The Kills

Wed 11th Mar, 2009 in Features

There is something very distinct about the reluctant tabloid-target, Jamie Hince – London-born guitarist of the darkly sexy electro-rock duo, The Kills. At a time when the music business has become over-saturated with publicity-building exercises, Hince seems utterly bemused by anything outside the realm of writing and performing.
– œHotel’ and – œVV’, the respective stage names for him and his devastatingly dishevelled cohort, Alison Mosshart, might follow them doggedly about in the media, but Hince is more than willing to shrug them off as merely incidental. “We were just getting drunk, listening to The Kills, The Velvets, getting all romantic about rock – œn’ roll, and were trying to outdo ourselves with stupid names. Alison didn’t have a Visa, so we didn’t really want to give out her real name. But once you’re established, they get elevated to a – œreal importance,’ when actually there’s nothing profound about them at all.”

It’s with this air of unaffected nonchalance he cites a genuine disinterest in public opinion as the reason The Kills remain unscathed by the dreaded hype-beast. It regularly chews up and spits out so many of their similarly hipster-friendly peers. “In terms of surviving, we’ve never joined in with any of that, the hype, or had any ambition to be in all that. We genuinely love what we do and don’t understand anything except making the kind of music that we want to make. So worrying about what people think about it, it’s kind of commercial suicide. We don’t want to be one of those bands that are play-listed on Radio 1 and MTV.”

Not that they didn’t feel the pressure to perform while conceiving last year’s Midnight Boom. Their previous two albums have enjoyed such high levels of praise from fans and critics alike. “The frustrating part of this one is that it took so long,” Hince confesses. “We didn’t really have a clear idea on how we wanted it to sound before writing it, so by the end we were sort of gagging for it to be done. We’ve tried different ways of making the record. For the first one we did an 8-track, and it took 13 days, the second one took about a month in the studio. But we’ve always wanted to have a different approach every time. We sort of go out of our way to do that.”

For this record, “out of our way” meant Mexico, during the hurricane season. “It’s the ultimate cliché, isn’t it? We’re all about clichés really,” offers a readily self-deprecating Hince. “We just love and are fascinated by road movies; killer couples. For me, it’s all part of the adventure.”

With a self-imposed ban on any musical influence whatsoever, Hince turned to past documentaries for inspiration. He stumbled upon a 1968 California State-Commissioned short film entitled, Pizza Pizza Daddy-O, which chronicled the highly rhythmic and often darkly-lyricised playground chants of inner-city school children.

When asked if it was a tough sell, putting it to the Florida-born Mosshart that this soundtrack of simple backbeats and sing-song melodies be the basis of Midnight Boom, Hince treats this as almost a moot point. “Not at all. We spend so much time together that we’re sort of psychic about those things. We’ve evolved creatively together to a point where I know when she’s waking up, and she knows when I need a cup of coffee, or when I need to be left alone unless she wants her head bitten off.”

Add this to a perfectly-matched combination of writing techniques: Mosshart’s Kerouacian spontaneity and Hince’s tortured editing. “She’ll record something in a 20-second burst, and finish the day with a dozen things, whereas I’ll be slaving over the one thing, listening to it over and over and stressing. It’s ridiculous.”

It’s no wonder the rhythmic Midnight Boom has been described by _Rolling Stone _ as sounding, “sharper and more memorable.” Just don’t get too excited about the fact that Spank Rock producer Alex Epton [aka Armarni XXXchange] has been credited with the production of the record, and dance music demi-gods SebastiAn and Fake Blood with the remixes.

“I’m not a big fan of producers. [It’s] like they’re used by bands who didn’t know what they’re supposed to sound like. I produce myself, but I think it’s an odd job. It’s sort of a made-up job by the record companies. Having producers make them feel like the record’s under control. There’s someone responsible for how it sounds, and they have someone to blame if it’s not right. It doesn’t really interest me that much – it’s a record company thing. I’m happy for people to remix things, to make something creative out of what we’ve done, but I don’t really want it to be in my name.”

What does interest Hince though, are the film clips. The making of the rough-and-tumble Last Day of Magic clip, which features a bruised Hince and Mosshart engaging in an violent all-out brawl, turned into a highly-publicised incident at the Hotel Apolo Tryp in Barcelona last year.

“We filmed it in one day, did a bit in the hotel, but couldn’t use any of it because we got in trouble. I was dragging her along the ground, and she was smacking the hell out of me. They caught it on CCTV, called the police, and made us delete the scenes. We backed it all up though, and we’ll use it later when those idiots have forgotten about it. I don’t want to be told what to do.”

While the clip reveals neither of one of the rowdy pair as the clear winner, if he and the tough-as-nails Mosshart did actually come to blows, Hince doesn’t hesitate when asked to predict who would come out on top. “Me,” he asserts. “I’ve got more stamina, I’m stronger. But Alison does have a mean streak, so I guess we’re pretty evenly matched. I’d win, and then she’d get me while I’m sleeping, she’d come in and cut my throat.” A killer (if staunchly platonic) couple indeed.

The Kills play V Festival this March/April, with three sideshows proudly presented by FasterLouder. Tickets to the sideshows are moving fast – pick yours up HERE pronto.

Saturday March 28 – Centennial Park, Sydney
Saturday March 29 – Avica Resort, Gold Coast
Monday March 30 – Brisbane, The Zoo
Wednesday April 1 – Sydney, The Forum
Friday April 3 – Melbourne, Prince Bandroom
Saturday April 4 – Showgrounds, Melbourne
Sunday April 5 – Claremont Showgrounds, Perth

Check out the brawling video for Last Day Of Magic.