Kula Shaker’s Crispian Mills had a colourful childhood

2025-11-19

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Crispian Mills knew he’d be onstage as he’s from a “family of professional show-offs” but they begged him not to be an actor. He talks here about his extraordinary showbusiness childhood and the band that emerged from it full of psychedelia, echoes of the East and warm invitations to join the First Congregational Church of Eternal Love and Free Hugs. Along with … … his mother Hayley Mills playing him Tubular Bells to get him to sleep - “profoundly scary” … Roman Polanski’s ‘special’ Marlboro cigarettes when filming Tess in Brittan...

… his mother Hayley Mills playing him Tubular Bells to get him to sleep - “profoundly scary”

… Roman Polanski’s ‘special’ Marlboro cigarettes when filming Tess in Brittany

… grandfather John Mills being “discovered” by Noel Coward in Singapore and memories of him playing Gershwin and Cole Porter on the piano

… “you need talent and hard work but nobody makes it without luck”

… what the record store hippie told him when he bought Deep Purple In Rock aged 12

… leather jacket, polka dot shirt, Brian Jones bowl haircut, My Bloody Valentine gig – “I’d found my tribe!”

… supporting Oasis at Knebworth – “I couldn’t see how they were going to cut it”

… Adam and the Ants, Rock Me Amadeus and playing Ramones songs in the school band

… returning from Rishikesh in 1995 and watching the Beatles’ Super-8 clips: “as if we’d been on the same holiday”

… nostalgia for the big TV and radio events of the ‘90s

… Shirley Manson’s speech about the “tragedy” of the 21st C music business

… and Kula Shaker’s Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show – “oil slides, pure analogue!”