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The KillsThe Kills are the musical project of Alison Mosshart (her name is often misspelled in magazine and internet articles) and Jamie Hince, aka VV & Hotel. Following the demise of both Mosshart's and Hince's previous musical projects, Floridian punk rockers Discount and British rock band Scarfo respectively, the duo struck up a songwriting partnership having met by chance a couple of years before. For approximately the first six months of their collaboration, the pair sent tapes of song ideas to each other via airmail. However, after this proved be to test the patience of both artists, as it took weeks to get each others tapes, Mosshart upped sticks from her Florida home to fly to London. As both Mosshart and Hince considered their new project to be Year Zero in their careers, as they wanted to cut themselves off from their pasts, they renamed themselves VV and Hotel respectively and began writing sparse, minimalist songs together with the aid of a drum machine. In 2001 they showcased their new songs on a well received demo tape that raised a few eyebrows at the major labels. However, in true punk rock fashion, the pair shunned approaches from the majors, recording the song "Restaurant Blouse" as ""VV and Hotel" for the various artists compilation If the Twenty-First Century Did Not Exist, It Would Be Necessary to Invent It. Shortly after this they recorded their debut release, the Black Rooster EP, which saw release on British indie label Domino Records and was picked up for distribution by Dim Mak Records in the United States. The record could not have been more of a departure from both artists previous bands. It was Lo-fi in both musical and aesthetic terms, the record sleeve featuring photos of VV and Hotel taken in a photo booth rather than the professionally shot photographs that adorn most record sleeves. Musically, the record was a sparse, lo-fi Garage rock/Blues hybrid. Wearing their influences on their sleeves, VV and Hotel cited PJ Harvey, The Velvet Underground and Royal Trux as immediate influences though the music press largely ignored this, instead comparing them to other boy/girl minimalist garage blues duo The White Stripes at every oppurtunity. Following international touring, they recorded their debut album Keep on Your Mean Side, mostly on 8-track, at Toe Rag studios, where The White Stripes had recorded their Elephant album. The record, which was this time distributed in the US by Rough Trade Records, was recorded in 2 weeks and was similar in style to the EP, veering from the Velvets-esque stomp of "Wait" to the noisy, dirty garage punk blues of "Fuck the People" and dark psychedelia of "Kissy Kissy". The record was well received by the music press, though the White Stripes comparisons would not go away. Maintaining their anti-careerist, anti-music industy/business attitude, they rarely granted interviews to the music press. Rather, they got the music press to come to them with their minimalist (they also used the drum machine live) yet powerful live shows, the pair maintaining an air of tension by subverting the expected role of performer on stage. Rather than trying to win over audiences, VV spent her time on stage chain smoking and vomitting (due to a combination of nerves and excitement!) and rarely speaking to the audience during performances whilst Hotel violently ripped blues riffs from his instrument. At a show in New York city following the ban on public smoking, VV went on stage with three bottles of water, lit up a cigarette and proceeded to smoke constantly from the first song to the last note of the set. In a rare online interview, VV has stated that she is amazed at how much herself and Hotel have in common and believes them to be soul mates as they were very shy and kind of scared of each other when they first met and that this strong unity is the reason they play all the instruments between them and produce their own records. Their second album, No Wow, was released by Domino records on 21 February, 2005. Featuring a new artier and less guitar rock orientated sound, the record embraced new wave and post punk influences and sounded even more stripped down than Keep on Your Mean Side. A 40-minute DVD documentary was included with a limited number of copies and features interview, performance and on the road footage shot on tour. Discography External Links *DimMak
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