Featured Conversation: Talking With Jay Darlington of Kula Shaker, Part 3

Published on Dec 22, 2025

This is part three of this interview. Part 1 here, Part 2 here.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

IHTOV: Let’s talk about Worm Slayer. So this was produced with John  Harvey. How did the production of Worm Slayer feel versus doing Natural Magic with Kev Nixon?

JD: Rubbish. Well, rubbish, same thing. Yeah, it’s good. I mean, we used a lot of old techs as well on this. I guess you always go for that. We’re a bit romantic like that and so, and that’s what we’re used to doing. So, yeah, putting a band in a room, putting some mics in front of them, and then playing some music down the mics. We find that’s a good formula.

IHTOV: Yeah, playing together?

JD: We play at the same time sometimes as well. Yeah, not necessarily the same song, though.

IHTOV: Well that’s interesting. Like, I listen to Ornette Coleman. 

JD I was watching some Sun Ra stuff the other day. Keep going through like that.

IHTOV: You could have a whole record store dedicated to Sun Ra and Sun Ra offshoots.

JD: yeah, yeah. All that stuff’s got a name now, isn’t it, like, what’s it called? Now? Like, astral?

IHTOV: Yeah, jazz, astral, cosmic jazz.

JD: It’s amazing what you can find if you go on kind of a wormhole. Watching something, and then that leads you on to something else. Before, you know, you’re on PornHub again.

IHTOV: And the old porn at least, had good music.

JD: They did in the 70s. 

IHTOV: Yeah, exactly. They paid money to have music made for it.

JD: Do you like any of that sound gallery stuff. There’s a whole bunch of Italian music.

IHTOV: Yeah, absolutely.

JD: Incredible. There’s these whole labels that just churned out this kind of library stuff, which is incredible. I guess, as a musician, it was great as well, because they just give you a title for the film or whatever, and off you go. Go make some music. No one’s gonna see it. So do what you like.

IHTOV: What a great way to find sounds and experiment and get paid.

JD: That’s like a thing now, isn’t it, collecting kind of genre of things. But anyway, back to work. When did we start that? We actually started in Belgium. So we started doing work on it there. And then we found this studio in Devon, which has the option to do digital or analog. So it’s got all the old amps, and there various old junk keyboards and amps, loads of great mic collections. So if you know what you’re going for, you can achieve it. It’s good. And having the ability to use tape and all the artifacts and kind of fun. It’s like you can muck around with speed and things like that. It’s like you can’t really do that in Pro Tools, right? I don’t know, but it’s not the same. So if you’re into those old techniques, you know, fun.

I remember watching John –  we did our first album with John Leckie —  and I remember I turned up early. I think everyone else was at an interview or something, and he would say, I’m just about doing the edit. I’ve heard about this stuff that they used to do back in the olden days. So he’s talking to me like that, and he gets the master tape out, the multi track, and he puts it across the cutting block, and he’s just talking to me like that. And he gets a razor blade while he’s looking me in the eye, and just goes slash. And he’s looking at my face. In like, slow motion.

He laughed his head off because he knew, and he explained to me. He said, you’ve got a whole foot. It’s moving so quick that, take, there’s a foot of space you can get away with because of the speed that it’s moving. But, yeah, he just did it to wind me up. It’s hilarious. It’s a whole science in itself, all that tape stuff we did was on Worm Slayer, which was fun. So there’s a lot of tape delays and all that old phase stuff.

IHTOV: When you guys went to record Worm Slayer, Was there a lot of mucking around in the studio, of adding colors and shapes and texture? Or is it all like, we know what we’re gonna do?

JD: You get your jamming done in the rehearsal room. And I mean, some of the songs - and certainly with K and Peasants Pigs & Astronauts, we played a lot of them in the live session. So we kind of chiseled away a lot of things, but Crispian, he’ll write a song, and it’s pretty it’s pretty written. And then Alonza might have some tunes as well, and then they might work together. So there’s, as far as structure goes, there’s a good structure there. There’ll be a backbone.

IHTOV: Yeah, so the skeleton is there, and then you guys kind of..

JD: Color in the outline. Then you see what will work, not too much faffing. I mean, I guess we do what a lot of bands do, is put it all on, take it all off, we can embrace that, that method of kitchen sink and then strip it back to the marble and the water and the taps.

IHTOV: Well, it’s a great test if you can strip it down and it’s just the chords and the melodies.

JD: Take the piano. It’s like, all the great songs and all the great players, they can do it on their own. They don’t have to have the band, and still, the song comes across, because there’s a song there, right? I think if you don’t have much to begin with, I guess you can polish turds quite well these days.

IHTOV: There’s a couple of them floating around. If you get enough money behind it…

JD: And it’s always like trying to have fun as well. Don’t get too serious and bogged down in your head.

IHTOV: I think that’s one of the things that kind of breaks up creative energy, is when you get kind of too bogged up in your head and take it too seriously and it’s not rocket surgery, being in a band.

JD: And sometimes having the rough framework of a song. You get on the center for something as well, and then it’ll suggest something to everyone, like, oh, that sounds a bit like this kind of a record. Or, let’s get the reference where that’s from, and you can kind of run with it. And yes, that happens a bit as well. So yeah, there’s no rules, of course, they are out there that are to be broken, aren’t they?

IHTOV: Is it hard, as we get older, to still find that creative energy? Do you still feel like, I’m still 20 years old? Like the same energy to get up in the morning and create.

JD: Kind of, musically, yeah. I mean, as long as it’s making you buzz, it’s like the people you’re with as well, they’re making you buzz. Bringing the best and worst out of each other. That’s all part of being in a band.

IHTOV: That’s the most important thing, I think. Otherwise, why do it?

JD: Yeah, everyone else has already done it, so you don’t really need to do it unless it’s fun.

IHTOV: Personally, do you get off more in doing the studio stuff or getting in front of a crowd and feeling that energy?

JD:  I love all of it. So it’s all good.

IHTOV: Well, I’m gonna wrap up with one of my favorite last questions: what is your favorite live musical experience as an audience member?

JD: As an audience member, wow. What would that be? Well, there’s been a few. I recently did an interview. I was asked a similar question. Actually, it was like, best gigs, top 10 gigs or something And believe it or not, for me, it was the Stone Roses. They were supporting another band, I think, or the other way around, I can’t remember now. And my mates and I, late teens, we’d all taken a bunch of acid and thought we’d go and see this new band, The Stone Roses. Can I say acid?

IHTOV: Yes, absolutely. We’re very pro acid on this website.

JD: Oh, that’s all right then, yeah. And I was young. Don’t try this at home, kids. Yeah. So we recklessly took a whole bunch of acid, but let’s go and check this new band out, and they didn’t really know anything about them, sort of murmurs about them in the…we used to have music press back then as well. So you had the NME, they were like newspapers for the music bits, really. And so you’d find out who was playing and how you’d find people to do bands with, even listings and all that. But anyway, so we went to see them, and they were playing with a band called Who were they playing with? Oh god, I can’t remember that, but we’d gone to see this other band and they were amazing. I’ve spoken to people that saw the Stone Roses and said they were crap, you know, and I think they were a proper rock and roll band. It’s like, you have good nights and you have bad nights, and it depends on your headspace and everyone else’s headspace, how the kicks go for us, it was remarkable. We had an amazing night.

IHTOV: Yeah, it’s funny, if you walk in one night, it’ll change your life one night. The next night you walk in, it might be like, I’m not gonna see these guys ever again.

JD: They were really, really good. My mates and I were into the 60s. We were quite  hardcore. Like, if it wasn’t from the 60s, it wasn’t any good. What a stupid attitude. That’s how we were as youngsters. And yeah, being absolutely blown away because they obviously had the same records that we were listening to. The guitarist was into, like The Byrds and the drummer was into that funk and groove and soul music. It all really came across, and then they were just really together that night. We were lucky.

IHTOV: I always feel like those kind of bands, like the Stone Roses, they treat it as their historians as well. Everything they’ve listened to filters through and comes out. I couldn’t imagine only listening to records that have only been out for like five years. You would just want to keep going back and back and finding where everything comes from.

JD: That’s it, go back to the source. Some guy in a cave banging two rocks together.

IHTOV: I’m all for it. Unfortunately, I’ve seen loads of great gigs. I mean, obviously through the 90s and doing all those festivals. But I used to go to a festival called the Canterbury Sound Festival, which was near Canterbury in Kent and I’m a big fan of all those bands, like the Soft Machine, Gong, Steve Hillage, the list goes on. But there was, like a little faction of bands that came from this area in the 60s and 70s that just did their own thing. Quite a lot of jazz influence was going on, but they just did their own little take on psychedelia. This festival was run by one of those bands and they were called Caravan, and me and my wife at the time, were groupies of Caravan. And so we used to go to this festival. Whoever organized it was great. They knew what people wanted. And one year we went, and everything from it was gone. Steve Hillage, The Pretty Things, Arthur Brown, Kevin Ayers, the Electric Prunes, believe it or not, Arthur Lee and Love, the list was just, it was like a dream. Everything off your record collection, kind of. And they’re all alive, obviously, then. So this is a good decade or so ago. So a while ago, That was an amazing festival. And obviously everyone that was older because they knew what that music was. And when I was watching the Electric Prunes, I got a tap on the shoulder, and I looked around, and it was Captain Sensible.

He tapped me on the shoulder. He went, are you that bloke from Kula Shaker? And I went, yeah, that’s right, yeah. He said, I don’t give a fuck about your band, but my son’s a big fan. Can he come and say hello? And went, yeah, of course he can. And I was pleased to do it, because he  was founder  of The Damned anyway. And yes, I had a chat with Captain. We were kind of chatting while the Electric Prunes were on, and he sort of nudged me and he said, of course, what people don’t realize is, punk wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for this band. Oh, yeah, because you were listening to Nuggets, weren’t you only Nuggets records? 

IHTOV: Oh yeah, very important.

JD: Of course, right. So that’s what all the punks were listening to. That’s where the punk attitude and the kind of that old spill comes from, totally so yeah, it really was a light bulb in my head. That was what was inspiring them to make that music, which was different, but it was inspired by all that stuff which was really obscure by then.

IHTOV: Yeah, totally. But it’s funny, you get a group of people who know this niche music is the most important thing in the world, and that energy. And everyone is like, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen.

JD: It’s very real magic, isn’t it? Music, when you get a room for the people on it, and they’re all, you’re all vibing on the same thing.

IHTOV: About 15 years ago, I went to a very small Music Festival. It was in a little club that only holds about 150 people, but the headliner was Terry Reed. And he’s my father’s favorite of that era, of songwriters. Those records are so good, the songs are so good, but we’re watching the warm up act, and me and my father are, you know, grooving along and I get tap on the shoulder. Terry Reed’s just in the audience. He’s like, you see this fella? He’s really good. And my dad’s like, oh my god, it’s Terry Reed just hanging out in the crowd. Listening to music.

JD: Yeah, isn’t that great? And that’s what this festival was like. Just about music. That’s all.

IHTOV: That’s the thing. I think when musicians are all boiled down to it, we just love music and being around other people who love music. And honestly, I get that from you guys. Kula Shaker has that vibe of just being a couple guys that love music and love doing what you’re doing and you’re not scared of a melody and putting it out there. 

JD: We’re big fans of what we term as Beatles magic, and it’s like, if you write a good pop song, you can get away with anything, weirdness, lots of strangeness, you can get away with it. If there’s that backbone of like, you can tap your foot to it and whistle, whistle the tune, absolutely.

IHTOV: Well, I’m very glad you guys are carrying on the torch and doing what you’re doing. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me this afternoon. 

Kula Shaker’s new album, Worm Slayer, will be out in January.