Astbury is a musical nomad. As a child he lived in England then Canada, then back to the UK and lived in Glasgow, Liverpool, and Bradford. He formed his first band Southern Death Cult in Bradford in 1981. They had some success but it was when he met Manchester guitar legend Billy Duffy that he formed a new band called Death Cult. They dropped the ‘death’ to avoid being seen as goths and for their first TV appearance on ‘The Tube’ in 1984 they were simply called The Cult. In 1985 they released the album ‘Love’, which contained the seminal hit single ‘She Sells Sanctuary’.

Astbury was a fan of The Doors as a teenager and things came full circle when the surviving members of the band asked him to front them from 2002 to 2007.