William Henry Duffy (born 12 May 1961) is an English rock musician, best known as the guitarist of the band The Cult. Early life Duffy was born and grew up in Manchester. He has Irish and Jewish heritage and ancestry. He began playing the guitar at the age of fourteen, being influenced by the music of Queen, Thin Lizzy, The Who, Aerosmith, Blue Öyster Cult, and the early work of Led Zeppelin. In the late 1970s he became involved in the punk movement, being influenced by the New York Dolls, The Stooges, Buzzcocks, and The Sex Pistols, as well as AC/DC (which he views as a proto-punk group). He started playing lead guitar with a number of different punk acts whilst still in school in the late 1970s, including the Studio Sweethearts. In the Manchester scene he personally influenced Johnny Marr to start performing as a guitarist, and encouraged Morrissey to make his first foray as singer/frontman with a punk-rock act titled The Nosebleeds. After leaving school, Duffy left Manchester when the Studio Sweethearts moved to London, working for a period as a shop assistant at Johnsons in the King's Road, in Chelsea. The Studio Sweethearts subsequently broke up and Duffy began playing lead guitar part-time with the band entitled Theatre of Hate. Shortly after he met Ian Astbury, who was at that time the frontman/lead vocalist with the Southern Death Cult, who was sufficiently impressed with Duffy's talents that he quit the Southern Death Cult to start a new band with him called Death Cult. After releasing two singles, the band shortened its name to The Cult. In The Cult's debut single "Spiritwalker", Duffy created a distinctive flanged sound using an unfashionable at the time choice of guitar - a mid 1970s Gretsch White Falcon, which became his trademark sound and image. This was followed up the album titled Love. It featured the hit "She Sells Sanctuary". Career Late 1980s and 1990s Duffy helped change The Cult's sound into metal-blues for their third album, 1987's Electric. Duffy moved to Los Angeles in 1988 with Astbury, where both remain. There, the two writing partners (with longtime bassist Jamie Stewart) turned to stadium rock and recorded Sonic Temple. The Cult reached a larger, mainstream audience, but the public's attention could not be sustained with their next album, Ceremony, at the dawn of the grunge age. Following the 'Ceremonial Stomp' tour of