The Kills

Jack White Debuts New Band, The Dead Weather

12 Mar 2009 11:51:00 EDT

White Stripes offshoot features members of the Kills, the Raconteurs, Queens of the Stone Age.
By Gil Kaufman

Jack White
Photo: Michael Buckner/Getty Images

Apparently no one informed White Stripes/ Raconteurs frontman Jack White that the country is facing dire jobless rates, because White just added a third band to his résumé. Not content to front just two bands at once, White has just unveiled his latest creation, the Dead Weather, a death-rattle blues quartet featuring White on drums and vocals, the Kills' Alison Mosshart on vocals, the Raconteurs' Jack Lawrence on bass and Queens of the Stone Age's Dean Fertita on guitar.

White debuted the band Wednesday night at a private party in Nashville, Tennessee, in front of 150 invited guests, according to a recap of the event on the Web site of White's Third Man Records, using the show to unveil the label's new offices/ record store/ photo studio/ performance stage in Music City.

The first public performance by the band included songs from its upcoming debut, Horehound, which was produced by White and is due out in June. The album was recorded over the course of three weeks earlier this year at the new Third Man Studio, which was, of course, designed "from the ground up" by White as well.

Attendees at Wednesday's shindig — which, according to The Associated Press, included Sheryl Crow, Martina McBride and the White Stripes' Meg White — exchanged their letter-pressed invitations for a limited-edition seven-inch vinyl pressing of the Dead Weather's debut single, "Hang You From the Heavens," which also features a cover of the new-wave classic "Are 'Friends' Electric?" originally by Gary Numan's 1970s band Tubeway Army.

In keeping with White's love of home-crafted musical curios, the bandmates hand-painted each of the 150 singles, which also included photo-booth pictures of the bandmembers. Both songs are currently available exclusively through iTunes.

"The idea was to do a seven-inch single and be done with it, but we started writing songs and something happened," White said, according to the AP, which also reported that the band plans to tour this year.

"Hang You From the Heavens" mixes the Stripes' signature fuzzed-out garage sound with some dinosaur-rock drumming from White and Mosshart's punchy blues singing. Over skuzzy, blown-speaker rock, Mosshart yelps, "I wanna grab you from the hair/ And hang you up from the heavens." The noisy Numan cover adds a 1960s psychedelic sheen to the robotic original, with watery vocals and woozy keyboards that have a vintage vibe but render the song almost unrecognizable.

The White Stripes have not toured since late 2007, when they canceled a string of dates following Meg White's bout of acute anxiety. It's unclear how the formation of this new band will impact the Grammy-winning duo's future. The normally prolific group, which has reportedly been working on new material, has not released a new album since 2007's Icky Thump, though they did give a wobbly performance on the February finale of "Late Night With Conan O'Brien." A spokesperson for White could not be reached for comment at press time.

Related Artists

The Kills Track Down Cursed Studio Gear For Dark New Album

13 Apr 2005 09:43:00 EDT

Legendary console allegedly bankrupted its maker, once belonged to Sly Stone.
By James Montgomery

The Kills
Photo: MTV News

NEW YORK — The Hotel Chelsea has been a haven for novelists, artists, leftists, Marxists, Expressionists and theorists since it was built back in 1884. Everyone from poet Dylan Thomas to artist Claes Oldenburg to actor Ethan Hawke has called the place home. Andy Warhol shot scenes from his movie "Chelsea Girls" in Room 442. Sex Pistol Sid Vicious may or may not have murdered his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, in Room 100.

And every time the Kills — singer/guitarist VV (a.k.a. Alison Mosshart) and drummer/guitarist/singer Hotel (a.k.a. Jamie Hince) — are in New York, they make it a point to stay at the Chelsea in Room 105, which used to belong to Warhol actress/muse Edie Sedgwick. It wasn't the first room Sedgwick rented at the hotel, but it was the one management finally placed her in after she had shown an affinity for setting previous rooms ablaze.

"Edie set fire to a bunch of rooms and her wrists and things," Hince said in a thick British drawl. "There's a book with all these photographs of her ... she's all burnt and blistered ... and when I first stayed [at the Chelsea], I filmed every corridor because I had to capture everything. I'm an absolute sucker for that kind of thing. I'm in touch with what inspires me ... the legends and the mysteries and the over-romanticism of things. That's what makes me want to do things. I want to live up to things like that."

And it's that kind of spirit that inhabits No Wow, the Kills' second album. It's a record partially indebted to rock and roll's bluesy, raw roots, partially indebted to the grimy, gritty punk of the '70s and totally in love with the darker, sexier sides of both. Throughout 40 smoky, skuzzy minutes, Hince and Mosshart push themselves into unexplored territory, sounding entirely cohesive one moment and on the verge of collapse the next. It's claustrophobic yet expansive, confident yet panicked — often all at once. Which has an awful lot to do with how the duo chose to record the album.

"We went to Benton Harbor in Michigan to make this album," Hince said. "When we got to the airport, the people from the studio picked us up. We thought the studio was in Chicago ... [but] we drove for 20 minutes, and then 40 minutes, and we were, like, 'Where the hell is this place?' It turned out to be this burned-out shell of a town."

"I don't think it was a disadvantage to where we decided to record — unless you wanted to go out and see human beings," added Mosshart, her stringy black hair in her eyes. "Other than that, it was so perfect: there was no one there. It was a great place to work."

There was a reason — aside from near-total solitude — why the Kills chose to record in Benton Harbor. For months, they had been hunting down a "cursed" mixing console, which Hince had heard about from two French studio hands. The console, made by a company called Flickinger, had driven men to madness and businesses into the ground, or so it was said. And Hince knew he needed to have it.

"There were all these stories of a legendary Flickinger console that was made for Sly Stone. It was the last one ever made, and legend had it that it was cursed. It caused the company to go bankrupt and the designer to have a nervous breakdown," Hince said with a wry smile. "And Sly Stone held the delivery guys hostage for 10 days under gunpoint and demanded they make the console levitate. And so it became this magnet, like, 'Wow, let's find that console and go and record with it.' And we found it up and running in Benton Harbor."

So, working in a burned-out town with a possibly cursed mixing board, the Kills cranked out No Wow in just three and a half weeks, ripping through songs at a self-imposed frantic pace. Some artists prefer to make albums in cushy studios with plasma TVs on every wall and a PS2 in every corner. The Kills chose quite the opposite, which is what makes No Wow both most difficult thing they've ever done and a blistering, brooding success.

"It's a weird thing, making a second record," Mosshart said. "You can either be thinking about how weird and scary it is, or you can make something drastic and make it impossible for yourself. We chose the latter."

"There's a million different ways to make a record," Hince added, "and for me, my favorite songs we've written weren't things we labored over. They were things that came out as a gut reaction, and there's a real beauty about that. My favorite songs were written in 20 minutes, so we wanted to make an album filled of songs we'd made in 20 minutes."

Related Artists

The Kills

New Releases: Gratitude, Black Label Society, The Kills, John Digweed & More

7 Mar 2005 09:19:00 EST

Also due Tuesday are albums from Guapo, Kasabian and Sam Prekop.
By Alyssa Rashbaum

Gratitude's Gratitude
Photo: Atlantic

Rock is ruling the new releases list this week, with albums by emo-rockers Gratitude, metal's Black Label Society and London indie-rockers the Kills.

Gratitude, featuring ex-Far frontman Jonah Matranga on lead vocals, release their debut, self-titled album, a raw, bare-bones rock effort led by the single "Drive Away."

Zakk Wylde gets back to his hard-rock soul with the new Black Label Society album, Mafia. The follow-up to 2004's Hangover Music, which was mostly acoustic, takes the sound back to BLS' thumping metal roots while also featuring two piano-driven ballads.

Gritty punk-infused duo the Kills release their sophomore album, No Wow. A stripped-down, aggressive rock effort, No Wow follows 2003's debut, Keep on Your Mean Side.

England's Kasabian release their energetic, pop-infused self-titled debut in the U.S. this week, led by the single "Club Foot," while Toronto's indie-pop outfit the Stars release their third album, Set Yourself on Fire.

Also out this week are albums by the Bravery's tour partners, Ash (Meltdown), DJ John Digweed (Fabric 20), and Sam Prekop (Who's Your New Professor).

Out Tuesday, March 8:

50 Foot Wave - Golden Ocean (ThrowingMusic/BMG)
Above This Fire - In Perspective (Life Sentence)
AK-Momo - Return to N.Y. (Parasol)
Alove for Enemies - The Harvest (Facedown)
Alston - Voodoo for Fun and Profit (Repossession)
Alter Boys - The Exotic Sounds of the Alter Boys (Lumberjack)
Amazing Pilots - Hello, My Captor (Undertow)
Nic Armstrong & the Thieves - The Greatest White Liar (New West)
Ash - Meltdown (Record Collection)
Asphalt Jungle - Enjoy This Trip (Hypnotic)
Black Label Society - Mafia (Artemis)
Read: "Zakk Wylde Rips Blind Followers On 'Just Another Black Label Society Record'"
Boom Bip - Blue Eyed in the Red Room (Warp)
Lynn Bryant - Woman Enough (Infinity Music)
Eddie Bush - Eddie Bush (Infinity Music)
Brad Byrd - The Ever Changing Picture (Free Agency)
Deanna Carter - The Story of My Life (Vanguard)
Combichrist - Everybody Hates You (Metropolis)
Chris Cotton - I Watched the Devil Die (Yellow Dog)
Des_Ark - Loose Lips Sink Ships (Lumberjack)
Devil in a Woodpile - In Your Lonesome Town (Bloodshot)
John Digweed - Fabric 20 (Studio Distribution)
The Disease - Dyslexic Experts in Reverse Psychology (Alone)
DJ Revolution - The ABC's of High Fidelity (Studio Distribution)
Elanors - A Year to Demonstrate (Parasol)
Tommy Emmanuel - Endless Road (Favored Nations)
Evens - The Evens (Dischord)
Forever Changed - Need to Feel Alive (Floodgate)
French Toast - In a Cave (Dischord)
Full Scale - Full Scale (Columbia)
Reeves Gabrels - Rockonica (Favored Nations)
Jay Geils - Jay Geils Plays Jazz (Stony Plain)
Gratitude - Gratitude (Atlantic)
Buy Now: Gratitude (Atlantic)
Guapo - Black Oni (Ipecac)
Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion - Exploration (New West)
Hot Club of San Francisco - Postcards from Gypsyland (Lost Wax Music)
Icarus Witch - Roses on White Lace (Cleopatra)
Into the Moat - The Design (Metal Blade)
Kaddisfly - Buy Our Intention; We'll Buy You a Unicorn (Hopeless)
Kaos - Hello Stranger (Studio Distribution)
Kasabian - Kasabian (RCA)
Kills - No Wow (RCA)
Kings of Tomorrow - Trouble (Studio Distribution)
Jimmy LaFave - Blue Nightfall (Red House)
Living Legends - Classic (Basement/Legendary Music)
Luciano & Sizzla - Jah Warrior III (Penitentiary)
Mando Diao - Hurricane Bar (Mute)
Milton Mapes - Blacklight Trap (Undertow)
Amy Miles - Noble Hatch (Redeye Distribution)
Thee Missouri - In Voodoorama (Blue Disguise)
Monade - A Few Steps More (Beggars Banquet)
Craig Morgan - My Kind of Livin' (BBR)
Our Turn - Catch Your Breath (Youngblood)
Over It - Silverstrand (Lobster)
Paint It Black - Paradise (Jade Tree)
Julius Papp - Heartbeat 2 (Studio Distribution)
Pigeon John - Sings the Blues! (Basement)
Pit er Pat - Shakey (Thrill Jockey)
Pitch Black - This Is Modern Sound (Revelation)
Sam Prekop - Who's Your New Professor (Thrill Jockey)
Nelson Rangell - My American Songbook Vol. 1 (Koch)
Duke Robillard and Ronnie Earl - The Duke Meets the Earl (Stony Plain)
Secret Garden - Earthsongs (Universal Classics)
Sarah Sharp - Fourth Person (Redeye Distribution)
Soilwork - Stabbing the Drama (Nuclear Blast)
Stars - Set Yourself on Fire (Arts & Crafts)
Rhonda Vincent & the Rage - Ragin' Live (Rounder)
Winter Solstice - The Fall of Rome (Metal Blade)
Various artists - Acoustic Tribute to Tim McGraw (Tribute Sounds)
Various artists - Fastlife Music Presents Code of the Streets (Fastlife)
Various artists - The Guitar Tribute to Boston (Tribute Sounds)
Various artists - Hip-Hop Tribute to Metallica (Tribute Sounds)
Various artists - Hitmakers: The String Quartet Tribute to the Matrix
(Vitamin)
Various artists - The Kings of Funk, Compiled by RZA and Keb Darge (Studio Distribution)
Various artists - Latin Empire (Independent Music)
Various artists - Louie Vega Presents Dance Ritual (Studio Distribution)
Various artists - Love Song: The Piano Tribute to the Cure (Vitamin)
Various artists - Pickin' on Tracy Byrd (CMH)
Various artists - Return to Glory 1 (True Life Jazz)
Various artists - Revive the Soul (Revive the Soul)
Various artists - Smooth Sax Tribute to Alicia Keys (Tribute Sounds)
Various artists - Smooth Sax Tribute to Shania Twain (Tribute Sounds)
Various artists - Soul Piano Tribute to Anita Baker (Tribute Sounds)
Various artists - The String Quartet Tribute to Rush's 2112 (Vitamin)
Various artists - The String Quartet Tribute to Switchfoot (Vitamin)
Various artists - Violently: The String Quartet Tribute to Björk
(Vitamin)
DVD: Bob Dylan - "Bob Dylan World Tours 1966-1974: Through the Camera of Barry Feinstein" (Music Video Distributors)
DVD: Beth Hart - "Live at Paradiso" (Koch)
DVD: Jin - "The Making of a Rap Star" (Image Entertainment)
DVD: Leatherface - "Boat in the Smoke" (Music Video Distributors)
DVD: Mike + the Mechanics & Paul Carrack - "Live at Shepherd's Bush London"
(Eagle Rock)
DVD: Pepper - "Live" (Volcom Entertainment)
DVD: Usher - "The Glamorous Life" (Chrome Dreams)