The History

During the last few years Kula Shaker has become one of the biggest britpop names. Their debut album "K" made history by being the fastest-selling British debut album and the singles like "Hey Dude" and "Tattva" were number one at charts all over the Europe. The band mixes the 60's psychedelia, the 70's rock, the 80's dance, the 90's britpop sound and in doing so produce a novel and fresh sound. The success seems only to be growing further.

However, let's go back to the eighties.

The original form of Kula Shaker was some sort of psychedelic band called "Objects of Desire", fronted by Marcus Maclaine. Crispian Mills joined the band at the age of fifteen and Alonza Bevan in 1988 after meeting up with Crispian as students in Richmond College. These two ran also a psychedelic nightclub called "The Mantra Shack" at the back of Richmond ice rink.
Paul Winter-Hart joined the Objects in '91 after seeing an announcement that offered a place for drummer in the band.

In those days Crispian went a bit wacko and decided to do something with his life. So he spent couple of months in India and came back as a changed person. After that, in 1993 he set up new band with Alonza, Paul and vocalist Saul Dismont. They called the band "The Kays" (also known as "The K's").
Dismont left the band in the late '93 and therefore Crispian took his place as a lead vocalist. At that time Jay Darlington joined the band.

After spending two years touring and recording, releasing two EPs on Gut Reaction Records, the group hadn't made any headway. In the spring of 1995 they changed their name to Kula Shaker after a ninth-century emperor and began to pursue a more spiritual direction.
For the next three months they performed as Kula Shaker, and they quickly received a record contract with Columbia.

The debut single "Grateful When You're Dead" was released in spring of 1996, but it was the followup single "Tattva" that established the band. It went fourth on the UK charts and the following album "K" bounced straight to the top. The album was released in September 1996 and it became the fastest-selling British debut album since Oasis' "Definitely Maybe". Singles "Hey Dude", "Grateful When You're Dead" and "Govinda" were also hits. The band crowned an extraordinary first year by winning a Brit Award for best newcomer in February 1997 and by being personally requested by Noel Gallagher to support Oasis at the latter's historic 125,000 capacity Knebworth shows.

The year 1997 saw the release of a frenetic cover version of Joe South's "Hush", and in the summer Kula Shaker played on the main stage at Glastonbury Festival. That really was 'a dream come true'.
The only downer for the successful year was Crispian's ill chosen words that "Hitler knew a lot more than he made out". He was of course referring to Hitler's hijacking of the ancient Indian peace symbol swastika, but the media pounced on the opportunity to wrongly brand him a nazi.

After that hectic summer Crispian, Alonza and Paul headed out to India.
"It had got too much about other things and not the music," Crispian explains. "That's to be expected, but it was like losing touch with the fact that we're a band and we had to make another record. We really had to be thinking about the music so we just stopped everything and cut ourselves off."
Soon after returning work on "Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts" began. The first single from the album, "Sound of Drums", was a Top 10 hit in the UK.
By March 1998 the band were on board a Victorian house boat studio in the river Thames with producer Bob Ezrin at the helm. Second album "Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts" was released 1999, and comparing to "K" it's much more uninhibited. The band really enjoy playing the songs.

The musical style of Kula Shaker has changed with the second album. The opinions about the album are divided in two: most of the critics cried down the new Indian sounds and the whole album. On the other hand some music critic stated the record's maybe "too smart for selling millions of copies"...(if somebody made that out, please explain the meaning to me =)...
Well, if you wanna hear my personal opinion about "Peasants" I can tell that if I hadn't listen to it in a record store on 19th March 1999, this website wouldn't exist. At the first time I heard "Mystical Machine Gun" I couldn't believe my ears. "How I've failed to notice this band?" So, I think everyone has their own opinions.

In autumn '99 Crispian Mills shocked everyone by telling he's gonna left the band. It really happened, and he started a solo career. Jay, Paul and Alonza decided to keep still together as Kula Shaker.
Let's hope all the best for the boys and also for Crispian. Life goes on and so does Kula Shaker.

"They do what they want. They don't care what other people think. At least they don't follow the fashion." -Lisa Scott