Capturing The Kills’ Last Goodbye

By Lauren Shipman / January 17th, 2012 in Music / London / 633 views

Can you believe that it’s Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart’s tenth anniversary together? Yep, Kate Moss aside, it’s been a whole decade of musical love-making for this duo and for those who may not know their particular brand of get-together story, it goes a little something like this:

Two damn awesome musicians find themselves playing guitar on their respective balconies at the same hotel during Mosshart’s European tour with Discount, her then-current band. Jamie is upstairs, Alison directly below him. According to Jamie, that was when Alison started stalking him. She may have been shy, but whatever she eventually did to get his attention worked, because the pair met and shared enough ideas to hook them into a long-distance writing relationship. Alison went back to Florida but, thankfully, it wasn’t too long before she ditched the States for London.

Here’s where the photo booth comes in. First, Ms Mosshart aka ‘VV’ and Mr Hince otherwise known as ‘Hotel’, gave each other the aforementioned cute nicknames, cut themselves off from their past, made use of a drum machine, and set about writing a range of minimalist lo-fi garage rock and blues hybrid songs. In 2001, VV and Hotel showcased their new songs on a well-received demo tape, but turned up their noses at the approaches made to them by the major labels. Not long after they contributed the song Restaurant Blouse to the ‘If the Twenty-First Century Did Not Exist, It Would Be Necessary to Invent It’ compilation, the pair released their debut EP ‘Black Rooster‘ on Domino Records. The record sleeve featured pictures of Hince and Mosshart taken in a photo booth.

Fast forward ten years and The Kills have parked themselves in a photo booth once again. Vocal with regard to their dislike of making video clips, the pair decided to return to their minimalist beginnings, hired a photo booth, and grabbed hold of the services of the Nottingham-born, two-time Oscar-nominated actress, Bafta-awarded director, and long-time Kate Moss posse member Samantha Morton to play the role of director. What you see is what they got.

P.S This had better not be the couple’s last goodbye. Just saying.