Cults

Tue 24th Jan, 2012 in Features

Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion make up uber-hip duo Cults, who are bound for our shores for next years St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival. FasterLouder chats with the New York based couple about their fast-rising stature, growing up with rock and roll royalty, and their hopes and expectations of coming to Australia, which includes patting a dingo and avoiding being shat on by a koala.

How did Cults come about?
Madeline: Um, pretty much out of boredom. We met in San Diego and both moved to New York, and we were living together and working boring internships and going to school. All of our friends were in bands, and like touring and recording, and playing shows and stuff, so we kind of decided to start making music together, to have a creative outlet.
You haven’t been around long at all, are you surprised about how quickly your popularity has grown?
Brian: I don’t know, it might seem quick to other people, but judging by the health of our drummer and our general mental health these days [laughs], it’s been a long time for us. It’s been almost two years now since our first recordings and we’ve been on tour for basically that whole time. The first tour we played, we were playing like coffee shops and pizza places to like nine people, fifteen people. Now after two years of touring it’s gotten to the point where we can play some good shows. It’s been an upward climb, but not as fast as some people think it is.

What has the whole experience of the past 18 months or so been like for you, in terms of recording and getting your album printed, touring, and just being part of a pretty hyped up and coming band? Is it what you thought it would be?
Madeline: It’s a lot more… work [laughs] than we thought it’d be, definitely. You know a lot of people will ask us like ‘oh my god you must like partying all the time blah blah blah like being in a band” but it’s a lot more work than we thought, or anybody thinks that it is. It’s been really fun, we were looking back to when we first started recording and it seems a lot longer than two years.
Brian: It’s funny because our album was about the feeling of wanting to be young forever and evade responsibility, and some how by making a record we’ve assumed more responsibility than we would have in any other career [laughs]. It kind of sucks some times, but other times it’s really fun.

What have been the ‘wow/oh my god’ moments for you so far?
Brian: We played Lollapalooza, Madeline’s step-dad played Lollapalooza like 20 years ago, how long ago was that?
Madeline: [Laughs] definitely not 20 years ago, but yeah like ’96.
Brian: Yeah, so to go there and play that, it was amazing. I don’t know, I feel for us it’s been a perpetual wow moment. We never assume that we deserve an audience or a good show or even bringing like a 100 people in Italy is like ridiculous. It’s really bizarre.
Madeline: Or being able to go to Australia and New Zealand, and Singapore and stuff, it’s kind of wow for us.

Madeline, I understand you grew up with a lot of punk influences around you, including one Dee Dee Ramone?
Madeline: Yeah my step-dad and Dee Dee used to jam together, and Dee Dee would always play on his records. My mum was actually his art dealer. He would come over and record, and they were working on a record and one day I just went into the microphone and started singing and they were like ‘yeah that sounds good keep doing that’ and I ended up recording a lot of songs. I didn’t think anything of it, because I was maybe seven years old, so it was just like another one of my step-dad’s weird rock friends [laughs].

So Brian, Madeline grew up with all these punk influences, what sort of influences surrounded you when you were growing up?
Brian: Growing up for me and my friends it was like a competition for who could like the weirdest and most obscure art. It was always a competition of who could find the most bizarre… like a Dario Argento horror movie or something… in high school it was fun to chase that stuff down, but eventually it all just kind of collapsed into itself and we just started hating all the really obscure art and realising that we all like pop music, so I don’t know. I guess hippies or something.

Is your last name really Oblivion?
Brian: [Laughs] My Christian name is not, just a group of friends I had… we all came up with these goofy punk nicknames, like Madeline grew up as ‘Mad Dog’ [laughs] and I got stuck with Brian Oblivion. It’s something my friends called me more than my normal name, but no it’s not my normal name.

Damn, that would have been pretty bad-ass.
Brian: [Crestfallen] aw.
Madeline: [Laughs]

Do you and Madeline share a barber?
Madeline: [Laughs]
Brian: [Laughs] actually yeah because Madeline cuts my hair and then she just cuts her own hair too.
Madeline: I actually don’t cut my hair and I try and cut Brian’s hair as little as possible [laughs].