Kula Shaker at the Town & Country Club in Leeds on April 5, 1998 and recorded b BBC Radio 1 for their In Concert Series.
The origin of Kula Shaker can be traced back to 1988 when Crispian Mills (son of actress Hayley Mills and film director Roy Boulting) met Alonza Bevan at Richmond upon Thames College in South-West London. The two went on to play together in a band named Objects of Desire, formed later that year. The band’s initial line-up consisted of Mills on lead guitar, Bevan on bass, Richard Cave on drums (until 1990) later Marcus French (aka Frog) on drums, Leigh Morris on rhythm guitar and Marcus Maclaine (then Hayley Mills’ boyfriend) on lead vocals. In 1991, Paul Winterhart joined the band, replacing French on drums. During this period, Crispian and Alonza were also responsible for running the Mantra Shack, a psychedelic nightclub at the back of Richmond ice rink, and consequently, the Objects of Desire would often perform at the venue.
In May 1995, Mills suggested that the band take the name Kula Shaker, in honour of one of the twelve Alvars (saints of south India), the ninth-century Indian emperor and holy man, King Kulashekhara. In Indian culture, the name Kulashekhara is thought to be lucky or auspicious, and this appealed to the struggling band. Mills also posited that Kula Shaker’s music should follow a more spiritual and mystical direction in future, in line with his own growing interest in the philosophy of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. This new emphasis on Indian mysticism and instrumentation, dovetailed with the Beatlesque, 1960s-derived influences already present in the band’s music, to create a sound heavily indebted to 1960s psychedelia.
In September 1995 Kula Shaker were joint winners of the In The City contest (along with Placebo), which quickly resulted in a record contract with Columbia Records, who were eager to sign another band that had the multi-platinum, crossover appeal of Oasis. A debut single, “Tattva (Lucky 13 Mix)” (later re-recorded for their debut album) was released on CD and limited 7″ vinyl in January 1996, but it entered just outside the UK Top 75, at number 86. “Tattva” was followed quickly in April by the band’s second single, “Grateful When You’re Dead”, a slice of Jimi Hendrix-esque rock which was to become their debut UK Top 40 single (entering at No. 35). Music press and public alike finally began to take notice of the band, and this sudden exposure propelled the re-released (and re-recorded) “Tattva” to No. 4 in the UK Singles Chart. The band’s upward climb continued with their third single “Hey Dude“, a more traditional rock song which was only kept off the top spot by the Spice Girls when it was released in August.
Although Kula Shaker’s sound owes a lot to the classic rock bands of 1960s and 1970s, the songs often combine Eastern-influenced sonics (“Govinda”) with lyrical themes of a universal spirituality quest, employing ideas of soul and devotion from diverse traditions such as Hinduism (“Tattva”), to Christianity (“Great Hosannah”) and even Native American Indian (“Infinite Sun”).
Noel Gallagher was an early champion of the band, inviting them to support at Oasis‘ historic Knebworth concerts, but from the outset of their career, Kula Shaker polarised UK media opinion. This arguably stemmed from age-old British preconceptions about class and race. Not only were they white youngsters singing about Krishna in Sanskrit, they were seen as coming from privileged middle-class backgrounds. Speaking in an interview in 2016, Mills says “When I was in private schools, they called me ‘common’, and when I was in state schools they called me ‘posh’. It made me very cynical about all these labels.” At the height of Britpop and ‘lad culture’, music publications like Melody Maker, Select and NME often focused on the class angle and ridiculed the band’s fascination with Indian culture. Mills commented in 2016, “The musical styles on K are mainstream now. [In 1996] people didn’t know how to understand it or where to place it, so all that was left to do was deride it.”
Big thanks to Wikipedia for the bio information.
Dive in and crank it up.