Instant Karma

WE'RE big believers in late. Whatever fate throws at you've got to jump the hurdle and get with it."

Thus speaks Jay Darlington, mod-headed keyboard player with Britain's hottest new band, Kula Shaker. He's sitting in the lounge at Jury's Hotel in Bristol, the next stop on the band's current UK tour, and for someone who's been dragged around the country by the scruffy of sudden fame, he's looking remarkably relaxed, cool and, yes, centred. I guess the karma is good in the Kula Shaker camp.

"As far as this band is concerned, fate's first hand was getting us together," chirps blond, bright-eyed drummer Paul Winter-Hart, obviously energised by the oneness of it all.

"Yeah," agrees Jay. "Because all our paths had crossed for years beforehand and we'd never really met up, and, especially with Crispian and myself, it was like we had mutual friends who knew other people who knew other people and blah, blah, blah, and it was all interlinked, but we never actually met properly, we just kept brushing against each other."

Crispian is Crispian Mills, the pale and interesting lead singer and main creative force in Kula Shaker, who embodies the band's unique style of retro-psychedelia with his every move and gesture. He's also the son of 1960s screen star Hayley Mills, and the grandson of grand old thespian John Mills, but, in the Kula Shaker scheme of things, this is mere movie trivia. They've got more cosmic fish to fry.

Kula Shaker met in swinging London in 1968, when they accompanied The Beatles and The Rolling Stones to a mass transcendental meditation session led by the guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Actually, that's not quite true, but it's not that far off the mark either. Paul Winter-Hart recalls: "I moved up to London to play in bands, answered an ad in Melody Maker and met Crispian and Alonza (that's bass player Alonza Bevan), and they were playing in this band that wasn't very good, but I joined them because they seemed interesting. I'd come from Somerset, and I'd never seen guys with Cuban heels and stripy trousers,

Cool threads, dude, but not cool enough, and Kula's earlier incarnation, the Kays, didn't levitate to higher planes. With his family connections, Crispian could easily have sought solace in the world of acting, but, ignoring the thespian alternative, he went to India instead. No doubt the young seeker returned to London laden with lots of mystical eastern influences?

"A big sackful of rice and curry," corrects Jay, jokingly of course. But did Crispian not come to you and say, hey guys, let's incorporate Indian sounds in the band?

"It's a completely natural thing," insists Jay. "We've never ever been a band who've sat down and said, oh, let's sound like this or try this and that, it's just something that's ... you know, like I say, it's fate that's brought us all together and that's what makes us sound different."

Kula Shaker's sound, as you might gather, falls loosely under the term "retro", but that's not a broad enough term for the universe of ideas which spans their debut album, succinctly entitled K. If Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters took a Magical Mystery Tour to the Holy Temples of India, they might just have a copy of K on the turntable as they bump and grind over the parched landscape. The chants and mantras of Tattva and Govinda would float nicely over the Fillmore East vibes of Grateful When You're Dead and 303, while the wah-wah guitars and snaky organ add a manic edge, and the tablas and sitars bring a calm, meditative feel to offset the tripped-out backbeat. But the best thing about K is the effortless way it transcends its multifarious influences and just sounds bloody great.

The album debuted at number one in the UK albums charts, knocking R.E.M. off the top spot, and this week it's still holding fast in second place.

Kula Shaker (even their name is Indian) are not motivated by a desire to recreate a golden age of peace and love, Buddha and brown rice. "We grew up in the 1980s," says Jay, "and I know that Crispian and myself really weren't happy with the music that was going on in the '80s. Being a teenager in the '80s wasn't much fun, it was a bit cack. Musically sterile. Personally, I got into my mum's records, which was a bit sad, really, but that's how bad it was in the '80s.

And so Jay was rescued from the likes of Duran Duran, Culture Club and Kajagoogoo, and discovered the more enduring delights of The Kinks and The Beatles. "It sounded organic and human, and it was happy, and there was a good vibe, and it was so young.

Young, positive, happy, vibey and organic - armed with these qualities, the young Shakermakers made their first big splash at last year's In The City festival at Manchester, winning the Unsigned Band of '95 prize along with Placebo. An independent release of Tattva was followed by a deal with Columbia, and Grateful When You're Dead became the band's first chart hit. A re-released Tatva crashed the Top Ten, becoming the Vedic mantra for Summer 1996, and the world woke up to a bright new day for Britpop.

Hey Dude, its title a tongue-in-cheek satire of The Beatles' Hey Jude, went to number two last month, and all astrological and karmic signs point to a number one position for the next single, Govinda, which will he the first time since George Harrison released My Sweet Lord that a Buddhist chant has topped the charts.

Indeed, things are moving so fast for Kula Shaker, that they had to postpone a scheduled appearance in Dublin last month, and now the band's Irish acolytes won't get to see them till next January. Judging from last Monday's stormer of a gig at Bristol's Biekeller, it looks like we're in for some seriously good karma. And, according to Jay, we'll need high doses of karma to counteract the numbness and negligible values of today's lagered-up E-addled youth.

MOST of the songs are just saying to people, hey, there might be something other to life than having sex and making cash, and just to get people thinking. I mean, so many kids that you meet are just so completely switched off. That's probably one of the most attractive things about the 1960s, and I don't want to harp on about the 1960s all the time - that's then, you know - but something about the youth then, they were willing to go for it, you know, and they would question everything, every form of authority, and it's like people now are going, oh well, what's the point, let's just go along with it."

"Everything from media to TV and music is about switching off and not thinking about it, it's this whole Loaded attitude," adds Paul. "I see good, intelligent friends doing TV, video games and raves, dropping Es. and that's no good."

"People are being kept down as a mass, cos it's easy to control people, continues Jay. "They're being told what to do. Turn the TV on, and it's you need this to make your life complete. If you don't use this deodorant then you're gonna stink and your life's gonna be hell. Or if you use this product you'll get a wicked bird and have as many shags as you like. We're being spoon-fed shit and you have to pick the bits of broken glass out of the mashed potato."

"I hope we're not ramming stuff down people's throats," says Paul, "It's just that Crispian's lyrics are trying to convey something positive. It might be a little romantic, but it's something positive and happy."

"It's a question of where's it all going as well. If we carry on like this, we're just gonna implode."

If anything can blow away the complacency of the 1990s, its the multi-layered musical explosion that is Kula Shaker. Instant karma's gonna get you.