Ben risks talking to the band who give the phrase retroactive baggage a bad name.
Kula Shaker on their name change:
Alonzo (bass): We were called the Kays but we thought it sounded too much like marzipan, so we decided to change it to Kula Shaker and we'd met a chappie called Kula Shaker earlier on.
Crispian (vocals/guitar): A chappie?!
A: A very fine chappie! And he said when he'd changed his name to Kula Shaker the great spirit of Kula Shaker looked after him and helped him along, so we thought, "we'll have a bit of that then".
C: You see, we then got a record deal the day we changed our name.
There was no stylistic change then?
C: Well, we were a really hot type funk band but now we're really loose and mantra driven. No, we just got better really.
So, Kula Shaker then. Neither a really hot type funk band nor really loose and mantra driven but more a pocket size package tour of the seventies. They combine Beatles mysticism with seventies riffs in easily digested pop chunks that the kids seem to like. With supporting Oasis at Knebworth and being the latest Chris Evans-sponsored band, Kula Shaker have had a productive summer. However, will they just be more 'Shine' fodder, or is there more to them than pop hooks and bad trousers?
Kula Shaker on their album:
C: It's awesome. Absolutely brilliant.
A: Amazing.
C: Have you ever heard that Monty Python sketch about the funniest joke in the world and a few people who just read one word laugh so much they go to hospital for a week and the people that read all of it just die on the spot. Well it's kind of like that. People who have just heard a couple of notes or an introduction just freak out and ejaculate.
A: The bad thing is though that these people then suffer really heavy depression because they listen to other music and it just sounds mundane. They have to go through counselling and everything, it's terrible. The A&R department at Sony are now just in counselling.
Paul (drums): They've all started taking drugs!
The first thing you realize when you talk to Kula Shaker as a band is that they are actually quite mad. No, sorry, they are very mad. As soon as you start on one subject they just natter on to each other about something completely different.
Kula Shaker on beards:
C: Big beards! No, big beards are going to be for the third album. Hash for the second, but for the first we can't even grow beards yet. No, it's going to be all different sorts of sounds. We don't like albums which just coast along so it's ...
P: It's going to be a montage.
C: Yeah, a montage. Listen to him, he's the interesting one.
P: It's like a palette and each song is a different colour and we are the paintbrushes and the album is like the painting and it's all these different colours. It's extraordinary!
That's quite a metaphor.
P: It's a bit like painting by numbers with that Lassie dog where, like, one is white and so colour that bit in, but three is like blue and white together which is quite complicated really.
Jay (Hammond organ): It's a bit like scratch and sniff porno films isn't it really?
O: Now, that's an interesting idea.
The first thing that jumps out at you when writing up an interview with Kula Shaker is that Crispian sounds exactly like Davy Jones from the Monkees. This wouldn't be remarkable but for the fact that listening to a conversation between the four members of Kula Shaker is a bit like watching a re-run of a Monkees episode.
Kula Shaker on who does the washing up:
P: I can't cook and I'm easily pressured into things so I used to do more than my fair share of the washing up.
C: That's bollocks. You might not want to know about this, but he is so deluded. Your reality is just fucked, man. I don't know who creates it, I don't know who shapes it, but if you honestly thought you did the washing up you are a fucking smelly, fucked up man. It's bollocks. I bet in your new place you don't do the washing up. I bet you've got paper plates.
P: Yeah, well ...
C: Alonzo never used to wash because he cooked, so in his head he would justify our fucking kitchen looking like a war zone. It was always, "Yeah, but I did it." and I was like, "Yeah, you did it. So clean the fucking place up."
It soon becomes very obvious that you are talking to four middle class lads who have grown up on Monty Python and the Goons, the Kinks and the Jam and bad Eighties American films.
Kula Shaker on the sex scene in Excalibur:
C: The thing is it was so realistic because plate metal would take hours to take off, so if you wanted a quick bit of shagging on the job you'd just take the key out and, you know... Also, the men were so huge.
P: They were real men in those days.
The annoying thing is that they obviously have the nouse and the intelligence to do something different, yet listening to their set after the interview one three minute blast of seventies pop follows another and even the two tracks sung in Sanskrit seem bland.
Kula Shaker on doing a single in Sanskrit:
C: It's almost like, the first thing we did was 'Tatva' and we really did that just as a point having our first single in a language that hasn't been spoken fluently for 3500 years or something and we thought that would show 'em.
J: And it did.
You see, the first time I saw Kula Shaker was on 'The White Room' when they played a cool, laid-back Indian-sounding physchedelic track before belting into the horribly predictable 'Grateful When You're Dead'. This seems to sum up the whole ethos of Kula Shaker. Everything needs to have its pop hook and nothing can be taken beyond the limits of a three minute guitar blast. Of course I'm saying this without hearing the album, but their live set is one of such bland conformity it isn't a difficult judgement to make.
Kula Shaker on Kula Shaker:
P: We're just a quarter of a person each. We're just this six foot giant person who is Kula Shaker.
C: Actually all four of us are planary expansions of Francis Bacon.
However, maybe I am being churlish. Kula Shaker do what they do very well. Their set is tight and professional and the rush to put a hook into everything does produce some good moments. The single 'Hey Dude' is a good example of this- it is easy to appreciate the blast of guitar pop but after hearing a third or fourth time you start to realise it is a fairly empty experience.
Kula Shaker on touring with the Presidents:
P: The Presidents are more fun than a jamboree. They're very exciting and have got the most brilliant sense of humour of anyone I know.
O: They've got a great attitude to playing as well.
C: Yeah, they're a modern day garage band and they really mean it. They rock! When they do those devil signs they are not joking. I saw them worshipping the goat of Mendez in their dressing room.
P: The main reason they asked us to tour with them was because Crispian, Jay, and Alonzo have all got purple garments of clothing and they are very attracted to purple because they are the Presidents and they are goats.
Right.
P:If you've ever seen 'The Devil Rides Out' it'll make sense.
C: The goat of Mendez is the devil himself!
Of course the fact that they are so darn bloody likeable and seem to take things so bloody unseriously doesn't help when you are trying to rip in to them over their hopeless retro sound. They are the sort of band who act just like you and your mates would if ever you were interviewed. Well, maybe you and your really weird mates.
Kula Shaker on the their plans for the future:
J: Armageddon is on the top of the list at the moment.
P: mmm.That would be nice.
C: Avoid armegeddon or bring it on?
J: Survive it!
So, Kula Shaker then. Yeah, maybe just some more Shine 460 fodder but, hey, they could be worse. They could be Ocean Colour Scene.
Kula Shaker were talking to Ben, in September 1996.
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