The Southern Death Cult (album)

History

The band's origins trace to early 1979 in Bradford with the formation of Violation, which included bassist Barry Jepson and drummer Haq Nawaz "Aki" Qureshi alongside a guitarist known only as Mick. After about seven months of rehearsals, Violation played its first show and performed roughly twenty gigs over eighteen months. On 3 and 4 January 1981, the group recorded thirteen demos on a four-track machine at Bradford Community Studio. Southern Death Cult formed in 1981 with vocalist Ian Astbury, guitarist David "Buzz" Burrows, Jepson, and Aky.

The name derived from an old term for the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, a mound-building Native American culture, and also critiqued the English North-South divide. Their first show occurred on 29 October 1981 at the Queen's Hall in Bradford. The band toured heavily in the UK to promote the single, including slots opening for Theatre of Hate, Bauhaus, and The Pit at Exeter University in December 1982. Astbury disbanded the group after a show in Manchester on 26 February 1983.

Later projects

In April 1983, Astbury and guitarist Billy Duffy formed an act first called Death Cult, then renamed the Cult after releasing an eponymous four-song EP and a single later that year. The other three ex-members, joined by vocalist Paul "Bee" Hampshire, formed Getting the Fear, which released one single, "Last Salute", on RCA Records before splitting in 1985. Jepson and Hampshire later formed Into a Circle, releasing the Assassins album in 1988. Jepson subsequently worked as a concert promoter and teaches live sound and tour management at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute. Burrows and Qureshi formed a band called Joy, and Qureshi later founded the political Islamic hip hop group Fun-Da-Mental and the label Nation Records.