don't forget my cigarettes and get something that we can drink
I've been meaning to make this post for ages, and as time went on, I gathered more and more stuff to include, so now it's turned into this RIDICULOUSLY GIANT SPAM. And I just can't bear to part with any of it, 'cause I'm pathetic. Basically, I've been obsessed with The Kills for like a really long time now, and it drives me insane having no one to talk to about them!! If you don't know who they are, they're a crazy awesome band made up of Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince. Alison has quickly become one of my, like, top five (maybe) celebrity crushes, and I ship the two of them LIKE BURNING. And you should too.
This post pretty much explains why, with a stupid amount of pictures, quotes, videos, and gifs. It's a primer. It may not be one about a pair of pretty incestuous brothers, but in my honest opinion, Jamie and Alison are just as strange and fascinating.
So this is Alison (nicknamed VV), and Jamie (nicknamed Hotel). They make seriously awesome music, but if I talked about the music as well as the people behind it, this post would be twice as long. The focus here is them, and their bizarre, co-dependent, obsessive, sexually-charged yet apparently platonic relationship.
I don't like to beg, but I pretty much spent all day on this and oh god you guys, please read it? I wanna share this obsession with somebody. Take five hours ten minutes out of your day and check it out?
Brief background info.
They're ten years apart in age. Alison is from Florida, Jamie from London, and they met in the late '90s. In their own words from some articles:
This is one of Alison's tattoos. It's the date she and Jamie first performed on stage together, and, as if that weren't romantic enough already, that date was Valentine's Day. You couldn't make this shit up.
And this is another. I think I read somewhere that Jamie's got a matching one, but I cannot prove this, because believe it or not, he's not clearly showing his palms in any of my gazillion pictures.
They're super protective of each other and often pretty possessive and jealous, too, as shown by this quote which basically fascinates me to no end:
My D/S kink is quickly becoming the worst-kept secret ever.
Often, they seem to have a kind of dom/sub vibe going on, which is...kind of totally hot. Especially because they also seem to switch it up, like they're taking turns being in charge. They're just so dependent on each other that it works.
Mostly just cuddly, but Alison totally looks like she owns him here.
They seriously have a thing for grabbing each other by the throat. *nudges asphyxiation!kink friends*
Yeah. Even on stage.
To see more of this potentially creepy (yet somehow hot) hair-nuzzling, check out the video for 'The Good Ones' on Youtube here.
This is from their music video for 'Last Day of Magic', which I'll get to later, 'cause oh man.
Aaand sometimes Jamie is so clearly in charge.
And Alison loves it. THIS LOOK. THIS LOOK IN HER EYES, YOU GUYS.
Uh. Unf.
Sometimes he, um, shoots her with his guitar.
She's pretty much his puppet on stage, I'm not gonna lie.
This is the snakecharmer/snake routine they sometimes do, which sometimes ends up with the two of them even closer than that.
This is him getting her to lie on her back on the stage...
And again, but this time she actually kissed the neck of the guitar before lying down in front of him.
This is basically onstage pseudo-sex, there's no way around it.
Seriously. Hardly an exaggeration.
I have like a million pictures of them doing this, okay, it's like one of my favourite things ever. *hides* My favourite bit about these two is that Alison's still got her own guitar on, she didn't even bother to take it off nnnnngh.
His hand gripping her hip is clearly the best thing about this picture.
There are a few times where Jamie takes this little pause just after Alison lies down, and he like, wipes the sweat off his forehead and idk, it's like he needs a second to pull himself together.
I don't...I don't know much about guitars, so I can never quite tell what's actually going on MUSICALLY when they do this, but there's a lot of noise...
...and, um, bucking and thrusting...
...and, that's got to create a lot of, uh, vibrations, right?
I'M JUST SAYING. How many times has he actually given her an orgasm onstage in front of hundreds of people?
I know the whole thing is kind of an ~act, because they do it a lot and always during the same song (a cover of Captain Beefheart's 'Dropout Boogie), and as a finish to the show, and everything, but. I don't know. A lot of the time, they seem sort of overwhelmed afterwards, like they got totally wrapped up in each other and oh shit, now they have to get up and say goodbye to the audience and everything.
After this performance, it's like they legit can't bring themselves to face looking at anyone else. Alison's got her head buried in his shoulder, and Jamie's like agitatedly rubbing his face.
Jamie, especially, always looks like he can't get out of there fast enough afterwards.
*whistles innocently* My unhealthy fascination for seeing them manhandle each other is coming through, isn't it?
Anyway, in essence, it usually goes a little something like this.
This performance is up on Youtube, btw, and I strongly recommend you watch it despite its mysteriously crappy quality. At least watch the last couple of minutes. It's definitely one of their most intense performances of the song, and my favourite, 'cause I'm delusional and have a whole backstory for it. Link!
VIDEO DISSECTION TIME:
- At 3:55, Jamie suddenly drops to his knees, swings off his guitar and holds it between his legs and edges closer to her, looking like he's begging her to get on the floor.
- At 4:24, Alison suddenly sits up, which is unusual when they're doing this, and aaalmost looks like she's trying to get him to stop, but can't quite bring herself to. Jamie ignores her, possibly even amping it up.
- And then they do this odd pushing back and forth with their heads on each other's shoulders. Which seems almost like a fight to me, like she's trying to push him away and he's trying to stop her?
- Maybe those vibrations got a little too intense, is all I'm saying. Once again, I know it's an act and it's something they do a lot, but they're not actors, and there's something about this that comes across very real and panicked to me. It's their reactions afterwards, I think, that do it. They look like they're thinking ohfuckohfuckohfuck, we really just did that.
IDK WATCH IT AND JUDGE FOR YOURSELVES, I'M A NUTCASE. MOVING ON.
Okay, Jenny, you might say, but they only have the stage-sex in this one way, right? There can't possibly be MORE of this sort of thing? And oh, how wrong you'd be. Jamie's guitar is a metaphor for his penis, and he wants you to know this.
Which is why this, also, happens. That Alison Mosshart's pretty bendy, isn't she?
The best part is, the guitar's not even between them here. And also how she's gripping the hell out of his jeans there. Unf.
This is another thing that has apparently happened on more than one occasion.
In this performance, instead of grabbing Jamie's leg, Alison grabs the actual guitar, effectively...pulling it up against her crotch. Make of that what you will.
It's weird, when I first started watching videos of their live performances, I was totally floored and could not BELIEVE they weren't fucking irl. I mean, I pretty much refused to believe it. But now, I almost feel like it would actually be boring if they were. The fascinating thing about them, to me, is that they don't have sex with each other. But there's so clearly a sexual element to their relationship. It makes me think that they do these things on stage because that's the only time they can. It's the music, it's the performance, it's not real. They don't have to deal with the consequences. If things get out of hand, it's just because they got caught up in the moment. You know? So now I almost feel like it'd be weird to have them straight-up sexing in fic. It's more interesting to have it be sexual without actual sexual contact.
BUT ANYWAY. Getting back to the dom/sub stuff for a minute, there's the video I mentioned earlier, for 'Last Day of Magic'. The video is like 95% the two of them beating each other up. It's awesome. Idgi, violence never used to do anything for me, but seeing Jamie and Alison throwing each other around is so hot. Especially when it's, uh, on a bed. Which it is, a lot of the time, in this video. Watch it on Youtube here or just check out these gifs that totally already existed and I didn't just make:
They also fight in real life, although possibly not as violently as that:
But, they're also totally adorable and cuddly and tender and in love.
♥
...okay, this one still has a sexual undertone imo. Look at Alison's fingers curled at his neck!
Leaning on her shoulder!
Alison's smile is presh.
I just really love how peaceful she looks here.
Lol awwww.
I just...arm placement, Alison.
These three are some of my favourites.
Anyway. Adooorable. And seriously you guys HOW IS SHE SO PRETTY.
♥
TL;DR epic love quote from their DVD, Jamie answering the question 'What is one consistent contribution from the other half of The Kills that you rely on the most, and without this effort, could The Kills exist?'
Alison answering the same question as Jamie:
I love the moments where you're really aware she's ten years younger than him. I mean, I think she generally has more of a playful attitude than he does, but pictures like this bring that out and I think it's so sweet.
Also, just as an aside, their age difference totally isn't even worth mentioning now, but something I hardly ever think about is how weird it must've been when they first met. She was roughly 17, I think, so he would have been 27. That's a pretty huge thing, isn't it? I figure that at that time, Alison was totally infatuated with him, but not in a clear-cut 'crush' kind of way. And Jamie was so much older, so he wouldn't even have thought of her that way until it was, you know, too late, and they were best friends and had this crazy intense relationship, and that teenage infatuation of Alison's had changed. And so anything happening would be the biggest risk ever to their friendship. Which is why it all happens on stage. That's when they have the chance to work out that tension.
What's possibly even better than the biting picture posted earlier is these ridic adorable outtakes from that shoot. I love that the final picture came out so hot, but I also love how they clearly got the giggles actually posing for it.
I love this picture. I think it's something to do with Alison's casual stance and Jamie almost between her legs and the fact that you can't tell if they're sharing that cigarette, or he's putting it between her lips for her to smoke. Also notable: Jamie's face. It also leads neatly into:
The section that focuses on eyesex.
For videos of such eyesex, see pretty much any performance ever of 'Kissy Kissy', but particularly this one. And then this one of 'Last Day of Magic'. And then all the videos of that gig uploaded by that person, 'cause they're all HD and intense and awesome.
You can't even see their eyes in this one, but let's be honest, you barely need to.
Sometimes their eyesex is a little more playful, like this.
Um, usually on Alison's side, anyway.
This was during a performance of 'Goodnight, Bad Morning', the song they both claim is their favourite from Midnight Boom. These looks were exchanged while they were singing I love you so much, don't ever forget. Which I think speaks for itself.
I'm sorry if I seem to be skipping too abruptly between the adorably lovey-dovey to the insanely sex-charged, here. That's just kind of how they are.
Alison, particularly, actually. I think what I love so much about her is how she can manage to be so effortlessly badass and sexy without even trying half the time, but she's so adorable the rest of the time. See this video of a live (studio) performance of one of my favourite songs by them, 'Fried My Little Brains'. At the beginning, she's just so giddy and cute, jumping around and stuff. Also, 1:14! SO CUTE. But anyway.
'Almost kissing' aka 'No wait they're actually kissing there, right? GOD DAMMIT, THE MICROPHONE'S IN THE WAY, IS THIS AN OPTICAL ILLUSION OR WHAT?'
'Cause...for real.
Look, we all know sharing one microphone is just an excuse to get your mouth super-close to the other person's mouth, right? No more need for elaboration.
No but seriously you guys, threesomes rule.
Hey, if you're (for some crazy reason) not buying Jamie and Alison just the two of them, how about mixing it up with someone else? 'Cause there's...a surprising amount of potential for that sort of thing.
For instance, Kate Moss. She and Jamie have been dating for, idk, a long time, and are actually kind of cute together even though they seem to have differing views on just about everything.
The tabloids are always trying to say that Kate and Alison have this huge ~rivalry~ because they each want to be closest to Jamie, and though they're clearly friends, I can't imagine it's not an issue. I mean, it's obvious that Alison is Jamie's soulmate, and it must kinda suck knowing you'll never be that to him, you know? Maybe I just want some Alison/Kate hatesex, idk.
Anyway, the best part of Jamie dating Kate is that the three of them sometimes go out together and all hold hands for no apparent reason.
Jamie looks terrible, let's ignore that.
Alison has no boyfriend (has she ever? She's never mentioned one!), but is close to Noel Fielding, which is pretty awesome.
More of the handholding!
There's always potential for a threesome, is the lesson here, folks.
The most realistic candidate for that, though, would probably be Jack White, who's in a side-project band with Alison and a couple of other guys, called The Dead Weather.
On stage with Jack, Alison behaves pretty much the same way as she does with Jamie. Which at first I was bitter about, 'cause people seem to ship those two more than they do Alison/Jamie, but whatever, it's still hot.
Clearly I just have a thing for Alison getting manhandled by anyone. This was at the end of a Dead Weather show when Jack grabbed Alison in a headlock and literally dragged her off stage.
Once again I have a gif of the occasion, in super-speed for maximum amusement or something:
The best bit is how she tries to keep hold of her glass of wine, ahaha.
Anyway, to reiterate the threesome potential, Jamie likes to share mics with Jack too.
There are even pictures of the three of them all together! I didn't realise til right this moment how badly I want someone to write this threesome. Even if it's me.
If you made it this far, congratulations!
MORE PHOTOBOOTH PICTURES. Who is that guy in the bottom left? Whose arse is that? Is Alison groping Jamie's chest? SO MANY QUESTIONS.
Look, bb Kills! Look at Alison's dykey haircut. ♥
I left this out by mistake but it actually works pretty well as a finishing picture.
...Is anyone seriously still reading at this point? If you are, HI, I LOVE YOU. ♥♥♥
I feel like I put more thought into this than my History coursework. Sigh. I think that's all there is to say...believe it or not, I actually cut out some of the stuff here. Um, oh! I stole a whole bunch of these pictures off Flickr and stuff a while ago, if whoever took them happens to be reading this, let me know and I'll credit you. :D
This post pretty much explains why, with a stupid amount of pictures, quotes, videos, and gifs. It's a primer. It may not be one about a pair of pretty incestuous brothers, but in my honest opinion, Jamie and Alison are just as strange and fascinating.
So this is Alison (nicknamed VV), and Jamie (nicknamed Hotel). They make seriously awesome music, but if I talked about the music as well as the people behind it, this post would be twice as long. The focus here is them, and their bizarre, co-dependent, obsessive, sexually-charged yet apparently platonic relationship.
I don't like to beg, but I pretty much spent all day on this and oh god you guys, please read it? I wanna share this obsession with somebody. Take five hours ten minutes out of your day and check it out?
Brief background info.
They're ten years apart in age. Alison is from Florida, Jamie from London, and they met in the late '90s. In their own words from some articles:
- As Hince recalls, "I was doing my own studio project in my apartment, and Alison's band was staying in the apartment below. I met her in a bar down the street, and she was very, very shy. She came up and said hi and then went bright red. We didn't speak for a while, but I heard she was a singer in a band and thought it incredible that someone so shy and socially awkward could be a singer. "So I went to see her play, and I've never seen someone come alive so much on stage. It really seemed like that's where she was natural. It was almost as if where she wasn't performing was on stage, and off stage was where she was trying to fit into some sort of social etiquette. We started talking after, and she told me she was sitting on the steps outside my apartment listening to my music and was really fascinated by it."
- She goes giddy when talking about Hince. "I saw something in Jamie that I couldn't get over," she says. "I mean, he's ten years older than me and I really looked up to him. I just thought he was super-cool. I was blown away by him. I think (...) he thought I was a stalker. I used to do really weird things, like sit outside his window and listen to him play guitar. I was there, but I was too shy to say I was there. I wasn't trying to be creepy, but I was like, fascinated by him. Beyond."
- "We started writing to each other and would put pieces of artwork in the letters, and before long there would be a video of some movie we'd made and sent to each other," Hince recalls. "And before we knew it, we were making music and sending each other four-track copies of things and then the other person would add to it. It wasn't planned out-'How can we be in a band 4,000 miles away from each other?'-it just developed like that. I guess the last part was Alison saying 'Fuck this, I'm moving to England!'"
- "I don't have relationships like this with anyone else in my life," says Mosshart, who in 2000 left her Florida home at 19 to begin collaborating with Hince in North London. "It's like a brother/soul mate/best friend-everything volatile and wonderful. I don't know what it is, but it was a really immediate thing when I met him. It made me want to make stuff. Everything felt new and exciting."
This is one of Alison's tattoos. It's the date she and Jamie first performed on stage together, and, as if that weren't romantic enough already, that date was Valentine's Day. You couldn't make this shit up.
And this is another. I think I read somewhere that Jamie's got a matching one, but I cannot prove this, because believe it or not, he's not clearly showing his palms in any of my gazillion pictures.
They're super protective of each other and often pretty possessive and jealous, too, as shown by this quote which basically fascinates me to no end:
- If the Kills aren't going out with each other, do they at least get jealous when they see groupies flirting with their bandmate?
A pause so pregnant its waters break follows.
"Yes," says VV, sternly. "I don't want to talk about it, but the answer is yes. and that's it."
"You do?" blurts a visibly uncomfortable Hotel. "This is definitely an odd question..."
"You have to answer it though," implores VV.
"Yes," he replies under his breath. "I do sometimes..."
- (From some fan who was at the show) Alison starts saying, "Who is this guy?" And the dude gets up and spreads his arms to walk over toward Alison. She freaks and scurries away. The stage crew tries to grab the guy, but Jamie gets him first and throws him up against the speaker stack.
It all happened so fast, so I'm not 100-percent sure Jamie actually threw a punch or if he just pushed him. But I remember the guy getting knocked the fuck out and hurtled off the stage by Jamie-basically tossed over my shoulder. Dude was crumpled in a heap on the floor, and I thought he was dead for a brief second.
My D/S kink is quickly becoming the worst-kept secret ever.
Often, they seem to have a kind of dom/sub vibe going on, which is...kind of totally hot. Especially because they also seem to switch it up, like they're taking turns being in charge. They're just so dependent on each other that it works.
Mostly just cuddly, but Alison totally looks like she owns him here.
They seriously have a thing for grabbing each other by the throat. *nudges asphyxiation!kink friends*
Yeah. Even on stage.
To see more of this potentially creepy (yet somehow hot) hair-nuzzling, check out the video for 'The Good Ones' on Youtube here.
This is from their music video for 'Last Day of Magic', which I'll get to later, 'cause oh man.
Aaand sometimes Jamie is so clearly in charge.
And Alison loves it. THIS LOOK. THIS LOOK IN HER EYES, YOU GUYS.
Uh. Unf.
Sometimes he, um, shoots her with his guitar.
She's pretty much his puppet on stage, I'm not gonna lie.
This is the snakecharmer/snake routine they sometimes do, which sometimes ends up with the two of them even closer than that.
This is him getting her to lie on her back on the stage...
And again, but this time she actually kissed the neck of the guitar before lying down in front of him.
This is basically onstage pseudo-sex, there's no way around it.
Seriously. Hardly an exaggeration.
I have like a million pictures of them doing this, okay, it's like one of my favourite things ever. *hides* My favourite bit about these two is that Alison's still got her own guitar on, she didn't even bother to take it off nnnnngh.
His hand gripping her hip is clearly the best thing about this picture.
There are a few times where Jamie takes this little pause just after Alison lies down, and he like, wipes the sweat off his forehead and idk, it's like he needs a second to pull himself together.
I don't...I don't know much about guitars, so I can never quite tell what's actually going on MUSICALLY when they do this, but there's a lot of noise...
...and, um, bucking and thrusting...
...and, that's got to create a lot of, uh, vibrations, right?
I'M JUST SAYING. How many times has he actually given her an orgasm onstage in front of hundreds of people?
I know the whole thing is kind of an ~act, because they do it a lot and always during the same song (a cover of Captain Beefheart's 'Dropout Boogie), and as a finish to the show, and everything, but. I don't know. A lot of the time, they seem sort of overwhelmed afterwards, like they got totally wrapped up in each other and oh shit, now they have to get up and say goodbye to the audience and everything.
After this performance, it's like they legit can't bring themselves to face looking at anyone else. Alison's got her head buried in his shoulder, and Jamie's like agitatedly rubbing his face.
Jamie, especially, always looks like he can't get out of there fast enough afterwards.
*whistles innocently* My unhealthy fascination for seeing them manhandle each other is coming through, isn't it?
Anyway, in essence, it usually goes a little something like this.
This performance is up on Youtube, btw, and I strongly recommend you watch it despite its mysteriously crappy quality. At least watch the last couple of minutes. It's definitely one of their most intense performances of the song, and my favourite, 'cause I'm delusional and have a whole backstory for it. Link!
VIDEO DISSECTION TIME:
- At 3:55, Jamie suddenly drops to his knees, swings off his guitar and holds it between his legs and edges closer to her, looking like he's begging her to get on the floor.
- At 4:24, Alison suddenly sits up, which is unusual when they're doing this, and aaalmost looks like she's trying to get him to stop, but can't quite bring herself to. Jamie ignores her, possibly even amping it up.
- And then they do this odd pushing back and forth with their heads on each other's shoulders. Which seems almost like a fight to me, like she's trying to push him away and he's trying to stop her?
- Maybe those vibrations got a little too intense, is all I'm saying. Once again, I know it's an act and it's something they do a lot, but they're not actors, and there's something about this that comes across very real and panicked to me. It's their reactions afterwards, I think, that do it. They look like they're thinking ohfuckohfuckohfuck, we really just did that.
IDK WATCH IT AND JUDGE FOR YOURSELVES, I'M A NUTCASE. MOVING ON.
Okay, Jenny, you might say, but they only have the stage-sex in this one way, right? There can't possibly be MORE of this sort of thing? And oh, how wrong you'd be. Jamie's guitar is a metaphor for his penis, and he wants you to know this.
Which is why this, also, happens. That Alison Mosshart's pretty bendy, isn't she?
The best part is, the guitar's not even between them here. And also how she's gripping the hell out of his jeans there. Unf.
This is another thing that has apparently happened on more than one occasion.
In this performance, instead of grabbing Jamie's leg, Alison grabs the actual guitar, effectively...pulling it up against her crotch. Make of that what you will.
It's weird, when I first started watching videos of their live performances, I was totally floored and could not BELIEVE they weren't fucking irl. I mean, I pretty much refused to believe it. But now, I almost feel like it would actually be boring if they were. The fascinating thing about them, to me, is that they don't have sex with each other. But there's so clearly a sexual element to their relationship. It makes me think that they do these things on stage because that's the only time they can. It's the music, it's the performance, it's not real. They don't have to deal with the consequences. If things get out of hand, it's just because they got caught up in the moment. You know? So now I almost feel like it'd be weird to have them straight-up sexing in fic. It's more interesting to have it be sexual without actual sexual contact.
BUT ANYWAY. Getting back to the dom/sub stuff for a minute, there's the video I mentioned earlier, for 'Last Day of Magic'. The video is like 95% the two of them beating each other up. It's awesome. Idgi, violence never used to do anything for me, but seeing Jamie and Alison throwing each other around is so hot. Especially when it's, uh, on a bed. Which it is, a lot of the time, in this video. Watch it on Youtube here or just check out these gifs that totally already existed and I didn't just make:
They also fight in real life, although possibly not as violently as that:
- Jamie: We're very volatile...we row a lot, fight, and you know, she's kind of like my hand-I can't really get rid of her, it's part of me, but sometimes it doesn't quite do what I want it to do. But, you know, it's mine, and I love it."
- "We get along better than anyone," says Mosshart. "We'll bicker, then we get over it and we're happy. We are around each other 24 hours a day, every single day of the week, without any days off. So obviously you're going to have your moments when you're just tired and cranky. But that's what happens with best friends. It's healthy. If we got along all the time, it'd be fucking weird! It'd be all a bit Disneyland." Mosshart laughs her stoned-sounding cackle as if at a private joke. "I don't want that."
- "We DO argue about things like doing the dishes..." Mosshart admits, but Hince is quick to clarify, shouting from the kitchen: "Because I don't do the dishes very often, and she does them REALLY badly." He's laughing as he heads back into the room. "We have screaming matches with each other, but there's never any doubt that we're still going to be best friends on our deathbeds. We fill in each other's blanks."
But, they're also totally adorable and cuddly and tender and in love.
♥
...okay, this one still has a sexual undertone imo. Look at Alison's fingers curled at his neck!
- Another thing they agree on-not that there is a limit to such cohesion between them, (they even live together in London)-is how to describe their working relationship in a word. Hince looks at Mosshart and smiles, saying, "It depends. I could do it, yeah, but it wouldn't be accurate. Not one word, though."
She thinks for a beat, corrects her posture, leans forward, and sweetly adds, "I could do two words. The best."
Leaning on her shoulder!
Alison's smile is presh.
I just really love how peaceful she looks here.
- "He is a direct line to all my emotions," Mosshart says. "When he's down on something I've done, I take it really seriously. And when he thinks it's great, I believe it and don't care what anyone says. He's all the things I want out of myself that I'm not."
Lol awwww.
I just...arm placement, Alison.
These three are some of my favourites.
- "Jamie and I are like a ridiculous married old couple," Mosshart says. "Being together is like being alone in the sweetest way possible. You know how hard it is to have that with someone? We've been through so much together-so many fights, so many adventures. He's the person I tell everything to. Our lives depend on each other."
Anyway. Adooorable. And seriously you guys HOW IS SHE SO PRETTY.
♥
TL;DR epic love quote from their DVD, Jamie answering the question 'What is one consistent contribution from the other half of The Kills that you rely on the most, and without this effort, could The Kills exist?'
- "I don't know, there's a lot of things about VV that kind of blow my mind. I'd never met anyone that sort of...has that much faith in me. Yeah. It's weird, from the minute I met her, she just had this kind of incredible belief in me, which was just weird, you know? I just felt like I was just doing the stuff I'd always done, and to meet somebody like that...and, a year later, after doing The Kills this long, I guess that's the one thing that...is...is always...is always there. It's kind of always there to fuck it up, or it's always there to make it brilliant, but her...but this...there's this real kind of intense...I don't know, like a, it's like, an intense love...like a sort of friendship I guess. She just has this love for me that I can't maybe...understand, and I can't deal with it, sometimes. I think if it wasn't there, it wouldn't be the same, you know? I think that's where all the tension comes from, that's where all the highs and lows come from, that's where all the...all that sort of volatile aspect comes from that, and that's what makes us write music, and that's what makes us do The Kills like we do it. I guess without that it wouldn't be the same at all. Like, I've been through so much stuff with her. When I first met her she was so quiet, and so socially awkward, and I barely had a conversation with her for a long time, and then I saw her performing with her old band and it was just...the transition was just unbelievable. It was like she was performing when she wasn't on stage, and then when she was on stage, she was just doing her thing normally, and...yeah...I love her. I think she's...I can't kind of imagine life without us two just doing this. It's not like, a love story, it's just, you have to have belief in the other people in your band, and with this, this is kind of maybe out of control, I know some people think it's out of control, the way we sort of rely on each other and the way we're sort of inseparable and do everything together, and in a lot of ways I kind of cut off a lot of other aspects of my life because of it, but good or bad, healthy or not, that's the thing that makes it The Kills, I think. (Stares down at his cigarette for a long time, thinking, then looks at the camera and laughs.)"
Alison answering the same question as Jamie:
- "I don't think anything's consistent. I think we do rely on each other too...so much, too much. You do these things every day, 24 hours a day, and you become so close that just the thought-nothing even has to happen, it's just the thought-of something happening, just the thought that that person might disappear and go away or do something else, or...you know, you're always on guard, and I've found something that's so important to me, and that's doing this band...but, you know, to be honest, it's him. I rely on him for loads, probably loads of things I shouldn't, as well. And that makes a certain chemistry, but I don't know if that makes the music better or worse, or if it makes it take longer or it makes it happen quicker, or, I just don't understand totally what the outcome of it is yet, and I'm afraid to know almost, like I don't know if that's what's gonna destroy it, or that's what's going to keep it going. (Reads) And without this effort, could The Kills exist? Probably not, 'cause I think the whole Kills...it just like, relies on being a psychopath. We're either so happy, and just like, high on everything in happiness, or we're just below the ground in lowness, and there's never ever been anything different in this band, it started that way. And there's never just sort of like, a normal day. I'm definitely going to die really from this. (Coughs manically) I don't know what I'm complaining about. (Lights cigarette) It's totally worth it to me. I definitely think I'm happier than I've ever been...so."
I love the moments where you're really aware she's ten years younger than him. I mean, I think she generally has more of a playful attitude than he does, but pictures like this bring that out and I think it's so sweet.
Also, just as an aside, their age difference totally isn't even worth mentioning now, but something I hardly ever think about is how weird it must've been when they first met. She was roughly 17, I think, so he would have been 27. That's a pretty huge thing, isn't it? I figure that at that time, Alison was totally infatuated with him, but not in a clear-cut 'crush' kind of way. And Jamie was so much older, so he wouldn't even have thought of her that way until it was, you know, too late, and they were best friends and had this crazy intense relationship, and that teenage infatuation of Alison's had changed. And so anything happening would be the biggest risk ever to their friendship. Which is why it all happens on stage. That's when they have the chance to work out that tension.
- "I was a little tentative at first," [Jamie] confides. "I wasn't quite sure what she wanted. She came across as a little bit infatuated, and I wasn't sure if that infatuation was over art or over me."
- But, for the record, they are not and have never been lovers. "No, we haven't," says Hince. "When I first met her, I had a girlfriend. I've always had girlfriends. It's just never been...I dunno. It's never been a thing. I can't even tell you there was a time when at one point we nearly..." he tails off, as if to even say the words would be distasteful.
- [Alison] says she understands why people might speculate about the nature of their relationship. "People are obsessed with fucking," she says. "Every person in the entire world is obsessed with romance, whether they want to admit it or not. I'm exactly the same way. And when you have a female and a male on stage, and every song is a love song, there's no way around it." When they're performing together, she says, "I feel incredible love for Jamie, and I do in real life. He's the closest person to me I have. It's the most beautiful thing. And I want people to take from it whatever they want to. I want people to fantasise about it. There's nothing wrong with that. It's beautiful."
What's possibly even better than the biting picture posted earlier is these ridic adorable outtakes from that shoot. I love that the final picture came out so hot, but I also love how they clearly got the giggles actually posing for it.
I love this picture. I think it's something to do with Alison's casual stance and Jamie almost between her legs and the fact that you can't tell if they're sharing that cigarette, or he's putting it between her lips for her to smoke. Also notable: Jamie's face. It also leads neatly into:
The section that focuses on eyesex.
For videos of such eyesex, see pretty much any performance ever of 'Kissy Kissy', but particularly this one. And then this one of 'Last Day of Magic'. And then all the videos of that gig uploaded by that person, 'cause they're all HD and intense and awesome.
You can't even see their eyes in this one, but let's be honest, you barely need to.
Sometimes their eyesex is a little more playful, like this.
Um, usually on Alison's side, anyway.
This was during a performance of 'Goodnight, Bad Morning', the song they both claim is their favourite from Midnight Boom. These looks were exchanged while they were singing I love you so much, don't ever forget. Which I think speaks for itself.
I'm sorry if I seem to be skipping too abruptly between the adorably lovey-dovey to the insanely sex-charged, here. That's just kind of how they are.
Alison, particularly, actually. I think what I love so much about her is how she can manage to be so effortlessly badass and sexy without even trying half the time, but she's so adorable the rest of the time. See this video of a live (studio) performance of one of my favourite songs by them, 'Fried My Little Brains'. At the beginning, she's just so giddy and cute, jumping around and stuff. Also, 1:14! SO CUTE. But anyway.
'Almost kissing' aka 'No wait they're actually kissing there, right? GOD DAMMIT, THE MICROPHONE'S IN THE WAY, IS THIS AN OPTICAL ILLUSION OR WHAT?'
'Cause...for real.
Look, we all know sharing one microphone is just an excuse to get your mouth super-close to the other person's mouth, right? No more need for elaboration.
No but seriously you guys, threesomes rule.
Hey, if you're (for some crazy reason) not buying Jamie and Alison just the two of them, how about mixing it up with someone else? 'Cause there's...a surprising amount of potential for that sort of thing.
For instance, Kate Moss. She and Jamie have been dating for, idk, a long time, and are actually kind of cute together even though they seem to have differing views on just about everything.
The tabloids are always trying to say that Kate and Alison have this huge ~rivalry~ because they each want to be closest to Jamie, and though they're clearly friends, I can't imagine it's not an issue. I mean, it's obvious that Alison is Jamie's soulmate, and it must kinda suck knowing you'll never be that to him, you know? Maybe I just want some Alison/Kate hatesex, idk.
Anyway, the best part of Jamie dating Kate is that the three of them sometimes go out together and all hold hands for no apparent reason.
Jamie looks terrible, let's ignore that.
Alison has no boyfriend (has she ever? She's never mentioned one!), but is close to Noel Fielding, which is pretty awesome.
More of the handholding!
There's always potential for a threesome, is the lesson here, folks.
The most realistic candidate for that, though, would probably be Jack White, who's in a side-project band with Alison and a couple of other guys, called The Dead Weather.
On stage with Jack, Alison behaves pretty much the same way as she does with Jamie. Which at first I was bitter about, 'cause people seem to ship those two more than they do Alison/Jamie, but whatever, it's still hot.
Clearly I just have a thing for Alison getting manhandled by anyone. This was at the end of a Dead Weather show when Jack grabbed Alison in a headlock and literally dragged her off stage.
Once again I have a gif of the occasion, in super-speed for maximum amusement or something:
The best bit is how she tries to keep hold of her glass of wine, ahaha.
Anyway, to reiterate the threesome potential, Jamie likes to share mics with Jack too.
There are even pictures of the three of them all together! I didn't realise til right this moment how badly I want someone to write this threesome. Even if it's me.
If you made it this far, congratulations!
MORE PHOTOBOOTH PICTURES. Who is that guy in the bottom left? Whose arse is that? Is Alison groping Jamie's chest? SO MANY QUESTIONS.
Look, bb Kills! Look at Alison's dykey haircut. ♥
I left this out by mistake but it actually works pretty well as a finishing picture.
...Is anyone seriously still reading at this point? If you are, HI, I LOVE YOU. ♥♥♥
I feel like I put more thought into this than my History coursework. Sigh. I think that's all there is to say...believe it or not, I actually cut out some of the stuff here. Um, oh! I stole a whole bunch of these pictures off Flickr and stuff a while ago, if whoever took them happens to be reading this, let me know and I'll credit you. :D