Biography
Renowned among the premier rock singers of the new millennium, Alison Mosshart earned her stature through performances with the Kills and the Dead Weather, alongside partnerships involving Arctic Monkeys and Gang of Four, and through independent endeavors. Equal parts snarl and sigh defined her delivery, which propelled the Kills from the raw blues-punk of their 2003 debut Keep on Your Mean Side to the sleek, futuristic rock of 2008's Midnight Boom, while her intensity aligned with the full force of her bandmates across Dead Weather releases such as 2015's Dodge & Burn. She pursued additional outlets that ranged from fashion design and painting to volumes of photography, poetry, and short stories, culminating in the 2020 spoken-word album Sound Wheel.
Raised in Vero Beach, Florida, as the daughter of an art-teacher mother and a used-car-salesman father, Mosshart developed an early passion for punk rock along with the musical Annie. At age 13 the straight-A student launched the poppy punk band Discount, which issued singles throughout the mid-'90s and tracked its first album, 1996's Ataxia's Alright Tonight, while its members were still in high school. The group maintained a steady touring schedule across Europe and the United States and delivered two further albums, 1997's Half-Fiction and 2000's Crash Diagnostic, before disbanding in August of that year.
During Discount's travels Mosshart encountered guitarist Jamie Hince in London after catching his set in the room above her lodging. She and Hince began a long-distance musical exchange that became a permanent partnership once she had accumulated funds to relocate to England. As the Kills they honed a raw, blues-inflected indie-rock sound and received early praise for the scrappy 2003 debut Keep on Your Mean Side. By the arrival of the austere 2005 follow-up No Wow her fervent yet exposed vocal approach attracted outside interest, leading to appearances that same year on Primal Scream's Riot City Blues and Placebo's Meds. On 2008's Midnight Boom the duo incorporated samples and synths to fuse garage rock with electro pop into a forward-looking hybrid.
Late in 2008 Mosshart united with the White Stripes' Jack White, the Raconteurs' Jack Lawrence, and Queens of the Stone Age's Dean Fertita to create the Dead Weather. The quartet's brooding blend of garage, blues, punk, and rock & roll, first heard on the 2009 debut Horehound, allowed her to reveal a more commanding and theatrical vocal register that carried over to the 2010 sophomore set Sea of Cowards.
While maintaining commitments to both the Dead Weather and the Kills—who issued their fourth album Blood Pressures in 2011—Mosshart explored new terrain. She contributed covers of "What a Wonderful World" and "The Passenger" to the soundtrack of the series Sons of Anarchy. In 2012 the Kills marked their tenth anniversary with Dream & Drive, a Kenneth Capello photography book devoted to the band, while Shark Infested Soda Fountain, a volume of images Mosshart captured on tour with the Dead Weather, also appeared. Further collaborations with Cage the Elephant, James Williamson, and Gang of Four accompanied a capsule collection for the French label Surface to Air, for which she designed her ideal leather jacket, plus exhibitions of her paintings and photographs in New York and Berlin.
Mosshart rejoined the Dead Weather for 2015's Dodge & Burn and the Kills for the following year's Ash & Ice. She and Hince sustained the pace with the 2017 acoustic EP Echo Home - Non Electric and 2018 covers of Saul Williams' "List of Demands" and Peter Tosh's "Stepping Razor." Additional vocal work appeared on the Foo Fighters' 2017 album Concrete and Gold and Mini Mansions' 2019 release Guy Walks Into a Bar…. That same year she produced a capsule collection for the New York label R13 and issued Car Ma, a book of visual art and writing drawn from her enduring fascination with automobiles.
In 2020 Mosshart issued her first solo material. "Rise," recorded with Lawrence Rothman and Hince for the Facebook Watch series Sacred Lies, surfaced in April and was followed by the Alain Johannes-produced single "It Ain't Water." Sound Wheel, a spoken-word collection of poems and stories drawn from Car Ma, arrived that August together with a Third Man Records reprint of the book.
Raised in Vero Beach, Florida, as the daughter of an art-teacher mother and a used-car-salesman father, Mosshart developed an early passion for punk rock along with the musical Annie. At age 13 the straight-A student launched the poppy punk band Discount, which issued singles throughout the mid-'90s and tracked its first album, 1996's Ataxia's Alright Tonight, while its members were still in high school. The group maintained a steady touring schedule across Europe and the United States and delivered two further albums, 1997's Half-Fiction and 2000's Crash Diagnostic, before disbanding in August of that year.
During Discount's travels Mosshart encountered guitarist Jamie Hince in London after catching his set in the room above her lodging. She and Hince began a long-distance musical exchange that became a permanent partnership once she had accumulated funds to relocate to England. As the Kills they honed a raw, blues-inflected indie-rock sound and received early praise for the scrappy 2003 debut Keep on Your Mean Side. By the arrival of the austere 2005 follow-up No Wow her fervent yet exposed vocal approach attracted outside interest, leading to appearances that same year on Primal Scream's Riot City Blues and Placebo's Meds. On 2008's Midnight Boom the duo incorporated samples and synths to fuse garage rock with electro pop into a forward-looking hybrid.
Late in 2008 Mosshart united with the White Stripes' Jack White, the Raconteurs' Jack Lawrence, and Queens of the Stone Age's Dean Fertita to create the Dead Weather. The quartet's brooding blend of garage, blues, punk, and rock & roll, first heard on the 2009 debut Horehound, allowed her to reveal a more commanding and theatrical vocal register that carried over to the 2010 sophomore set Sea of Cowards.
While maintaining commitments to both the Dead Weather and the Kills—who issued their fourth album Blood Pressures in 2011—Mosshart explored new terrain. She contributed covers of "What a Wonderful World" and "The Passenger" to the soundtrack of the series Sons of Anarchy. In 2012 the Kills marked their tenth anniversary with Dream & Drive, a Kenneth Capello photography book devoted to the band, while Shark Infested Soda Fountain, a volume of images Mosshart captured on tour with the Dead Weather, also appeared. Further collaborations with Cage the Elephant, James Williamson, and Gang of Four accompanied a capsule collection for the French label Surface to Air, for which she designed her ideal leather jacket, plus exhibitions of her paintings and photographs in New York and Berlin.
Mosshart rejoined the Dead Weather for 2015's Dodge & Burn and the Kills for the following year's Ash & Ice. She and Hince sustained the pace with the 2017 acoustic EP Echo Home - Non Electric and 2018 covers of Saul Williams' "List of Demands" and Peter Tosh's "Stepping Razor." Additional vocal work appeared on the Foo Fighters' 2017 album Concrete and Gold and Mini Mansions' 2019 release Guy Walks Into a Bar…. That same year she produced a capsule collection for the New York label R13 and issued Car Ma, a book of visual art and writing drawn from her enduring fascination with automobiles.
In 2020 Mosshart issued her first solo material. "Rise," recorded with Lawrence Rothman and Hince for the Facebook Watch series Sacred Lies, surfaced in April and was followed by the Alain Johannes-produced single "It Ain't Water." Sound Wheel, a spoken-word collection of poems and stories drawn from Car Ma, arrived that August together with a Third Man Records reprint of the book.
Singles
