Kula Shaker Biography

After playing in the group The Objects of Desire, and a quick backpacking trip to India in 1993, Mills returned to the UK and wanted to set up another band. 'The Kays' comprised Mills, his friend Alonza Bevan (bass), Paul Winter-Hart (drums) and Mills's cousin Saul Dismont (vocals), and they struggled to make any significant progress, even after Dismont had left and was replaced by keyboardist Jay Darlington. Then came a chance encounter with the swami Kulasekhara das, whose name means 'following in the footsteps of King Kulasekhara', a noble 9th century Indian monarch. The swami had also met the Beatles when he was a young boy in the 60s, and regaled Mills with stories of those heady days, and led the young guitarist to change the name of the group to Kula Shaker - reasoning a little bit of help from the divine ancient king's name couldn't hurt.

The renamed band kept plugging away, recording and writing, and within nine months they found themselves the subject of a bidding war from the major labels, having been joint winners (with Placebo) of Tony Wilson's In the City competition in September 1995. Signed to Columbia, their first single was released the next May, and although 'Tattva (Lucky 13 mix)' failed to get into the top 75, the follow-up 'Grateful When You're Dead' did much better, reaching number 35, its Hendrix-style guitar stylings awakening interest in this curious new band.

They went back to the studio and re-recorded a new version of 'Tattva', which proved to be their breakthrough - hitting the number 4 spot in the summer of 1996, the record will surely always remain the only top five single to have been sung partially in Sanskrit, and the lush arrangement, featuring finger cymbals and other Indian percussion, signalled that the band had arrived, and were prepared to offer something alternative to the occasionally tiresome Blur vs. Oasis Britpop standoff. The song also received the special accolade of being parodied by Mark Radcliffe and his sidekick 'Lard' on Radio 1 - naming themselves 'Peela Tater', they twanged some sitars and sent up hilariously the group's slightly smug take on mysticism:
'Meditating with the Maharishi,
Live a life that's pure and sparse,
Lamb jalfrezi and fifteen pints of lager,
Sends a message to your arse.'

Third single 'Hey Dude' was more of a straight-forward rock tune, but did even better in the charts, reaching number two and only kept from the top spot by those five giantesses of girly pop, The Spice Girls. Debut album 'K' did manage to reach number one however upon its release in September 1996, and was the fastest selling first album since Oasis's 'Definitely Maybe' three years previously. They scored another top ten hit with the Sanskrit song 'Govinda', and all seemed to be coming up roses in the Kula Shaker garden.

The next year began with continued promise for the group, as they received three BRIT nominations, one of which they won - that for 'Best British Breakthrough Act'. March brought about the release of their most successful single, a cover of 'Hush' (which had been Deep Purple's first big hit in 1968), which again reached number two and has since featured on numerous film soundtracks and advertising campaigns.

However, Mills nearly managed to pull the rug out from under the whole thing when he made some ill-advised - or 'stupid', if you prefer - remarks about swastikas in an interview with the NME in March 1997. When the magazine's interviewer, talking about the band's eating habits, brought up the fact that Hitler was a vegetarian, Mills slightly lost perspective, and even put in their context, he surely must have expected a massive backlash with comments such as: '...I love the swastika. It's a brilliant image, it symbolises peace and the sun and illumination - it's everywhere in India. I'd love to have great big flaming swastikas onstage just for the fuck of it'.

Oops...and a backlash was what they got - this could probably be deemed the one kind of publicity that is bad, as the Independent newpaper called for Mills's head, pointing out that his earlier band The Objects of Desire had used the motto 'England Will Rise Again'- which certainly sounds uncannily like a recruitment call for the BNP. The headlines wrote themselves, and a grovelling apology from the band's frontman was faxed through in thehope of repairing some of the damage to their image. (Incidentally, Bryan Ferry managed to do something very similar in April 2007, when in an interview with a German newspaper he heaped fulsome praise on the films of Leni Riefenstahl, the buildings of Albert Speer, and the power of Nazi iconography - seriously, Bryan, you should have known better.)

Wisely deciding to try and let the music do some of the talking, Kula Shaker performed at numerous summer festivals that year, turning in very well-received sets atV, Glastonbury and T in the Park, and they started to score modest success in the US with 'Tattva' and 'Hey Dude'. Back in the UK, next single 'Sound of Drums' reached number three, and the band directed their efforts to the writing and recording of their second album.

Released in March 1999, 'Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts' was by and large more of the same, and to some extent this may have been part of the problem for the band. Two and a half years on from 'K', Kula Shaker did not seem to have brought anything new to the mix,and althgouh the rich mix of Indian instrumentation, swirling electric guitars and mysticism was well put together, and sold relatively strongly, it wasn't really anything new. Singles 'Mystical Machine Gun' (March 1999) and 'Shower Your Love' (May 1999) both stalled at number 14 in the charts, and after another summer's worth of festival appearances, it seemed that Kula Shaker's mystical journey was coming to an ignominious end. After playing at a festival in Cornwall in August 1999, timed to coincide with the total solar eclipse, the band announced that they were splitting, and that they would be going off in their various directions to do their own thing.

Bevan went on to play bass for Johnny Marr's band The Healers the following year, and drummer Paul Winter-Hart played for Aqualung. Darlington ended up playing as the tour keyboardist for Oasis, a role he fulfils to this day, and although Mills worked on various side projects such as Pi, he did not enjoy the same success as he had with Kula Shaker in their heyday. The beginnings of a reconciliation/reformation came about when Mills, Winter-Hart and Bevan collaborated on a charity record in aid of the Californian School of Braja, and although Darlington could not be lured back from his Oasis job, the group were a foursome once more when they added keyboard player Harry Broadbent. Their official website happily announced that the group had 'risen from the bottomless pit', and a secret comeback gig at a Leighton Buzzard pub was planned. Although their cover was blown by blackboards outside the venue proclaiming 'Kula Shaker - Live Tonight' (just as well none of them thought of pursuing a career with MI5, I suppose), the group were properly back by the beginning of 2006, and released a four-track EP 'The Revenge of the King' online in April. More festival dates ensued in the summer of 2006, and work began on their next album that autumn.

Entitled 'Strangefolk' (which had been the working title for their second album), the 2007 release will surely please the group's core fan-base, as it is another retro collection, keeping the Indian mystical elements that are their calling card, and embracing themes such as George Bush, Guantanamo Bay and the Iraq war. Mills stated, however erroneously '...rock and roll has failed to comment on the war [um...really?]. It's staggering, so much going on and yet so little to say about it. Seems like there's a real complacency in the air.'

What Mills and his band-mates certainly won't be complacent about is the popularity, or otherwise, of their latest release, and Mills is clearly hoping that their fan-base will remain as loyal as they were back in the mid-1990s: '...it feels right to be back. We've missed being here and hopefully people have missed us too.'

Now, if he can just try not to mention the war- he did it once, but I think he got away with it...

• Kula Shaker Discography