An Interview with Cults…

Originally written for and published on This Is Fake DIY…

With their matching long hair, similar San Diego drawls and their habit of finishing each other’s sentences, Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin are very much an ordinary couple in their early-20s, albeit an impossibly good-looking one. Except almost a year ago they met, moved in together the very same day and decided to make music together under the moniker Cults “for fun at the weekends as we had nothing else to do,” says Madeline. Just a few days after they had recorded their 60s-drenched, sun-kissed songs over a few weekends and posted them online for their friends to listen to things started happening. The blogosphere and sites such as Pitchfork began falling over themselves to discover who Cults were and with no MySpace page or band website posting personal details and an “ungoogleable name” the band were an anonymous pop mystery just waiting to be discovered.

“We did like six songs, and put three up on the internet cos the other ones weren’t quite done yet,” Brian explains. “We were doing like a whole EP and then before we even had time to finish the other three songs things started getting crazy and taking off so we just kind of put them on the back burner.”

Riding the wave of surf-pop that surfaced last year, Cults joined to ranks of Summer Camp, Best Coast, Sleigh Bells and Beach House in both their southern surf sound and their popularity. Now they’re currently in London playing three dates at different venues in the capital and after almost a year of internet popularity their song ‘Go Outside’ is finally about to get released in a physical format. Their success story is the stuff that most bands can only dream of, yet no one is in as much disbelief at their fortune as Cults themselves. So what exactly happened?

“It was completely insane,” says Madeline. “It was just completely unexpected as it all happened literally a week after we put the songs on the internet.”

“We never mailed out a CD or even took a picture,” Brian explains. “Our friends were kind of making fun of us about the songs so we were really insecure. We showed them to some of our friends who like metal music, and they just laughed! And we were like ‘Dude, we like it!’ And now they’re all like asking us to go on tour.”

Based on this phenomenal level of success that Cults garnered in such a short space of time Gorilla vs. Bear decided to create their own record label – Forest Family Records – just to release Cults’ music. “They’re just amazing,” Madeline gushes. “I mean it was insane when they were like ‘Hey, we’re starting a label, do you want 500 vinyl made?’ And we were like, of course we do! And then every release that they’ve had after us has been amazing.”

“And now they’ve become a really cool boutique specialty label,” Brian explains further. “All those guys who work there are serious music fans, it’s awesome. There’s so many people working in the music industry who we’ve met, and you’re there thinking, ‘Do you actually like music?’”

It is Brian and Madeline’s own love of music from an early age that not only brought their relationship together (they met when Brian was tour managing Madeline’s brother’s band Willowz), but also formed the basis of their musical collaboration. Cults may be the first ‘real’ project that the pair has worked on, but they’re not without their musical heritage. “Madeline was in a punk band before she was nine years old,” says Brian. “It was one of her step dad’s records, cos he was one of the founding members of White Zombie and he’s in Youth Gone Mad and in a bunch of old punk bands. She even sang on a record with Dee Dee Ramone, which is pretty cool.”

Their fame on the internet has brought the band a staggering amount of faithful fans in their native US and abroad. I ask them how this success translates when they play over in the UK. “When we play over here I don’t assume that anyone’s ever going to turn up,” Brain laughs. “It’s really hard to imagine that you have any fans anywhere other than your neighbourhood, you know what I mean? Like I can picture some people in the East Village coming to our show, but here it just blows our minds! It’s like if anybody likes our music or buys it or comes to a show, then it’s really confusing.”

“I was watching the really awesome Yuck at the show that we played and everyone’s just standing there with their arms crossed, and I was there thinking that they were flopping, and that they’re such a good band,” he continues. “And then when everyone walks out they’re like ‘That was the best show I’ve seen in years!’ And it’s like, well why weren’t you getting into it? But the same kind of thing happens in New York depending on where you play. It’s hard to judge the whole overseas vibe. London’s a bit trendy.”

London may seem to be still and silent in its appreciation, but one Londoner that Cults have significantly and famously impressed is one Lily Allen, who signed Cults as the first ever band to her Columbia Records subsidiary, In The Name Of, at the end of last year. “We just got an email from somebody saying ‘Hey Lily Allen’s starting this record label, we want to meet you,’ so they flew us out to London,” says Madeline. “When we got to the airport we were thinking that there was going to be no tickets and that someone was playing a practical joke on us. So we met her and everybody at the label was just so amazing and now they’re some of our best friends.”

“She has a really good perspective,” Brian adds. “We’ve only spoken to her a few times but she has a great perspective on how the music industry can screw people over and make art really hard to make, and that’s why she started the label.”

With Lily Allen’s backing and support, and along with their own hard work Cults are certain to make a real name for themselves outside the realms of the internet. Yet they still find it hard to believe the success that they have already gained, laughing together when Madeline pauses as she calls Cults her “career” and thinking back to when they were both film students in New York just a year ago. So are they still in college? “No,” says Madeline. “We stopped after all this took off. But we watch a lot of movies if that counts?”

With this in mind, and the fact that Brian took his Oblivion alias from a film, I enquire as to whether the filmic is something that they try and incorporate into their music. “Absolutely – I think that we always think about character and setting and mood and all these kind of things when we make a song,” says Brian. “The songs aren’t really about us, and the characters who speak in the songs are like members of cults, as we kind of think of it as a big play or a little movie. So we definitely try to impact that sense of thinking and feeling cinematic when you’re listening to the song. Cos a song can take you to another place just like a movie can if it’s designed to do that.”

And have the duo got any plans to create music videos for themselves? “We have an official music video that’s coming out shortly that we’re not really involved with,” says Brian. “But still, we have to give control to someone else, cos otherwise I’ll just sit and work on it for a year!”

“But at some point we’re gonna do something for the show, like projections” says Madeline. But where Madeline sounds excited, Brian seems a little more hesitant: “But yeah, all that sounds scary because it’s like both of our first loves and for some reason I can put out music but putting out a movie… Well, we’re working on it and it’s hard.”

Madeline has, however, appeared in a video for her brother’s band Guards, as she has sung for them in the past. I ask if collaboration, of the sibling variety or otherwise is something of importance to Cults and Brian is quick to point towards Madeline’s ever-growing repertoire: “Madeline has also sung on a track called ‘Bowl Cut’ with Dom and she recently sang with Fucked Up. She’s quickly becoming the Nicki Minaj of indie rock! We have weird visions that it’s time for a new team of indie bands to come around because all those bands from four years ago like Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective are all mega stars now! So the more bands that we meet and that we love and want to work with and work together and all do well, then great.”

“And then by doing that we have such better relationships with those bands,” Madeline adds. “It’s like they really are family. Dom most definitely is.” And with Cults’ nature as a two-piece, it is vital that this sense of collaboration prevails when they take the band into a live environment. “Our live band is six people,” Madeline continues. “We are working on trying to sound as close to the record as possible, but still exciting. A lot of people tell us that it’s a lot more rock than they thought it would be.”

“It’s definitely a lot more hip-hop live. It’s more beat orientated and it’s a lot more rocking… We get really carried away!” laughs Brian. “There was so much restraint on the record and I was laying back in the groove, so when it’s live we just let loose. But it’s exciting, it’s fun, I mean I think I’d be really bored if we played it in the same way as on the tracks. I couldn’t really handle it – I need the stress of everyone messing up around me! And Madeline does the best evil eyes when somebody misses a note!”

So what exactly is next for Cults? Well first of all there’s the highly anticipated debut album, engineered by Shane Stonebeck of M.I.A., Vampire Weekend and Sleigh Bells production fame. “The album’s going to be self-titled and it’s going to be released late May,” says Madeline. “And we’re also doing a single for Record Store Day,” Brian adds. “There’s gonna be two different songs, one for the UK which is still undecided and one for the US called ‘Abducted’ alongside a remix of ‘Go Outside’ by 2 Bears. That’s going to be so exciting as we haven’t put music out for about seven months! And then we’ll be able to play them live and play an endless amount of live shows which is going to be insane!”

Everything is still fresh and exciting for the band, and despite all the hype that still surrounds them, the duo appear to be extremely grounded and still completely in awe of all that has unfolded for the pair over the last year. “I think that we still try and keep that air of mystery and anonymity going but there’s no way to hide yourself,” Madeline explains. “And the reality is that although we might not be anonymous, we don’t really like to define what we do,” Brian continues. “Some bands today can be very pushy with their image and I think that we’re just trying to – at all times where possible – we don’t want to jam things down people’s throats.”

Based on Cults’ story so far, there has been absolutely no need for Madeline and Brian to force their music or their image onto anybody. The way that their music has been accessed and received demonstrates exactly what power the internet holds to either make or break a band and it will be interesting to see how Cults music is embraced once it is committed to physical format. Not that they’re worried about that – for now all Cults are thinking about is getting back on the road with their new material. “That’s our plan,” says Madeline with a laugh. “Touring and touring until our wheels fall off!”

All photographs sourced using Creative Commons...