Kula Shaker’s Crispian Mills had a colourful childhood

Kula Shaker’s Crispian Mills had a colourful childhood

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold November 19, 2025 Duration: 38:14

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 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!”

 

Tickets for their 2026 tour here: https://kulashaker.co.uk/pages/live


Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.


There’s a particular kind of conversation about music that happens between friends who’ve spent a lifetime immersed in it-not as distant critics, but as participants in the culture. That’s the atmosphere you’ll find in Word In Your Ear, a podcast from Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, and Alex Gold. With a collective eighty years of writing and broadcasting for titles like Smash Hits and Mojo, and shows from "The Old Grey Whistle Test" to VH-1, they don’t just recount history; they unpack the stories behind it with the ease of a shared laugh. This podcast grew naturally from their work on the late, great magazine The Word, where they began recording over thirteen years ago, building a dedicated following who found something genuinely special in the mix. Each episode weaves together music, commentary, history, and interviews, moving seamlessly from deep-dive analysis of a seminal album to a frank chat with a surprising guest, all delivered with the warmth and wit of a late-night chat. It feels less like a formal show and more like you’ve been invited to pull up a chair in a room where the anecdotes are plentiful and the expertise is worn lightly. The result is a consistently engaging listen that treats music not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing part of our lives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Word In Your Ear
Podcast Episodes
The glorious story of Funk from James Brown to Off The Wall [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:54
Old friend of the podcast Lloyd Bradley wrote Bass Culture, the defining account of reggae, and he’s now turned his attention to funk, from its deepest roots and via the jazz, arts, TV, radio and pop culture that flavour…
Nick Lowe’s miracle payday, Rock feuds and a giant inflatable Jarvis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:35
Panning for gold in the murky waters of this week’s news, we found the following … … is Sabrina Carpenter’s aunt the voice of Bart Simpson? … is punk now just a small room in the giant apartment block of Goth? … why band…
The Damned at 50 and the memories (and regrets) of Rat Scabies [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:42
The Damned are – yes! - 50 years old with three of the originals still onboard. And just starting a world tour. In this immensely funny and touching podcast, Rat Scabies (who’s smoking!) points up the repercussions of li…