Cult Figures (Left to Right: Lee McFadden, Steve May, Stuarrt Hilton, Fraser Gillespie, Jon Hodgson by Bridie Main)
There is a photograph somewhere of Jon Hodgson and Roger Taylor at school together in Birmingham. Two mates, mid-teens, years before one of them joined Duran Duran. Hodgson went the other way: art college, post-punk, a debut single on Swell Maps’ Rather label in 1979, and a group called Cult Figures that released two singles, dissolved, reformed thirty-odd years later, and has now made its fourth album. Reports of People is out shortly. Jason Barnard spoke to the group about Birmingham in the 1970s, Roger Taylor, and recording with the same producer since the first time around.
Cult Figures formed in Birmingham in 1977 on a scene that also produced Swell Maps, Stephen Duffy, Spizz Energi and Duran Duran, a fertile few square miles. Looking back, what was it about that city, at that precise moment, that made such music feel possible?
Jon – Birmingham in the 70s did not have a particularly vibrant music scene. As a teenager I remember seeing countless dreary covers bands playing Heavy Metal or West Coast standards in city centre pubs and youth clubs. The best of a bad bunch was The Steve Gibbons Band and City Boy who achieved a modicum of success, but there were really no home grown bands to get excited about. From late ‘76 thanks to the NME, Sounds and the John Peel Show, my school friends and I became intrigued by the Punk Rock phenomenon which was happening in London and across the UK, everywhere it seemed except Birmingham. By early ‘77 a Brum Punk scene was slowly starting to develop around the Barbarellas night club, which hosted two or three punk festivals. On the weekends punks would meet up at the Oasis Market on Priory Square where there were several punk clothing stalls and the Crown on Hill Street where all the various new wave factions would congregate to get pissed. Musically though, Brum seemed to lag behind other cities and for a long time the only interesting local punk band was The Prefects. In September ‘76 Gary Jones and I had started on the Art Foundation course at Solihull Technical College, where we met Kenneth (Spizz) Spiers who at the time was obsessed with Bowie and Deaf School and future members of Swell Maps Kevin Godfrey (Epic Soundtracks) and Richard Scaldwell (Biggles Books) who, like me, were still hippies. Studying art at Solihull Tech at the start of punk was a life changing experience for all of us and very quickly we cut our hair, took in our flared jeans and loads of bands were formed overnight, including Gary’s band Cult Figures and my band Scent Organs with my best friend from school Roger Taylor on drums. Scent Organs, Spizz and Swell Maps all made appearances at the Barbarella’s punk festivals, where we became acquainted with other bands like TV Eye (Dave Kusworth) and Dada (John Taylor). During the summer of ‘77 Swell Maps self-financed their first single Read About Seymour, which was played on John Peel who subsequently invited both the Maps and Spizz to record BBC sessions. By the end of ‘77 Birmingham seemed to have been transformed into a really exciting place where anything seemed possible.
Your debut single ‘Zip Nolan’ came out on Swell Maps’ Rather label in 1979. What was your relationship with them like, and how much did the Swell Maps’ approach influence how Cult Figures thought about making records?
Jon – Swell Maps came from Solihull, which was posher than Chelmsley Wood and Castle Bromwich where Gary and I grew up and they were a couple of years older than us. They were very committed to music and knew about all kinds of avant garde music, and they introduced us to Kraut Rock amongst other things so we looked up to them somewhat. Once we completed the foundation course none of us stayed in Birmingham. I left Scent Organs and Gary disbanded Cult Figures and we both moved to Liverpool to continue studying Art. Swell Maps relocated to London and pretty soon were the darlings of Rough Trade records who seemed happy to release anything they recorded. Out of the blue, Epic wrote to Gary and asked if he wanted to record a couple of songs with Swell Maps including Zip Nolan, which they had always been big fans of. I had been a part time member of Cult Figures who at the outset had a very volatile line up and Gary asked if I wanted to join him on the recording session, which would be over the Christmas holidays in 1978. Recording Zip Nolan and the subsequent success of the single was the catalyst for Cult Figures re-forming and finding a more stable line up. It has to be said that without the support and enthusiasm of our friends in Swell Maps we’d never have got things together and Cult Figures would be a fading memory, so we owe them a lot. The Maps’ DIY approach to making records definitely influenced us and largely out of necessity has been the way we have recorded and released our music ever since.
Roger Taylor played with the group before Duran Duran took off. What do you remember of that period, and does it amuse or frustrate you that his subsequent trajectory tends to overshadow that shared history?
Jon – Roger and I met on the first day of school at the age of 11 and were inseparable for the next seven years. From the age of 15 we had several school bands prior to forming Scent Organs. Roger also became mates with Gary and we played together several times as Cult Figures. When Gary and I left for art college, Roger, who by that time was working at the Rover factory, stayed behind in Brum and we more or less lost touch for a year or so. When I came back in the summer of ‘79 I was surprised when Roger told me he had formed a band with these two nerdy looking kids (John Taylor and Nick Rhodes) who we used to see hanging around in the Oasis Market. Eventually I got to see Duran Duran around Christmas ‘79 and was shocked to see how professional they were. They had proper management with a big cash investment and had really worked on their image. I don’t remember feeling jealous as by that time I was on a different trajectory, I wanted to be an artist and had no interest in the jet set pop star lifestyle that Duran Duran were aspiring to. Musically I preferred the scruffy, DIY post-punk bands signed to Rough Trade and was quite happy to be affiliated to that scene with the moderate acclaim that Cult Figures were achieving at the time. I always felt very happy for Roger and I never envied the success he had in his musical career, but I missed hanging out with him and for years I only ever saw him on Top of the Pops or on the cover of Smash Hits, which felt very weird. Happily we are still friends today and it’s nice that we both play in the same bands that we joined in the 1970s, although under rather different circumstances.
There was a very long gap, roughly three decades, between the early singles and your debut album The 166 Ploughs A Lonely Furrow. When the band reconvened, how much had your collective idea of what Cult Figures should sound like changed? Was there a conscious effort to pick up where you left off, or did it feel like something new?
Jon – When the Maps split in April 1980, Cult Figures were left high and dry and started to unravel. They had been our mentors and without them we lost our connection with Rough Trade and the planned 3rd single and album never materialised. We felt disillusioned and there were a lot of arguments so by the end of the year we decided to call it a day. After that both Gary and I played in numerous bands. I joined Pete Wiley’s Wah! Heat for about two weeks and Gary joined another Liverpool band called The Ellery Bop. By the mid 80s Gary and I had moved to London and formed another band called the Iron Fish, which never amounted to much. For years Gary and I would talk about re-forming the Figures for a laugh, but it never seemed like the right time. Then Gary moved to Brighton so after that it became logistically too difficult. Finally in 2015 Gary moved back to London and after several years of not playing in bands I was ready to be doing something musical again so reforming Cult Figures seemed like a good excuse. We contacted our old bass player Martin Hughes and drummer Alan Jock Rodger and they were up for it so we just kind of picked up from where we left off 35 years previously. It was just a fun reunion really, but Gary and I soon became excited by the idea of recording the old songs and belatedly releasing our first album. We recorded the songs ourselves in various rehearsal studios using Garageband and our old friend John Rivers mixed them at his Woodbine St Recording Studios in Leamington Spa. Martin and Jock, who were living in different ends of the country, bowed out after a year or so and Lee McFadden (Swell Maps C21, TV Personalities) took over on bass, Stuart Hilton (Cottonmouth, Innocents Abroad) on Drums and Barney Russel on guitar and Omnichord. By the time The 166 was released the band had built up momentum again and we started writing new songs. The band’s ethos was still rooted in punk, but with the improved musicianship of the new line up the sound gradually changed and with the second album Deritend we started to explore more diverse musical territory.
Gary Jones, your founding frontman, passed away in 2022. How have you navigated continuing without him, and in what ways does his presence still inform what you do?
Lee – Jon’s is the greatest loss of course as he knew Gary from way back in 1977 – but the few short years Stu and I played with Gary in the band produced a friendship that will stay with us for the rest of our lives. Fraser became a friend of Gary’s too as he was a fan before he became a band member – indeed it was Gary who suggested we try Fraser out for an audition when we had a couple of important shows coming up and Gary knew he would be unable to do them. We still include Gary’s songs in the set and Fraser takes on the mantle magnificently. “Rapide 40 Slideout” – which we perform regularly – was Gary’s last lyric and written when he was first diagnosed. It’s a powerful song and even though Gary never actually sang it – when we perform it, for me it feels as if he is there with us. Gary formed the band – named the band – he was the guv’nor. We are still here – I don’t think I’m coming across as brash when I say we are still a great band – but far above missing him as a Cult Figure, we miss him as a friend.
Jon – Losing my best friend Gary during the Covid period was devastating for me and the band. For a long time we were all hoping he would pull through and we’d all be able to resume playing together again when lockdown ended, but sadly that wasn’t to be. We lost our beloved front man, Cult Figures’ lynchpin, which could easily have ended the band, but we all enjoyed playing together so much that we decided to continue, knowing that nothing could ever be the same again and the post Gary Cult Figures would be a very different band. With the arrival of new singer Fraser Gillespie and guitarist Steve May, the band was revitalised and now feels stronger than ever. Musically things have moved a long way from the original Cult Figures sound. Whereas the original band was very much led by Gary and myself, the band now feels more democratic and everyone contributes songs, lyrics and musical ideas, which feels really positive, exciting and quite unpredictable.
Reports Of People is slightly darker than its predecessors. Several of the tracks like ‘Legacy Hand’ and ‘Death Of A Thousand Cuts’ seem preoccupied with loss in its various forms. Is that a fair reading, or is it more irreverent than it sounds on the surface?
Steve – I think, lyrically, there’s often a level of darkness but tempered by humour too.
Jon – Our previous album Between Us and Heaven is a bit more poppy sounding and Reports of People could easily have gone the same way, but the songs we chose for the album just happened to be less conventional. This might suggest a darker mood, although this wasn’t a conscious decision. We just try to make each song as different to the last one as possible. As Steve said, there is a lot of humour in the lyrics, as always, largely inspired by the absurdity of life. ‘Death of a Thousand Cuts’ does explore the feeling of loss at the end of a relationship, but ‘Legacy Hand’ is about the embarrassment of being stuck in a long ‘Teams’ meeting and putting your virtual hand up to say something, but forgetting to put it down again after the conversation has moved on.
Fraser – For me, with my complete lack of previous experience, the songwriting process has been an unexpected joy. There are no ego problems in this band and, with four highly accomplished musicians, we can work most ideas into a great song. If we can’t, we just move on. At the moment, the ideas keep coming; not all of them dark – we have aliens, Boys Brigade and lunatic friends.
You’ve worked throughout with producer John A Rivers at Woodbine Street in Leamington Spa. That’s an unusual degree of continuity. What does Rivers bring that keeps you coming back, and how has the working relationship evolved over the years?
Lee – He’s cheap (lol!!). Of course he produced the original Cult Figures way back when – but it’s not really about the nostalgia that brings us to him – quite the opposite. He’s an adventurous producer who is always looking for new technology to keep in the loop. He knows how to get a band relaxed and efficient and he knows our sound. He can also put up with my terrible jokes.
Steve – John’s full of ideas, technically incredibly adept & enthusiastic. He’s always throwing surprising curveballs which keeps things fresh! I think he brings the best out of us.
Fraser – John is incredibly gentle with me when I’m singing. He makes it fun to stand in front of the mic and I have a strong sense that he is getting the best performance I could possibly produce. At the end of a take, I wait with apprehension for his comment in the headphones; which is often “You w*nker!”
Reports Of People is your fourth album and, by any measure, you’re operating on your own terms. Is there a sense of momentum now, things still left to say and being planned; or are you still taking every day as it comes?
Steve – I feel like this has been an incredibly creative & productive period for the band – I’m always excited about what’s coming next.
Lee – I stopped planning anything when I was 30. That applies to music and pretty much everything else!
Jon – Creativity is like waiting for the 166 bus, you can hang for around for years on end then all of a sudden four turn up at once!
Further information
Reports Of People released on 24 April 2026 through Bandcamp
