Crispian Mills

Crispian Mills
Background information
Birth name Crispian John David Boulting
Also known as Dodge
Born (1973-01-18) 18 January 1973
Hammersmith, London, England
Genres Rock, Indie, alternative rock, psychedelic
Occupation(s) Musician, Film director
Instruments Vocals, guitar, harmonica, sarod, ukulele, tambourine
Years active 1988–present
Labels Columbia
Cowboy
Strangefolk
Associated acts Kula Shaker
The Jeevas
The Prodigy
Website www.kulashaker.co.uk

Crispian Mills (born 18 January 1973 as Crispian John David Boulting; also known as Krishna Kantha das) is an English singer, songwriter, guitarist and film director. He is the son of actress Hayley Mills and director Roy Boulting, the grandson of Sir John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell (Lady Mills), nephew of Juliet Mills and director Jonathan Mills, and half-brother to Jason Lawson.

Active since 1988, Mills is best known as the frontman of the psychedelic indie 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.

Early life

Mills was born in Hammersmith, London, England on 18 January 1973. 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. At the time, Boulting was still married to his third wife Sandra. Boulting was 33 years Hayley Mills' senior, and only five years younger than her father, Sir John Mills. The pair went on to marry in 1971. The family lived on Belgrade Road, in the south-west London district of Hampton,[1] and had an additional seat at Cobstone Windmill at Ibstone, Buckinghamshire. 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. Mills did not see his father again until he was 16.[1]

The new family shared their time between Hampton and Lawson's Coventry residence.[2] Hayley put her career on hold to raise her sons during their early years, a sacrifice which to this day, Mills values very highly.[3] Mills' maternal grandparents also played a vital role in their upbringing, particularly his grandfather John Mills, who Mills describes as having been "the one consistent man in my life".[1] Indeed, the young Mills believed his grandfather to be a genuine knight in shining armour.[4] 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.[5] "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."[6]

Mills attended The Mall School, Twickenham then Highgate School in north London. 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]

Instead, Mills went to Stowe School (Chatham House, with school number 606), Buckinghamshire, to continue his education. Despite enjoying the experience initially, he left after a year; his arrogant ways made him unpopular with the other boys but they did enjoy beating him up. Crispian told his mother, "I'm out. If you make me stay there any longer, I'm gonna become a communist!"[3] His opinions on public school have mellowed over the years, and he concedes that "public school people aren't all monsters," and blames any monstrous tendencies on the trend that allows older pupils to discipline the younger ones.[3] Hayley took the plea of her elder son seriously, and promptly sent him to the local comprehensive.

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."[3] To address these new feelings on life and death, Mills borrowed the Mahābhārata, one of the two major Sanskrit epics 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".[3] Subsequently, Mills took part in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (the "Hare Krishna" movement).[9]

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".[10] 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.[11] However he singled out "Stand and Deliver" by Adam and the Ants – the first single he ever bought[12] – by virtue of its drama and longevity. In terms of albums, his first purchase was "Too Tough to Die" by the Ramones.[12] 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.[3] At Richmond upon Thames College he met future band-mate Alonza Bevan.

Later, Mills started to delve deeper into psychedelic music, and spent most of his A-Level years taking LSD and listening to The Doors.[13] 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.[14]

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.[15] 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.[16]

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.

During November 1996 and January 1997 Mills made a series of remarks about wanting to have swastikas at his shows, praising Hitler and criticising democracy.[17] It was subsequently revealed that he had previously performed in a band called The Objects of Desire, who shared a platform at the Wembley Conference Centre with the notorious anti-semitic propagandist Eustace Mullins, and a leading US far-right writer, William Cooper.[18] Mills later apologised for his behaviour, and denied being an anti-semite.

In 1997, Mills contributed vocals to the nine-minute 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.

Mills performing with Kula Shaker in Milan in 2007.

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.

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 and their fourth, Pilgrims Progress in 2010. 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 and is planning festival dates for the summer.

In June 2010 Mills released his 4th album with Kula Shaker, Pilgrims Progress. Mills has directed A Fantastic Fear of Everything, a film starring Simon Pegg.[19] It has been described as a low-budget British "semicomedy" about a writer who becomes obsessed with murder and murdering.[20]

Personal life

He has been married to the model Josephine Mills (née Branfoot) since 1995. They currently reside in Bath with their two sons Keshava and Hari.[21]

Discography

Albums

EPs

Compilation albums

Singles

Notes and references

  1. 1 2 3 Hardy, Rebecca: "The Mills Family Show Must Go On", Daily Mail, 17 August 2007. Retrieved 22 August 2007.
  2. ↑ Cross, N. (1997). Kula Shaker. Virgin Books. ISBN 0-7535-0196-1
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Sutcliffe, Phil: "They Ain't Half Hot, Mum!", Q, 1997-02. Retrieved 24 September 2007.
  4. ↑ Cummins, Kevin: "They Camelot, They Saw, They Conquered!", NME, 21 September 1996. Retrieved 30 April 2008.
  5. ↑ Cowboys and Indians (2003)
  6. ↑ Jackson, Alan: "Through the mill", Metro, 18 April 1998. Retrieved 1 October 2007.
  7. ↑ Marks, Simon (21 February 2003), Crispian Mills interview. Retrieved 23 August 2007
  8. ↑ Doyle, Tom: "Karma Comedian", Q, 1999-03. Retrieved 9 October 2007
  9. ↑ Daily Mail 19 June 1984
  10. ↑ 6Mix. Perf. Crispian Mills. BBC 6Music. London. 25 August 2007.
  11. ↑ "What-ho! It's those Kula Shaker chaps!", Smash Hits, 1997-07. Retrieved 19 October 2007.
  12. 1 2 "Interview with Crispian", Mojo, 1997-06. Retrieved 1 October 2007
  13. ↑ Harrison, Ian. "A Very Serious Blag!", Q, 1996. Retrieved 25 October 2007.
  14. ↑ Fowler, Simon. "The Tomorrow People", Select, 1996. Retrieved 25 October 2007.
  15. ↑ Rowland, Hobart. "Kula-Loop". Phoenix New Times. Retrieved 2 June 2008.
  16. ↑ Bhaktivinoda Thakura (1997) Siksastaka, ISBN 81-86737-06-5. Retrieved 1 June 2008. "Through the mercy of guru and Vaishnavas, we may understand the deeper meaning of Mahaprabhu's Siksastakam, embrace it in our lives and let it gently melt our hearts. Krishna-kanta das (Crispian Mills) Bath, England September 21, 1997." Foreword
  17. ↑ Kalman, Matthew (20 April 1997). "Sorry about the swastika says Kula Shaker singer Mills". The Independent (London).
  18. ↑ Kalman, Matthew (20 April 1997). "Kula Shaker star regrets flirtation with fascism". The Independent (London).
  19. ↑ Child, Ben (28 July 2011). "Pinewood breaks cover to fund Simon Pegg 'psycho-comedy'". The Guardian (London).
  20. ↑ Grose, Jessica. "Questions for Simon Pegg. The star of Shaun of the Dead talks about his new book, Nerd Do Well, and his romance with a girl called Meredith Catsanus.". Slate.
  21. ↑ kulashakermusic

External links

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