The Cult’s latest release, Born Into This [Roadrunner], unapologetically harkens back to the band’s ’80s glory days, and it kicks out more grit and bombast than what typically passes for rock and roll these days. It’s also a brilliant lesson in the building blocks of mid-’70s rock guitar, as Duffy spews strutting salvoes of rhythm punches and slinky single-note lines through Les Pauls and raging amps.

Your signature riffs are often a combination of arpeggios, chordal punches, and single-note lines—all wrapped up in a massive roar. How did you conceive that approach?
I developed that style back when we didn’t have a rhythm guitarist, because I wanted to make as much resonant noise as possible to fill space. Early on, we had the rumbling, tribal-like drums, and very busy bass lines, so I started by playing some Ennio Morricone-style chords. But, as a post-punk band, we knew we needed to expand sonically in order to be unique and different. At that point, I made things sound a lot more rock by driving the amps real hard, and I started doing lead riffs that were inspired by a lot of glam rock. The basics were Mick Ronson, Mick Ralphs, Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson from Thin Lizzy, Bill Nelson with Be Bop Deluxe, and Brian May in early Queen. Then, there’s the pre-punk stuff, such as Iggy Pop and the Stooges with the Asheton brothers and James Williamson. I like real simple riffs that are kind of repetitive. Nothing too fussy—just stuff that you bash out.

What was your setup at that time?
My whole rig was a Roland JC-120 combo run simultaneously with some kind of Marshall half-stack, a few delay and overdrive pedals—with maybe a flanger or phaser for an intro bit—and a Gretsch White Falcon. Of course, the JC-120 was a big part of the band’s early sound—“Rain,” “She Sells Sanctuary,” and all the Love stuff from 1985. But when we started playing much bigger places, my gear looked like club crap. And, you know, I’d hear Slash and Steve Stevens on various tours, and it was obvious I needed to up my game a little bit. We were making an effort to be a bigger-style rock band, and Marshall stacks were part of that statement. So, as soon as we started making money, we bought a ton of Marshall heads and cabinets. But when we used them on the Electric tour in 1987, I realized they sounded kind of crappy. Also, the stacks came in all black with a big Marshall logo, and I thought that was so heavy metal tacky. So we found a guy in Los Angeles who had some old Marshall grille material, and he recovered the front of the cabs to make them look ’70s vintage. Now, you can get vintage-style Marshalls real easy, but, back in the day, you had to go to extraordinary lengths to get a good look and a good tone.

Moving forward a couple of decades, what gear did you bring in for the Born Into This sessions?
The electrics were a goldtop Gibson Les Paul and a ’70s Les Paul Custom, an old Silvertone with lipstick pickups, and my Gretsch White Falcon. For acoustics, my buddy Jim Stevenson [occasional Cult, and former Gene Loves Jezebel and The Alarm sideman] lent me a great Gibson Hummingbird, and I also used a Guild 12-string.

I used three or four different amps—mostly, a Bad Cat head through a Marshall 4x12 loaded with Celestion 25-watt greenbacks, a Bad Cat 2x12 combo, and a Matchless DC-30. I also used a plexi Marshall head, and the JCM 800 I’ve used onstage since 1988. I had it modified by Harry Kolbe in New York to produce nice, warm overtones. Before the mods, it had this horrible, cheap-sounding distortion if you drove it too hard. You can hear that amp on the Sex Pistols’ live album of the 1996 Filthy Lucre tour, because Steve Jones bought a bunch of my gear. I bought it back from him after that tour, and then he borrowed it for the Pistols “Silver Jubilee” show in 2003. He’s on his own now, though—he’s not getting it again!

The pedals included a Lovetone Brown Source, a Menatone Red Snapper, a Dunlop CryBaby wah, a Boss flanger, and a selection of Boss analog and digital delays. I use an .011-.048 set of Ernie Ball strings, but I replace the low E with a .052. I have my own Billy Duffy-imprint Gold Flex 50 nylon picks made by Dunlop. I use them because I went to see Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers in 1977, and, later, I saw him at a pay phone. I told him I was a big fan, and he gave me a pick out of his pocket. It was a very cool Herco Flex 50. I still have it. I hold my picks with the point at the back, and hit the strings with the thick end.

What was your creative headspace as you started recording the album?
I didn’t want to get bogged down. I wanted to capture the first thing that came into our heads that felt good. There was also a fundamental shift in our method. I’d track a bunch of riffs and chord progressions to a click track, and Ian and the engineer would chop the data up into a form he wanted to sing over. This meant that I wasn’t coming up with verses or choruses. Ian decided what was what, and he edited the best sections of music together. Actually, it turned out to be a good approach, because he immediately developed vocal ideas from what he was hearing, rather than trying to fit his vocals into a set form.

Was it weird not composing to a conventional song format?
It was hard to do things differently, but I learned to let go. It was down to a question of trust between Ian and I. But it turned out to be a great relief for me, because the process engaged Ian in the songs from the get go, and it also freed me to bring in more creative ideas without worrying about structure. We kept anything that sounded good, but we also fixed up and/or re-recorded parts. We were thorough, but we didn’t labor over anything. We just got on with it, kept up the pace, and wrote and recorded the entire album in 40 days. Keeping the sessions fun and spontaneous was the essential factor in making sure a bunch of cut-and-paste performances still had a lot of energy and drive.

After taking a six-year break since making Beyond Good and Evil in 2001, did you experience any artistic or technical struggles recording Born Into This?
Not really. Ian wanted to introduce a lot of synth parts, and my thought was, “Can’t I try to get that sound out of the guitar?” There are certain things a guitar can’t do, of course, but the Cult is always going to be a guitar-driven rock band. The thing is to find the right blend and balance for the keyboard textures. You don’t want the keyboards to be an easy fix—like putting sugar on your food—and it’s the producer’s job to know the difference between a really cool synth part, and a gimmick that you’ll get sick of after three months.