Amidst the industrial haze of Houston, where oil refineries paint the horizon and the music scene flips through punk, indie, and hardcore acts like a broken Rolodex, Cult Affections have quietly carved a lane of their own. The band, rooted in early 2000s post-hardcore and darker alternative rock, just dropped their self-produced video for “Where Angels Fear to Tread,” a track pulled from their debut EP The Envenom Series, originally recorded in New Orleans. The video took nearly four and a half years to complete—high production in look, but entirely DIY in execution.
“This video was quite the undertaking,” says vocalist and band manager Grant Varner. “It went through nearly 4 and half years of production in New Orleans due to its high production yet exclusively DIY nature which we are very proud of, as well as the stories it generated.”
“WAFTT” is the most personal track in their current catalog. “It’s about a close cousin of mine who fought her whole life against these health issues and the rigorous treatments she endured growing up, which actually made her completely deaf,” Grant explains. “The girl who donated a liver to her when she was a baby, which then allowed her to live the next 25 years that she did, before passing to leukemia, was dying from a car accident and said to her Mom ‘Do you see the Angels’ and then she died.”
The song’s story bleeds directly into the video’s dark, theatrical nature. “Obviously, the story of ‘WAFTT’ has all of those key elements which naturally translate into a very dark and theatrical Music Video,” Grant says. The visual leans into drama and mortality—”my family is from Italy initially, so if there’s one thing you should know about Italians, it’s that we absolutely tweak out over drama, tragedy, and mortality.”
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The Envenom Series itself is a narrative stitched together from personal breakdowns, emotional wreckage, and those shifts in life that leave you either cynical or stronger. “Ultimately, though, you can either rot in the cynicism generated from those thoughts or let them build you up to a better version of yourself,” Grant reflects.
The EP’s cover—a twisted rabbit loosely inspired by Korn’s Issues—is a symbol of that shift. “It encapsulates that corruption of youth and innocence you experience in that transition where all feels like it’s going to shit.”
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Formed out of old friendships and high school chaos—Boy Scouts, jazz band, an ex-girlfriend’s mutual friend—the band had their first show at a church fair’s Battle of the Bands. “It was incredibly cheesy and kind of cringey, but we won, so it is what it is, haha,” says Grant.
But where many local acts in Houston fall into patterns, Cult Affections took a different approach, one rooted in obsession with darker, often neglected alt-rock sounds. “I’ve always been obsessed with darker alternative sounds from the late 90’s to early 2000’s like MCR, Placebo, HIM, Jack Off Jill, REM, Type O Negative, The Smiths, the Cure and NIN… it seems like nobody hardly gives a shit about those kinds of groups around here.”
Their stance on current music industry trends is just as clear. “Today nearly every facet about the industry seems about taking inauthentic shortcuts every chance you get. Media content has become all about brown-nosing the algorithm through recycled trends… deprived of good o’l TLC,” Grant says. “There’s all these BS rules too; like needing to crank out a new song every six weeks all these music gurus say to do. I can’t think of anything more soul draining to water down your craft.”
What defines Cult Affections is a deliberate avoidance of those shortcuts. “Sure, everything’s got a time and place case by case, but it feels like most artists today desperately want to sound like someone else or piggyback their brand off of some other more established artist or social movement.” He adds, “We’ve got a long way to go in a lot of aspects, but the amount of authenticity we put into each and everything we do is something I’ll never apologise for no matter how long something takes.”
That authenticity extends to their approach to analog vs. digital. “Anything analogue is on life support… Amps, pedals, drums, etc have been completely subbed out for plug-ins. 8 times out of 10, you can absolutely tell the difference between what’s from a computer and what’s not. It’s when everything’s too perfect that it sucks. It’s the human micro-errors that give any mix a beautiful touch that plug-in’s could never replicate and that’s a hill I’d die on.”
As for Houston’s scene, Grant doesn’t sugarcoat it. “You’d be pretty hard pressed to find a truly textbook defined ‘Alternative’ scene in Houston… The rock scene is so incredibly grounded in pretty much just Indie, Punk, where a band’s lifespan lasts about as long as their songs, and Hardcore which honestly I’ve witnessed some pretty gruesome scenes take place like stomachs getting slashed and chins getting pierced by shoulder-jacket spikes in the pit.”
Still, the city has its moments. “The DIY scene especially is amazing with how many people come out in droves to the most random spots you could think of.” Among the local names they recommend: Orion 224, DWN Kill, Pinkie Promise, and Zegovia. “Some Alt artists who have really broken through the noise are As Ghosts and Max Diaz. I love all those guys. Literally the sweetest and chillest folks you’ve ever met and they’ve been up to some SUPER dope things with some awesome jams.”
The band is taking a breather from shows to finish work on a new single, more video releases, and a follow-up EP titled Dead Villyns. “I have zero idea what 2025 is gonna entail. I broke my crystal ball last year which sucks cause it was hella expensive,” Grant jokes. “We’ve been off to a fun start and I will say though that A LOT of things are in the works. Definitely new music and some exciting videos.”
There may even be new versions of old material. “Instead of forgetting what’s been done, it’s fun to find new ways to keep older things relevant and exciting. Kind of like how rain reactivates cat piss.”
For now, Cult Affections are doing things their way, at their own pace—loud, honest, weird, and deliberate. “Fans can always expect us to say ‘F-CK it!’ to these stupid rules.”
