I spoke to Krishna Das shortly after the completion of his spring tour. With 14 albums, workshops, retreats and kirtans (concerts that feature call-and-response devotional chanting with musical accompaniment) played around the world, his stature has placed him into bigger and bigger venues.
“Actually, the tour wasn’t that bad,” he said during an interview from his New York home, “but it’s nice to be not moving all the time. It wasn’t as strenuous as I thought it would be.”
Like a rock star, the amount of shows across the United States and their compact schedule put him in a different setting mentally.
“It was also getting used to living in the bus with eight other people and getting used to the rhythm of being in the bus all night. It’s like living on a space station. You go out into outer space, you do your thing, then you get back into the station and you never really land on earth, you know it’s really strange. But it was good.”
Although he has created a strong following, his aim isn’t to be a leader of others. Rather he wants to share and inspire through music. As he points out in conversation or performance, he’s still someone aiming to be a better person, rather than perfection incarnate.
Born Jeffrey Kagel, he grew up on Long Island. It was here that he became the frontman for Soft White Underbelly, which later morphed into Blue Oyster Cult. After meeting Ram Dass and later Maharaj-ji in India, he turned his back on that world for something that he describes as saving his life. When he returned to America, Kagel came up with music as a way to serve Maharaj-ji, blending western structures with a dedication to eastern philosophy. Developing his chanting style, KD also enriched his musical self with shows by Bruce Springsteen and the Clash.
That mix can be heard on his latest album, Heart As Wide As the World, particularly on “Naaraayana/For Your Love” which unites the Sanskrit with the Yardbirds classic. It’s also what has attracted musicians such as Sting, Walter Becker (Steely Dan) and Rick Allen (Def Leppard) to collaborate with him.
The idea of speaking with Krishna Das for Jambands came to me after I attended one of his kirtans in Cleveland. Although I observed more than I chanted, the experience reminded me of what it felt like to be part of a great and fulfilling Grateful Dead concert, where there was a dramatic arc, a spiritual awakening and an uplifting sensation.
Singing and playing the harmonium, his chants normally begin at a slow, deliberate pace and then increase in rhythm for what steadily becomes a cathartic event.
Looking around, I could see all these little stories that played similar to what transpired during an evening with the Dead. There were some like me who sat and watched, while others chanted/sang along and, finally, a group of people danced in ways that made perfect sense to their union of mind and body.
I explain the scene and the elements that unite a particular concert event with the unfolding of a kirtan and how the more I investigated the more layers could be found in Krishna Das – the kirtankar, the musician, the seeker, the performer, the author.
JPG: In regards to one of your kirtans, are you able to step back and see how it relates to a regular concert experience?
KD: Well, yes and no. I’m honored and very humbled by the fact that you take it seriously as music because that’s just so secondary. The focus is really the spiritual nature of it. That’s the focus. But, of course, to communicate that and deepen the experience for everybody, it has to be done well — the sound to do the music, to play and all that.
Somebody said to me shortly after I first started playing, ‘What time is soundcheck?’ And I said, ‘What? I didn’t even know what a soundcheck was. And over time I began to realize I don’t know what the audience is hearing, so I need to pay attention to that, because if you want to translate this experience and communicate, you have to pay attention to getting that right. So, that’s when the other side began to develop too, the musical aspect of it.
JPG: Have you ever had any concert experience that resulted for you the exuberance that your kirtans do now for others?
KD: I came back from India, came out to the west coast. The first concert I saw was Bob Marley and the Wailers at the University of California Berkley. Outside. Beautiful concert. I was sitting right at the feet of the I Threes, and he came out and they started dancing and they said, ‘We’re jammin’ straight from God.’ And I went, ‘Holy shit!’ I just came from India. I didn’t know anything like that was…it was amazing! And that was, I’ll never forget that. That was just so incredible.
And I love, I worship Bruce Springsteen. I think he’s a Bodhisattva of the highest order in that he embodies the yearnings, the desires, the disappointments, a whole life quality of a whole subculture. And he raises it up, lifts all that up and infuses it with a completely transcendent nature that some guy in New Jersey working a daily 9-to-5 job probably is not aware of. And Bruce does that. He gives life a different context and it’s extraordinary what he does.
JPG: I’ve always found it amazing with Bruce that even when he’s playing arenas, you can be 100 or more yards away yet you still feel like he’s talking to you. I don’t know how he does that.
KD: Have you ever heard his version of “Chimes of Freedom?” Amazing. Did you say you’re from Cleveland?
JPG: Cleveland area.
KD: I remember the KSAN broadcast of Bruce’s shows from Cleveland.
JPG: Probably the Agora show from ’78. A classic.
KD: And we taped it off the radio. I also saw the Clash on Broadway.
JPG: At Bonds?
KD: At Bonds. You want to talk about transcendence. I don’t remember breathing the whole time. It was so extraordinary. And, of course, they closed the place down. (laughing)
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