The Kills: "We are looking for the unknown" - the inrocks
Portés parHASsh & Ice,un cinquième album ténébreux où ils dévoilent leurs blessures,HASlison Mosshart et Jamie Hince sont de retour, pour le plus grand bonheur des amateurs de rock foudroyant.Animated reunion with theHASmerican-English duo, as affable to the city as impressive to the scene.
Beaucoup de chansons d’Ash & Ice donnent une impression de vulnérabilité.This is not the first time that you have been writing in this vein ... Jamie Hince - I think this is the first time that we have been showing our vulnerability in such a condensed way.Before, we did it in scraps.This time, I didn't want to be too theatrical, nor use the language of rock’n’roll, because it would not make sense in 2016.I love listening to all these groups that sang that they wanted to let their hair grow to scare teachers (Alison laughs), but that doesn't really reflect the world we live today.I wanted to express myself honestly and exactly.
Has your writing change on this new album?HASlison Mosshart-We hope!It’s always very difficult and that’s how we know it’s still evolving - because it’s not granted in advance.We work very, very hard.We both offer songs and we try to mend them in one to obtain an image of the kills, not a song written by me or him.It's an endless quest to try to find this sound.Jamie -HASfter being obsessed with music for so long, we learn what makes a song walk.It took us time.We landed without any respect for the art of Songwriting.I still don't have too much respect for that ...HASlison - I still don't know how to do it!(laughs) Jamie - We still learn what makes a song work.But in terms of approach to write a song, we are still so chaotic.We try to find different ways.We have no recipe.Alison - No.Jamie-Maybe we should.Alison - Find a recipe?Nope.
How did you envisage the words this time?HASlison-we always write them both.This is still an album where we each wrote half.We will see if people guess who wrote what.It always surprises me: when people try to guess, they are mistaken all the time.Jamie - Even the woman who wrote our organic.We told her about her songs in depth and at the end she did not know too much ...HASlison - she was half reason.Jamie - The lyrics, I think it's torture.Alison - I love it! Jamie - She loves it.(toHASlison) You are looking at it as an snapshot of what you thought at a specific time.While for me, it is engraved in marble forever!(Alison laughs) I never want it to be like that.When I write words, a month later they seem dated and I want to change them!So I do this at the last minute and I find it painful.This time, I wanted there to be no fat, no extra word.It always makes me weird to think back to words that I wrote years ago.There are some of which I am proud but most of the time, I feel like I read poems written by a fifteen year old kid.Are you proud of which? Jamie - Baby Says ... and that's it!(laughs) It takes me much more time, right?HASlison - yes.
Donc vous n’avez pas du tout la même approche ?Alison - No.For my part, I write and I respect what comes to me.I don't have a problem to let go because I always tell myself that there is another song to write after.I don't dwell.I love to write.Jamie - Yes, but the question is whether you can express yourself in a rock song, with guitars and a 4/4 measurement, which I find really restrictive.Can you compose for two hours, from start to finish, and really think everything you wrote?Nope.Half is a pose, things that sound well, compromise that laugh.This is what torture me in there.When I reread myself, I don't want to see things that are there only because they laugh or refer to original images.Alison - It doesn't torture me.Fortunately, one of us does not live that ... Fortunately this person is me!(laughs)
Do you often have completely different feelings? Jamie - not really.It’s rare that we have radically opposed opinions ... (Alison laughs)HASlison - it's true.Jamie - We don't have a big serious argument, like: "We will not agree".It never happens.One of us always gives up (he looks at her), right?(laughs) Sometimes I take myself for a military instructor and I rewrite things by correcting like a teacher.Alison - Yes, it's super annoying.
Comment expliquez-vous les cinq années qui séparent Blood Pressures d’Ash & Ice ? Est-ce que c’est lié uniquement aux opérations du doigt que tu as subies, Jamie ?Jamie – Non.We are not a group with tubes, this kind of pop groups that are desperately trying to stay under the spotlight.We make an album and then we go on tour for two and a half years.In our group, the tour plays a more important role than the recording of a disc.Alison - We did a lot of concerts.We were still shooting last year.It is true that Jamie had six operations and that it involved very long rehabilitation.He had to restore to playing the guitar in a different way.
How long did it take?HASlison - it was very long.Jamie -HASt each operation, I was ko for two months, so in all it is twelve months stretched over an even longer period.I still can't use this finger.I decided not to work with it because I thought it was just getting things done.It is very painful.It has become very steep skin.I can't move it too much.Alison - It improves anyway a little and you sometimes manage to move him.Jamie - Yes.When I was back on his feet, we started the concerts a bit.Alison - Yes.Jamie - We continued the tour.We made small meetings while I had a splint and we took stock to see if we could resume the dates.Then I was preparing my hand.There is a summer when we did a lot of concerts between two operations: we played with theHASrctic Monkeys, Jack White, the Black Keys, Queens of the StoneHASge and Hop, I went on with an operation.
How do you go about playing the guitar now? Jamie - I have to think more and play the agreements differently.I can't agree, so I had to find other ways of playing.I became more subtle with my right hand.I prefer this new way of playing.It's more thoughtful, even if it hurts.Finally, it is not very complicated to play the guitar.There are lots of very large guitarists who had no finger!(laughs) Or rather who had problems with their hands!Like Django Reinhardt, who had two paralyzed fingers, but who was fantastic.
Have you ever played your new live songs? Jamie-some, yes.Alison - We come back from Mexico and Texas where we played five new titles.It really feels good to have new songs to play.Jamie - It was only too late.Alison - Yes.You know it's time to make a new album when you're on the road for so long, playing the same songs, that you say to yourself: "I would kill to have just a new song to play!" It changes everything.It’s a huge joy right now for us.It seems that there are other musicians with you on stage now ...HASlison - two, yes: Scott with keyboards and bass games, and John on drums and programming.There are a lot of different things about this new album that we prefer to play for real.Jamie - I love the versatile side of rhythm boxes.I never really wanted to have a drummer.When we used drummers on tours, it was to give a more human side.More human human, rather than at the level of sound.When we were preparing this new album, I felt that the rhythmic section lacked a little soul, so I wanted to try to make an album filled with soul, but not a soul album!(word game with the word soul, "soul" in vf, editor's note)
Can you try to describe what you feel on stage? Jamie (inHASlison)-That's really your territory.Alison - I feel incredibly well.I love concerts.This is my favorite moment.It is an exciting, liberating experience, where you live the present moment.It's like walking on a thread, like a tightrope walker, and if you make a mistake you must continue at all costs.I am completely addicted to this adrenaline.No doubt about it.I feel this lack in my life when you don't live.I can't take down.Jamie - It has never been interested in playing a replica from the album.I never understood the interest of all these groups which have exactly the same sound on stage as on their album.I always preferred to hear the postillons, the breath of breathing and the teeth banging against the microphone.I need to feel that I'm here.Alison - Each evening, you give a different interpretation, which is completely influenced by the energy and the sound of the room, by your state of mind of the day.It's never twice the same: this is precisely what I find so exciting.It can be great or very zero!I love that.
What triggered your passion for music? Jamie-for me, there was no click.It was rather spread to slow fire in me.I remember a jacket that I persisted in wearing.I called him my "parakeet jacket" because he was golden and green, like a parakeet!(laughs) From a very young age, I felt that the impression I gave with my style was a crucial thing.Obviously, I describe that with my adult words, but it was really important to me.I remember that I wanted to be different and, in one way or another, it was linked when I started listening to music and taking an interest in subcultures.I suddenly known that this feeling had a relationship with music.Alison - Yes.Jamie - It was linked to that.Then I started choosing groups to listen to the same way as I chose my "parakeet jacket".It was my thing.I started around four years old.Alison - It's quite the same for me, this same feeling of intense identity.Jamie - I didn't really know what it was before music happened.Alison - You love it right away without questioning anything.I started to devour music.I listened to everything that fell on hand.Then, you start to understand little by little what makes you carry you in music, in art, in mode.I was nine years old and I said: "I like punk music, skaters and drawing.I don't want to wear a dress, but I want a leather jacket.So music has always been linked to fashion and style for you.Jamie - For me, yes.Alison - Yes.These are the first choices that open up to you: what are you going to wear today at school?What do you want to eat?This is important because it is the only way to make your voice heard.It defines who your friends are.Jamie - I remember my first days in college, when I was ten years old.Students who were in the last year were about sixteen ...HASlison - living gods! Jamie - they are like mature men while you are a little baby next door.Alison - But yes!(laughs) Jamie - (gets up and pretends to have a satchel on his back, editor's note) I was like that, like an infant who cracked behind this incredible but lean man, hair dyed in red, who wore a jacketleather with marked "The Damned" on the back.And there I said to myself: "Damn!"He was scary, the kind of fear that we feel when you fall for a girl, when you are both frightened and attracted.It’s an incredible feeling.Did you know The Damned at the time? Jamie - No, just name.There was also another guy, James Cordury, who had a brother.One was a mod, the other a punk.James, it was the mod.I don't remember the name of his brother anymore, but it was a cool name.He had a leather jacket with the word "Stranglers" on the back.I said to myself, "How is it possible?You can't have a word like that writes big on your coat!Foreigners are like a murderer!"(Laughs) it was crazy.I knew it was a group, but I never heard them.
Your group has always put a strong link between aesthetics and music.You are very involved in pockets and clips. Quelle était votre idée pour les visuels d’Ash & Ice ?Alison – Tout ça, ça vient une fois que les chansons sont écrites.Before, it is not possible.I never want to decide before it changes.Once the music is recorded, you can listen to it and are no longer completely wrapped inside the sound, it is then that we can see it.You listen to a song and you have an image in mind.Jamie -HASre you talking about the clips?HASlison - The clips, the pockets, everything.Jamie - Yes.Alison - it affects everything: the decor on stage, the lighting, what clothes you are going to wear ... everything is added to the board.I love that.Jamie - In fact, it's like someone asked you: "In the past ten years, you've done all these things, why?"(Laughs) You don't really know until you do it and that's where you can say:" I did that because ... "But at the time, you don't think youGo do such a thing because it will take you there and you can take this turn.Alison - I don't know if people are really like that.We spent a lot of time at the.HAS.Because we were there for two and a half months, in a house, to work, write and record.This place has broadcast in the lyrics, imagery and general impression of the album.Secondly, we went to New York, in a diametrically opposite environment, to finish the album in a windowless basement.This is what gave a paranoid and introverted side to the whole.All these things count, whether we notice it on the spot or not.HASu final, on arrive à voir un peu de L.HAS.On such song, a little New York on one another.It's fun to play with all of this when you have to take care of the booklet or clips.
Pourquoi LosHASngeles ? Pourquoi New York ?Alison – Pourquoi pas ? Ce n’était pas intentionnel.We just found ourselves there.Jamie-How does that, not intentional?HASlison-well if, it was, but it was the type: "What do we do afterwards?And if we rented a house at the.HAS. ? » On ne s’est pas dit : « Faisons un album de LosHASngeles ».Jamie – Ça n’existe plus vraiment, un album de LosHASngeles, si ?Alison - No, non.It was just a different idea that seemed cool to us.We didn't want to repeat ourselves.Jamie - We had always recorded in the same place, in Michigan, at the Studio Key Club.We loved it because we were far from all distraction.We locked ourselves away from everything, as if we were building a machine in secret.Alison-There is no one there.Jamie - There is nothing.We felt very productive creativity level.But it’s also a bit emotionally to withdraw from everything.This time, we didn't want to make a disc in secret because after all our lives are not like that.Open up to occasions from the outside and absorb a little what's going on: that's already what we do on tour, and we find it stimulating and inspiring.It was weird not to apply this idea to our way of recording, but it had always scared us.Alison - It did us good to go elsewhere.To have a different sound and a different atmosphere, we shouldn't go back to the same place where we always record, even if we love it.It was a little too easy.HASlors on a essayé cette idée dingue de fabriquer un studio dans une maison, ce qui a amené 1001 problèmes.(laughs) Then we went to New York to finish it because we really needed a real studio, to stop repairing things all day.I think we can hear all these places.
Jamie, how did your trip on board the Trans -Siberian Express go?How long did it last? Jamie - two weeks.Alison - It's incredible, all the distance traveled ... Jamie - 6,000 miles (about 9,600 km, editor's note).Alison - It's crazy.Jamie - In fact, I thought we could stop and go for a walk in cities.As no one spoke English, I only discovered a few days after the departure that the longest stop would last ten minutes!(laughs) I thought about things that had never gone through my mind.The sixth and seventh days, I could not write quickly enough to follow my thoughts on the links between physics and magic.I had theories that a super spy scanned all our actions, while I am atheist.All this looks completely ridiculous now that I have returned to reality.I filled pages and pages.It was as if my brain is self-cleaning.Alison - It's really crazy to leave all her habits to get to the middle of nowhere.I did the same when I went to Hedgebrook, on a small island off Seattle.It was a program for women-songwriters.You live in a small independent cottage, without seeing anyone.There is no internetni phone.Nothing .I have never been so excited about my life.I did not stop creating, writing, painting ... it was incredibly liberating.I can only compare this at the time when I was about sixteen, before the internet, when I took care of myself for hours and hours writing.Jamie - (leafing through her Trans -Siberian travel diary, editor's note) I copied all these sentences in Russian.Alison - it's beautiful.Jamie-She means "Elvis is the king"!This one, I do not know too much ... (by showing a landscape that he drew on a double page, editor's note) This is typically what we see through the windows of the Trans-Siberian Express: silver birch and darkness.
What did you give up for music? Jamie-Excellent question.HAS la sécurité, à des amis, à des femmes, à des chiens…Alison –HAS tout le reste.It all depends on how we want to see this.You can easily sink while thinking about it, but you can also be grateful to be able to do what you love when few people have this chance.This is what I tend to say to myself.Jamie - Yes, les avantages dépassent les inconvénients.What we lost is pretty interesting.When we talk about it, we feel more heroic!(Alison laughs)
Do you regret the time when you hadn't left anything yet and no one was waiting for anything? Jamie-I have no nostalgia.Alison - me either.Jamie - I think nostalgia is really dangerous.This is particularly stupid if you are part of a guitar group because that is precisely what destroys rock’n’roll, looking back all the time.Sometimes we rethink at this time when we didn't expect anything, when we just wandered around by car.But I believe that if all this is so exciting, as pure and great, it is because you know that you are at the start of a trip.It would be depressing to be at the end of the trip and do that.The goal is to do everything to move forward.Alison - We are looking for the unknown.He has not disappeared: he takes other forms, that's all.
nouvel albumHASsh & Ice (Domino), sortie le 3 juinconcerts le 14 juin à Clermont-Ferrand, le 1er juillet à Marmande (festival Garorock), le 2 à Hérouville-Saint-Clair (festival Beauregard), le 3 aux Eurockéennes de Belfort, le 14 à Carhaix (Vieilles Charrues), le 15 à Biarritz (Big festival), les 18 et 19 octobre à Paris (Olympia), le 31 à Lyon et le 8 novembre à Nantes
