“This very special item from my Arkive is from the historic appearance on January 13th 1984 when it was announced that we were changing the band name from Death Cult to The Cult.
From memory, me, Ian and Si Ord (our manager at the time) decided that live tv would be the most impactful way to make the announcement.
I would imagine most folks by now know we were worried about being pigeon holed as a ‘goth’ band as that was becoming a bit of a fad at the time and we were hoping the play the long game with our career.
Anyhow as they say presenter Jools Holland announced it and that was that!
The Tube was a great show with all the bands playing live and we did Spiritwalker, Flower in the desert, Horse Nation, Gods Zoo, 83rd Dream and Christians.
As a sidebar I think Ian had just been back to Canada and surprised us all with his ‘look’ for the show which I have to say was pretty epic!!!”
Billy – April 2026