“This crowd was rowdy, and we like people moving and dancing,” said Cults’ lead singer, Madeline Follin. Although they have reached stardom, Cults still enjoy playing college shows. “College campuses can be really fun,” Follin stated.
However, Cults did not always pull the crowds the way they do now. “Go Outside,” Cults second most popular song on Spotify, “was the first song I’d written in my entire life,” according to Brian Oblivion, lead guitarist. “We put it on the internet, and it was something that got out of our control very quickly.”
Follin and Oblivion originally posted “Go Outside” without names or pictures. Despite its current 1.6 million views on YouTube, the band did not include personal information because, at the time, “we didn’t think that anybody would care.”
Cults met in San Diego while Oblivion was touring with Follin’s brother’s band. According to Oblivion, he wasn’t even performing with Follin’s brother, only “driving and helping carry stuff.”
Oblivion’s name is based on a movie character “whose dead but lives on through television and media.” Since the band was so obscure at the time of the release of “Go Outside,” Oblivion picked his name as a joke.
Both Follin and Oblivion grew up in San Francisco and later moved to San Diego, and both “had a lot of experience with new age philosophies.” Religious cults “were always something we were fascinated with,” said Oblivion. In fact, the Heaven’s Gate religious cult that resulted in 39 suicides happened a half a mile from Oblivion’s house.
Springfest was composed of three acts, beginning with student performer DJ Wazzza, followed by Cults, then ending with Big Gigantic. Shows like Springfest are a significant source of income for bands like Cults.
In terms of revenue the cash cow is “definitely not YouTube,” according to Follin. Despite some concerns about Spotify’s treatment of indie artists, Brian Oblivion is a big fan: “I’m a big Spotify user, and I listen to so much more music now.”
His one qualm with Spotify is the inconvenient placement of their commercials. “If someone is listening to our album, and then it’s like “the Ford Focus”… it kind of sucks.”