Interview Jay and Alonza - Stage (March 99 issue)

interview by Kloot per W (translated by Lady K)

When I saw Kula Shaker for the first time in my exciting life on TV about 5 years ago (isn't that a bit too long ago? - me) colourful memories from a sunny past flashed through my poor, confused head. For a moment, I thought that I was watching some special repeat of the holy Avro's TopPop (something like the Dutch version of TOTP - me). The musicians of Kula Shaker were so out of place regarding clothes and music among all the grunge, crossover and hardcore violence that was thrown upon us from all corners of the world. I really thought I was daydreaming.

They looked like the nephews of David Bowie, a bit poofy and clean but still rocking in a old and almost forgotten seventies way. The element of show that was mostly forgotten in the 90s, was welcomed back by this band, which was a nice change from all the shoegazing and airdiving. The band acted on stage as if they were already extremely popular, which turned out to be the case in England. The musical technique was extremely high, which was a huge difference from other bands at the time, but they weren't pretentious jazz acadamic students. 5 years later, they are hugely popular in England, and rightly so. For a band that does its thing without caring about trends, success is always deserved because it's a proof that they have talent. Here, in this small triangle called Belgium, they are still sitting silently on their place in the waiting room to fame. Let's hope that their second album, Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts, produced by the legendary Bob Ezrin, will change all that. It has become an excellent and very varying album on which hundreds of influences are equally balanced over the whole cd. There is the Indian element which is still very prominent, but for the first time we also hear influences of King Crimson. Also The Doors and the sound of the psychedelic American garage bands, mixed with a large dose of blue eyed soul are bubbling on the surface. Kula Shaker isn't the 90s version of the Dire Straights, they are musically far more interesting and more a real band. And they also look a lot better than the Knop (Mark Knopfler - me) and his boring employees. Finally a band that stands with one leg in the 70s without having to think constantly about the Beatles. We meet bassplayer Alonza Bevan and keyboardist Jay Darlington on a 'secret' location in Brussels.

Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts has become a very varying and bubbling record. Are you proud of this new piece of work?

Alonza : "We are very happy with the album, the whole band thinks it's better than 'K'".

Jay : "I was listening to both records a couple of days ago, and I must admit that we really have improved."

The new album sounds more natural, more organic.

A : "I can see that. You can feel that it's a band playing and not some technician who is trying to compile a record from bits of tons of other albums in a studio full of machines. We are a band and we enjoy playing music, playing together, human interaction,..."

J : "Our record is very well produced, but it doesn't sound too polished. It sounds like Kula Shaker should sound, the feeling is most important. Technique serves the feeling and not the other way around."

A : "Most of the songs are recorded while we were all playing together at the same time."

J : "Isn't it awful that we have to explicitely say that these days. You don't have to ask a painter who paints a work of art that he has done it all himself. You just know he does."

A : "For the recordings, we were in this small room where we were very close to each other and where communication was at its best. Without any headphones, just playing really hard."

J : "We had rented a mobile studio and just threw everything in a 16th Century wooden house (shouldn't that be a houseboat? - me). The atmosphere was magnificient, grand and warm. Normally, you're in a studio without any windows or sunshine, a very unnatural situation really, but we had this view over a beautiful, natural, moving scene. Just what we needed. I think you can also hear it on the album."

A : "One day, David Gilmour came to the studio and we were playing some pool together. The atmosphere was very loose, we also could play tennis or ride a horse in the fields. It was all very relaxing, just like a holiday."

Your music begs for space, doesn't it?

A : "That's true. Both physical space as space in time. We aren't really a three-minutes-singles band. Our songs demand more space than that. We are all fans of Pink Floyd and this band knew like no one else how to use space and time. They really invented this totally new kind of music using this technology and the spatial aspect of repetitive and trance elements from the music of primitive tribes. Without having to use samples. The whole techno scene is in debt to Pink Floyd without even knowing it. They were the pioneers of the space effect in popmusic. With all due respect to Sun Ra, but he made avant garde music that nobody heard anyway."

There certainly are a couple of Pink Floyd moments on this album, don't you think? 'Mystical Machine Gun' could have been on 'Dark side of the moon' just like that!

J : "You couldn't make us a better compliment. Bob Ezrin wanted it to sound like that and we agreed. We still behave like silly brats who are impressed by their idols!"

A : "We have recorded about 20 songs and there were a couple of songs with that Pink Floyd element that haven't made it to the album. Because we wanted a very diverse album, we had to have a very strict selection. But it's true, Pink Floyd - or maybe rather 'Punk Floyd' - has a big influence on us."

I really like the imperfection that surrounds this album, without it sounding messy. Was it hard to convince a starproducer like Bob Ezrin to make a so-called imperfect album?

J : "I see what you mean. Our album doesn't sound polished and flat and gives the feeling that it lives, something you miss with big American producers. We didn't have to convince Bob of anything. Our album sounds human and warm. We really had to run away from the band we had become to obtain this. After years of touring, you become a well-oiled machine that's sometimes activated any spiritual labour."

A : "The word they use for that is routine, Jay."

J : "We first organised some demo-sessions in a small cottage in Devon after finishing the previous tour. Songs like 'Sound of Drums', 'Timeworm' and 'Namami Nanda-Nandana' came to life there. It was fun to change back from machine to real band. We were also working at the same time on this music for the movie 'Reflections of Love'. We didn't think about how we should sound on the new album, we just played in a relaxed atmosphere and that really revitalised us."

Did Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts become more of a band thing than just the album of Crispian Mills and his musicians?

A : "The British press has this image of Kula Shaker that doesn't fit reality at all. Crispian is the main person in the band and he does write most lyrics, but we write the music together and this doesn't mean each his own instruments. I also have my say about the drums, singing and guitars or what Jay does. And vice versa!"

J : "We are also real friends of each other, even from before the band existed and we also had a great relationship with Bob Ezrin. That's why this album sounds like a 'band album', just because it is like that."

A : "Since the very beginning we lived in the same house. Even if Crispian comes along with a song played on his guitar, it turns into a real Kula song after a while because everybody gives something to the song, change things about it which makes it more a work of a group."

J : "There isn't just one way to make a Kula song. Some songs just come to the surface during jam sessions and start to live their own life. Others start with a riff or a keyboard scheme."

A : "We have spent so much time together the last few years, that we don't have much friends outside the band. We are a travelling club of friends and this is also true for the whole crew we work with. We all get along very well. We are one big family, all children of the same age and the same interests."

J : "Yes, we sleep in each other pockets, but we don't know any other way. It's been like that since the very beginning of the band, it's our positive way of reacting against society. We are an autonomous, individual society."

A : "But I know that the press picked out Crispian because he's the singer and he writes the lyrics. But you can be certain that it would have been different if we wouldn't have been there. Even promotionally, as you can see. I won't even start to bother about that because it's so totally different than a certain press wants to portray it. Kula Shaker is a dynamic collective that works just the other way around. We are there for each other and through each other. This may sound like soft hippy shit, but I wouldn't be able to live my life as some member of a constantly angry gangsta rap act.(imagine that! - me) But we're no softies either! We are giving our criticism on society which is much more realistic, real and more based on acting than just saying things."

Do you like the promotional side of making albums? All these interviews in different countries. Listening to the blah blah of promotion girls and boys. Answering questions of journalists who all think they have seen the light?

A : "Our job is done and we have given away our album. It's not really ours anymore and this is a very strange feeling. Of course, we much rather make the album, the recording, the mixing, even brainstorming about covers for the album and other marketing things. It's our band after all, our life, our job. But a lot depends on the relationship with the management and the record label. If that relationship is OK, then even jobs like this can be fun sometimes."

J : "And Belgium seems to be a nice country, despite its bad reputation lately. Very open and open - minded. Much more than France or Germany. I don't really have the impression of being abroad because everything I find in England, I also find here." (Thank you Jay!!!! I love you! :-) - me)

A : "I quite like interviews because you get to hear opinions about songs that aren't that well known yet and sometimes you get really bizarre opinions that make you think for a while."

Where did that strong relationship come from with music from the 70s? I think you were toddlers at the time.

A : " There was a kind of logic there that you can hardly find these days. Those songs tell you a story. Sometimes even a very silly story but a story all the same. That's what I miss in modern music. It seemed like in the 70s, different songs on one album had something in common with each other, like they were part of a bigger story. In the 70s you had very interesting bands that made some interesting sounds. Nowadays, an album is made out of 3 fantastic singles and 10 redundant ones. That's why there is a big change towards the singles market. I think the album as a complete album is becoming extinct."

J : "We won't have a lot of trouble with that because we're before everything else a live band. I won't stop me from falling asleep."