jack_rawstone

The Kills are contemporary bohemians who irreverently battle the norm. Trying to, as Jamie Hince aka Hotel says, Create four walls with fucking chaos coming out of them.

From their first album, Keep on Your Mean Side, The Kills instantly became recognised as a force in the future of rock and roll blues. Now that their second album, No Wow, is out now, their music is beginning to be established as a feverous 21st century take on the genre.

Bone scratching sounds open up their latest album which as Hotel explains is just our music, so no hidden meanings or philosophical questions here.

Hotel says, "On this record we went out of our way to kind of block out this concept of expectation or what we thought people wanted. I dont think that theres anything really deliberate written into it that we want people to read. Im more fascinated by things that you apply meaning to that never really had any meaning to start with. They were the bands that I always loved, where the lyrics are never clear narrative or theyre not making a bold or obvious statement with artwork. Its much more subtle and its more of a reflection or an observation than a statement.

For this pair of iconoclasts in an age where hedonism is king, going back to the core of their art and music is decidedly important. As VV begins to look through her jet black slightly off cut fringe she says, I think The Kills definitely has that sort of anthem running through it. Its the only thing that we do, everything around us gets funnelled into it.

Hotel, leaning on the back legs of his chair (with an undeniable aura of cool around him) adds, I mean if you come down to our headquarters, there really is nothing else, I swear theres nothing. We bought this incredible 19th century French sofa with amazing carvings on it but everything else is art, paintings, photographs, tape machines, guitars, drum machines. Theres nothing else. Oddly enough even our stereos are really crap. He begins to laugh which makes VV giggle. We dont fork out for anything, the clothes we normally wear are bought from charity shops or given to us, we dont really go spending money.

The real spirit of The Kills begins to shine through with their want to be surrounded by nothing else but their art and each other. They romance over 19th century Paris, small coffee shops filled with philosophers and artists, we chase after that, Hotel starts with a smile. I dont know how hard it is to be like that in modern times but we get lost in the legend of it and thats what inspires us.

The Kills as a pair have this fervour for maintaining something unique and rich. VV leaps into the conversation, thrusting her words, I think we try to invent new places, like going to Benton Harbour, which is where they created their latest album. "Just going out into the middle of nowhere and claiming this land as your own and saying this is where creativity is happening now.

As commercialism tightens its grip harder on the world of music it becomes ever more important that bands like The Kills slip through its fingers. Maintaining a creative spirit that is pure, against outsiders and corporate influences is notably hard. I am aware of that, Hotel says, as he and VV both light another menthol cigarette. Weve talked at length about how with any artist, whether youre a painter or a writer or a musician, thats the total embodiment of the struggle. You want to be recognised and you want to leave your mark and to be appreciated but the more that it happens to you, the more self disgusted you feel."

Unfortunately as well as greed, there is always the routine generational threat. Instead of Vietnam we have Iraq and the escalating problems coupled with it, instead of the Cold War we have the War on Terror.

I feel you cant help but be a product of your time, Hotel says with a slight shudder. "If thats whats going on around you its going to find its way into whatever art you're making somehow. But he retorts, Were definitely not doing it explicitly and saying anything like, ban the bomb. Im more for saying drop the bomb, it's more nihilist I suppose.

There is a wonderful modesty from the effortlessly cool pair, both unsettlingly quiet in between the conversation. Theres no pretentious rock star posing or righteous atmosphere. They both seem natural and content, which perhaps unintentionally becomes their style. In a western world where bigger is unwittingly better, their simplistic approach seems to become the beginnings of 21st century avant-garde.

Thats something that I would definitely take as being a huge compliment, being referenced to avant-garde movements, Hotel grins. But generally I dont think were experimenting in an avant-garde way like La Monte Young or John Cage or even The Boredoms. I mean our song structures are pretty orthodox. I almost think its more important what you leave out of a song than what you put in a song. And thats our own little private personal experiment, deconstructing things in that way. To be avant-garde, thats my fuckin aim in life you know, to be ahead of our time he laughs in unison with VV. You can never really tell though, I just feel a bit awkward and embarrassed thinking about it like that. This, however, is what appears to give them their avant-garde wings.

Keeping to their simplistic ethic for their latest album, they moved out to Benton Harbour in Michigan, which is 4.4 square miles of Middle American nothingness, and completed the album in 47 days. As Hotel puts it. "We just knew that those sorts of bands that make an album over two years just kind of make us ill. I always thought if we were as good as people thought, we should be able to make a record in two hours. Their indelible style comes across as Hotel becomes more animated about the creative process for their latest work.

We thought that we would probably need two months to write the record and then we thought thats not very long so we said fuck it, let's try and make that into part of the creative process. Lets cut that in half and give ourselves a month to write the record so theres this panic and fear and claustrophobia VV interjects with wide eyes. "There was so much panic that we actually wrote it in three weeks instead and then we demoed it just to waste the extra days.

The purity in their personality inevitably comes across in their music. The title of their latest album, No Wow, could mistakenly give off an air of egotism, pinning themselves up as the new wow. But as Hotel says, that notion is far from the truth. It was more a reaction to us living in a time where theres information overload. Theres no real mystery any more, so you have to try and find that, whats precious and whats mysterious. We were so bored with just being flung information all the time.

They both come off with a quiet grace and also as inspired individuals. As Hotel pauses for thought you might be tricked into thinking hes searching for a profound statement about his inspiration. Having mainly been on the road for the last two years however, he says that it is simply Being in a van and looking out a window, which is more than enough to give you the impression that in him lies an inextinguishable spark.

Looking up, he turns to VV. You know, you walk into a hotel room and some people might think theyre not going to get anything from that, but it makes my imagination work overtime. Most of the stuff has just been off going round the world for the last year. Were both quite inspired cinematically, not just with films, but we see our songs visually you know. We always have some sort of visual stimulus. This time around we thought wed go along and try to strip away the skin and the bone and get to the heart of it.

It is clear how their creativity and inspiration flows through and off each other. Perhaps this is the roots of The Kills as an evolving and weirdly rousing pair of originators, radiating passion in a style that comes effortlessly. As they both sit smoking gently, you could almost miss it if you blinked, but then you would only have to refer back to a live show to see what, as a young hip girl in the crowd put it, is just undeniably cool.