The spirit of reinvention and exploring new sonic frontiers is one that has been at the core of Jamie Hince’s approach to music.
For just over two decades now, it’s a creative spirit that has driven his work with The Kills – the British-American rock project of Hince and Alison Mosshart.
2023 is a significant year for the band. On one hand, they celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut album, Keep On Your Mean Side. And on the other, The Kills are embracing a brand new musical chapter, with the release of their sixth studio album, God Games.
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For newcomers to The Kills’ work, God Games is the perfect entry point for the duo’s catalogue. And for those fans who have been with Hince and Mosshart since the beginning, God Games can confidently sit as proof that this far into their journey, the duo’s chemistry is as strong as ever.
“After this amount of time, it’s a simple thing; you’ve done this thing so many times, you just trust the other person,” Hince explains.
“You trust that they’re going to do something, and they’re going to be great. That really helps us when it comes to coming up with new things.
“A lot of it is almost psychic, by now. It’s a little bit instinctive. What I love about Alison is that we’re quite opposite. She has a small orbit of references that she’s always loved, from day one. I’ve always been wanting to change and find new things. In reality, those two things should probably bang heads. She’s so open to some of these new, stupid ideas. That sort of enthusiasm for it is really humbling.”
Developing some of these “new, stupid ideas” in a then-newly built home studio, Hince reflects on the creative process behind God Games and how it brought him new excitement as a writer and musician.
Inspired by different contemporaries, different genres, and different raw energies that some of the greats brought to their own oeuvres, Hince knew that God Games was an album he wanted to be representative of his passion for electric guitar-driven music, plain and simple. No overproduction, just direct ideas conceptualised and executed with fresh ambition.
“I think there’ve been a lot of records and bands ruined by overproduction,” Hince admits.
“We did a few shows last year around the No Wow reissue; we did it as a two-piece and I was quite surprised, blown away by the reaction from people that was like, ‘We haven’t seen anything like this!’, I was like, ‘Are you serious?’ It felt like maybe it is the time to be kicking against overproduction.”
“It felt that this was really the first time I’d been able to make the sounds I had in my head, a thing. There are a lot of influences that people wouldn’t expect that I listen to, like MF DOOM…influences I think have a really fantastic place within rock’n’roll, or within electric guitar music. If you listen to someone like Mos Def or Nas, people like that, they’ve got a real rock’n’roll principle about what they’re doing. Especially Mos Def, who used a lot of sampled guitar in his work; there was so much of that in me, that I wanted to bring out.
I’ve always been excited by those production ambitions. What if rock’n’roll had that kind of production ambition? Rock’n’roll, production-wise, gets a raw deal; I’ve been really excited more by almost lo-fi production.”
God Games is a vibrant, potent collection of songs that serves as a reminder of the edge, the swag, the effortless cool that permeates rock’n’roll music delivered, unfiltered.
While the sound has shifted over the years – the influences diversifying and the kinetic dynamic between Hince and Mosshart becoming more seasoned and instinctual; the sonic and rhythmic foundation of The Kills has remained rock solid.
“When you do it for this long, we are [just] better songwriters,” Hince laughs.
“I think back to when we were putting Little Bastards (2020) together, some of those b-sides and rarities…they were b-sides because we couldn’t really work out how to make them proper songs. We were struggling with songwriting; we were all about attitude and riffs and power. This time around, it felt naturally easier to write songs. I hope that it’s going to continue!”
God Games is out October 27. Pre-order the new album here and pre-save it here.
This article was made in partnership with Domino.
