The Kills
are an indie rock band formed by American vocalist and guitarist Alison Mosshart ("VV") and British guitarist Jamie Hince ("Hotel"). Their three albums, Keep On Your Mean Side
, No Wow
and Midnight Boom
, have gathered much critical praise.
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THE KILLS TICKETS
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Career
Mosshart was previously in
Floridian punk rock band
Discount, and Hince was in the British rock bands
Scarfo and
Blyth Power (the latter an
anarcho-punk band). The duo first met when Mosshart heard Hince practicing in the hotel room above hers, and when the former groups disbanded they struck up a songwriting partnership. For months, the pair
air mailed work tapes across the
Atlantic; this proved to test the patience of both artists as it took days or weeks to get each other's tapes, so Mosshart moved from her Florida home under the guidance of Lauren Antonina Herbert to
London.
Wanting to cut themselves off from their pasts, Mosshart and Hince considered their new project to be Year Zero in their careers. They renamed themselves "VV" and "Hotel" respectively and began writing sparse, minimalist songs together with the aid of a
drum machine. In 2001 they showcased their new songs on a well received demo tape. In true punk rock fashion, however, the pair shunned approaches from major
record labels. Recording as
VV and Hotel
, they contributed the song "Restaurant Blouse" to the compilation
If the Twenty-First Century Did Not Exist, It Would Be Necessary to Invent It
. Shortly after this they recorded their debut release, the
Black Rooster EP
, which saw release on British
indie label
Domino Records and was picked up for distribution by
Dim Mak Records in the
United States.
The record could not have been more of a departure from both artists' previous bands. It was
lo-fi in both musical and
aesthetic terms. The record sleeve featured photos of Mosshart and Hince taken in a
photo booth rather than professional photography. Musically, the record was a sparse, lo-fi
Garage rock/
Blues hybrid. Though the band cites
PJ Harvey,
LCD Soundsystem and
Royal Trux as immediate influences, the music press has largely compared them to the other boy/girl minimalist garage blues duo
The White Stripes.
Keep on Your Mean Side
Following international touring, they entered
Toe Rag Studios, where the White Stripes had recorded their album
Elephant
, to record their debut album
Keep on Your Mean Side
, mostly on
8-track, in just 2 weeks. Distributed in the US and UK by
Rough Trade Records, the album was similar in style to the EP, veering from the Velvets-esque stomp of "Wait" to the noisy, dirty garage punk blues of "Fuck the People" (this song is rumoured to be a reference/homage to the French convicted criminal
Florence Rey) and dark
psychedelia of "Kissy Kissy". The record was well received by the music press, though the White Stripes comparisons would not go away.
Maintaining an anti-
careerist, anti-
music industry attitude, the band rarely granted interviews. Rather, they got the music press to come to them with their minimalist yet powerful live shows (which also included the drum machine), the pair maintaining an air of tension by subverting the expected role of stage performer. Mosshart chain-smoked while singing, rarely speaking to the audience, whilst Hince violently ripped blues riffs from his instrument. At a
New York City show following the ban on public smoking, Mosshart went on stage with three bottles of water, lit up a cigarette and proceeded to smoke constantly from the first song to the last note of the set.
In
2006 "Wait" was used in
Children of Men
, the film by
Alfonso CuarĂ³n. It was played on Radio Avalon and described as "a blast from the past all the way back to 2003, that beautiful time when people refused to accept the future is just around the corner". In
2007 the
tv show
Criminal Minds used the songs "Cat Claw" and "Wait" in the episode "Doubt".
No Wow
Their second album,
No Wow
, was released by Domino Records on
21 February 2005. Featuring an artier, less "
guitar rock
" sound, the record embraced
post punk influences and sounded even more stripped down than
Keep on Your Mean Side
. Originally written to be performed on a
Moog, the band was forced to change directions and record it primarily using a guitar as its central instrument after Hince's Moog broke and couldn't be repaired before entering the studio.
[1] A 40-minute DVD documentary was included with a limited number of copies and features interview, performance and on the road footage shot on tour.
The first single, "
The Good Ones
", from
No Wow
, was released on
7 February,
2005 and reached number 23 in the UK singles charts.
Mosshart features in the
title track of
Placebo's latest album
Meds
, released on
13 March,
2006 in the UK, and on
4 April,
2006 in the US. She also features on the
Primal Scream album
Riot City Blues.
Midnight Boom
On November 2, 2007, the band announced on their news blog that their third album was finished. The first single was called "U R A Fever", and was premiered by Steve Lamacq on BBC Radio 1 on November 19. On December 10, 2007, The Kills were interviewed on a New York radio station where it was revealed that the new album will be titled
Midnight Boom
. Two song titles were also revealed: "Alphabet Pony", a dark surreal song inspired by playground clapping games and songs, and "Last Day Of Magic", a song written by Jamie Hince about heartache and loneliness, with references to
Dostoyevsky's
Crime and Punishment
.
Following a cover-story interview in
Nylon
magazine, the new album was released March 10, 2008 (March 18 in US), and The Kills embarked on a supporting US tour. There is also a new UK tour for April, set to begin in
Edinburgh on April 15 with
These New Puritans.
In March 2008, Alison was featured in the BBC documentary
The Mighty Boosh: A Journey Through Time and Space
.
the song is featured in nhl 09
Discography
Studio albums
- Keep on Your Mean Side
(2003)
- No Wow
(2005)
- Midnight Boom
(2008)