Crispian Mills (born 18 January 1973 as Crispian John David Boulting; spiritual nameKrishna Kantha Das) is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and film director. Active since 1988, Mills is best known as the frontman of the psychedelicindie rock band Kula Shaker. Following the band's break-up in 1999, he remained with Columbia Records (a subsidiary of Sony BMG), and toured with a set of session musicians (including a support slot for Robbie Williams) under the name Pi, although no official studio recordings were released in full. After the label rejected the Pi album, Mills disappeared for a short time, returning in 2002 as frontman and lead guitarist for back-to-basics rock outfit The Jeevas, who disbanded in 2005 to make way for a reformed Kula Shaker, who released their third album Strangefolk in 2007. In 2010 he released the album Pilgrims Progress with Kula Shaker. In 2017 the band celebrated the 20th anniversary of their album K with the release of the new record K 2.0. Mills joined the band for a sold-out UK tour to celebrate the anniversary.
Mills was born on 18 January 1973 in Hammersmith, London, England. His mother, Hayley Mills, had made her name as a child star in the 1960s, and met Mills' father, Roy Boulting, on the set of light British comedy The Family Way. Boulting was 33 years Hayley Mills' senior, and only five years younger than her father, Sir John Mills. The pair married in 1971. The family lived on Belgrade Road, in the south-west London district of Hampton, and had an additional property at Cobstone Windmill at Ibstone, Buckinghamshire.[citation needed] The marriage did not last, and the pair split in 1975, followed by an official divorce in 1977. At this point, Hayley was pregnant again by actor Leigh Lawson with her second son, Jason.[citation needed]
The new family shared their time between Hampton and Lawson's Coventry residence.[1] Hayley put her career on hold to raise her sons during their early years, a sacrifice which to this day, Mills values very highly.[2] The young Mills believed his grandfather to be a genuine knight in shining armour.[3] Sir John can also be credited with introducing Mills to music, by singing old cowboy songs to send him to sleep as a child. Mills would go on to cover one of those songs, "Rio Grande" with his post-Kula Shaker band The Jeevas.[4] "I count myself to be very fortunate," says Mills, "in having been brought up by people who are very open-minded and who are genuinely in love with the arts. If I've inherited anything from my family, it's that love of the creative process and that awareness of the privilege which being a part of it represents. That comes from my father too... I couldn't escape from it, and never felt I wanted to."[5]
Mills attended various schools, some private, some state run, as his mother was frequently travelling for film work. 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".[6]
His background meant that family friends were people like Richard Attenborough and Sir Laurence Olivier, although Mills has often remarked that he was rarely star-struck as they were "just people" to one accustomed to the company of famous actors.[7] As a result of this, and his mother's experiences as a child actress, the young Mills believed that making films was to be his next step. "I grew up with pictures of my mum looking very very young, standing with John Wayne or Walt Disney. That did something to my head; I thought that was kind of normal. That's what happens: you get to 12, you start making movies. It was only when I got to 12 that I realised, obviously, that wasn't the case."[8]
It was around this time when Mills first started to consider ideas of spirituality and mortality. "If I ever had a Road-to-Damascus, it was when I was 11," he recalls. "I woke up one night, at home in bed, and realised I was going to die. I don't mean 'tomorrow' or 'in a year'. It wasn't a prediction. It was just suddenly understanding fully that death would come. I remember talking about it at the time. Everyone thought there was something wrong with me."[2] To address these new feelings on life and death, Mills borrowed the Mahābhārata, one of the two major Sanskritepics of ancient India, from his mother, and took to reading it. He also became vegetarian, although concedes that this was largely due to meeting "a really attractive girl who was vegetarian".[2]
Throughout his youth, Mills had been exposed to a wide variety of music. One of his earliest musical memories was "Puff, the Magic Dragon" by Peter, Paul and Mary, which he believes "summed up [his] childhood".[9] As a general rule, Mills uninspired by the then-current music scene, found that he was able to identify with older records, which he felt had honesty and genuine youth.[10] However he singled out "Stand and Deliver" by Adam and the Ants – the first single he ever bought[11] – by virtue of its drama and longevity. In terms of albums, his first purchase was "Too Tough to Die" by the Ramones.[11] However, it was hearing "You Really Got Me" by English rock group The Kinks that inspired him to become a guitarist. "It was like walking into a temple, a moment when my life changed," he says. "I'd grown up listening to Boy George and Duran Duran on the radio. But Really Got Me. Chung! This is your destiny! After that, as soon as I picked up a guitar, all I wanted to do was become brilliant. I practised, I studied tapes, I was a guitar worshipper." Through the guitar, Mills also discovered Deep Purple, and has cited their lead guitarist Ritchie Blackmore as a major influence on his style.[2] At Richmond upon Thames College he met future band-mate Alonza Bevan.[citation needed]
Later, Mills started to delve deeper into psychedelic music, and spent most of his A-Level years taking LSD and listening to The Doors.[12] Acid gave the teenaged Mills a change of perspective, but he soon realised that drugs alone would not bring him the enlightenment he sought. Watching close friends go "over the edge" on hallucinogens ultimately convinced Mills that there were other ways of changing one's perspective.[13]
Career
Mills in an interview with a New York journalist stated, "You can sing about things like premature teenage sex, or you can sing about everlasting, universal truth." In the perspective of this Hindu philosophy his band debuted the song "Govinda" at an outdoor festival in England. "We found our way onto the Hare Krishna stage, and we just started jamming on 'Govinda'." Shortly thereafter, Mills toured India for the first time with his mystical friend and tour guide, Mathura, while the other band members stayed behind in England.[14] He was initiated in the Gaudiya Vaishnavism tradition in 1997 and has a spiritual Hare Krishna name Krishna Kantha das. The same year he wrote a foreword to a book by Bhaktivinoda Thakur translated into English from Bengali and titled Siksastaka, an esoteric bhakti publication.[15]
Mills became famous in the UK as the lead singer-songwriter in the Indian-influenced 90s Indie/rock band Kula Shaker in 1996. Kula Shaker's first album K became the best-selling debut album since Oasis' Definitely Maybe in the UK, and the band had a string of UK hit singles, culminating in 1997's 'Hush' which peaked at No. 2 there.
In 1997, Mills contributed vocals to the nine-minute breakbeat song "Narayan" on The Prodigy's third album The Fat of the Land.
Following Kula Shaker's break-up in 1999, he spent two years experimenting with new musical ideas, touring briefly in the UK with as part of a band called Pi. A disagreement over the quality of an album proposed for release saw Mills depart from his UK record company in 2001.
In early 2002 the speedy formation of a new band called The Jeevas with Andy Nixon and Dan McKinna (previously both of the band Straw) led to relative success, with the first album selling over 100,000 copies in Japan. Sales elsewhere were low but the band remained a hot ticket in smaller UK venues. Despite extensive touring and sizeable hardcore fanbase, The Jeevas split in early 2005, with Nixon and McKinna forming a new band named The Magic Bullet Band.
Mills performing at a 2006 gig
During 2004 The Jeevas and a reformed Kula Shaker (without original keyboardist Jay Darlington) contributed to a charity album with the Californian School of Braja, which Mills masterminded. The sessions with Kula Shaker went so well that the band decided to reform permanently. 2006 saw their return to the live scene in the UK with the addition of new keyboardist Harry Broadbent, and the release of an EP Revenge of the King. Their third album Strangefolk was released in 2007.
In June 2010 Mills released his 4th album with Kula Shaker, Pilgrims Progress.
In early 2016 Kula Shaker returned with their new album K 2.0. The band played a mostly sold-out European tour in February and March 2016. They spent the rest of the year touring across Europe, Asia and North America.
A well-received sold-out 20th anniversary tour of their debut album K followed at the end of 2016.
Mills announced another break for the band due to his commitments to more film projects.
Swastika comments
In a 1997 interview with the NME, Mills commented on the use of the swastika in Hinduism saying that he "loved the (Hindu) swastika" adding "don't let (the Nazis) steal that from you" and that he would "love to have flaming swastikas on stage, just for the f**k of it".[16][17] The interview resulted in a negative stream of press, with one journalist suggesting that Mills, like the Sex Pistols, and Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones, had "flirted with fascism". Mills later issued a written apology, in which he talked about his interest in how sacred spiritual symbols get hijacked by nefarious ideologies, adding that he "opposed totalitarianism in all its forms" and stood for "love and understanding".[18]
Films
In 2001, shortly after his father Roy Boulting's death, Mills began writing film scripts. His first screenplay The Winged Boy was bought by the Hollywood production company Gold Circle, but has never been made. Mills continued to write and develop material, eventually writing and co-directing A Fantastic Fear of Everything,[19] starring Simon Pegg. The film, which tells the story of a paranoid crime writer with an irrational fear of launderettes and hedgehogs, received mixed to negative reviews.[20] Many indie reviewers praised its visual originality and Simon Pegg's performance, which won him Best Male actor at Toronto after Dark film festival. Empire magazine gave it 3 stars.[21] In 2018 Mills directed and co-wrote another movie project, Slaughterhouse Rulez, this time including both Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. It also met with mixed to negative reviews.[22]
Personal life
Mills has been married to the former model Josephine "Joe" Mills (née Branfoot) since 1995. They lived in Bath, England for twelve years with their two sons Keshava aged 15, and Hari aged 12.[23]
The Jeevas were an English rock supergroup. Its members were Crispian Mills, Andy Nixon (drums), and Dan McKinna (bass). Mills was previously the vocalist of Kula Shaker. Nixon and McKinna were previous members of Straw and a third member of Straw, Mark "Duck" Blackwell, produced both The Jeevas' albums. Mills rejoined Kula Shaker in late 2005, and The Jeevas disbanded.
Kula Shaker are an English psychedelic rock band. Led by frontman Crispian Mills, the band came to prominence during the Post-Britpop era of the late 1990s. The band enjoyed commercial success in the UK between 1996 and 1999, notching up a number of Top 10 hits on the UK Singles Chart, including "Tattva", "Hey Dude", "Govinda", "Hush", and "Sound of Drums". The band's debut album, K, reached No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart. It was voted number 879 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums 3rd Edition (2000).
Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills is a British actress. The daughter of Sir John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell and younger sister of actress Juliet Mills, she began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for her performance in the British crime drama film Tiger Bay (1959), the Academy Juvenile Award for Disney's Pollyanna (1960) and Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress in 1961.
K is the debut album by English psychedelic rock band Kula Shaker, released on 16 September 1996. A concept album, themed on Indian mysticism, it became the fastest selling debut album in Britain since Elastica's debut the previous year, selling over 105,768 copies in the first week. The album reached the number-one position on the UK Albums Chart and number 200 on the US Billboard 200. It was voted number 879 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000).
Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts is the second album by the British indie and psychedelic rock band Kula Shaker.
Mary Hayley Bell, Lady Mills was an English actress and writer, married for 64 years to actor Sir John Mills. Her novel Whistle Down the Wind was adapted as a film, starring her teenaged daughter, actress Hayley Mills.
Giles Martin is an English record producer, songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist. His studio recordings, stage shows, TV and film works have been critically acclaimed and commercially successful around the world. He is the son of Beatles producer George Martin and half-brother of actor Gregory Paul Martin.
Kollected – The Best Of is a 2002 compilation album by Kula Shaker. There are sixteen songs on the album: seven from their debut "K", four from "Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts" and five non-album tracks.
Straw was an English post-Britpop band that released one album, Shoplifting, in 1999.
"Shower Your Love" is a song by English psychedelic rock band Kula Shaker. It first appeared on their second album, Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts, in March 1999 and was released as a single two months later. It reached number 14 on the UK Singles Chart.
"Govinda" is a song by British rock band Kula Shaker, released on their debut album, K (1996). Sung entirely in Sanskrit, the song includes Indian influences and tambura and tabla instrumentation. "Govinda" was issued as a single on 11 November 1996 and peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Chart.
Strangefolk is the third studio album by English psychedelic rock band Kula Shaker, the first album since the band reformed. The album has received mixed reviews since its release. It entered the UK charts at number 69.
Tattva : The Very Best of Kula Shaker 2007 is a best-of double album released in 2007 by the record label Music Club. It includes all the tracks from Kula Shaker's first two albums and a handful of previously released non-album tracks. It is not an official 'best of' and the band have asked fans not to buy it.
"Sound of Drums" is a song by English psychedelic rock band Kula Shaker, released as the lead single from their second studio album, Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts (1999). With lyrics by frontman Crispian Mills and music composed by the whole band, the track takes musical inspiration from American rock band the Doors and received production from Rick Rubin and George Drakoulias, as Mills wanted the track to have a more "American" sound than their previous works. "Sound of Drums" was issued as a single on 20 April 1998 and debuted at number three on the UK Singles Chart the same month, becoming Kula Shaker's fifth and final top-10 hit in the United Kingdom.
"Tattva" is a song by British psychedelic rock band Kula Shaker, released as the band's debut single. It was first released in the United Kingdom in 1996 as "Tattva ", then re-issued on 24 June 1996 as a re-recording from their debut album, K (1996), with a different sleeve and track listing. The re-recording reached number four on the UK Singles Chart, number 11 on the Canadian RPM Alternative 30 chart, and number 10 on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. In Melody Maker, critic Neil Kulkarni declared "Tattva" and follow-up release "Grateful When You're Dead" to be "the two worst singles of '96".
"Grateful When You're Dead" is a song by the English rock band Kula Shaker, taken from their first album K.
Pilgrims Progress is the fourth studio album by Kula Shaker and was released on 28 June 2010. The first single to be taken from the album was "Peter Pan R.I.P", which was made available to download as an MP3 from the band's website on 22 April 2010. A three-track "Peter Pan R.I.P" EP was later made available on the iTunes Store on 18 June 2010. The album's title is a deliberate misspelling of John Bunyan's story, The Pilgrim's Progress.
Gouri Choudhury is a Bangladeshi-born British singer and music teacher.
"Hey Dude" is a Britpop song by English psychedelic rock band Kula Shaker. Written by frontman Crispian Mills and Kula Shaker, the song was released as the third single from their 1996 debut studio album, K, on 26 August 1996. Produced by John Leckie, "Hey Dude" became the band's joint-highest-charting song in the United Kingdom, peaking at number two in September 1996. Internationally, the single charted in Australia, Ireland, and the Netherlands, as well as on the Canadian and US rock charts. In Australia, the song was ranked at number 60 on the Triple J Hottest 100 of 1996.
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