The Kills

[shirleebee]

I love it, and I understand why they made it.

 

[ad81114pr]

Wow... I loved it!
Thanks for posting it june_gloom.

 

[Nouvelle_Vague]

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the new video! It fits the song perfectly.

 

[stella-mayfair]

great video! thanks for posting!

 

[Carrme]

how fun was that video? !! it must have been so much fun to make.. i love them

 

[hufnagel]

jalougallery

style.com

I like him with Valentine so much more than Kate

 

[june gloom]

Those 80s pictures are insane! I love this man, though. He's even more amazing in person.

 

[sill]

I love the video and the song! Thanks for posting

Alisons leopard cardigan is tearing my world apart, I need to own one like it! Anyone knows where to find one?

 

[satin chic]

Alisons leopard cardigan is tearing my world apart, I need to own one like it! Anyone knows where to find one?

H&M, Divided section!

 

[shirleebee]

Alison's style = grungy glam gypsy bandit <3

 

[june gloom]

10 QUESTIONS WITH THE KILLS
Interview and Images by Kenneth Cappello

1. Hey guys, what’s new? Tell me what’s been going on in the last three months?

Jamie: The last three months? Well, we finished recording Midnight Boom back in September, mixed it
in October and then started on the artwork, which as anyone familiar with us will know, is a massively important part of our thing. Normally it takes us longer to put the artwork together than the actual recording of the record and we have to wade through roomfulls of photographs and paintings and scribbled rantings and collages made from napkins and matchbooks or whatever. So yeah, mostly we’ve been buried under a mountain of art junk, trying to condense it into a booklet.

2. The new record is great. Was the process different on this one? Did the guy from Spank Rock work on the production?

Alison: Hey thanks. Hmmm, the process was a bit different to the last, as it took a lot longer. We wrote three records while writing this one. We experimented a lot and pushed ourselves until the music made us
uncomfortable, until we were doing something unfamiliar. We wrote and wrote until the music sounded ugly to us. That was the moment we felt like we were on to something. Alex Epton from Spank Rock didn’t produce, Jamie did. We brought Alex in after we’d written and recorded most of the album and he sort of additionally produced what was there, and messed around with the beats we had and got us to try different things on a couple of songs. It was great to have a third pair of ears around for a few weeks. It helped with our confidence about the beats we’d already made, you know? Jamie was messing around with the MPC 60 for the first time, so it was cool what he came up with naively. Usually to be naive is a great thing ‘cause you come up with stranger stuff. Alex was a great help in pointing out what was working already and what could be better.

3. I feel like rappers are the new rock stars. Any thoughts on this? What do you think of hip-hop and what hip-hop artists do you like?

Jamie: I remember you saying something about that a while ago and I thought ‘What the **** does that mean now, to be a rock star?’ Especially since the whole celebrity thing has become so overblown that you have to have it explained to you who the **** half these people are. It seems pretty two-dimensional, based on decadence and the idea of not giving a ****. So yeah, I guess a lot of rappers live up to that for what it’s worth. It’s funny but that happens to be exactly the image that record comp-anies like their artists to portray ‘cause the media laps it up so much and it’s good for business. I don’t think the concept really translates anymore in any way that can be taken seriously, do you? I mean, not in the way it did with Jimi Hendrix or John Lennon or Jagger and Richards, or Kurt Cobain or any of those people. The Internet changed all that. It took all the secrets and myths away and turned everything into gossip – made it so that people think it’s their right to have the most mundane information about other people’s private lives. Cultural standards are at an all time low so it follows that our rock stars will reflect that. There’s not really any room for myth building or word of mouth anymore. Rock stars have just become pastiche. Hip-hop’s still new to me. I never listened to it much when I was growing up, so in a way I’m excited by the novelty of it. Two of my favourite
records from the last year or so were Spank Rock, Yoyoyo and Hell Hath No Fury by Clipse. Other than that, I love all that chopped and screwed stuff. You turned me onto that actually, South Park “Mexican Radio” (Chopped and Screwed). Incredible. I wanna make a chopped and screwed record. Oh, and Paul Wall and Mike Jones, the stuff you played me while we were eating burritos and watching boxing in your ****ty bachelor apartment. Oh happy days...

4. Is selling records important to you?

Alison: Important? Um, well, it never hurts to sell records. If you sell records it helps facilitate writing more of them. But no, it’s never been much of a big deal. We’re not the kind of band that calls up the label to ask about those things. I don’t know what constitutes as a success, good or bad. I don’t know. We’ve sold more records than we ever thought we would.

5. The fashion world has embraced your band. Why do you think this happened and what do you think about the fashion industry?

Jamie: I guess the fashion industry has always had a fascination with rock ‘n’ roll and underground music and punk or whatever you wanna call it. A lot of those style magazines cover music and art in a way that’s much less dumbed down than the music press. Or at least that seemed to be the case when we released No Wow. I don’t really know how I feel about it. There are too many fashion and lifestyle magazines now that’s for sure. But at the time it seemed like the alternative to the commercial music press, like they were the new fanzines or something. It’s maybe a little overdone now. I’m surrounded by the ****ing fashion industry so I feel like I’m being shot at from all sides by some of my favourite people. It’s an odd feeling. I think it’s called love/hate.

6. I know from the previous bands you were in separately that you had strong political feelings, values and ideas. Do you think as you’ve gotten older and started making music as The Kills that some of this has been lost?

Alison: Well, as cliché as it sounds, the world is a very different place. That preaching kind of attitude we all
had when we were teenagers, we’ve realized, does very little but piss people off. I used to go to animal rights protests and pass out leaflets and get spit on by cowboys in Florida. I know I didn’t change any of their minds, and in fact probably made them stauncher about what they were into. When some mad raving Christian screams at me through a megaphone and chases me down the street, I feel justified in my belief that they are ****ing lunatics. I think my attitude now is to set a good example, to live the way I would hope others would notice. I think most of my ideology is the same. I grew up listening to Fugazi thinking they were changing the world, and they were, and then the world changed on them, and then a certain
mold or a certain plan becomes futile, and you have to change it. You have to be flexible, and take things as they come, and feel how you feel on the day, otherwise you can get a bit lost.

7. What records are you currently listening to?

Jamie: The Staple Singers. I got this incredible live version of “Too Close” recorded in the ’50s that I can’t move on from. Um, Archie Bronson Outfit, Willie Nelson and Co Real Artists, who are a drum and vocal group from the ’70s. Mostly old stuff. When we were writing Midnight Boom I had this idea that we shouldn’t listen to any music other than the music we were making ourselves. I had the fear of making another retro record, and didn’t want us to get influenced by anything so I banned other people’s music from the studio. It was pretty enlightening. But I did manage to get obsessed with this film called Pizza Pizza Daddy-O, a documentary on kids from inner city schools in the ’60s singing all these playground songs. Really primitive hand clapping, jump rope rhythms and dark lyrics about alcoholism and domestic violence and miscarriages and stuff. It kind of ended up as the basis for the record and we started writing our own versions of imaginary playground songs. “Cheap And Cheerful”, “Alphabet Pony” and “Sour Cherry” all came from that.

8. You guys have a crazy energy on stage together. Can you please explain it?

Alison: I can’t no, other than we’re both extremely nervous before we go on stage and so a lot of that adrenaline gets released on the other person. There are only two of us up there and nowhere to hide so we turn to one another.

9. The Smiths or The Cure?

Jamie: The Cure. But only based on Boys Don’t Cry, one of my favourite albums in the world. Their Goth period I can do without, but listen to “Killing An Arab” or “Accuracy” or “Foxy Lady” – just simple and raw with the coolest, cockiest attitude and nothing like it before or after.

10. What do you think was the most important band of the’90s?

Alison: Fugazi, for me, most definitely.

Jamie: I’d say Nirvana probably, even though I didn’t like them much at the time. Nothing was the same after Kurt Cobain.

A couple more pictures at supmag.com

 

[Carrme]

awesome! thanks for posting. God I love these two. I would love to rock out and smoke and write songs with themB)
I am also sooo curious to see if their apartment is really how Nylon descibed it. sounds fun.. and dirrty

 

[eli marie]

^me too carrme!

love the first photos of them from 'sup magazine, they are just so cool.

 

[shirleebee]

They embody a certain rock & roll lifestyle and tradition that has been woefully abadoned for too long. It's insanely attractive and beguiling.

 

[MeMe7]

does alison have her own thread?

 

[teza]

is it true that they're fighting because of Kate?

 

[shirleebee]

^According to rumor, but who knows.

 

[june gloom]

What? Is that a new rumor?

 

[Majachristine]

yeah, something about kate wanting to go on stage, right?

 

[june gloom]

I haven't heard that! Ugh, I love Kate and all, but leave the stage to these two. People come to see them interact.