The Kills’ Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince took some time to chat with host Ayisha Jaffer about their upcoming album, God Games, which is their first release in seven years.

They discussed recording in a church-turned-studio that once belonged to Eurythmics' Dave Stewart, the meaning behind God Games, and Mosshart's "hateful relationship" with the sun. The album is out on Friday, Oct. 27

Watch and listen to the complete interview above, and read a transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Ayisha Jaffer: I'm Ayisha Jaffer, weekday host here on The Current and I'm hanging out with The Kills. Thanks for being with us.

Alison Mosshart: Thanks for having us. Hi.

Ayisha Jaffer: It's so exciting. This is a big day, of course you guys released or well, you announced the album God Games, which is coming out soon after seven years now. Immediately my brain goes to Hunger Games. But what is the throughline for this record?

Alison Mosshart: Just all games, just game stuff. Through line? Jamie, what is the through line to this record?

Jamie Hince: It was just, it was written at a weird time as everybody went through that same thing from 2020. And it was just a lot of thoughts going outside of the planet for me and just thinking, I don't know, I just kind of, I was writing these songs. And I felt this idea that this I mean, I'm an atheist. And but when I'm when I was writing songs, I kind of realized I'm thinking about a higher power. I don't believe in God, but in my creative life, I kind of involve him. And so I wanted to write these kinds of godless spiritual kind of things, kind of like atheist gospels was the idea of some of the songs I was writing. And that's kind of the through line, I suppose. God Games, the actual God game is like, one of those games like Sims or something like that. But I liked the idea of it being you know, something else.

Ayisha Jaffer: Well, it's interesting. You say that, because I know you guys wrote this, or you were in the studio in an old church. And so did that inspire anything that you put out, or do you have any —

Alison Mosshart: That was entirely coincidental. Yeah, it really was. I mean, the old church has been a really incredible studio for a very long time. Doesn't feel doesn't feel too churchy. Does it? I mean, maybe parts of it.

Jamie Hince: The weird thing is, since I've, you know, since I was, since I moved to London, that studio, the church, I used to belong to Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics, and it's like, it's very famous studio. And so when someone says the church even said, like, I met her at the church, I was thinking of recording studio. Yeah, but I mean, we had, everything written by the time we went into the church.

Ayisha Jaffer: I mean, you never know, anything could change in the church. Well, so you're talking about, you know, you're writing the songs. And I know, I mean, the studio process all the way back in 2019. So it's been a while since you've been working on this. So what, what was it about this time to kind of come back after seven years? What was it about right now, that felt right about bringing the music to the forefront?

Alison Mosshart: I think it was all you know, this is just the way that time has traveled, you know, we put out a record and we toured for three years, we finished our last show about four months before the pandemic started. And then we wrapped our heads around that whole situation. And kind of wrote a bit during that. But a lot of it, I was really adamant about for myself not writing a song in that kind of headspace. I didn't want to write a song about a pandemic, I didn't want to sing a song about a pandemic for the rest of my career, you know. So there was like, it was kind of stuff to the surface, there were songs that we've kind of been working on before. Before any of that happened. And there were songs that we were working on after maybe one or two, somewhere in the middle there. But by the time we were able to travel and do all of that stuff. We had a record to record, and then we were just trying to find someplace to do it. You know? So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know where the time goes. It just does. It does its thing.

Jamie Hince: It slowed down, though. I mean, like, we finished this record, like let me think nearly a year ago.

Alison Mosshart: We started recording it last November.

Jamie Hince: Being aware, that the whole music industry, the landscape changed a lot. And that pandemic sh*t really did affect it's like there's been everything's been stacked up. You know, it's just like a huge line of people trying to get out and do stuff and everything's saturated. And it's, this is the reality of it.

Ayisha Jaffer: Yeah, I can see that and that's why we keep seeing kind of these like, "It's been this many years!" I feel like every headline in that sense, because time travels, I believe that. Well, we got to talk about you know, “New York” / “LA  Hex” this like double A-side single. Why did you choose the coasts? Was this coast-to-coast rivalry as inspiration? Or what was it about?

Jamie Hince: I like the idea that it was a kind of, you know, East Coast West Coast kind of back in the day, that kind of thing but a really sort of sweet nice one. Like a dancing Crips vibe. But no.

Alison Mosshart: I mean, we spend so much time in those two cities. I mean, I half live in LA, Jamie lives in LA. So I mean, it makes a lot of sense that we're writing songs about these places. And when we looked at the record what we're done with it, we're like, well, we've got one called New York, and one called LA, really, so we should put them together.

Jamie Hince: It didn't actually cross my mind, it was our record company that spotted it the most obvious thing in the world. Because I think, by the time you've finished songs, and you've recorded them, and you're playing them, and then you've gone through all this thing, the title is really not the thing for you, you know, it's just those songs. It took our record company to see the titles to spot that there was something in the East Coast, West Coast, they really knew.

Ayisha Jaffer: Well, and then now “103,” which I love, I feel like it's like love and heat waves. And I'm just wondering, kind of what's the what's the idea behind “103.”

Alison Mosshart: When I was three, it was a lot of things that I was noticing, like, parts of people during everything we went through and people struggling and also like beauty in it and the city struggling and the weather being f*cked up, you know, and everyone just kind of like, I don't know, I mean, it was kind of just like, a poem that I wrote really quickly about all of this that I was seeing. And part of it was during the pandemic, I was driving back and forth across the country because it can't sit still, I don't know how to just be in lockdown. So I just kind of went out on the highway. And there was no one else. There was no one anywhere. And there was, and it was such a strange setting. I've never seen this country look like that. I've never heard people be so bizarre. You know? And yeah, I think that song is that, you know, that song can be interpreted in a bunch of different ways.

Jamie Hince: Alison also has a very hateful relationship with the sun.

Alison Mosshart: I hate it. I really, really struggle. I don't like being hot. So this whole thing that's going on right now is not really working for me. Yeah, it's, yeah.

Ayisha Jaffer: You must love the visual though. Because that video is wild. It's like you've entered this 3D interstellar universe. It's amazing. And can I -

Jamie Hince: That's perfect for me that that came out when we announced God Games, because that to me is the sort of like, universal sort of higher power video game vibe, all in one, you know. And the release of “103” you know, sort of all in that little package. It's anyway, sorry, I interrupted, you.

Ayisha Jaffer: No, you can interrupt me, that's what it's here for. It's for you, to tell me what's going on. But I'm excited about that video. It's just different from a lot of the visuals that I've seen. And I think like you just said it, you put all these different pieces of what you are presenting all in one. And I'm just wondering what that experience was like to do that type of video because I see there's obviously dancers, you guys have, you've always been great at your visuals. But this 3D element, I don't know, what was that experience? Because it's different from a regular music video.

Alison Mosshart: Yeah, it was like making a sculpture, you know, that you can't see yet. And so you kind of have to imagine it. And we filmed that in a round camera that has like, a zillion lenses. You know, that takes I don't even remember how many pictures a second. But it's an incredible thing. And we were basically balancing on a tiny little piece of wood. And, you know, the two of us stuck together and these silver suits from a party store that were made of plastic. So the sun thing is like totally legit, like we were really hot.

Ayisha Jaffer: So the goggles helped them with the whole experience.

Alison Mosshart: The other thing too, standing in a circle standing on a tiny little like piece of wood and having those goggles on and not being able to see anything like being blind. So I think that that created a really interesting energy about it, at least with us. And then you take these pictures and this like moving these moving pictures and three-dimensional pictures and put them in different places. And the technology is so wild. I couldn't explain it to you I've tried so many times and I am no closer to the truth. The actual filming —

Jamie Hince: The actual filming of it is very simple. It's easy to do. It's just really difficult to explain.

Ayisha Jaffer: Yeah. Well, the end result is beautiful. And I just want to touch on just one more thing when you're talking about the album specifically, I thought this was interesting that Paul Epworth maybe got his start with you as his sound guy and now you've kind of got this homecoming of working together. What was that was that experience? Like? I do love that full circle-ness.

Jamie Hince: We got him where he is today. (laughter) You're welcome. But he was very first, our very first sound man when we were in when on our first ever tour in 2002. Like when we first started, we were driving around in a little van. And well, actually, it was probably a little later than that. Exactly. We had a sound man on our very first tour. But yeah, he was the first sound man we had. And yeah, I always remember in the back of the van, he always have headphones on I think actually, his sort of remix producer name at that time was Phones, because he was always wearing headphones. And I remember him doing some like Kylie Minogue remix in the back of a van and it would really piss me off actually, because that's just not my vibe. And then obviously, he went on to do amazing things. So it was kind of, it was lovely, it made sense to come full circle, after he'd done Adele and all that to be like, you know, how about we do some? You know, it was first time really we've used a producer. And we had to have someone that had been with us the whole of our lives, you know, and knew where we've come from and could relate what we're doing now to that very first chord on a beaten-up Fender Twin. So that's yeah, that's happened.

Ayisha Jaffer: I love that, keep someone there that's been throughout the whole process, and I'm loving everything that I'm hearing. I'm very excited for your new album. Is there anything else you want our listeners to know before I let you go?

Alison Mosshart: Well, what would they like to know?

Ayisha Jaffer: We should have done we should have done crowdsourced.

Jamie Hince: Nobody ever answers that question. It's always an I hadn't thought of anything.

Alison Mosshart: Well, I'd like to talk about the vinyl record, which is so incredibly beautiful, and I'm really proud of it. We're really proud of the artwork and we've done like this incredible photo series inside, Jamie and I have and I want to encourage people to go out and buy vinyl because it's absolutely awesome, this record on vinyl so I hope people get it.

Ayisha Jaffer: I love that and your artwork as well in the single is beautiful the playing card series that you kind of have going it's it's wonderful. Are we going to see more of that? Is there more in this deck?

Alison Mosshart: I have made one for every single song so we'll see how, where they go.

Ayisha Jaffer: Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for hanging out with us today. God Games that comes out very soon. So look out for it. And yeah, thanks for hanging out with The Current.

Credits

Guest – The Kills
Host – Ayisha Jaffer
Producer – Derrick Stevens
Technical Director – Erik Stromstad
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producer – Natalia Toledo

External Links

The Kills — official site