Talk:Crispian Mills

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 * There should definitely be something in here about his actual faith; Mills himself is an ISKCON devotee.
 * It mentions the 'Sanksrit epics' of ancient India but never mentions his religious path. 212.9.115.132 (talk) 03:30, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Crispian Mills was indeed in Chatham House, Stowe. His school number was 606. He was on a number of occasions witnessed bawling in the dormitary citing that he was homesick. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.186.108.9 (talk) 02:11, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I have added some passages that make it clear:

Mills has had involvement with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (the "Hare Krishna" movement), and his mother composed the preface to the book The Hare Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking.

It was around this time when Mills first started to consider ideas of spirituality, and mortality. "If I ever had a Road-to-Damascus, it was when I was 11," he recalls. "I woke up one night, at home in bed, and realised I was going to die. I don't mean 'tomorrow' or 'in a year'. It wasn't a prediction. It was just suddenly understanding fully that death would come. I remember talking about it at the time. Everyone thought there was something wrong with me." To address these new feelings on life and death, Crispian borrowed the Mahābhārata, one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, from his mother, and took to reading it. He also became vegetarian, although concedes that this was largely due to meeting "a really attractive girl who was veggie."

Throughout his youth, Crispian had been exposed to a wide variety of music. One of his earliest musical memories was Puff, the Magic Dragon by Peter, Paul and Mary, which he believes "summed up [his] childhood." As a general rule, Mills was uninspired by the then-current music scene, and found that he was able to identify with older records, which he felt had honesty and genuine youth. However, there were a couple of exceptions to this rule: he distinguished Stand and Deliver by Adam & the Ants - the first single he ever bought - by virtue of its drama and longevity. In terms of albums, his first purchase was Too Tough to Die by Ramones. However, it was hearing You Really Got Me by English rock group The Kinks that inspired him to become a guitarist. "It was like walking into a temple, a moment when my life changed," he says. "I'd grown up listening to Boy George and Duran Duran on the radio. But You Really Got Me. Chung! This is your destiny! After that, as soon as I picked up a guitar, all I wanted to do was become brilliant. I practised, I studied tapes, I was a guitar worshipper. " Through the guitar, Mills also discovered Deep Purple, and has cited their lead guitarist Ritchie Blackmore as a major influence on his style.

It was at Richmond College of Further Education where Crispian was to befriend future bandmate Alonza Bevan.

As he grew older, Mills started to delve deeper into psychedelic music, and spent most of his A-Level years taking LSD and listening to The Doors. Acid gave the teenaged Mills a change of perspective, but he soon realised that drugs alone would not bring him the enlightenment he sought. Watching close friends go "over the edge" on hallucinogenic drugs ultimately convinced Crispian that there were other ways of changing one's perspective. He was initiated in Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition in 1997 and has a spiritual Hare Krishna name Krishna Kantha dasa. The same year he wrote a foreword to a book by Bhaktivinoda Thakur translated into English from Bengali and titled Sri Siksastaka, an esoteric bhakti publication.

The link to the page about Mills guitars no longer work.

Youth and education
This section is way too long, and quite frankly a drag to read. Would someone care to shorten it down as I am not familiar with this man so don't feel I'd be up to the task. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Icedragz (talk • contribs) 12:20, 26 November 2010 (UTC)