“Prolific” isn’t a word that readily applies to Karnataka over recent years. Following the release of their last album, Secrets Of Angels in 2015, the band toured sporadically before that line-up effectively dissolved in 2018. Some five years on, they have returned with a raft of new musicians, along with a new singer, Sertari (aka Nicola K) to front the band. With Ian Jones remaining as the sole continuous member, the pressing question is: what happened?
“That’s a real difficult one to cover without getting into legal territory,” suggests Jones in a manner that implies the issues weren’t restricted to mere ‘musical differences.’ “It’s difficult for me to be honest about the reasons but in general terms, I think we reached a point with that line-up where it was fairly clear it wasn’t going to go any further. The writing had ground to a halt and it was just difficult to progress anything.
“I don’t put stuff out on social media as it’s just pointless. It ends up with mudslinging and that’s really to my detriment. If I start defending myself, it’s a distraction and I don’t feel comfortable doing it. It was a decision that I felt I had to make for the band and the whole project to have a future. Not all changes are voluntary.”
Perhaps some of the pressure felt by Jones centres on the fact that Karnataka have never been a ‘traditional’ band, with a transient approach taken towards musicians that has led to the group having more than 20 members since 1997. “There has been a misconception about the way the band works,” ruminates Jones. “We’ve always worked with session musicians to a greater or lesser degree. We haven’t always advertised the fact that they are session musicians. We just put it out that this is Karnataka and this is the band.
“It didn’t start out as a band in the traditional sense of getting together and writing songs and even in those very early days, there were always personnel leaving or the threat of personnel leaving. As the band have been going now for 25 years some changes are always going to be inevitable.”
Of all the recent changes, the most prominent is the recruiting of singer Sertari, who replaces Hayley Griffiths. Stumbling across each other’s profiles online led to the pair realising they shared common musical aims and styles, as Sertari recalls. “It was about 2018 I was looking through the wonderful world of the internet and I noticed that Ian had looked at my [social media] page,” she explains.
“I would never normally look back and it’s a website that I hardly ever go on. On this miraculous occasion, I spotted it and I just clicked back. I noticed that Ian was looking for a singer, I listened to the songs and just thought, ‘Oh my God, this is up my alley and I love this.’ I messaged Ian to say if he was still looking for someone, I was happy to sing a couple of songs. So that was how it came about. It’s strange thinking back, because I don’t know what made me click the button, but I’m that glad I did.”
“It was nice because we had come through the process of auditions, had lots of demos sent in but there was nothing that was really grabbing me,” adds Jones. “I think maybe I’ve made mistakes in the past by not thoroughly auditioning people. There have been one or two occasions where I’ve had a tour booked and you feel under pressure to bring people on board. It’s never a good idea to book a tour when you haven’t got a band together properly!
“We had some very good auditions but we were looking for something that gets the hair standing up on the back of your neck. I’d already started listening to Nicola’s stuff. There was a song that she had written called Hero, which just blew me away. I thought that could be a Karnataka track, so when Nicola got in touch, it was perfect.”
Critically, aside from sharing a common understanding, the pair – along with then-keyboard player Gonzalo Carrera – speedily developed a way of working together that created a raft of new material.
“We had more written in the first six months than we ever did with the previous line-up,” reveals Jones candidly. “Those really are the things that you can’t predict. You can audition somebody who has all the technical faculties but unless you spend a lot of time with somebody, you don’t know if all the parts are going to fall into place. That’s another difficulty with line-ups – it’s a lot more than just somebody’s technical ability to play. Nicola wants to write and that’s not always been the case in the past, which can make things difficult. It was just easy and ideas were flowing.”
“I remember that this was the point when I was actually nervous,” confides the singer. “We had to sit in a room together and I was worried what would happen if nothing came out. Thankfully, that didn’t happen and it just felt like home. It felt so natural and I think both myself and Ian love being creative and were bouncing off each other. I was singing melodies, Ian was putting in guitar riffs and lyrics were flying all over the place. It was a perfect marriage.”
By the summer of 2022, the fresh line-up, replete with Maschine/Cyan guitarist Luke Machin, Chris Allan on drums and Rob Wilsher (The Mighty Ra) on keyboards, undertook a mini tour to introduce the new band. There would have been understandable nerves from the singer on her debut, but seemingly she was keen just to perform.
“I guess there may be a few nerves but it was more I just wanted to get out and do it,” she recalls. “I tend to harness any nervous energy into excited energy and I just want to do my thing. At the end of the day, I’m a performer and that’s what I love to be. Whatever I’m singing, I just love performing. We wanted to make sure that the songs we were going to do on that particular tour were those that people would obviously enjoy. It went really well.”
Returning to the studio to complete the album which would become Requiem For A Dream, the sessions were completed without an incessant time pressure, enabling each of the songs to be carefully honed. “There were no time limits and we didn’t set any deadlines,” confirms Jones. “It was very relaxing and great not to be worrying about what had gone previously.
“We always try to avoid the temptation of just repeating the past and we would start a song, and whether it ends up being five or 25 minutes we would just see where it goes. It really comes back to the way that me and Nicola work. Collaboration can be tricky for some people. Especially when you are producing it, you have to have some sort of vision of the end result. But this has been really natural and Nicola also wears a producer’s hat and suggests a number of things, particularly with the vocal arrangements. We just found a really comfortable space to be in and it was never a problem.”
Despite the recording sessions being fresh in the memory, and with a tour booked for September, Jones admits that the allure of the studio is already calling. “I really am missing it,” he laughs. “I love the creation stage and that magic of two or three chords coming together, or a vocal melody, that’s where I get my buzz. As much as I love the live stuff, I really need my fix.”
