cult and plans for the first proper album. Spiritwalker as it is known today was released several months ahead of the album – the single was released in May of 1984, while the album Dreamtime came in August. Spiritwalker did not light the UK charts on fire, at least the mainstream chart – it only got to 77 there. But it did land on top of the Independent chart and got some early buzz going for the group ahead of their album release.

With all of that exposition, let’s talk about the actual goddamn song, huh? The first thing that comes off here is the guitar tone. Duffy’s tone is so bright here, it’s pretty unreal how he pulls off going that “high” in a relative sense yet also keeping it catchy. He goes unreal high in places where nothing else is going on, then rings it a bit in the background when vocals are up. Even when The Cult went more “mainstream rock” later in the ’80’s, Duffy kept his bright guitar tone through a fair few of the band’s signature songs. He was totally operating on his own plane of existence and has been through the band’s entire run.

I often in my reviews of stuff don’t talk about drums and bass much. Honestly I’m spoiled by a band like Van Halen who had one of the best rhythm sections in existence. But The Cult were not that far behind, both drums and bass accent exactly what the song needs here and add their own layer to the song without going virtuoso and detracting from the main show. Steward and Mondo deserve kudos for their performances, both on single and album, and The Cult would make full use of the rhythm section throughout their long and winding career.

Then there’s Ian Astbury. He gets lumped in a lot as a Jim Morrison clone, and also in the “Evil Elvis” category alongside Glenn Danzig. But here Ian goes both full-throated and a bit higher, mimicking Morrison far more than Elvis. His vocals in The Cult are often described as having a “shamanistic” quality, which I don’t know what that is supposed to mean but there are multiple spiritual aspects to Ian’s outlook and performance.

What this all adds up to is one hell of a song, and something in a bit of contrast to what we had in 1984. Pop was in a new wave era and rock went a bit lighter overall, though the seeds for something heavier were planted in the heavy metal realm. But The Cult were totally on their own path, this song being very loosely classified as “gothic rock” but truly being an entity that defied categorization, something the band would take pride in over the ensuing decades. This flies under the radar a bit in terms of the music of 1984, but The Cult did firmly put themselves on the rock map with Spiritwalker back then. And the future would give us a hell of a lot more of their twist on rock.

7 thoughts on “The Cult – Spiritwalker”

    1. My guess is no one from the old band knew enough to file a lawsuit. There would be genuine claims to some songwriting credits, I think this song being one of them. I guess Ian had everything in lockdown or the other guys just didn’t care.

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  4. rockersraversloverssinners's avatar rockersraversloverssinners

    Very cool post about a brilliant song…

    So I can offer a couple more details on a few things here, and respond, if not fully answer, some of the questions raised in the comments above…

    Indeed, SDC are seen as a different band to Death Cult/The Cult. Astbury is the only connection…

    Except… as the original post points out, some songs were carried across. So, we have the lyrics to The War Song being re-used in a different tune by Death Cult/The Cult’s guitarist and main tunesmith Duffy. Although it has been years since I have actually heard an old live bootleg of this, that claim is still regularly cited.

    In addition, Astbury brought over two full songs from SDC: Flowers in the Desert (which appeared, amongst other places, on The Cult’s first album in 1984, Dreamtime) and Moya (One of the A-Sides of SDC’s only single – a double A-Side with Fatman – which appeared on Dreamtime Live given away with the first 30k copies of Dreamtime)

    With regard to legal issues…

    Astbury provided all the lyrics for SDC, and The War Song if it exists as described – was never recorded, and very rarely played live (at least 6 full gigs appear on Youtube, over the period of their gigs, and The War Song aint on any of them). So him taking the lyrics and using them with a Duffy tune and not crediting the rest of SDC seems valid.

    With Moya and Flowers in the Desert these songs are credited to the four SDC members when the tracks appear on official Death Cult / The Cult recordings, so that covers the legal issues there, and given this, the rest of SDC would no doubt get a percentage from the re-recordings / performances of these two songs.

    Why just these two full songs carried across? Well, Moya was Astbury’s favourite SDC song. He says as much on a 1983 interview on the radio just before SDC split, and just after the single Moya / Fatman is out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj0jZYNnz6k /

    He wrote Moya very early after joining the band (its on their 1981 demo also on YT), he then brought the song to the band to develop. See https://www.avclub.com/the-cult-s-ian-astbury-talks-about-songs-ignoring-the-1798231829

    MOYA: “I probably had about two or three chords I knew at the time. [Laughs.] E-minor was one of them. I could play E-minor over and over again. I just loved the sound of that chord, especially on acoustic guitar. I don’t know where I got the rhythm. I’ve no idea. That’s a Southern Death Cult song we developed as a band. I remember Barry Jepson adding a chord to it, and Buzz [David Burrows] working on the arrangement, so it was a collaboration. We all worked on that song. ”

    My guess is Flowers in the Desert (often mis-named Flowers in the Forest in SDC versions) has the same kind of provenance, although it is a much later tune, appearing live and in session early 1983 just before the band split.

    In other words, with Moya and Flowers, Astbury wrote most of the music and all the lyrics, so felt very much connected to these songs.

    With regard to Death Cult and The Cult, they are the same band 100%. Death Cult recorded their first single with Astbury, Duffy, Jamie (bass), and Ray (drums). Ray left, and was replaced by Nigel on drums and they recorded and released their second single. It was this line-up that became The Cult and recorded Dreamtime (with the singles Spiritwalker and Go West). Eventually Nigel would leave before their second album. But there is no way to see Death Cult and The Cult as different bands, Many songs were carried across…

    Finally, is SDC totally different entity from DC/The Cult? Well, we can just as much see continuity as discontinuity. Same singer, the name of the band (SDC named by Astbury after all, as was Death Cult and The Cult), some of the tunes, the same record company… There is a continuity in the same sound as well, tribal drumming, dominant bass, post-punk guitars… at least for Death Cult and early Cult. This question is for those who like mulling on The Ship of Theseus / Trigger’s Broom….

    Sorry, this went on far too long… I should delete it… but what the hell…

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