Coming off of the commercial success of 1987’s “Electric,” the Cult was about
to go to the next level. Their follow up 1989’s Sonic Temple would prove to be the
Cult’s most commercially successful album and created four top 20 Mainstream Rock charts.
Yet, it was produced in entirely different circumstances than it's predecessor was.
For Electric the band opted to re-record their original tracks because according to them it
sounded too similar to their previous record 1985’s Love. The band wanted a more stripped
down no nonsense sound so they enlisted an up and coming producer named Rick Rubin.
In a 2019 interview with Loudwire.com,
Bill Duffy talks about how challenging “Electric” was for the band to make saying:
[The album] just wasn't where we wanted to be,
so when Rick [Rubin] came in, he was the straw that we were clutching at
We left some of the uniqueness of The Cult behind and Electric was part of the stuff.
You could say that Sonic Temple was a it of a homecoming for the band,
and an even deeper dive into frontman Ian Astbury’s metaphysical inclinations.
Although Astbury is British, he spent most of his time being brought up in Eastern Canada,
in the province of Ontario. As a boy, he visited one of the local indigenous reserves
and it’s a memory he’s come back to time and time again. The exact location was the Six
Nations of the Grand River in Southern Ontario. Musically, he was also a big fan of David Bowie.
With Sonic Temple, the band remained as eclectic as ever, if not in their musical
style then with the topics of these songs - covering things from teenagers in France,
to one of Andy Warhol’s Factory girls to the theme of the powerful yet unattainable women.
There seems to be a feeling of longing throughout the album - whether that’s for a past that doesn’t
exist any more or a beautiful women who is out of reach or has even passed on..
Sonic Temple was recorded in Vancouver Canada with Canadian Producer Bob Rock
and Ian felt a kinship with Bob because they both had Canadian roots, and he though Bob would
better understand the nuances of British Rock than an American producer would. The album’s
name would come from the Bonus track “Medicine Train” which features the lyric sonic temple.”
It was clear that the band wasn’t entirely happy with how “Electric” had come out, given such a
drastic change in both the producer and studio location. But the band also had another goal in
mind becoming more established in America with Duffy telling Loudersound “I was very focused,
personally, bound and determined, that The Cult should have a platinum album in America,”
Sonic Temple would feature a handful of iconic songs like Fire Woman,
Edie (Ciao Baby) and Sweet Soul Sister.
Fire Woman was about the universal symbol of the femme fatale,
but also influenced by Ian Astbury’s fascination with indigenous culture
while Sweet Soul Sister was written in Paris and is an observation on
the Americanization of the youth in Europe
Edie (Ciao Baby) is about Edie Sedgwick, a socialite who formed part of the artist Andy
Warhol's Factory scene in New York in the '60s, who died due to an overdose in her twenties.
By Duffy’s own admission the song to him underperformed as he would tell Loudersound
“I dunno what happened with that song,” . “I really thought it would do more. A lot
of bands like Whitesnake and Def Leppard were turning down their guitars and turning up their
keyboards and getting poppier around then though, and that’s just not what that was.”
When it came time to tour the album The Cult wanted to establish themselves as mainstream
in America and they had two options they could either tour with - Metallica or Black Sabbath.
In a 2019 with Loudwire , guitarist Billy Duffy explains
how they chose which band to open for saying we thought Ozzy's crowd would be very Sabbath-Ozzy
centric while Metallica were a young band, same age as us and we know they're heavy, but it was an
interesting tour. I went to see places in America I've never been back to since and had a lot of
fun, but that was a tough one because it was the old Metallica, the pre-Black Album Metallica.
As the band was about to hit the road they had a new drummer join the group as Micky Curry who
played on Sonic Temple would depart the band and be replaced by future Guns N' Roses drummer
Matt Sorum Sorum would recall in his book how he changed his appearance ahead of the audition to
blend in with the group . He would also reveal how during his first audition with the Cult he brought
his double bass since he had previously lost out an opportunity to play with David Lee Rot since he
couldn’t play double bass. He would end up getting the gig but Duffy would offer one piece of advice
to the up and coming drummer revealing in his book “You’ve got the gig, but stop smiling so much.”
Even though the band was at the peak of their commercial success, things weren’t great
behind the scenes. Astbury was overweight and struggling with alcohol. Some nights his voice
was so bad that he needed drummer Matt Sorum to fill in positions of the songs for him.
In a 2019 interview with Global News online,
Astbury talked about how the cracks forming in the band saying:
After Sonic Temple, the band was beginning to implode. The pressure of doing it so long,
the wear and tear on the road, the pressure to create another record
was all there. We should have taken a break but we went straight into Ceremony [1991].