Featured Conversation: Talking to Jay Darlington of Kula Shaker

Published on Dec 17, 2025

IHTOV correspondent Owen Brazas spoke at length with Jay Darlington of Kula Shaker. This is a three parter. Part 2 will be posted Thursday, Part 3 on Saturday.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. 

IHTOV: So, what first got you inspired to do this whole music thing?

JD: Well there were some early 80s singles, but for me it was hearing “House of the Rising Sun” and that sound. Of course there was the whole West Coast scene with The Doors, I liked all that. There was the Pebbles records (These were compilation records of late 60s/early 70s Garage and Psychedelic bands released in the late 70s), The Seeds were fabulous–really liked 50s-70s Elvis….Just pillaging and going to record shops and finding things.

I mean, [as a] youngster, I loved the fact that I didn’t know anything about bands. And you kind of make a story up. You also felt like you kind of knew what a band was by what they presented you. Nowadays, I feel like fashion is not part of it. There’s not a lot of looks like when I was growing up, like, if someone was wearing a certain shoe or shirt, like, I was like, Oh, you’re a brother. I know you exactly.

Well, that was like, about being in the sort of the mod slash garage gang. You really were a gang. There was a bit of a uniform, and you went to the same club and you all had records.

IHTOV: Like, oh, you bought the first jam single, okay, yeah.

JD: I guess it’s a kind of tribalism, wasn’t it? You had, you know, even at school, I remember, like, there were mods and they were punks and they were kind of grebos or skinheads, or, you know, the whole two tone thing was happening in school. So you had the mod slash scooter thing, and then that as well. So, yeah, so I guess I’ve always been a bit of a retro head by default. It always feels like,

IHTOV: It kind of feels like, 10 years too late when you’re born. Like, oh, I missed it all. The best stuff was 10 years ago, 15 years ago.

JD: Yeah, I often wonder about that. It’s like, I’ve met a few of my heroes and stuff from the 60s. And it’s like they’re quite casual about it. They’re like, Oh, it’s just what was going on. You know, of course, you know, it’s like, we’ve got these kids now that think high thoughts about the 90s. The 90s have become the 60s for some people. I wasn’t there, but Mum and Dad had the record. It’s like me with my mum and dad’s records, they must have thought I was nuts, you know, like wearing 60s gear in the 80s and like, you know, making all their records and stuff, you know. I guess it’s quite an odd one.

IHTOV: So I have a question about early touring days with a big organ. How? How does that go? Like, it’s not an easy instrument to drag around.

JD:  Well, we just love the sound. So everyone was willing to, I mean, I’ve always done it having the Vox. I’d take that on a bus, and that was a portable back in the day. And it’s like, that’s not portable.

IHTOV: You see these guys nowadays with their little, their little amps and stuff.

JD: To a gig in the van. And it looked like there was a funeral going on, walking with the Leslie speaker. And it was like, you bring another casket then getting the Hammond in. We would tour pubs and clubs with a full Hammond setup. And, yeah, we must have been mad, but there was no option if you wanted that sound that’s brought into the city and other reasons. That’s what you did. Now, of course, you probably get a better sound on a laptop, but there you go.

IHTOV: It’s still not the same. I’ve seen guys come with their little digital thing, and it’s like when you get hit with the Hammond or the big Leslie speakers spinning, like it’s being in the room with that, it’s different.

JD: Yeah, it’s moving air, isn’t it? The stuff I use now live, I do have the old ham still that’s kind of just been retired, sure, the one we used on K, the one I’ve got now is one of those little digital things. It’s not one of them, red ones. No, refuse to use one. Now, I think if you’re an organ player and you can’t carry it on your own, you kind of can now and have the sound. 

I just got something last year, which is because I’ve been a bit of a stippler, like, no, no, I’m not using any of that digital nonsense, but I’m like, you know what that sounds better than my old one. Don’t want to say it. I don’t want to hear it. You know, now they’ve realized what people want. People use a Hammond because they don’t want it to be set up differently. They want it to be a Hammond. So I think companies now have gone, oh, right, okay. You see, you want it like a Hammond. Yes, you know, they want all the vintage things and the things in weird places, because that’s how it is. So, so now, a lot of those things I find anyway that they’re kind of intuitive. If you are an old Hammond player, then you can sit behind it. A lot of these new things go, oh yeah, that’s all in the same place, whereas before, it was just like, what? The hell is this all about?

IHTOV: Did you come from a musical family?

JD: Not really. My nan was a cinema organist. At some point I found out she played the piano, so she had a scan visit, and she’d quite often leave out of the piano playing. But I didn’t really have any interest in it or understand it as a kid. I didn’t have music lessons at school or anything.

IHTOV: Your parents didn’t force you into piano lessons?

JD; No, it wasn’t really. So I came from a working class family like yourself, so…that’s what the posh kids did. Yeah, you know. So that wasn’t really, wasn’t really an option.

IHTOV: Did you just teach yourself?

JD: Like from trying to play what my favorite records and not being able to play, no way I still can’t play what Ray Manzarek does, but you find your own way, like trying to rip him off. You go, oh, right, okay, which is a bit like that. But that is not, you know, everyone’s got different wonky hands as well.

IHTOV: they call that style, right?

JD: Style, yeah, character. And then kind of after the box thing, I got into the sound of the Hammonds. You know, I heard, I think the Small Faces turned me on to the Hammond actually in those records. And what is that swirling, messy noise in the background? That’s a Hammond organ. So again, I did the homework like, Oh, I’ve got to have one of those in the end, trying to find a Leslie speaker. And first one I got was out of the junk shop for 100 bucks or something.

IHTOV: We found one. Now they’re throwing them away to churches in the states.

JD: I wanted a DX7, kind of Yamaha digital thing. Idiots try finding cheap, cheap gear now that it’s all kind of, everyone knows what it is and what it’s worth. Yeah, absolutely, if you find stuff that works, yeah. So I got into the Hammond after that, and Small Faces. It was Brian Auger. You know, Brian Auger? 

IHTOV: No, I don’t actually.

JD: Right, Chef Brian ogre. He was in a band called The Trinity in the 60s with Duke and Driscoll. They did a single called “This Wheel’s on Fire”  which is the Dylan cover.

IHTOV: Yeah, rings a bell.

JD: Yeah, check them out. They’re a great, great group. But he had his own band in the 70s called the Oblivion Express. But he was, he’s a, he’s a big influence on my plane, and what I think is great about the Hammond, he kind of catches it, and he’s more kind of come through the rock field. He was really a jazzer. He was playing sort of jazz clubs and stuff in the 60s. But, yeah, he’s, he’s a philosophy record, and he’s up there with people like Jimmy Smith, you know him? 

IHTOV: Yeah, yeah. 

JD: So I got into all those guys, obviously, once I got a Hammond it was like, oh, right, that’s where it all comes from. And they just reissued all the Blue Note records in the 90s as well. So it’s just like, so that’s most of my record collection, really just kind of half Blue nNote jazz stuff, and then all the 60s, you know, mod and psych, kind of tackle bit prog in there as well.

IHTOV: Yeah, you gotta.

JD: Guilty pleasures and all that.

IHTOV: Well, you gotta have a little ELP or Yes.

JD: Yeah, yeah, the full spectrum is that?  So, I mean, like you say, we’re really lucky now, unfortunate in some ways, and it’s just all your fingertips now, and also that whole thing with with AR going, if you like, Oh, you’ve looked at this, if you like them, you’re really like this, yeah, that’s kind of taken away, you know, what we have with the friends going, Oh, my brother gave me this cassette. Should we listen to it? You know, I’ve got you a copy of it, you know. Is that, you know?

Stay tuned for Parts 2 and 3