Sometimes you need to say โfuck.โ Which is precisely why few songs are as cathartic to me as The Killsโ โFuck The Peopleโโespecially when Iโm feeling furious. โFuck the people,โ I hiss. The song, from the British-American rock bandโs 2003 debut LP, Keep On Your Mean Side, is confrontational. Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince, both vocalists and guitarists in the band, sing in unison: โYou want a warning / You got a warning / Bet you something I can get your mouth shut.โ It is terrifying. Or, if youโre on the side of the brewing storm, exhilarating.
Listening to a womenโany woman, reallyโtell someone to fuck off is deeply satisfying. But when Mosshart does it on โFuck the People,โ she sounds both unbothered and intimidating. I imagine her gingerly tending to a whiskey and cigarette, as though none of this really irks her at all. But this has always been the essence of The Kills and what they do well: cool, prickly indie rock, with a side of menace.
The Kills were one of a number of bands that rose to prominence in the U.S. and U.K. during the indie rock explosion of the early 2000s, earning praise for their aggressive-sounding indie rock on the 2002 EP, Black Rooster, and their 2003 debut. โ[Thereโs] a dark, mesmerizing power to the simplicity of songs with self-explanatory titles like “Fried My Little Brains,” “Cat Claw,” and “Kissy Kissy,” The A.V. Club wrote of Keep On Your Mean Side. โBy the album’s second half, The Kills has even begun to discover a kind of delicacy that bodes well for its future.โ In 2008, they enjoyed a bump in popularity and visibility, thanks to the inclusion of โSour Cherryโ on an episode of Gossip Girl, a cut from their third album, Midnight Boom, which turns 11 this month. Their relationship to the press and to success hasnโt always been straightforward. โThereโs been an on-and-off relationship with the music press that loves us and then hates us then loves us again,โ Mosshart told Marc Spitz for Vanity Fair in 2011. Between Kills records from 2009 to 2015, Mosshart would go on to make three albums with The Dead Weather (a project she is still part of), a collaboration with Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs), Jack Lawrence (City and Colour, The Raconteurs), and Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age), further evolving as a dynamic vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter.
In the early 00s, music journalists fawned over male musicians like Julian Casablancas and Jack White while giving considerably less airtime to the contributions of female musicians like the Yeah Yeah Yeahโs Karen O, Metricโs Emily Haines, Rilo Kileyโs Jenny Lewis, and Whiteโs own bandmate Meg White. But it seemed like nothing cut through Mosshartโs leather jacket armor; her ferocious fearlessness was urgently needed then and now. Still, for all of the bellicose exorcisms in her lyrics and music, there is a vulnerability and tenderness etched into each verse and chord. Itโs a contrast that is uniquely Mosshartโs, one that sets her apart from any other musician of the period, and even today.
Alison Mosshart grew up in Vero Beach, Florida, hanging around skaters, reading zines, listening to Fugazi, and singing in a punk band called Discount. The Killsโ origin story has been repeated ad nauseam, but the gist of the tale is this: On tour in England with her band in the 90s, while Mosshart was still a teenager, she heard Hince playing guitar in the room above hers in the building where they were both staying and felt an immediate connection. โWithout seeing him or knowing him, I just knew he was the right person,โ Mosshart said in a 2017 interview. It was spooky and creepyโฆ and maybe stalkerish but I was fucking convinced.โ After they had properly met, and when she was back stateside, they sent tapes back and forth to each other. They gave each other nicknames: โVVโ for Mosshart, โHotelโ for Hince, as the press has routinely referenced over the years. At 20, Mosshart told in Huck Magazine, she decided to move to London to work with Hince.
But thatโs just how The Kills got its startโnot Mosshartโs career in music. By the time she moved to the U.K., she had already been a professional musician for at least six years. Formed when Mosshart was only 13 years old, Discount was reportedly central to the Floridian punk scene in the early and mid-90s. By the time she was 14, the band was touring the world. โWe toured everywhere, which is incredible for a punk band of our size because this was at a time where there was no Internet, and the music scene was very much word-of-mouth and fan zines; you booked tours by sending letters,โ Mosshart said in a 2016 Lenny Letter interview.
Few traces of Discount exist online, though you can listen to their three full-length records and some of their singles on Spotify. A few videos of live Discount shows offer glimpses of a short-haired Mosshart, jostling and jumping around in small, sweaty spaces. (In retelling her early musical years, writers called her โchubby-facedโ and โchubby-cheeked,โ not seeming to remember that she was quite literally a child.) Absent is her signature prowl and focus onstage, which sheโd perfect early on with The Kills. But what is present is the fire that would come to define her persona in future projects.
Reporters and fans often describe women in music as โbadass,โ which has always felt, at least to me, like a reductive way of capturing the awesome power of women who make music. Judging by how frequently it is used, it would seem that simply endeavoring to be in music makes someone a badass. But Alison Mosshart is, and it deeply pains me to use this word, a badass. She once matter-of-factly said in an interview she isnโt afraid, which is likely a much better way of framing her and her work. An example of her daring: When Mosshart first moved to the U.K., she endured a lot, but still managed to take it in stride. She once described this period in her life in an interview: โLots of shitty things happenedโI got chased, someone tried to drag me in their car. I got mugged numerous times. But that kind of shit just brushes off you and then youโre out walking on your own in the dark all by yourself again like none of it fucking happened. Thatโs what being twenty is, I suppose, itโs kinda feeling like youโre immortal. It was all just completely emotion-fueled and beautiful and wild.โ
Mosshart straddles the giving-no-fucks-but-very-much-giving –a-fuck line, creating lyrics and sounds as rough and dark as a hard night out, but with a glimmering morning sun peeking through. Complexities of emotion and story are distilled down to simple gesturesโlike coughing up phlegm on โCheap and Cheerful,โ or telephone static on โNo Wow/Telephone Radio Germany.โ The Kills make a real commotion on their recordsโclanging and moaningโbut there are delicate moments, too. โHow can I rely on my heart if I break it / With my own two hands / I heard all you said / And I love you to death,โ she sings on โThe Last Goodbyeโ off Blood Pressures, flexing an uncharacteristic softness for someone seemingly so hardened. But thatโs the point: her work and persona contain multitudes.
To watch Alison Mosshart perform is to watch a jungle cat go through the motions of a huntโskulking, focused, serious. She is often, without self-parody, wearing a well-worn, beloved leopard print shirt. โA great show is one I donโt remember at all,โ she once told Nylon. โI walk off and I know I went somewhere.โ Mosshart goes to great lengths to elevate her performance to theater. She borrows fashion aesthetics from the rock gods of yore: tight jeans, leather, and messy unkempt hair, alternately bleached out, bright pink, or a shiny raven color. She makes prolonged eye-contact with audience members before abruptly turning her head and thrashing, singing into the microphone. She stalks Hince as he furiously picks his guitar strings, charging toward him before slinking back. She looks possessed. โPerforming is like a dream state,โ Mosshart once said. โWhen you ride the wave, itโs the most incredible feeling as the adrenaline is addictive and you canโt recreate that feeling anywhere else. Itโs a magical experience from all sides if you just let it be.โ
As much as women were present in Aughts bands, their work always seemed eclipsed by the men in the scene. Julian Casablancas from The Strokes was celebrated for the โangst and confusion in his lyrics.โ In a Spin cover story, Chuck Klosterman lauded Jack Whiteโs contemporary spin on blues music as โraw and unrehearsed and imperfect,โ which was why it was โso fucking good.โ Mosshart had the brilliance to combine that restless angst and bluesy sound, while also assuming a more straightforward, and sort of frightening, approach. On โMurdermile,โ Mosshart offers what can only be described as adversarial tauntsโโSpitting shit like a tire / Got your foot down and your mind down / To its last little wire / Come on! Come on!โโas Hince offsets her ferocity, quietly singing: โIt’s a train wreck / You got me on the wrong track, honey.โ As a duo, they complement each other, but Mosshartโs caustic delivery elevates her as a singular force.
Publications compared The Kills to their indie contemporaries early onโespecially The White Stripes, whoโd emerged a few years earlier. Reviews and reported stories often opened with a mention of The White Stripes, while puzzlingly going to great lengths to point out the differences between the two groups. In their review of Keep On Your Mean Side, Pitchfork wrote: โIt’s rough times for these bluesy guy-girl garage duos, I tell ya. I mean, sure, if you’re the least bit talented you’ve got a massive hype machine working for youโwhich isn’t a bad thingโbut you’ll never shake those comparisons to the band that built the boat you’re sailing. I promise not to mention [the White Stripes], maybe as a favor to The Kills, but mostly because the two bands sound nothing alike.โ Though the review is complimentary enough, it ends with the same smirking undertone, albeit one that is self-aware: โStill, it’s a bitter reality: they’d never be getting this kind of attention if it weren’t for the White Stri– fuck!โ
But then Mosshart went and teamed up with White. The Dead Weather released their debut, Horehound, in 2009โthe result of a series of impromptu jam sessions in Nashville that turned into a full-lengthโand continued to release records from there, leading up to 2015 LP, Dodge and Burn, their most recent. But White took a literal backseat to Mosshart in the project, thumping on the drums behind her as she sang. And though the song writing credits suggested that songs were a group effort (for example, Mosshart wrote โSo Far From Your Weaponโ and โ60 Feet Tallโ along with Fertita, while White wrote โI Cut Like a Buffaloโ), reviewers often framed the album as a White โside projectโโand as a reflection of his โgenius.โ As Pitchforkโs review of Horehound explained, โPerhaps Jack White’s continued dominance over contemporary blues-rock is in fact the product of some deal with the devil.โ
The Dead Weather is actually good, for what itโs worth, combining the best elements of Whiteโs music (erratic lyrics and clashing, dramatic sounding chords) with the turbulent guitar work of Fertita and Lawrence. But they wouldnโt be half as good without Mosshartโs wild vocalsโwhich often seem to engage in a form of aural combat with Whiteโand the menacing lyrics she wrote.
The most vivid Mosshart memory I have, however, is the first time I heard The Killsโ โU.R.A. Fever.โ Of all her workโboth in The Kills and The Dead Weatherโthe Midnight Boom opener left an immediate, lasting imprint on me. โWe ainโt born typical,โ Mosshart breathed during the chorus, unconcerned and self-effacing, but with the slightest tinge of vulnerability. To me, that lyric, 11 years on from the recordโs release, still feels like the perfect summation of Mosshartโs brilliance as a performer: She wasnโt born typical. When Mosshart sings, โYou only ever had her when you were a fever,โ it feels like a reference to her own frenzied energy. Mosshart is too ferocious of a musician to be interchangeable with anyone else.
Sarah MacDonald is a writer in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter.