Alison Mosshart, the vocalist of The Kills and The Dead Weather, appeared in a now-legendary Nashville episode of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, which first aired in 2016. The two remained friends—bonding over life on the road—and celebrated his 60th birthday together with booze and tattoos. Below, the musician remembers the late legend and their time together.
I’d wanted to meet Tony for many years. I’d always admired him, his words, his defiant spirit, his work. Often his oeuvre got me through bouts of road mania—flight delays, bad dives, long bus rides, hangovers, jerks, busted backstage dressing rooms, weirdness— rescuing me from my internal dialogue. His work made me excited about where I was headed next, inspired me to give old places new chances, and ultimately, when needed the most, injected truth and new life into the Ride.
He seemed to validate my experience somehow. Artist, searcher, traveler, everywhere all the time, bringing people together, stirring and enticing the human condition, boiling the water as fast as you can despite the pan—to learn, to know, to teach, inspire. Then boom, you’re on a plane to somewhere else hoping to divine it all again. Tomorrow. No matter what state you’re in.
Applause fades, flip to commercial.
We talked about these things when we met for the first time. In Nashville. In a parking lot. You think you sparked something back there. Question mark. Hope so. That’s why we’re doing this. Deep breath. But it’s crazy. Exclamation point. Yes, but it’s fun. Thumbs up, party hat, middle finger. And there’s alcohol!
We talked about this yo-yo existence. Its Herculean-like properties—of beauty and bizarreness and lawlessness. Then we went for a ride in a fast car.
I understood the look on his face, after he’d wrapped his body around the globe, returning just long enough to flip a suitcase over and fill it up again. The kind of man he was, the strength he had, the depths he’d gone to and would always go to. He was obsessively curious, had an Autobahn brain. For missing things and questions hanging in the air, he searched with a kind of energy and charge most people do not posses.
He was nothing if not a poet, a romantic, a fucking astronaut of a man. I only knew Tony a little over two years, but I knew this much to be true.
"Nashville," the episode of Parts Unknown we made together, was a whirlwind job and the beginning of a real friendship. We kept in touch and wrote to one another often. Both of us moving around the earth—I on tour, he somewhere filming or giving talks. We gassed about the homeless utopia/dystopia we knew, loved, and loathed, the highs and the blues, and all the extremely hilarious, smack-yr-leg-’til-it-bleeds shit we’d run into out on the road. We talked music and bands, writers and painters, seafood and shitty failures. We discussed Guts. The nocturnal soul. We wondered where home was. I wondered more.
He was in London filming when his 60th birthday rolled around. I happened to be there working and so promised him a 60th birthday that didn’t suck. We had drinks the night before, and I told him to be at my house the next day at noon. That evening I made some calls, and the next morning got up early and went to the fish market.
I bought caviar, two kinds, blinis, smoked salmon, booze, and sour cream. I went to my favorite stationary shop and found for him a blank black leather book, and had them stamp “Road Dog” in gold on the front cover. Finally, I got out some ink and drew some Ralph Steadman-esque drawings, many of them. He loved Steadman. I’d promised him I’d take him to get a tattoo for his birthday. I wanted to give him options.
He arrived the next afternoon delighted and giddy. We ate our breakfast and laughed and drank. He loved his book, and he studied the stack of crazy drawings. Once he had chosen and the caviar was sunk, we went to a tattoo parlor in East London. An hour later, he had a wild face with three eyes on his right shoulder, and I, a little tattoo that he’d drawn. A heart with a chef’s knife going through the center like an arrow.
His welting shoulder looked like Ralph had jabbed him, and mine looked like R. Crumb had dropped by. It was a really nice and genuinely perfect afternoon.
If you or someone you know is struggling or just needs to talk, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.
