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Kula Shaker performs "Shower Your Love" on CNN Showbiz Today Audio clip: 1.7Mb MPEG-3 Audio clip: 335k WAV Video clip: 2Mb QuickTime

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Read the mini-review for 'Peasants Pigs & Astronauts'

August 5, 1999
Web posted at: 1:04 p.m. EDT (1704 GMT)

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- The British rock band Kula Shaker has blended its East-meets-West sound and attracted a solid cult following since lead singer-guitarist Crispian Mills got the group together four years ago. And the musicians enjoy this level of popularity despite the fact they just released their second disc, "Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts," in June.

"It was an accidental title," Mills tells CNN Showbiz Today's Laurin Sydney, "and I think it was half inspired by Terry Gilliam.

"It was an accidental sketch that we liked the sound of, and everybody was interpreting it saying, 'Past, present and future -- peasants, pigs and astronauts.' We thought, why do you automatically assume that 'pigs' is the present? And we couldn't work it out why. I don't know. What is it that pigs eat? I can't work it out."

Not only is the inspiration for the album's title unusual, but so is the place in which the songs were recorded, "a beautiful Victorian art-deco houseboat that belonged to Pink Floyd," Mills says. "And actually, the man who owned it 150 years ago was somebody who discovered Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel. So there were a lot of ghosts and spirits haunting the boat, which I think helped in the music."

A little family support might be helping the band's music too. Crispian's actress-mom Hayley Mills is a Kula Shaker fan -- in fact, "all our mothers love our band," Mills says. "We're thinking of getting them to manage us."