I know The Cult aren’t a punk rock band, but it has been announced that their guitarist Mike Dimkich has left the legendary British rock band in order to continue touring with Bad Religion, where he has been filling in for Greg Hetson since last April. Replacing Mike in The Cult will be James Stevenson, who previously toured with the band in 1994 and 1995. In regards to Mike’s departure, The Cult guitarist Billy Duffy writes:
“We stared of rehearsals as a trio with me, Chris [Wyse, bass] and Johnny [Tempesta, drums] as we felt like we just wanted to get a bit of the rust off as we haven’t played together for a while.
Obviously, ‘Electric’ is very much a two-guitar album, one rhythm and one lead, so with Mike moving on, we’ve decided to welcome back James Stevenson back into the fold to play rhythm for the tour. As a CULT alumni of 94/5, James was the obvious choice.
The plan is to play the ‘Electric’ album in order then break and play a bunch of other stuff from the other eras, similar to the ‘Love Live’ tour from a few years back. I’ve really enjoyed playing ‘Bad Fun’, ‘King Contrary Man’ and ‘Electric Ocean’ again as its been a while. There’s moments when it’s really exciting and that’s really cool.
It will be interesting to see how ‘Memphis Hip Shake’ goes down, as it will end that first section of the set, as it sounds really good, but it’s not your traditional set-ending song. But then ‘Black Angel’ ended the ‘Love Live’ set really well.”
Bad Religion’s latest album, True North, was released in January of this year on Epitaph Records. The band is currently touring in support of the album.