That was 1966. Antion was 21 and woefully unprepared for the life of a rock star. Performing was great. Recording even better. But he couldn't hack life off-stage.
"You couldn't trust anything that people said. They were so anxious just to get a part of you that they would not have any respect for your privacy, your humanity or your dignity."
In 1968, after playing the Hollywood Bowl and touring the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Europe, Antion's two-year career with the Animals ended. "I'd had enough of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Our manager was ripping us off. We had a big fight, and so myself and the bass player left,"
It was painful. he said. "I was emotionally immature. We all were. It was very easy to manipulate us and rip us off."
There he was 23 years old, a long way from home, and his rock career ended. Not ready to abandon show business altogether, Antion decided to pursue a career as an arranger and producer in Hollywood studios. That lasted a year. At 24, he backed all the way out of rock and headed in an entirely different direction.
"I decided I wanted to be spiritual, so I became spiritual," he said. He studied yoga with Yogi Bhajan, who remained his spiritual teacher for 20 years. He became a master of yogic chanting and mantra yoga. He became a Sikh and learned the sacred music of his new religion.
As far as Antion knows, he's the only practicing Sikh on Kauai. Certainly, he's the only master plumber on the island who shows up to fix the sink in a turban.
When he became a Sikh. Antion adopted a new name. He was called Vikram Singh Khalsa. It was only after he left the organization in 1990 that he changed his name to Antion.
During his years with the Sikh organization, he became an accomplished yoga teacher and a highly regarded performer of sacred Sikh music. This morning, he sits in his recording studio playing a harmonium (a box-like instrument that resembles a keyboard combined with an accordion). His voice soars above the harmonium like a one-man choir standing in the temple of the Almighty.
He was the first non-Indian Sikh to be allowed to sing in the Golden Temple, which is the most holy shrine of the Sikhs. Singing in the temple in Punjab, India, was the pinnacle, he said, of his musical Career.
"For 20 years, I was just totally into this Indian music," he said. "I didn't think there was anything else. And then, by chance, I happened to arrive at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel just about the time that the Brothers Cazimero concert was starting."
That was 1991, two years before Antion and his wife Elandra moved from San Diego to Kauai. They were in Hawaii on vacation when he walked past the Monarch Room as the Cazimero show began. He had never seen ancient hula. He had never heard chanting. "I was absolutely flabbergasted," he said. It was then he realized that he had a new passion and a reason to move to Hawaii.
"I've devoted a fair amount of time to learning Hawaiian music," Antion said. "It's become very much a part of me."
His interest took him by surprise. Until that day outside the Monarch Room, the musician thought his study of classical Indian music had been enough to fulfill him musically.
"The Indian music is wonderfully spiritual," he said. "But it's very much about longing, about separation from God and longing for God. In Hawaiian music, I've found contentment and joy, and, to me, that's an important part of what spiritual music should be."
Antion and Elandra have been married for 30 years. The parents of two daughters, they met when Antion was teaching yoga in London.
"I was a very strict, upright. kind of uptight spiritual fanatic." Antion said. "This very beautiful model and movie actress in hot pants started coming to my classes. So of course, I pretended not to notice her."
Elandra. known then as Kirsten Lindholm, was a rising film actress, a Danish beauty who grew up in New Zealand and was making a name for herself appearing as a vampire in horror movies.
Their lifestyles were completely incompatible. But they were in love. So when Antion decided to return to the States, Elandra went with him. She told her agents she'd be back in two weeks. "I never came back. I never even called them I just disappeared into an ashram" she said.
One day she was a British movie star, the next she was the wife of a Sikh. Her name was changed to Vikram Kaur Khalsa. Clad in white from head to toe, she looked like a nun. "I spent 18 years dressed like that," she said.
During those years, Antion and Elandra were in charge of the Sikh ashram in San Diego. "We were like ministers to a fairly large congregation," Antion said. He also taught and sang throughout the world.
"It was a little bit like being a rock and roll star," he said. "You'd feel good, but you wouldn't have any money in your pocket. I don't drink. I gave that up at the end of 1969. I don't take drugs. We've been married for 30 years, but I like to have fun. I like to be with people. and I like to play music."
They left the ashram in 1990, but Antion continues his spiritual practice as a Sikh, still sings in temples and remains friends with many in the organization.
In 1989, a year before they left the ashram, Antion ran into an old friend at a party given by his neighbor, basketball star Bill Walton. Jerry Garcia was in San Diego to perform, this time without the Grateful Dead, It had been about 20 years since Antion had seen Garcia.
The next day, Elandra bought her husband a guitar.
"Then it all started up again," Antion said.
In 1992, a reconstituted version of the Animals went to Moscow to perform in the first rock concert ever held in Red Square. Vic Briggs was back. They played to a crowd of 78,000 and went on to Sweden for another performance. By now, the guitar player was 47 years old. He was married and the father of two. He had sung in the Golden Temple, recorded several albums of Indian music and had devoted years to his spiritual practice, And though he had left the ashram, he still wore his Sikh turban.
So, in Sweden, when two girls followed him to his hotel room after a performance, he was appalled. "I actually got scared," Antion said. "I couldn't believe they were following me. And I couldn't believe I was throwing them out."
Nothing had changed. Being an Animal at 47 was just as bad as it had been at 21. "I said, I'd rather be a plumber, and that was the end of it."
Not quite! His years of study of Hawaiian music and culture have paid off, in the form of a new sound drawn from the many forms of music that have touched his soul. He has incorporated Indian, Hawaiian, African and rock and roll, but made it really spiritual and healing oriented so that it uplifts people, but is also fun.
The music, which has a mesmerizing meditative quality punctuated by an insistent drum beat, is overlaid by the haunting call of Antion's voice. The sound, born of a rock band and refined in the sacred temples of his religion, lifts high above the instrumentation and over Elandra's spoken chant to arrive at a place known only by the soul.
"It's bringing you home," Antion said.
Taken in part from - "Playing Music Again. From British rocker to turbaned Sikh, music is his life." by Susan Dixon-Stong (The Kauai Times February 7th, 1996)
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