Taking the term 'long distance relationship' to the extreme, Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince, aka The Kills, originally began making music together from opposite ends of the globe. Mosshart had recently split from her punk band Discount and was living in the US while Hince had disbanded from his two bands, Scarfo and Blyth Power, and was located in England. The pair began exchanging demo tapes in the mail but eventually Mosshart moved to London. After reinventing themselves as 'VV' (Mosshart) and 'Hotel' (Hince), The Kills were born. The duo's raw, blues-punk sound and two-piece male-female line-up led to comparisons to The White Stripes, though ultimately The Kills' aesthetic was much darker and grittier. Their debut album, Keep on Your Mean Side, was released in 2003 by Rough Trade. The band's second album, 2005's No Wow, achieved more mainstream success than Keep on your Mean Side, though both were met with critical acclaim. In 2008 The Kills made a departure from their garage-punk sound, experimenting with electronic pop on Midnight Boom. Mosshart has lent her vocals to the likes of Placebo and Primal Scream, and in 2009 announced she was forming a side project called The Dead Weather with Jack White of The White Stripes and members of Queens of the Stone Age, The Greenhornes and The Raconteurs.