Call it a hunch, but we get the feeling that the Kills’ Jamie “Hotel” Hince is into hiding himself away these days. This notion comes partly from having our scheduled interview canceled on two consecutive mornings because his cell phone reportedly was out of range before and after a gig somewhere in the U.K. countryside.
“Honestly, I wasn’t avoiding you,” he says apologetically when we finally catch him on attempt No. 3. He explains that on at least one of the days in question, he was lounging about with his girlfriend. “It was a rare day off, and it just kind of slipped my mind that I wouldn’t have cell-phone coverage,” Mr. Hince says.
It’s hard to blame him for his selective memory; the girlfriend in question is one Kate Moss, and pretty much since the couple’s first smooch, they have been hounded by the infamous and omnipresent British paparazzi.
All the press coverage has brought a lot of new attention to Mr. Hince’s music, but it’s not the kind an art-school-alumnus-cum-musician like him desires. Instead, it’s the kind that makes one want to fall off the map.
“They just ruin every day,” Mr. Hince says of the media mongrels.
Here in the U.S., the press seems significantly less interested in how Miss Moss looked on Mr. Hince’s arm than on how the Kills’ new album, “Midnight Boom,” sounds. The consensus so far is that this third offering from the band may be its best.
On the record, the group’s usual sexy, sneering garage-rock-blues blend gets a dancey infusion, complete with catchy beats and cutesy hand claps.
Much of the impetus to travel in this new direction came from a film Mr. Hince and his musical partner, Alison “VV” Mosshart, recently viewed: “Pizza Pizza Daddy-O,” a 1960s-era documentary about the playground games of inner-city schoolgirls.
The film’s rhythms proved indelible — a fact that seems to please Mr. Hince. He says he “had gotten so comfortable” with the band’s usual guitar-heavy sound. “This time I felt like I could … concentrate on the rhythmic side of it, and I just got carried away.”
It’s not hard to see how the album-writing process may have amplified the chants and cheers of “Pizza Pizza Daddy-O.” The duo chose to work on and record this project in a warehouselike studio called Keyclub in Benton Harbor, Mich., where they also forged their previous album, 2005’s “No Wow.”
One imagines that in this cavernous space within a small, somewhat desolate town, whatever sounds come out echo quite a bit as they swell to fill the emptiness.
“That place, we could just really hide away,” Mr. Hince says. “There’s something really important to us about making a record in secrecy, and Benton Harbor is definitely the place. People don’t gravitate toward [it]; most of the time, they’re trying to get out of there. We just sort of locked the door, and basically, our whole world became the next record.”
At some point, the Kills duo opened the studio door to let in producer Alex Epton (aka Armani XXXchange of the electro/hip-hop crew Spank Rock) and he worked his beat-maker magic on Mr. Hince and Miss Mosshart’s tunes.
The British-born Mr. Hince seems quite thankful that he and his female musical counterpart, an American, had a chance meeting in London eight years ago and decided to take a chance on collaborating.
“What I loved about her is that I’ve always visualized music,” he says. “I always have a vision for something; then I have to try to realize that vision in music, and she was really the antidote for that. She’s so spontaneous; she can write 10 songs in a week. There might only be one that works, but she’s not afraid to put her mistakes down on tape … I’ve learned a lot from her.”
Of course, it probably doesn’t hurt that Miss Mosshart is willing to escape into seclusion, far away from the paparazzi, with him once a while, too.
The Kills play tonight at the Black Cat (www.blackcatdc.com). Telepathe opens the 9 p.m. show.
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