Best known as one-half of acclaimed duo The Kills, when she’s not moonlighting as Baby Ruthless, the gnarly lead singer of blues-punk foursome The Dead Weather, Mosshart is a forever moving force. Over the years she’s collaborated with everyone from her Dead Weather bandmate Jack White to the Arctic Monkeys, Primal Scream, Gang Of Four, Cage The Elephant, Foo Fighters, James Williamson and Mini Mansions.
Releasing the first solo single of her already impressive career. “Rise” is a...
Best known as one-half of acclaimed duo The Kills, when she’s not moonlighting as Baby Ruthless, the gnarly lead singer of blues-punk foursome The Dead Weather, Mosshart is a forever moving force. Over the years she’s collaborated with everyone from her Dead Weather bandmate Jack White to the Arctic Monkeys, Primal Scream, Gang Of Four, Cage The Elephant, Foo Fighters, James Williamson and Mini Mansions.
Releasing the first solo single of her already impressive career. “Rise” is a searing, slow-burner recorded for, and prominently featured in, today’s final episode of FacebookWatch drama Sacred Lies. The track was recorded in Los Angeles with producer Lawrence Rothman, and is available on Domino Records.
Mosshart hunkered down at her Nashville home and has used this period of social isolation to teach herself video editing, pulling together some of her favorite footage from a recent visit to Los Angeles and editing it into a video for the song. Watch her self-produced video for “Rise” below.
Sacred Lies: The Singing Bones is produced by Blumhouse Television and Raelle Tucker (True Blood, The Returned, Jessica Jones), starring Juliette Lewis, Ryan Kwanten, Jordan Alexander, and Kristin Bauer van Straten. “Rise”, a throughline in the story, is performed by Jordan Alexander (“Elsie”) in the first episode.
For Mosshart, releasing music under her name is a new experience but an entirely thrilling one. It makes sense: she’s been compiling a bank of unreleased music for more than a decade now. Back in 2013, Mosshart first wrote the initial sketch of “Rise,” which finds the singer intoning, “When the sky is falling/ and the sun is black/when the sky is coming down on ya/baby don’t look back/we will rise.” Recalls Mosshart: “I didn’t ever forget it. I remember right where I was when I wrote it, sitting at my desk in London, missing someone badly.”
For a multi-disciplinary artist like Mosshart—whose paintings have been shown in galleries across the world, and who recently published her first book, CAR MA, a collection of her art, photography and writing that doubles as a love letter to automobiles—working on a variety of projects, now including her own music, is exactly how she likes it. Currently, she is working with Jamie Hince on the next Kills record and dreams of the day in the hopefully not so distant future, (pandemic-willing) when they’ll be back on the road with exciting new music to share.
Written late last year, “It Ain’t Water” was recorded with Alain Johannes (Queens of the Stone Age, PJ Harvey). Mosshart had been sitting on the track for quite some time, and every time the singer found herself battling a bout of writer’s block, she’d pick up her guitar and sing it.
Alison on working with Alain Johannes: “Working with Alain on ‘It Ain’t Water’ was a blast. He’s such a talent and such a kind person. His mind is wide open. He understands and sees the beauty in imperfection, magic moments, accidents- the soulful human stuff, and the spirited super-human hard to explain stuff that makes a song great. Working with him was an honor, and also, hot damn he can play any instrument like a champ… like he invented the instrument himself. Alain Johannes IS music.”
Praise for Alison Mosshart and “Rise”:
“It’s hard to believe that Alison Mosshart, of the Kills and the Dead Weather, hasn’t made a solo single until now. “Rise” stays close to the bluesy foreboding of her other bands. A thumping drum and a bare-bones guitar shuffle surge into visions of dire times and a promise to outlast them.” – The New York Times
“a bluesy slow-burner packed with the singer’s signature yowl” – Entertainment Weekly
“The guitar-driven track slow burns, growing into a blast at the chorus. Despite the dark tone, there’s an uplifting feel to the lyrics…sounds just like the type of words many of us need to hear right now.” – SPIN
“The song is right up the sleazy punk-blues alley that Alison has long excelled at” – Brooklyn Vegan
“”Rise” exhibits the fierce energy and soul of anything she’s been a part of thus far, filling the track’s four-minute runtime with powerful vocals.” – FLOOD Magazine