Antion

Kauai Times February 1996

KAPA’A - Rocco's Italian Restaurant in Kapa’a is an unlikely place for an old rock star's comeback. The last time this bearded Brit in trademark turban returned to the stage it was before a crowd of 78,000 in Moscow's Red Square.

The former lead guitar player with the '60s band Eric Burdon and the Animals ended that brief tour as convinced as ever that the life of a rock star wasn't for him. "I'd rather be a plumber," Antion Meredith told his wife. "And that was the end of it."

So these days he's playing Hawaiian music with Keoni Lake at Rocco's. Late Friday nights. they switch to rock and by, day he's 'that plumber who wears a turban.'

For this disenchanted rock star and once fanatic Sikh, the Rocco's gig has been a long time coming. He left the Animals nearly 30 years ago to pursue a spiritual practice that led him to study and then perform sacred Indian music in Sikh temples throughout the world.

He was introduced, by chance, to Hawaiian music and is now working it into his eclectic repertoire. And somewhere, on the verge of breaking through, is a vision that brings it all together in a sound as uniquely his own as the inner yearnings that guide him.

Antion, then known as Vic Briggs, walked away from a promising career with the Animals in 1968. The British rock band hit its stride in the mid-60s when it moved to the U.S. West Coast touring with hits co-written by Antion like "When I Was Young," "Sky Pilot" and "Monterey."

Before he joined the Animals, the London-born guitarist played with entertainers like Rod Stewart and Dusty Springfield. Jimi Hendrix, who once named Briggs as one of his three favorite musicians, was instrumental in getting him his job with the Animals.

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," he explained during an interview at his home in Kilauea. "People 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.

The Sikh organization is composed of followers of Guru Nanak, who founded the religion some 500 years ago. Sikhism is a unique belief system that some say is a synthesis of the best ideas of both the Hindu and Muslim religions.

There are about 15 million Sikhs in the world. The highest concentration is in India but there are large communities in the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Malaysia and other places.

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.

The yoga-teaching arm of the Sikh religion is called 3HO, which stands for healthy. happy, holy organization. Sikhs, Antion said, Follow a very simple spiritual practice. " It involves getting up early in the morning for meditation, working honestly and being prepared to share with others."

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. He sings in a complicated Indian language based on Sanskrit. 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 is the only non-Indian Sikh who has ever been 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 than, 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.

Five years later, he picks up a guitar and picks out a Keali'i Reichel tune. The words flow easily, the delicate melody floating like the petals of a lei through the quiet studio.

"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 that's an important part of what spiritual music should be."

Antion and Elandra have been married for nearly 24 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. into a cult, really," 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."

They left the ashram in 1990 after a fall out with their spiritual teacher. "Yogi Bhajan branded me as a traitor," Antion said, adding that he continues his spiritual practice as a Sikh, still sings in temples and remains friends with many in the organization.

After nearly two decades as members of the Sikh organization in San Diego. Antion said, communal living became very restrictive.

"I don't drink. I gave that up at the end of 1969. I don't take drugs. We've been married for almost 24 years, but I like to have fun. I like to be with people. and I like to play music."

Nevertheless, Antion said separating from the ashram was traumatic. "You might say we were part of a cult within the greater diaspora of Sikhism, And when we left the cult, we encountered, as often happens, a lot of negativity and hostility. We had been living in this sheltered environment and all of a sudden all these people we thought were our friends had turned against us."

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 seared," 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."

Now, he's not so sure. On the cusp of his 51st birthday, which falls on Valentine's Day, Antion is on the verge of bringing forth a new sound drawn from the many forms of music that have touched his soul.

"I want to incorporate Indian, Hawaiian, African and rock and roll", he said. But make it really spiritual and healing oriented so it uplifts people, but also is fun."

At this point, the musician isn't ready to go on the road with his concept.

"I've got the sound of the music in my head," he said. "But it's hard for me to get it out and even harder to explain." One album is close. He allows the sound to fill his recording studio. 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.

Here's how to catch Antion

Antion will appear with vocalist Connie Kissinger and a group of musicians Saturday night at the Outrigger Kauai Beach Hotel. The event is a benefit for the Kauai Children's Discovery Museum, He appears Friday and Saturday evenings, from 7 to 9 p.m., playing Hawaiian music with Keoni Lake at Rocco's Italian Restaurant in Kapaa. On Fridays, from 10 p.m. to closing, Keoni and Antion team up with Phil and Shaun to play rock and roll. On Mondays, at 7 p.m., Antion and Elandra lead a chanting/toning circle in their home. In addition to his study of Indian music, Antion has studied Naad Yoga, which is the yoga of sound. He has taught chanting, toning, sacred singing and self- healing with sound on four continents.