Music Is Your Superpower

Alison Mosshart on skate park mixtapes, music's secret world, and falling in love with Captain Beefheart.

In this edition of “WHAT’S IN YOUR TAPE DECK,” I talked to Alison Mosshart. The Vero Beach, Florida, native was touring the world with her punk band Discount by fourteen. She moved to London in her teens and met British guitarist Jamie Hince; legend has it she heard him play guitar in the flat above her and fell in love with his sound. They formed The Kills in 2002, who gave the world cathartic sing-along songs like “Fuck the People.” (Sample lyrics: “You want a warning/ You got a warning/ Bet you something I can get your mouth shut.”) Since 2009, she’s been a member of supergroup The Dead Weather, with Jack White, Jack Lawrence, and Dean Fertita.

ERIC SPITZNAGEL: Where did you first discover music that moved you?

ALISON MOSSHART: When I was really young, I’d hang out at this skateboard ramp next door to where I lived; the high school boys would play mixtapes all the time, so I went through a lot of years of my life being obsessed with these mixtapes and copying them.

ES: Did you have any idea what was on these mixtapes?

AM: There was no information.

ES: No track listing at all?

AM: Nothing. I had no idea what any of the songs or bands were called, and it’s why I listened to it [over and over]. I think I’ve figured out most of it now, but I still have these revelations all the time—where a song will be playing and I’ll be like, “I remember that song from when I was young,” and it’ll be some obscure punk band that I was listening to for years and never realized who they were.

ES: That’s kind of beautiful. 

AM: Yeah?

ES: You were discovering music when it was this mysterious, ethereal thing that you couldn’t just Google and know exactly what it was that you were hearing. All you had to go on was what you heard in the skate park, and it became a memory you couldn’t quite place.

AM: It never mattered to me. I just loved the music. My only problem is when I’m trying to find something I want to hear again, I’m like, “What the hell was that called?”