page_title: Crispian Mills
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Crispian Mills / Career
context_page_description: Crispian Mills is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and film director. 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, and toured with a set of session musicians 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. 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 is the son of actress Hayley Mills and director Roy Boulting, the grandson of Sir John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, nephew of Juliet Mills and directors John Boulting and Jonathan Mills, and half-brother to Jason Lawson.
context_section_description: 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. 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.
  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.
  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.
caption: Mills performing at a 2006 gig
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