A Conversation with Krishna Das (continued)

PM: And so you began. You went there, and you pitched them the idea of, "Hey, here's who I am. I'd like to do this thing."

KD: Yeah, and they said, "Okay. Well, on Mondays we have this little group of people where we do readings from holy books and answer questions and stuff." This is Sharon and David, the people who ran the place. "So why don't you come on a Monday and sing a little bit?"

PM: Right.

KD: So the next Monday I sang for about twenty minutes. Then they did their thing. And that went on for a couple of months. And then I showed up one day and they were gone. They went to India. And they were gone for a couple of months. So I would show up on Monday and sing for two hours.

PM: Ah.

KD: And then one day I came back, and they were there.

PM: [laughs]

KD: So I started singing, and I didn't stop. [laughs] I sang for two hours. And they kind of looked at each other and said, "Well, that's cool."

PM: Pretty cool, yeah.

KD: And they let me sing. And from then on, Mondays was mine.

PM: Huh. And people started to gather.

KD: People started to gather, yeah. I mean, at first it was like six people. And until the first CD came out, it was never more than twenty, twenty-five people.

PM: And the very first one was called?

KD:One Track Heart. And people don't get that title. They don't even smile when they hear that.

PM: Oh, they don't get the joke.

KD: They don't get the joke.

PM: That's strange.

KD: So One Track Heart was the first one. But even so, you see, I still didn't have anything--it wasn't a career. I just wanted people to know that I chanted, and so they would invite me to come out and sing with them, because that's what I needed to do. And that's exactly what happened. There are only two places I've ever invited myself. One was Jivamukti, and the other was Yogaworks, in L.A., because I was coming out to northern California. And I thought, well, maybe I should try to sing in L.A. So I asked a friend of mine to call the people there, and they said yeah. So aside from those two places, every place else I've gone I've been invited.

PM: Unbelievable.

KD: It's amazing. That's all around the world, invited.

PM: That's unbelievable.

KD: It really is unbelievable. And I'm so gratified and grateful and happy that people want to sing with me. That's why I travel, to do that.

PM: And since we haven't so far, would you, in your own words, give a definition of what Kirtan is, for the readers.

KD: Okay. Kirtan is chanting, and it's very specifically chanting what they call the names of God. Okay, and so we might want to try to find a different way of saying that so people don't hit the delete button right away.

PM: [laughs]

KD: In India, everything has a divine aspect. Underneath what we see is divinity. And the idea is to try to see through this haze or this mist, and to see the beauty and the love that lives inside. So what they call the divine name is the name of a signpost to that place inside of us. It's more than a signpost, it's a window. And it's even more than a window. It's ultimately our own names, the names of all that love that lives within us, who we really are when we're finished giving ourselves a hard time.

PM: [laughs]

KD: I mean, we're not making this up, we're just cleaning house. We're cleaning the lens, we're cleaning the mirror so we can see ourselves. If the mirror is full of dust, it doesn't reflect, you can't see yourself. So this mirror of the heart is covered over by our stuff. So chanting is the repetition of these names over and over. And they have the ability to help clean the heart.

PM: For people interested in hearing Kirtan singing, what CD would we point them to, above all?

KD: I would say Pilgrim Heart would be the best place to start.

PM: Okay. And that rhymes.

[laughter]

KD: Yeah, hey, I'm a poet, and I know it, hope I don't blow it.

PM: [laughs] And how about people interested in finding out more about your journey. Would you point them to Pilgrim of the Heart CD? Is it those kind of stories?

KD: That would be good, sure, yeah. On Sounds True.

PM: Okay.

KD: Or they can check out my website. There's some information on the website, interviews and stuff. And I'd love to put a link up to this when you're done.

PM: And we'd enjoy that, too. Now, on this last record that I've really enjoyed, All One, it was very interesting to see Walter Becker [from Steely Dan] as the bassist and co-producer. Have you known each other a long time?

KD: We've known each other awhile. I'd say--oh, God, let's see, Triloka Records started in '88. I think I've known Walter probably since 1990.

PM: And so is he a chanting soul? Is that the nature of the friendship?

KD: No, actually, we invited him to mix some jazz records for us when Triloka was still doing jazz, early on. I mean, we started out as a jazz record company.

PM: Interesting.

KD: When Triloka started out, I wanted to give these old guys a chance to record again in their ripe years. I felt that a lot of these guys were dying off, the old guys. And wouldn't it be great if we could give them an opportunity to share some of what they had now.

PM: Wow.

KD: However, we kind of went broke really fast that way, because of course, nobody buys jazz.

PM: Yeah.

KD: But we asked Walter to come in. And we knew him through Roger Nichols, the great engineer. [Famous for his work with Steely Dan.]

PM: Yeah. And how did you know Roger Nichols?

KD: My partner in the record company was running a studio called Soundworks West, in Hollywood, which was the old Motown studios, Motown West.

PM: Right.

KD: And Roger was the head engineer there, so they got to know each other. And then through that, we met Walter. And I actually pissed in a urinal right next to Bruce one day.

PM: [laughs]

KD: So you know, great things happen.

[laughter]

PM: Ah, just that close. How about on Breath of the Heart, how did you hook up with Rick Rubin? [A legendary producer, most recently lauded for his outstanding records with Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond.]

KD: Rick started coming out to kirtan. He loves chanting. He came out, and then he got in touch with Mitchell at Karuna and asked for my CDs. So Mitchell, I think, went over and brought them over there, and they started talking. And he started coming out to chant when I was there. And of course, I knew who he was, so I went over and said hey.

PM: Yeah.

KD: So we went out to dinner. That first night we met, we went out to dinner. And we were talking about all kinds of music and having a great time. Then at one point I said to Rick, "I got to start thinking about a new CD." And I said to him, "What I want to do now is I want to do some chanting over tracks, like Moby's stuff, like chant over loops and great tracks."

PM: Right.

KD: And he said, "No, you got to do it live."

PM: [laughs]   continue

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