A Conversation with The Cult’s Ian Astbury – HuffPost 12.9.10
Mike Ragogna: It’s interesting to jump into this conversation with you because its not so much that you have a new album, but a new project. It’s a nice spin on the delivery of music. Can you go into a description of this whole “Capsule 2” concept?
Ian Astbury: We wanted to release less music, and what we arrived at was that the album format is becoming less and less relevant. When it goes through iTunes, it’s cannibalized. The integrity of the album format is lost because the audience wants to come pick and choose what they want. From an artist’s perspective, we as The Cult could spend six months to two years making a record. So, by the time that information comes out in the marketplace, it’s stale, we’re over it, and we have to go out to promote it.
The term “EP” didn’t seem to fit. The EP is a final format and eludes to elongated play. The idea of a “capsule” was that now, with the digital medium, you can deliver more than just music, you can deliver digital elements as well. That was the idea, to encapsulate visual and audio elements in a package, and a capsule being like a tight compartment. The actual term “capsule” came up from the fashion world because many lines put out what they call “capsule collections” which are usually edited versions of their creativity, where they put out only a few pieces. In a regular show, they will put out five or ten, so it’s a much more tight philosophy as apposed to a long-labored philosophy. So, we released our first capsule about two months ago.
Another idea was to put these capsules up for a few months and then take them down and make them officially unavailable. It then gives the people that want to participate in purchasing it kind of a commercial window. After that, files are shared and things fly around. I think the capsule format is more in harmony in the times we live in. It’s a quicker delivery system, and it’s a quick strike and moves away from the cumbersome release of an album. We kind of focus on the digital aspect of it. We are releasing MP3s and MP4s, but we also have made hard copy available. We have done vinyl and we did do a duel-disc which is a CD/DVD for people who like that format. We made limited amounts, we’ve pressed a thousand pieces of vinyl and five-thousand pieces in the duel-disc format. So, we are really kind of pushing the digital format, but like I said, we take it down after two months. So, something else comes up and that’s why we are in capsule 2 now.
MR: Do you feel like there is anything getting lost between how you used to release CDs and how you’re approaching releases now? Or do you feel this is a situation of the approach being much better than the CD format ever was?
IA: The opportunity that technology has given us is this wonderful gift to be more instantaneous in the culture. You can pretty much write a song in the afternoon and have it out by the evening if you want to. The problem now is that everybody and their dog has that format available to them. You have so much traffic that you have to wade through a lot of average and mediocre so-called “art” to find that little gem, and you have to rely on these cultural commentators and everybody and their dog is a social commentator now, everybody has an opinion, and they let you know, and they set themselves up shop.
So, I think the difference of what we’re doing now and the previous period, which was more analog-based, is that you had to physically walk to purchase the music. I think something is lost because the entitlement in the culture has forced artists to respond to that, they now have a different philosophy in terms of how to make music. I think, generally speaking, the philosophy is to try and engage the culture and where it’s at right now. I mean, the whole idea of the way it was, was that you would wait for a release with great anticipation. You would have to physically go to your record store and buy your vinyl. And the interesting thing with vinyl is that you couldn’t even hear it until you got home and put it on the record player. After twenty minutes, you would be engaged in that piece of vinyl. You wouldn’t move, you weren’t texting, you weren’t washing the dog. You were sitting there listening to music.
MR: Yes, it seems there’s something lost in the literacy of listening to groupings of music as the artist wanted them to be listened too.
IA: Information moved more slowly, there was less information coming in, therefore, your time was spent in a much more focused environment. Now, there’s so much information coming in for distraction. It’s almost difficult to set that space for yourself to be creative and to be disciplined in that way. Then again, I’m not going to moan the fact that we’ve moved on, I’m going to accept that and embrace that, and that’s what we’re doing. Instead of crying about it, we’ve done something about it in that we’ve created this capsule format. I think it’s going to evolve. I know the applications, and I think it’s going to be the delivery system for many artists. I’m sure this will be the novelty of vinyl and audio files, and they will still be making CDs until people don’t want CDs anymore. I see the application as being a multi-dimensional delivery format as well. So, obviously, artists put out applications and you pay a subscription and you’re entering into that realm. And you will have everything from that artist from their biography to music to film or stories about that pet cat. It will all be in there.
MR: Your latest capsule, Capsule 2: New Blood Deep Cuts, features “Embers” and “Where The Light Takes Us.” What other elements will you include?
IA: We’re putting out two of my tracks, “White,” and then a short film for “Black Angel.” It was actually shot by our manager. On our first Capsule, the short film is a part of a longer form, almost like a montage, a film I’ve been working on called Ruins. So, the idea of this one is two fresh new songs accompanied by several live songs, accompanied by a visual element, which is the film. Again, it’s like the quick cycle philosophy–after two months, we will pull this down, and at some point, you never know, it could evolve into a fully blown album if we have the momentum. The thing I’m finding is because we have engaged in this format, it’s forcing us to produce more material in terms of graphic elements and visual elements, and that’s also driving our industry imagination to do more studio work. It’s becoming an exciting thing. When we get to the next one, what are we going to do on it? We’ll throw a few ideas around, but it’s (about) driving our industry more, which is what I see is the solution for most artists in this modern time…to embrace it.
MR: Embrace it…
IA: …challenge yourself in terms of your industry and in terms of your output. I like to get into things like split singles, where they have major artists that collaborate. They do a lot of that in hip-hop, but what I’m talking about is having two pieces of vinyl–have one artist on one side and the other artist on the other side. It’s not so much a collaboration on one track together, but they put their music together as a singular release. It’s an interesting format. The most progressive elements in our culture are in hip-hop. We have Kanye West mimicking cultural trends that are happening in Japan. But there are few cultural savants that do that who feel that kind of affect. Not so much in the rock and indie community; they are still pretty much linear, although Arcade Fire did that film where you could Google Earth your location and interact it with the video. But that’s all novelty to me. I much more consider brass tacks in terms of how to deliver your real truth. We’re making these films ourselves, nobody is making these films for us.
MR: Are you already thinking of a Capsule 3?
IA: We have a couple of ideas. We have already been in the studio…we are going to go back into the studio and finish-up two of the songs we will putting out in January. Whenever they’re ready, we will bring them out and do another film production to maintain that philosophy. It’s not so much that we came up with the format to try and be revolutionary and to garner attention, it’s something that came up organically that I really tried to pioneer and push for. We lost a record deal, we were going to sign with a major label; the deal that was on the table was a very traditional one. They all know your music, they tell you when to put it out and how they’re going to market it. It was a constant battle with the label to get what you want. Obviously, they’re investing financially in it, they want to drive it down a certain portal. There seems to be less and less interest. If you look at the Billboard 200 right now, there’s no real coherence to it. It’s also because a lot of artists are a lot of mucky artists that are trying to hold any kind of position, and I’m saying why even engage in that, why engage in these old institutions that are completely irrelevant? They don’t reflect the culture the way it is. Giving genres of music stupid tag lines like “post-modern alternative indie pop” or something like that is completely asinine. The artists have never been consulted on what they feel. Who decided that a piece of art was worth ninety-nine cents? I don’t know if Steve Jobs has been to a ninety-nine cent store recently, but you can get yourself a nice set of toilet rolls for ninety-nine cents. And who decides whether an artist is worth a dollar twenty-nine and who is worth ninety-nine cents? Who determines that?
MR: Traditionally, artist consent and control has been limited.
IA: If anything the middleman is trying to engage the youth market by saying, “Hi, we are your friendly uncle, we can help you out,” and the kids are going, “No thanks, we don’t need you. Then again, there are these huge institutions that everybody uses like Vimeo, Myspace, Facebook and all the social networks. For the price of entry, they will take your information and they will inundate you with advertisers and product. That’s become pretty extensive. The real deal isn’t really about art, it’s about email addresses. The industry has gone from producing art to collecting information–your information–so they can sell you garbage. That’s really what it’s about. The art falls by the wayside. The delusion is that you’re up there being incredibly earnest while the management is collecting the email addresses of your audience. It’s the time that we live in and it is what it is. It’s the lowest common denominator, especially in the United States. It’s amazing. The amount of talk about politics in the media we see today? Very little of that talks about the arts and the importance of culture. It’s about the commodification of it and the buying and selling of it. The fact that the biggest thing on the Internet is pornography and online gambling and the baseline ground of it all is “ladies and gentlemen, please pay attention.”
MR: So, you’re talking to us in Fairfield, Iowa and we have a community here where if you throw a stone, you will hit a musician or an artist. It’s that type of town.
IA: It’s a revolution. A real cultural revolution is something that cannot be suppressed, it’s human expression. My observation is that these generations that are growing up with the next delivery system, that system gradually will become “Quitter.” They aren’t going to be concerned about the next delivery system but about what the content is of that next delivery system. Engage us about content, we want content, stop giving us the bread without the meat. I, at home, have a drawer full of various iPods, and cell phones and various computer parts are littered throughout the house, all over the place. There are about five dead laptops. Every few years, it’s amazing how many hard drives go down in my MacBooks. Then you see that its not even an American made product, but you get the impression that it’s American design and American made though none of it is actually made in America, the point being that the human soul starts having an illness, a disease. As much of the reaction in the 1960s was depressed about a repressed culture of the post war generation, I think we are going to see a new mass turn. It’s not this kind of snobby cultural elite that’s deciding what’s relevant and not relevant because the generation of young people doesn’t even care about that. They care about what their friends are doing and what their communities are doing. That’s the generation that’s going to have the real power, the real consumers. I think that the middlemen are going to have a hard time keeping up with youth moving in that direction, and that’s nature.
Nature will have its way. You think that we have control of this? Absolutely not. Let’s look into the sweet ’60s. There’s a 360 here, it’s not just a myopic “what’s in front of you,” multifaceted, multidimensional time we live in. Eventually, kids are going to start going into the new psychedelia, going inside, going inside themselves and realizing that the marketing man is completely disingenuous and it really is about when the parents are out of the house, you have to make your own peanut butter and jelly sandwich. They have a complete irreverence to the past or future because they don’t care, and that’s fantastic. Whether The Cult gets caught up in that, I don’t know, but certainly, as a fan of cultural change, I’m excited for that. We might actually see some movement in the environmental and the cultural movement, instead of it being I’m Celebrity X, I want to talk to you about my latest cause I’m involved in to promote my new recording, hair dryer, or smart car, whatever they’re promoting. It’s interesting how these things all seem to coincide with somebody else’s misfortune.
MR: Do you have any advice for new artists?
IA: Wow, well, the first thing I say to someone who engages me in conversation and ask, “Like, wow, where do you think I should start?” and I say, “Back to the airport, go to India. Don’t stay in these open environments, it’s not here, it’s inside of you. What you have to do is go to environments that are going to flip that switch within you.” That’s why the kids in the Pacific Northwest are super-busy and super-industrious right now. I mean, there’s an amazing music scene, very, very progressive. An incredible amount of the Pacific Northwest is surrounded by Super Nature, you only have to walk out the door and it’s there.
Transcribed by Theo Shier