The Cult’s Billy Duffy on his relationship with frontman Ian Astbury

The Cult in 1997 — (Image credit: Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images))

The Cult’s Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy are rock’s odd couple. The band’s frontman and guitarist make for an awkward pair but there is an undeniable chemistry between them that has made The Cult one of rock’s most enduring bands – it is now over four decades since they came together to form the band Death Cult. Speaking to this write a couple of years ago, Duffy explained how their relationship works after the affable Mancunian was asked how much they speak when they’re not on Cult duty.

“I would say we speak like a kind of separated married couple, we keep in touch, we’re not unfriendly, we get on,” he explained. “We have an OK business relationship, it’s difficult because we’re basically like two guys running in a three-legged race, we’re tied together and that’s just how it is and we need to navigate and work that out. If he wants to go left and I want to go right, we fall over. So we have to kind of navigate that but socially, we’re good. We probably will fall foul of, in terms of arguments and disagreements over business stuff, not financial luckily, we’ve never had any problems over money or anything like that, just creatively we’ll have differences of opinion maybe. I think it’s probably fair to say I’m a bit more conservative, as a guitar player, I like what I like. Ian, being the lead singer, is always out there reaching, and that dynamic and that tension between those two elements probably can be a good and a bad thing, but hopefully more good than bad.”

Duffy explained that his role in the group is to be “bandleader”, overseeing the music and incorporating any new session players they take on into the group. “I’m like the engine room Scotty and Ian’s up front like Captain Kirk,” he stated, “designing album sleeves and all the artwork and doing the tour merch and being involved in a lot of the that stuff which he’s really passionate and engaged with so we’re lucky that we can both get on with that, we have a good division of labour in The Cult between me and him.”

The Cult are currently on a European tour and will be back on British shores in October for a round of shows that includes dates at London’s Royal Albert Hall and Roundhouse, The Barbican in York, Usher Hall in Edinburgh and more.

Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, Champions Journal, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue with fellow former Q colleague Ted Kessler. He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he's interviewed some of the world's biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Radiohead, Liam and Noel Gallagher, Florence + The Machine, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more.