Interview

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Etched in black ink on the heel of Alison Mosshart’s left hand is a tattoo: “14-2-02”—Valentine’s Day, 2002. It’s a very important date for the 30-year-old singer, marking the first time she took the stage with Jamie Hince, her cohort in The Kills. As half of one of London’s most celebrated punk-rock alt bands (complete with fashion street cred and a supermodel groupie in the form of Hince’s lady friend), Mosshart has her hardcore stage persona down. For this interview at The Mercer hotel in New York last December, she arrives with bangs covering her face and a cigarette hanging from her lips. She takes a menthol drag and lets out a loud, phlegmy treble cough, a sound an acute Kills fan might recognize as an opening note of the tune “Cheap and Cheerful,” in which Mosshart begs: “I want you to be crazy ’cause you’re stupid, baby, when you’re sane.” To watch her perform it live, you’d think she was exorcizing some pretty hateful demons. Lately, she’s even gotten a second project started, coming together with musicians Jack White, Jack Lawrence, and Dean Fertita as the band the Dead Weather; they just recorded tracks, and their first album will be out later in the year. Not that Mosshart is planning a break from The Kills. The duo is putting out its latest ep, Black Balloon, this month, and will continue on a hectic touring schedule that includes a pit stop at Coachella.

Sure, the raven-haired Mosshart looks appropriately tough, but a second persona appears as she peels off the rock-star veneer. The tour for The Kills’ third album, Midnight Boom (Domino), ended only days earlier, and she has just gotten off a flight from Japan. In New York on downtime, she’s a soft, smiley songwriter from Vero Beach, Florida, with a shy, nervous giggle. She’s been known to send hilarious e-mails about the travails of living with Hince in North London and is an unabashed Gossip Girl fan (in fact, one Kills song was the soundtrack for the show’s second-season promo, and Mosshart has friends in the cast). Mosshart is so down-to-earth she meets me a little late because she was up late last night chain-smoking cigarettes, writing songs, and painting, at one point spilling thick black lacquer all over a white wall at her week-long sublet in the East Village. As we pop inside The Mercer Kitchen to order soup—paint under her fingernails and the distinctive scent of Marlboro Menthol Lights still in her hair—she asks if I want to go ice skating in Central Park later. What self-respecting rebel would want to skate with the tourists? But Mosshart doesn’t seem to care what people think as long as she can keep playing. 

DEREK BLASBERG: Do you see this dichotomy you have, being both a cute American girl and a tough-as-nails English rocker?

ALISON MOSSHART: That’s a weird question.

BLASBERG: What I mean is, if I saw you in one of your music videos, looking all sullen and broody, I wouldn’t say, “This girl is totally going to be my best friend.”