The Kills - London, UK, Autumn 2002
By: Toby L
In the early-summer of 2002, via a random tip-off, we found ourselves trudging down to Oxford Street's Metro - a London launch-pad for rising talent - on the basis that we were to view one of the UK's most in-demand newcomers. Two of them surfaced on-stage, red lights bathing their every motion, whilst the dirtiest of sleazy blues-rock surged from the muddy PA. It was primal, and hinted towards something special. Aptly, in an industry where timing accounts above talent, it was only to these characters' credit that both of such enviable attributes swung markedly in their favour.
Yes, arising out of the depths and over-ground of guitar-yielding sensations that have forced us all to conform to a fierce state of 'cool' in recent times, arguably, only a few have truly shown enough promise and dextrous originality to prove their merit and the diligently-designated exhilaration surrounding them. Unquestionably, the unabashed directness and heart-palpitating urgency of The Kills, as witnessed that very night, allows the US-UK duo to exist in the prestigious league of scene-formers - as opposed to followers.
And, just like any archetypal act of yesteryear, it seems that old knack of 'keeping it simple' appears to be the calling-card of their enterprise; hardly accustomed to the tantrums and loggerhead egos that all too commonly find themselves infesting larger band-units, Jamie Hince and Alison Flockheart have discarded the once-thought necessity of accompanying musicians that don't prove their worth, instead forming an altogether more intriguing and brooding affair. Like their relationship with one another, the resulting distorted-guitar/stark-vocal musicality is brutally intense, fiercely tight, and rivetingly sexy.
Power to the people, too - because all earnt on their side is through the pair's own often unrelenting vision and inspiringly sizeable ambition. Not content with the music-industrial norms of gaudy photo-shoots and everything-but-the-kitchen-sink promo-videos, their wishes are to change all this, to allow the music and associated personalities to take a forefront over the clichés, and to permit minimalism as a resounding alternative to over-production (hence their decision to provide rockfeedback with personally-taken Polaroid shots of themselves, in preference of our own snapping).
Naturally, they're hesitant to the whole press-malarkey, their acceptance to conduct interviews far rarer than their dismissal of such encounters. So, it's all our pleasure as we greet them outside of Camden's Electric Ballroom and take a stroll along the Town's High-Street in order to conduct today's conversation amidst the classical-music blaring confines of a nearby eatery. Jamie, all cigarettes and rings around the eyes, orders numerous coffees in quick succession, whilst Alison, all cigarettes and draping, dark hair, sits forward on a sofa, subtly observing the parameters of the location.
'It was more like, when we started playing with each other, we just wanted to make our own histories and start over,' remarks Flockheart, over her titling of 'VV' within the group.
'There was not much thought put into it,' nods Jamie, AKA 'Hotel'. 'It just seemed like we wanted to set a bit of a ground-zero. So we renamed ourselves, and it's kind of sweet and fun. I guess, in retrospect, you could try and analyse it and find something deep in it, but there isn't anything like that. There was no puffed-up stance on it - we were just sitting in our bedroom with no money and eating bread, and thought it'd be cool.'
VV laughs gently to herself. 'It's been really funny with some people in America, because they've been more simple, like, 'You're called Hotel?! As in a place to stay?!'
Well, Alison's hardly a name to shy away from, surely..?
'Yeah,' she grimaces, 'but I've had it forever... It's getting old now.'
That's just it - apart from the rock 'n' roll legends that sparked their initial enthusiasm in music, 'old' and the past means nothing to The Kills: they're a revolt against the present and contemporary, and savage-seekers towards an ethical future. Certainly too, the dynamics of the live-show are testament enough to this notion - Hince's glaring peers into the crowd and scowling guitar, not to mention VV's thrusts and motions around her mic-stand and pouting, tuneful enunciations forming a seriously engaging, hypnotic proposition.
So maybe the band's personality is reflected in the monikers they adopt, whilst their natural, birth-titles are the real people behind it all..?
Hotel ponders silently. 'Perhaps, but it's hard to say, because performing is different: there's a whole history of rock 'n' roll that's about performances and bands that have been elevated into these positions of importance and meanings... But there's nothing you can do about that; you kind of roll with it a little bit. Personally, I'm bored with all the bands that spend too much time being down-to-earth and look like roadies and spend time chit-chatting with the audience. It's not like I'm totally against it - but it's not what I want to do in my band.
'If you listened to music in this country during the last five years, there wasn't really anything to get excited about,' he continues assuredly, 'so you have to look elsewhere. There were great bands that were coming out of America, however, and you can start looking back in time as well, discovering old acts that you may have never really looked at too much before... There's a whole legend there, like The Rolling Stones and The Velvet Underground and The Monks, and I feel like that spirit has been lost somewhere... Maybe part of this was to try and get back to that a bit.'
Indeed, possibly 'this' was - but The Kills isn't the double-act's first excursion into sound; Hince's past has been well-documented - yet suggest to Jamie that his former Scarfo was a 'cult'-act and he insists, 'No, there's a spelling-mistake somewhere in there...' Similarly for Alison, there's a prior ten-year history of music-making and work that lays claim to her name. Thus, when the Brit-based Hotel met the American-born VV at a fateful party one evening in London, an unconstrained meeting of minds occurred. The following year saw the mutual sending of tapes back and forth between themselves in the UK and US for six months before Alison finally took a leap, or rather flight-over, of faith, to join her musical-twin for a fuller-term.
'I started touring and playing music when I was 14,' reminisces VV. 'All of us in the band at the point were all the same age, and we were booking our own tours and stuff. We did that for seven years and the result of doing that with the same people for so long became uninteresting to me. We stopped when I was about 21, and I just thought everything he (points to Jamie) was doing was amazing... He's just the most perfect person on earth to work with.'
Hotel blushes and rubs her shoulder. 'Aww, honey!'
'When I first met him,' she proceeds, 'it was like a dream that some day I would hopefully be working with him. At the time, he was the only one I'd play any of my music to; I wouldn't show it to anyone else... And that meant something to me.'
'We spent quite a long time not even making songs,' insights Jamie, 'and just making sounds and music...'
'... And building microphones,' adds Flockheart, curiously.
Hotel smiles warmly at the recollection. 'Yeah - we made all of these microphones out of old telephone-receivers, and we recorded on to reel-to-reels and busted four-tracks. We didn't have any designs to be a band or anything - it was a couple of people just checking each other out with music. I don't even remember the point where it suddenly made sense that we were a band; we started thinking ahead that we needed a drummer, we needed this, we needed that, or whatever, but then we just thought, 'Wait a sec - let's have it as this: the two of us. We've done it all together anyway so far; let's just do it.'
Presumably, that patch in between of your coming together, when you forwarded packages via Trans-Atlantic delivery means, must have been frustrating...
VV agrees vehemently, declaring, 'And aggravating especially for me, since I was feeling so low during that period; I just really needed to get out of there. And that's what made me move over here; I had to.'
'Our first few recordings, we had no real limit to anything,' notes Jamie. 'We were using a Moog and all sorts, just trying to find ourselves. But it always went back to the way the original demos came about - a guitar, a foot tapping and some singing: that just had the vibe for us, that's what we had to do - just strip it back and be completely on it...'
'... Stuff seemed really complete when it was kept simple,' interjects Alison.
'I remember feeling a bit worried when we made that decision that we didn't need a keyboard-player, or a drummer, because it was like, 'Well, how's it gonna work,' Hince then confides, visibly squirming at the original thought.
'The first show we did in public, we totally didn't have a clue how it was gonna go. A lot of people were confused by the drum-machine thing that we have, and we ran samples in between songs - mainly because we didn't want to talk to the audience, not in a mean way, but we were just nervous about it. Banter with an audience can sometimes make or break a show; I've seen Billy Bragg play before, and he does this thing where he completely gets the audience involved, getting them to play games and stuff, and he's great at it - but, personally, I find that tasteless. When I think of a lot about the bands I love, there's none of that in there; things should be left up to people's imaginations, where there's an element of voyeurism attached to their show.'
'Yeah,' enthuses Alison, 'and where you bring your little world up there on the stage.'
'It does depend on the kind of music you're playing, too,' Jamie duly observes. 'With what we do, I think it would break the atmosphere if we just shouted, 'Hey! How's it going - everyone having a good time?!'
VV: 'Urghghhhg...'
Hotel: 'So, yeah, we just put these random things we'd recorded in between the songs. There's a lot to be said for nerves as well, in the broad sense that being on-stage is not a greatly comfortable place to be. We're not even very outgoing, or big show-offs or anything, but there are a lot of other bands that are introvert, and playing live is an awkward thing in a way; you want to play your music, but not talking to a huge load of people... You find ways of hiding away - but still showing off, and those things are by being deadpan or whatever, or wearing sunglasses! Ways of getting through it...'
And, relevantly...
Something as remarkably unmissable within The Kills' camp as their distinctive, brash way around a chord is their image - Hotel with his tight jackets and drooping shades and VV with her plain, white T-shirts and tattoos on-show - it makes for a compelling sight.
'It's definitely a natural reaction to the way we are,' comments Alison on the issue. 'The only time we've discussed the way we want to appear a certain way is that we really want chrome ash-trays on-stage with us, to almost replace the drumkit in some way!'
'It does feel a lot more natural playing live,' remarks Jamie, as an aside, 'and I feel a lot more comfortable that way. We recently did a radio-session where we played and sang everything live, and I think it's one of the best things we've done to this point recorded, because you get such a great vibe that multi-track recording often doesn't bring. I'd like to get more into that - get more of a live-feel recorded, because it feels like home, as if that's how it should be presented, with all its little f**k-ups, its occasional mistakes: I like that.'
Just what's been described formed the basis of the group's first ever release - the essential and near-legendary 'Black Rooster EP': a thrillingly raucous showcasing of the band at their ragged and soulful best, with the music-critics and industry soon obsequious to the point of disgust. With their impending debut-album - due out in the spring - containing re-recorded excerpts of such matter, the only wish is that the primary elements continue to reign as impacting as before.
'We went in to record a single, but we had no idea how it was going to turn out as it was virtually the first thing we had ever recorded properly as 'The Kills',' retraces Jamie. 'So we went in to record the couple of tracks for the single, and did a few more for a demo. We took it home feeling alright about it and then played it, and it was like, 'F**k! This is exactly how we wanted it to sound like!' It just made sense as an EP to put all of those things together... I love those vocal-takes on that record.'
VV nods again excitedly, addressing her associate directly. 'What I remember is that, at Toerag, you did yours (vocals), and I was in the hall and I just started f**king crying because I couldn't handle it; it was the most amazing thing I'd ever heard. We were so strung out at the period, too...'
'Yeah,' frowns Hince, 'because so much bad stuff was happening, in our personal lives, and it resulted in the EP... I think we have to get more strung out in future to get the same effect!'
Alison grins. 'Yeah, I mean it was just, 'We're having a really hard time, but let's try and get it together, and focus,' and then he did that vocal and I couldn't believe it... He tried it again and it wasn't quite the same - he'd already achieved all we wanted, and it pulled my heart in every different direction. It was an intense time, and every little thing seemed important. We felt everything so much, because the music was taking us out of our world which was so difficult at that time.'
'It's embarrassing talking about it, because it was such an epiphany that session,' shies away Jamie. 'All of the rows we'd had over how we were gonna do it, and all the bad things, plus we were desperately poor - it just came together and we were like, 'F**king yes!' We had all our friends saying it like, 'You can't do it without a drummer,' and all these things...'
'... It felt like everything was against us,' interweaves VV.
'... Then they'd hear things we were working on and they'd be like, 'Urgh, that sounds like this; you can't use a track that you've recorded on a Dictaphone; don't use that studio - it's bad,' and all that sort of thing... When we'd finished the recording, it felt like we had won the race, because we were so happy with the way it came out.'
'We've been as stubborn as hell with everything,' launches Flockheart. 'When people ask, 'How did you go and tour America without any money or help at all,' it proves that all the chances we've took, all the gambling, all of the not giving a f**k and just doing it - it's worked out.'
Oh yeah - somewhere and somehow after their debut-shows in the UK, as stated, the band strayed the shores of Britain and ventured to the US to spread their message of intent and soon found themselves dazzling audiences all across the country - and prompting an additional follow-up visit. All organised by themselves, of course.
'We were really naive when we went into booking the (first) American tour,' Jamie confesses.
VV exhales, 'We thought it could have been a disaster!'
'... When I look back now,' Hotel thoughtfully ruminates, 'if we'd had asked anyone for advice, I know that we wouldn't have gone to America. When we started booking it, we were like, 'Right, this is the score: we don't have a name for our band; we don't have any songs; we have nothing recorded...'
'... But we're coming,' fires back VV.
'And we want to do a two and a half month tour of America.' Looking back at it now, what the f**k were we thinking of?!'
VV: 'We had these songs we'd recorded in (Jamie's) room from quite a while back, but that was all we had down on tape, and these weren't even songs we played. He was burning them on his girlfriend's computer and sending them out in packages all over the place, and people started giving us shows, even though we had no name, and it was partly off the back of us just saying, 'We wanna play your venue!'
It's such an admirable step into the wilderness that endears you to the pairing; so cosmically linked that they finish off each other's sentences, share similar idiosyncrasies and bear an almost identical, child-like naivety, sensitivity and innocence to each other, it's a seldom-enjoyed treat to behold such openness and earnestness in a single meeting.
'You get the impression that there's a route you have to take and you have to do things a certain way,' raises Hince, over the band's insistence to risk their name on such a trip abroad, 'and that you must go to studios and have an idea about how you want to record something, then you get told, 'You can't do it like that.' Then you want to book a tour and get told you have to have a tour-manager, you have to have someone booking it, doing this and that... It (the American experience) was really humbling to discover that all you needed was some music that people got off on and they'd do anything to help out; it was amazing, and we surrounded ourselves with the most positive, brilliant people because of that.'
What experiences stuck out in your encounters overseas?
'Just from doing the gigs, we'd be waiting all day to get to that part of the evening where we're able to perform, and we'd play, and it'd be fantastic,' gleams Alison. 'We'd then be able to meet loads of people that were supportive, and we'd be so excited: just drive in the car for two hours in the wrong direction and not really give a f**k! Get lost, get out and hang around for a bit, start driving... We never wanted to sleep, we didn't think about eating - we didn't care about anything.'
'We took a video-camera to document everything and it was just like the perfect road-movie, and total fun,' romanticises Jamie. 'It was great to leave a gig and drive until the sun came up; there was just nothing wrong with it... We played in New York and Patti Smith came, and we were just like, 'F**k!' At some gigs, it was just incredible - we really felt the atmosphere, and even for us at that stage, playing somewhere that was sold out was awesome - we saw ourselves as just a little band that no-one had heard of and had only played five gigs! The reaction, as I say, just humbled me... It's all about what you expect; if you never expected anything, it's all gonna be a lot of fun and a new adventure; we just thought we'd be making music on broken reel-to-reels in my bedroom for a long time.'
It's almost an inversed, modern-day remaking of real punk - a DIY integrity that, come to think of it, isn't even associated with batches of crap, badly-played gigs and major-labels, and instead arrives off the back of self-management and complete control.
'There's a lot of stuff to deal with this way,' confirms Alison, sighing. 'It's a lot of work.'
'You spend a lot of time doing things that you don't wanna do,' insists Jamie. 'It can be difficult and when you manage yourselves, you can get thrown a lot of things that are just boring and create stress, like working out how you're going to get to your next gig and booking a car for it, boring stuff like that. What you really want to do is figure out where your next song is coming from. It's hard like that, but there's a whole other load of problems if you go along the route of having management and press and pluggers and all that - I just see that as a whole new ball-game of stress.'
Does this relate to your hesitance regarding overblown budgets in the studio, stage-shows etc.?
'All of that doesn't seem like anything to me,' sneers Alison. 'That end of it doesn't excite me.'
Hotel stirs on the subject. 'Part of all that is the aesthetic of it, and, aesthetically as it happens, we just don't like that sort of thing. We don't like flashy videos or flashy photo-shoots. I don't think it makes bands look good - it's just part of the rule-book of things that you're told you should do. People say that, unless you pay a certain amount of money on your photo-shoot, you won't get photos in the paper... Well, in that case, we don't care about getting our photos in the paper. We don't really have official photos. The way we see it at present is that we don't really have money, we don't really have food - so the last thing we want are photos!
'I think people waste a lot of time and money worrying about getting so-and-so to do their photo-shoot, and whoever to do the video,' he carries on. 'If you're in the game of getting videos and photos that stand out, just look around at everyone else is doing; if you want one to stand out, then don't do something flashy. If you look at MTV for an hour, it's like every f**king video looks the same, and has the same kind of look about it. To make a video that sticks out, do the opposite of what they're doing; and thank God that means you don't have to spend any money on it! We shot something for 'Wait' on a super-8 because we were in Detroit for a while and didn't have anything to do; we just had some 8-mil film and thought, 'Let's film us playing!' The next thing we know we got an email saying, 'I saw your video on MTV!' I'm just like, 'Man - that cost us only $40! Cool!'
'A twenty-eight quid video - on MTV,' emphasises Flockheart. 'And they even played it twice!'
'It does make me laugh,' smirks Hotel. 'There's a White Stripes song that's only drums and singing...'
Alison: 'It's one of their best songs as well...'
'... And it's f**king brilliant,' reckons Hotel. 'It's only twenty seconds long, and it's about how you're in your little room and you write some songs and how it's really great, and then you do quite well, and then you might need a bigger room, and so you go there and you're in this bigger, posher room - but you can't get the same inspiration as before... So you have to sit down and try to remember what it was like to be in your little room! And that just says it all.'
'It definitely is a control issue with us,' affirms VV in response. 'We really believe in the way we're doing things and we want full control of everything we do. You sign something to someone, and you're often giving up so much for that, and you get people telling you what to do. It's not a situation we want to be in.'
If you are to sign into anything unanticipated in the future, is it likely that it'll be on your terms?
'I don't think we'd ever make a decision against what we believe in,' Flockheart envisages. 'We'll always want the same things.'
Hotel: 'The thing that is ultimately more important than the music and writing itself is the ethos behind it; that's the thing we're most protective about. I mean, who's to say what's to happen? I think it's a mistake to come up with manifestos and say, 'We'll never do this, we'll never do that,' and it's not a get-out clause, it's just that you have to adapt: that's the one thing the DIY thing has got going against it - it's a bit slow at adapting, if you want to compete and keep your ethics.
'I think there's gotta be a band that comes along now that makes everything around seem irrelevant, makes all the major-things, the money, the way it's all sewn up with finance - someone's gotta come along and blow it all out of the water like punk did and say, 'That's irrelevant - you don't need anything, maybe $40, and a heart of gold.' I want to be that band. I'm not saying we can be, and we might not get there, but I'm gonna try to stick to that.'
'We'd like to f**k everything up the way it is, and just reinvent it,' furthers VV. 'Create history and go against all the 'advice' you're getting all the time - and instead going after what you feel. I think it can be taken a long way. It's really hard, there will be rocky times and low points. But like everything we've been through, there's always been really tough moments, regardless. Every day there's something there to challenge you.'
Clearly, being such a close-knit group can only make the struggle more bearable...
'I think a lot of that comes out of being a two-piece,' acknowledges Jamie. 'There's moments where it feels it's us against the world. That sounds a bit cheesy, but events do bring us closer together and you find yourself going (grabs VV for a hug).'
'We're really difficult to get along with,' reveals Alison. 'We're both fairly introverted and paranoid, highly strung and anxious all the time, and we just take care of each other so much.'
'We came across each other and found that we had really parallel lives,' concurs Jamie. 'We've got the same record-collections, the same ethics, and all we wanna do is music and art all the time...'
'We're very obsessive about those things,' illustrates VV.
'And we don't give too much of a f**k about anything else,' Jamie brashly exerts. 'We're pretty similar like that. VV has given me tapes of where she's just sitting on her own making songs, or talking, and there's always something in there that makes me shiver... It makes me feel that there's something incredible involved with it. She may be like, 'Don't listen to that - it's embarrassing,' but I'll just say, 'It's f**king amazing, you know!' She's very old-school without knowing it, like how those singers from the 30s and 40s that didn't sing with any idea about the media or anything like that - they just sang from the bottom pit of their stomach, from their soul... I just hear these things and, wow...'
VV is noticeably touched, and returns her sentiments. 'He's perfect, just f**king perfect. Honestly, when I met him, I was completely obsessed and could barely speak to him...'
By now, the caffeine is kicking in, and large nights all round are planned; as a parting-shot, their indeterminable, upcoming months are decided upon.
'We just want to keep playing and touring and don't want to make plans; plans always fall apart,' VV outlines. 'We'll do what we feel is right, though it's really hard to say what that will be at the moment. Our favourite thing to do is play and we want to keep doing that, and write, and try not to get too stressed out about anything. We'll see what happens to us and have fun.'
Hotel is partially more defined, concluding, 'I'd like it to be where we feel we've carved our own scene and there's some sort of power behind it, that it's just not another band, and that there's this scene that you're either for it or against it; you can either join it, or just do whatever anyone else is doing. I'd like to look back in a year and think that we've at least approached getting there to such a stage.'
From efforts to date, and their intent for the fate of their consistent, striving and focussed endeavour, it'd be difficult to not foresee The Kills achieving the rewards for all they're currently offering. To those that don't want to be a part of the revolution that could soon be out there on offer - be warned: the underground is fast rising, and the corporate-battle is only just beginning. Fight, or be fought against.
Artists in this article: The Kills