Kula Shaker

Academy 2, Manchester – 06.10.2007

Cast your mind back, if you will, to the summer of 1996. In the aftermath of The Battle of Britpop, a new band emerged in a haze of psychedelia and incense. But after two rampaging rock albums laced with sitars and Sanskrit, as we welcomed in the millennium we bid farewell to Kula Shaker.

Seven years on and Kula Shaker’s return is yet to make an impact on many. For the benefit of those whose reaction to this interview is, “They’re still around?”, I launch into my questions with:

Muso’s Guide: So you’ve been away for a while, how does it feel to be touring again? (unfortunately directed at new member Henry ‘Harry’ Broadbent who discreetly reminds me he’s never been away).

Alonza Bevan (bassist): It’s marvellous but we’ve been back together for a couple of years now.

Muso’s Guide: How, then, has the reformation of one of the biggest British bands of the nineties passed so many by?

Alonza Bevan: We’ve been building it up very gradually, we just wanted to play live and find our pockets again. So we’ve been doing that, trying to write new songs and playing them live in the last couple of years.

The band’s attempts to keep their return quiet included playing a small pub in Leighton Buzzard under the guise of The Garcons, although blackboards outside saying “Kula Shaker live tonight” may have given them away. However, I find staying under the radar for so long while perfecting the third album Strangefolk far more encouraging than churning out any old crap to cash in on a come-back.

Muso’s Guide: What do Kula Shaker think of today’s music scene, and is there still a place for you ten years on?

Alonza Bevan: It has changed, but we’ve still got loud guitars.

‘Harry’ Broadbent: Yes, guitars, drums, bass – we fit in perfectly. We never fitted in back then though, that’s the thing. We were never mad for it!

Muso’s Guide: Alonza, you don’t seem happy about being placed in the Britpop category back then – are you mad for it now?

Alonza Bevan: Maybe a little bit. Maybe we’re a bit more mad now.

Madness must pay off as Strangefolk is more than just a comeback album, it’s a masterpiece in its own right. It has the anthemic qualities of K, a bit less of the experimentalism of Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts but the added wisdom and experience of an older, more mature lyricist.

Muso’s Guide: The track that really intrigues me is ‘Song of Love/Narayana’, and I think to myself, have Kula Shaker covered The Prodigy?

Alonza Bevan: We did a collaboration with The Prodidgy and when Crispian originally sang and wrote those lyrics it was for another piece of music. Then cleverly, with their technology, they swapped it around so the voice was on another piece of music, so we swapped it back again and took the original music, and then he changed his vocal line on it!

Muso’s Guide: We’re confused!

Crispian Mills (frontman): Re-write mash up.

Alonza Bevan: It’s a good moment, big massive mantras, we love that.

That is, of course, what Kula Shaker are known best for, entire songs written in Sanskrit, combining traditional British rock with psychedelic visions and their use of Eastern mysticism and instrumentation. So I half expected them to want to explain hidden spiritual messages in their music, and was taken by surprise by their light-heartedness.

‘Harry’ Broadbent: I like the hippy second half of the album…’Fool That I Am’, that’s my current favourite.

This common misconception that Kula Shaker take themselves too seriously may have been the reason for the softly softly approach of their comeback. There is a more laid-back delivery of Mills’ political attacks in the new material, and with comic delights such as ‘Great Dictator’, there is also a real sense of fun. The live show is no exception, as Kula Shaker are preceded by Dr Joel, a south Indian vocal percussionist who must be seen to be believed, putting a packed Academy Two into incredibly high spirits (or is that just the incense?).

Kula Shaker enter the stage, sharply dressed in tailored suits, to a series of clips from cult movies, which have also been a source of inspiration in their latest videos. And then psychedelic rock n roll fills the venue and old meets new as ‘Hey Dude’ slots in perfectly next to ‘Out on the Highway’. For anyone who had forgotten Kula Shaker it’s a real wake up call to how bloody good they were! In the middle of all the madness, Crispian strums the opening to ‘Shower Your Love’ for a truly spiritual hands in the air type moment, a chill out tune to rival ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’.

Crispian commands the stage and works his magic not just as a performer, but a conductor, a great dictator and spiritual leader. For the final song, the band begin an eastern sounding build up and you know it could only be ‘Govinda’. As Crispian sings the Sanskrit lyrics, he conducts the audience with fascinating flowing arm movements until, as if by some miracle, everyone in the Academy is singing in a foreign tongue.

Welcome back to the cult of Kula Shaker.

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