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| "I like the idea of people stumbling across our music by mistake - that’s how I discovered music when I was growing up, and I still think it’s the best" |
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Fear, it seems, is important to The Kills, which might explain their emotive name.
“Performing live is always about the adrenaline,” says Alison Mosshart, one half of the duo. “That’s what gives artists their kick. Then you go in the studio – there’s comfy seats, a games room, lots of time to relex. I just couldn’t work in that kind of environment – I need the fear – the unmovable deadline.”
It was with that in mind that Mosshart and Jamie Hince set themselves a three week schedule for creating and recording their second album ‘No Wow’, booking the relevant studio and production time in advance to ensure there were enough unmovable deadlines to make them stick to it.
“We locked outselves in a studio space in Benton Harbour in Michigan and just lost our minds. When I listen back to the album now I don’t know where it came from – which is scary. But it was a great experience, and we’re really pleased with the results".
The story of how Mosshart and Hince came together to form The Kills could be the plot to a Richard Curtis romcom – though it would all happen quicker in the movie. Florida based Mosshart was in London on tour with her old band Discount. “I was staying in this apartment in London,” Mosshard continues, “and I’d hear someone playing guitar. It was amazing, and I’d sit there and listen to it. Then I met the guitar player at the local pub – it was Jamie. We just clicked straight away – we’d sit around and play records and talk about stuff, we were just into the same things. We became something of a two person social club.”
But the transition of impromptu friendship into The Kills took several years. “Jamie gave me this four track and I took it on the road and recorded some stuff. He said we should work together, and then things kinda fell into place. My band broke up and I was keen to move away from Florida, so I moved to London and started to work on stuff with Jamie. We weren’t really aiming to form a band, we were just messing around. A year and a half later we had an album ready to go – it all kind of came from there.”
That album was 2003’s ‘Keep On Your Mean Side’, a great little long player that won Mosshart and Curtis (then using the monikers VV and Hotel) an underground following and much critical acclaim. New album ‘No Wow’ has a very different sound to it than the debut. The fact it came together over eighteen months, where as the new album was done an dusted in a mere eighteen days, might have been a factor in that – but there were other factors at play.
“We wanted to achieve different things with this one,” Alison admits, “the first album was kind of stripped back rock – and lots of people mistook it as an early rock n roll kind of sound. But we’re not an early rock n roll kind of band, and this time we wanted to have a bit more of an electronic sound. It’s very in your face – and I suppose the quick turnaround helped with that. We didn’t use any effects on it – we didn’t soften the vocals or anything – what is on there is what it sounded like on the day we made it. That too is quite scary – hearing your voice on record exactly as it sounds live.”
Not being pigeonholed as this or that is quite important to Alison, who cites the sixties Warhol-esque scene as a major influence – a time when artists didn’t confine themselves to one form of art, never mind one genre of music. “I’m really attracted to that sixties New York pop art scene. Or rather I am attracted to the legacy it left behind. I don’t know if it was really as eclectic and all-embracing as it seems with hindsight – but I don’t really care – it’s the concept of that time that appeals to me.”
True to that spirit The Kills have made a short film to coincide with the release of the new album, and are in the process of creating a space in London where music, art and film will collide. “The [non-musical] creative outputs for musicians are very limited. You get your album cover – which with a CD is tiny. There’s your poster, which is normally just a big version of your cover. Music websites are normally so cold, and then there’s your video – which is controlled by so many rules. We wanted more than that – so we’re creating our own space where we can do what we like and show what we like. It’s very exciting”.
Details of that creative space are still sketchy, but it will definitely be worth checking out once it’s up and running. But don’t expect a big marketing push when it does open. When I ask what Alison would say to someone hearing The Kills for the first time she says: “Nothing. In fact I’d prefer not to be introducing someone to it at all. I like the idea of word of mouth, of people stumbling across our music by mistake. That’s how I discovered music when I was growing up, and I still think it’s the best. So I’d quickly show then a copy of the single and tell them to go and find their own copy!”
So, that’s The Kills. I won’t tell you when the new album is released or where you can get a copy. Go and find it for yourself.
Some The Kills plugging:
The Kills' 'No Wow' was released on 21 Feb 2005 on Domino.
chris@unlimitedmedia.co.uk - published feb 2005
