The Kills: 'With two people, everything is just much more intense'
By Chris Nixon
Special to the San Diego Union-Tribune
September 22, 2005
From the opening drum machine pitter-patter of "No Wow," the title track from the Kills' second album, it's clear this duo takes the indie rock boy-girl formula to gloriously extremes.
Boy-girl duos like Sweden's the Raveonettes heap on overdubbed harmonies and echo-laden guitars. Others, like the White Stripes' Jack and Meg White, pull off octopus-armed gymnastics during their lives shows to fill in the gaps left by a two-person band in the quartet-dominated ranks of rock.
The Kills – vocalist VV (Alison Mosshart) and guitarist Hotel (Jamie Hince) – celebrate the sparseness created by two musicians and a drum machine. VV's powerful voice and Hotel's penchant for bluesy distorted guitar riffs fit together naturally, while the lack of a bass player and live drummer only accentuates the Kills' skills.
When you live life as a duo, the spotlight shines a bit brighter. But "there are a lot less people to blame," admited Hotel during a recent phone conversation from Great Britain.
"There are just two of us, the whole thing becomes a lot more intense," said the Londoner , now resting between tours in support of "No Wow." "When it's a celebration, it's great because it's all focused on one of us. But when bad things happen or things aren't working out, it's a lot harder."
In a previous life as simply Jamie Hince, Hotel sang and played guitar in a UK outfit called Scarfo. The band released a self-titled album in 1996 on the indie label Broken ReKids (a worthwhile listen if you can find a copy), so Hotel has been around the business a while and knows a bit about group dynamics.
"I've been in bands with three or four different people," said Hotel. "Everybody has their own personality and they tend to dilute the situation. With two people, everything is just much more intense: the good thing and bad things. There are less people to delegate work to. We have total control over all our artwork, we produce our records, but it's a lot harder work."
Now living as an expat in London, VV met Hotel on a trip to London while she was still living in Florida. They made music together by sending tapes across the Atlantic, until the dark-haired Mosshart decided to pack everything she owned into a few suitcases and move to London.
Mosshart and Hince officially joined forces in the Kills in 2000, changing their stage name to VV and Hotel. Soon after, the band recorded the self-released "Black Rooster EP" followed by nonstop touring.
In 2003, the Kills released "Keep on Your Mean Side" on Rough Trade records. Recorded in two weeks after a tour of the United States, the record's 12 tracks feature the now-trademark stripped-down sound associated with the Kills. Equal parts fuzzy blues and garage rock, the album garnered the two musicians a major-label deal on RCA records.
The process of going from an indie label to RCA has been relatively easy for the fiercely independent Hotel, a fact he still finds surprising.
"It's funny, because I think a lot of people – me included – have certain ideas about the stereotypes of independent and major labels," said Hotel. "One thing I've found in working with the two is that it's often the independents that are the most corporate. It's been my experience that certain independent labels want more creative control than a major label. With RCA, it's more of a tape-delivery service. We just give them what we've recorded and they distribute it."
With the pressures of moving to a major label, the band wanted to keep the songwriting and recording process as immediate and visceral as possible.
"With the 'No Wow' record, we wanted to make a record in really different circumstances from how we've made records before and from how most bands make records," said Hotel. "We felt on top of the world after we made 'Keep on Your Mean Side.' Rather than go into the process with a lot of fear about expectations, stepping it up a gear and getting on the radio, we wanted to find what was at the heart of the Kills.
"We wanted to find out what our instinctive sound was," added the guitarist. "To do that, we didn't want to overthink things or make it too academic. We just wanted to see what we would come up with from pure gut instinct, so we wrote the record really quickly.
"Now, we need to sit down and figure another way of writing. I want each record to have its own picture and not just be a set of songs. I want the set of circumstances be just as important as the result."
Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.
>FIVE THAT MATTER TO THE KILLS' HOTEL
During a recent conversation, Hotel (Jamie Hince), the Kills' guitarist Hotel, braved a bad cross-Atlantic telephone connection to give five albums that shaped his musical tastes and his artistic direction in life:
Velvet Underground & Nico, "Velvet Underground & Nico" (1967, Verve): "The first Velvet Underground record has always been a benchmark for me. I'm kind of romantic about that scene: New York in the late '60s. That's kind of what I aspire to: a band that incorporates literature – like Allan Ginsberg – and Andy Warhol with art and the politics of the time and the filmmakers were all part and parcel of the Velvet Underground. The periphery of the scene was just as important as the band itself. When you listen to what other bands are doing in 1967, I think that the Velvet Underground is quite incredible."
P.J. Harvey, "Rid of Me" (1993, Island): "She really changed things for me. The record was so in-your-face and brutal. It turned me onto blues really. I thought blues was boring until P.J. Harvey made 'Rid of Me.' It got me into Captain Beefheart, it got me listening to Howlin' Wolf and tracing it back to Charlie Patton."
LCD Soundsystem, "LCD Soundsystem" (2005, Capitol): "This is pretty much my favorite record form the last year and my favorite band of the moment. It's really powerful music. I think James Murphy is an incredible frontman and the words are really cool. It just sounds like it should have always been around. I can't imagine that record not being here now. It was a classic record the week it came out."
Royal Trux, "Accelerator" (1998, Drag City): "I've always associated with Neil Haggerty and Jennifer (Herrema), that kind of male-female duo at the core of this band. There was a kind of romanticism about it and at the same time a self-destructive quality about it. From start to finish, this is an amazing record. It's super-catchy and pushing boundaries as far as ideas. I love that record."
Wire, "Pink Flag" (1993, Restless Records): "I would definitely grab that record if my house caught on fire. (Wire) was always involved in the punk scene, but it was always doing something different. It was a little too arty for the punks, and a little bit too punky for the art kids. The band made amazing records not trying to sound like anyone else, not trying to fit in. All of the bands I've mentioned suffered for just making the kind of record they wanted to make without caring about commercial success. That's definitely the case with Wire."
– CHRIS NIXON
