From our chat with Ian Astbury—Part One here and Part Two here—earlier this week:
Where does the new album fall into The Cult’s wide range of sounds. Is it closer to Electric or more along the lines of Sonic Temple. Where would you put this record along with the rest of your catalog?
I wouldn’t. It’s its own animal. I think it’s a very western, very modern, western Sussex sound. You have to experience it for yourself as everyone is going to have a different perception of it. We are much more concerned about the experience at the time when you’re listening to the record. I know that it’s a very authentic, that’s the word that comes to mind for this record, it’s authentic.
Where does the title Choice of Weapon come from?
The phrase Weapon of Choice was floating around for a while and I knew there was a band called Weapon of Choice. By flipping it around to Choice of Weapon, actually Choice of Weapons initially, I was looking at that and thought I wanted to change the phrase around a little bit. By taking the ‘S’ away just making it singular instead of plural, it seemed very clear. It’s a metaphor for intention. You know what you’re going to choose or you’re going to select what your intention is.
A weapon doesn’t necessarily have to be an object and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a weapon of violence. When you think of weapon you just think of tool for violence. Budism refers to tantric weapons like the Dorje, for example, which is an object that symbolizes cutting through materialism.
A weapon can also be; a camera, a pen, a paint brush, or a language. I felt that our aim is true to what we were doing we were holding our ground. The statement that we’re making with this record is very clear for us, its not ambiguous, we’re not pussy footing around.
The Cult’s brand new release Choice of Weapon hit store shelves this past Tuesday, 5/22 on Cooking Vinyl—and what would our week be with the band without giving you a chance to get your hands on a vinyl copy? Incomplete, I tell you. So, we’ll remedy that straight away.
Enter to win a vinyl copy of the new Choice of Weapon and the 7″picture disc of the first single from the release, “For the Animals” (shown above) by naming your personal “choice of weapon” in the comments below—and you can interpret that in any manner you wish.
We’ll choose 2 winners for this giveaway—a grand prize winner for both the LP and the 7″, and a runner up for the 7″ alone. Our choice of winners with North American mailing addresses will be made next Friday, 6/1.
