Psychedelic rockers Kula Shaker encountered a stumble when they went to make their second album, 1999’s Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts. Fortunately prog producer extraordinaire Bob Ezrin came to their rescue – and although the record wasn’t an immediate success, it’s been reappraised in recent years. In 2022 vocalist and guitarist Crispian Mills told Prog about the experience.
“We started making Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts in America with Rick Rubin and George Drakoulias both producing. We ended up back in England, and Bob Ezrin was happy to come over and work with us.
He was obsessed with the running order of the songs – the absolute priority for him was telling the story. We were completely up for the theatrics: bringing the curtain up at the beginning of the album and bringing it down at the end.
- “Prog rock is to music what sci-fi is to literature: a desire to further the imagination, to push the music to the edge”: How William Shatner learned to love prog and make an all-star album with all the humanity of classic Star Trek
- “The conservatism of what’s called progressive rock these days appals me”: The life and times of Steve Hillage, the maverick guitarist who helped shape the sound of prog
I learned from his eye for detail, his ear for the difference between a good and bad take. “There’s never enough overdubs,” he’d say. “You can always add on more and it will feel just right.”
We spent seven months on David Gilmour’s boat, the Astoria – one of the most beautiful studios in the world – and almost bankrupted ourselves, but Bob encouraged us to dream big.
It could be intimidating working with him. The track Mystical Machine Gun has quite a big guitar moment, and I remember thinking, “This is the who guy recorded David Gilmour’s solo on Comfortably Numb!”
Whether it’s The Wall, Lou Reed’s Berlin, or his work with Alice Cooper, Bob’s a guy who appreciates albums as “musical books.”
And he’s got a delinquent panache to him. He looks refined and behaves well around the record label guys, but he’s actually complete maniac, possessed by rock’n’roll demons! But with these kinds of albums, you need that sense of drama, tension and danger.
I saw a TV interview with him while he’d been working with Deep Purple. He pushed up the faders, up came Steve Morse’s guitars and Bob said: ‘And there you have it – a concerto of guitars.’ He never said that about my guitar playing… but anyone who can say ‘concerto of guitars’ with a straight face gets my vote!
Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts wasn’t very successful at the time, but for our fans old and new it’s become one of the most loved and listened to. Bob brought out our prog sensibility. I think of him as my big, mad uncle. We love him.”
