The Kills step it up at House of Blues
The Kills
Inspired by the Velvet Underground and first-generation British and American punk rock, the transatlantic musical team known as the Kills will soon mark 10 years of concertizing. Though Englishman Jamie Hince and American Alison Mosshart usually perform as a two-person band, they occasionally feature other musicians as well. The Kills ended their recent European tour, for instance, sharing the stage at London’s Brixton Academy with four drummers and six gospel singers.
“We do some shows with four drummers but we don’t take that everywhere,” Hince said as he wandered through London’s Hyde Park last week. “I wanna to sort of step it up and then bring it back down to its core, which is just me and Alison. Some of those shows in America will have some drummers, and we’ll see how it goes.”
The Kills launch their North American tour today, Jan. 20, in Chicago. The tour comes to New Orleans next week and New York City Feb. 11 for the duo’s 10th anniversary show.
“We’ll make it very special,” Hince promised. “We’ve rented some photo-booth machines for the night, for fans to go in, take their pictures and, hopefully, submit them to us for a book.”
From the start, Hince said, he and Mosshart intended that the Kills be a lasting partnership.
“We didn’t wanna be a band that got a buzz going, released a debut album, got somewhere with that, moved to the mainstream on the second record and then burned bright but short,” he said. “We wanted to be a band that unfolded over six or seven or a dozen albums. Those are the kinds of bands that we respect the most, like Sonic Youth and Fugaze and Royal Trux, the Cure, bands that are more than just a band.”
The Kills released their fourth album, Blood Pressures, in April. Between 2008’s Midnight Boom and 2011’s Blood Pressures, Mosshart toured and recorded two albums with the Dead Weather, featuring Jack White.
Hince prefers not to analyze or explain his musical chemistry with Mosshart.
“I’m absolutely grateful for it,” he said. “From those early days, when we sat in this little cupboard to rehearse, there was this sort of hypnotic electricity about it. I’ve never felt that in a band before. Until that goes away, I’m gonna keep doing it.”
As much as Hince enjoys making records, performing with the Kills provides his main musical fulfillment.
“There’s nothing like getting the reaction a millionth of a second after you play the note,” he said. “In a way, records are a way of promoting live shows for me. A band wouldn’t exist without that.”
He’s surprised that music he and Mosshart created more than 10 years ago jells so well on stage with more recent songs.
“There’s something about the attitude of the people playing music, rather than the notes and the beats and the structures themselves. It fits together perfectly.”
The Kills’ recent South American tour took them to enthusiastic audiences in Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentina.
“There’d be a gaggle of people to greet us at the airport,” Hince marveled. “The fans out there are so passionate. But most of the cities in the world have been spoiled. There’s a sort of indifference, a complacency. So it was quite mind-blowing to go to South America and see the reaction.”
Unfortunately, audiences haven’t been so welcoming in years past in New Orleans, where the Kills will perform next week at the House of Blues.
“New Orleans is so saturated in music that it’s a difficult place to play,” Hince said. “In the early days, 2002, 2003, it would be the place where we’d just cross our fingers and hope more than a dozen people would come to see us play. All these other places in America, it’d be sold out, and then we’d go to New Orleans and it’d be empty. But we haven’t been there for a long, long time, so I’m really excited to go down there again. It’s quite an incredible place.”
New Orleans is also home to one of Hince’s music inspirations, Dave Bartholomew, singer, trumpeter and producer of recordings by Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis and many others.
“He’s really the bridge between big band and rock ’n’ roll. There’s such beauty in the simplicity of it and he used the most incredible players on the recordings, so on the money with timing and rhythm. You can listen to Joy Division and the Cure and David Bowie and Roxy Music and the Rolling Stones, that era, but when you listen to Dave Bartholomew, it cuts through and changes your vibe completely.”