ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Cults

Cults’ Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin are strolling through the streets of New York after seeing 4AD band tUnE-YarDs play. It’s late at night and the city sounds remarkably quiet, though navigating what traffic and pedestrians there are on foot isn’t an ideal way to conduct an interview.

Maybe it’s the buzz from being at the gig, elation from releasing their debut album or that they’re just really happy to be taking a call from New Zealand, but the couple manage to be buoyant and chatty, especially Oblivion, who speaks first. “It was really cool,” he enthuses about the tUnE-YarDs show. “Super exciting.”

He could easily be referring to any number of highlights Cults has experienced since bounding onto the music scene a year and a half ago. After growing up in San Diego, Oblivion and Follin moved to the Big Apple to study film at New York University. Instead of completing their degrees, the couple decided to focus on making music. And, within a remarkably short timespan, it became a career. “All my teachers are really happy for me,” says Oblivion. “They all wish they could’ve done the same thing when they were 21.”

Much credit can be afforded to the internet in launching Cults to the world. After working on some songs over the four years they’ve been together, Oblivion and Follin posted a couple of tracks online, and before they could say 'oh my god', those songs went viral, then global.

“The bizarre thing about it is that it’s totally out of your control,” says Oblivion. “You don’t need a publicist, you’re not doing interviews or pitching your songs. It’s just that people start writing about things because they like them. There’s no barrier of entry.”

Bursting with great songs like 'Abducted', 'Go Outside', 'Oh My God' and 'You Know What I Mean', Cults’ self-titled album is a breath of fresh air in a pop music industry currently dominated by the overblown dramatics of Lady Gaga, cornball silliness of Katy Perry and empty lyricism of Beyoncé. Cults bring a freshness and fun back into pop music without sounding the least bit contrived or lacking in credibility. It’s music for even the coolest connoisseur to play and party to.

Cults - Abducted

“Madeline and I are in a relationship and we live together,” says Oblivion, explaining where Cults’ sound and style comes from. “A lot of it just comes from the music we listen to together, including 60s pop like the Shangri-Las and the Crystals, but also 90s guitar bands like Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine, then some Californian hip hop. They’re like the three things we were unanimously big fans of.”

Follin agrees that being in a relationship together is an ideal dynamic in which her and Oblivion can make music. Although they’re joined by three other musicians when they play live, the couple spent a lot of time at home together after their first couple of songs went viral on blog sites, writing new songs and figuring out who they are as artists.

Cults - Oh My God

“It definitely does work well,” says Follin. “It’s like a little piece of home that you get to bring with you on tour. We’re on tour pretty much right until November, nonstop, so if I didn’t have him and I was just surrounded by a bunch of boys for four months I’d probably go crazy.”

Both Oblivion, who takes his punk surname from the mythical TV character in David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, and Follin, who sang on an album released by her stepdad that also featured Dee Dee Ramone when she was just nine, are conscious of capitalising on the momentum their first couple of singles created, whilst avoiding taking the leap too soon. Signing to Lily Allen’s label, In the Name Of, has given them space to develop at a measured pace and a label boss who understands their needs.

Read the full feature on Cults in the current issue of Rip It Up magazine out now.

By Barney McDonald