Upon finding out that I was granted a media pass to Sick New World in Fort Worth, I immediately knew the one band that I HAD to interview was Kittie. They are such an important band in the history of nu metal. Their rise to fame in the midst of the explosion of the genre is no coincidence. Not only did they bring raw aggression to their sound, but their attitudes as well. As teenage girls in a male dominated space, you have to learn to not take shit from anyone. Having a woman in a nu metal band at the time was few and far between, let alone the whole band being comprised of high school aged girls. Kittie didn't let their age or gender hold them back. Now here we are, over two decades later, and these ladies are still kicking ass and taking names. I sat down with vocalist and guitarist Morgan Lander, guitarist Tara McLeod, and drummer Mercedes Lander, and asked them about the resurgence of nu metal, how they view Spit now that they've grown up, and what they love about playing festivals, such as Sick New World and Ozzfest. Check it out!
Alex: How did the idea for the Kittie avatar creator come about?
Morgan: You know what, it was such a vibe and it's so 90's. So, my experience, I never did the, what was it called, something dolls? For me, I remember in the 90's, Korn used to have a chat, a palace, right? Back in the 90's, when the internet was just growing, that was the place to meet people and hang out. It was a chat room but a visual one so you would create an avatar and that's what they looked like. What a 90's vibe. I know that there were many chat rooms that did that same kind of thing.
Mercedes: Yeah, Rachel used to do the dolls one.
Morgan: I can't remember exactly what it was, but that was my frame of reference. It was a cool thing, you could customize them. You know, I remember drawing little pixels to make the hair look like my hair or makeup, and you could screenshot and steal people's designs. It was so fun. So that was kind of the inspiration; we were drawing from the 90's and our beginnings, the stuff that we did and made it full circle because you know the late 90's is when things started up for us. It was cool!
Alex: What do you think about the resurgence and popularity of the late 90's and early 2000's aesthetic and nu metal? Because back then, nu metal used to be sort of a "dirty" term but now people are embracing it.
Mercedes: Honestly, it makes me wish that I had kept all of my clothes because I could be so rich with selling everything.
Alex: Yeah, I bet some of those shirts would be like $200 now.
Mercedes: Oh my god, you have no idea the shit I used to have. Like some of the pants I used to have.
Morgan: Yeah, like JNCO's!
Mercedes: I'm a little bit sad that I didn't keep any of that stuff because I could have a black market shop. Regardless, it's so neat to see how everything just comes back around and it reminds me of my youth. It's cool.
Morgan: Yeah it's weird because there's a cycle to it. I remember when we were kids growing up in the 90's, when you couldn't afford the JNCO pants, even back then, we were thrifting stuff from the 70's. It was another cycle. We were wearing big pants, but they were the big flare pants. Young people are always putting their own spin on that 20 to 30 year cycle right? It's really cool.
Tara: I love it, I think it's great that the kids like the things that we liked because not everything comes back into style. Like the 70's were huge, and the nu metal thing is huge, but not every phase that happens was like that. So it's really cool that that particular one did. The aesthetic is so interesting and we love seeing all of the girls with the white makeup again. They just look so beautiful, it's so fun.
Alex: When you wrote Spit, you were really young ,and so now that you're older, do you still resonate with it? Some of the material on there is still relevant because society hasn't gotten better for women in some aspects, unfortunately. Newer generations of women are finding your music and relating to it now, even 20+ years later.
Morgan: I think that there's something so pure and untethered about how I was conveying the things that I was feeling. I want to say I was almost naive, like "I'm just going to say exactly it is that I want to say". We were actually talking about this earlier. Tara was saying that there's no poetry to it, it's pure female rage and teen angst. While I don't know, well I'm far beyond my teenage years now, but there's no way that I think that we'll be able to recapture that. I think it's really beautiful that it was captured and that it's there to live in perpetuity.
Alex: Like a time capsule.
Morgan: Yes!
Mercedes: To inspire continuous generations, right? I think that's the thing, that's the timeless beauty of Spit. It continues to transcend all other fads and musical genres. I think it's a very angry record. I feel like even to this day, women but people in general as well, can identify with.
Alex: Where do you find inspiration for Kittie's sound now compared to back then?
Morgan: I feel like riff-wise, I've always been listening to the same stuff from way back in the day. With this new album in particular, I wanted to go back and revisit a lot of things that made me want to play guitar back then and marry these ideas. As we progress as musicians, like the genre, we're still metal, it just became less nu metal and more n-e-w metal.
Mercedes: N-e-w?
Morgan: Yeah!
Mercedes: That's a good way of putting it.
Morgan: It's not n-u, it's n-e-w! There are so many amazing bands out there now. I love supporting a lot of women in metal in the newer bands. I just love seeing what everybody is doing and being there to be the grandma in the background cheering them on!
Alex: Exactly, and Violent Vira played before you, Lords of Acid played after you and I loved seeing three bands with women play back to back.
Morgan: Yeah! When we were pulling in, Dying Wish was playing. There are so many great bands. Showing Teeth played earlier too.
Alex: Also, Evanescence is playing later.
Morgan: I know! Incredible, right? We met Violent Vira in the bathroom actually.
Alex: What a great place.
Morgan: Right? We were like "hey, I think I recognize you from the Internet!" It's really inspirational to see. Let's keep it going!
Mercedes: The women's bathroom is a wonderful place to meet people.
Alex: A lot of great conversations are had in the women's bathroom!
Mercedes: It's how we met the guy from The Darkness, he was in the women's bathroom. He said "*turns on British accent* I don't think I'm supposed to be here". No honey, you're exactly where you need to be.
Alex: What are some your favorite newer and up-and-coming bands? Doesn't have to be just bands with women in them.
Morgan: Right, but we do like to support the ladies.
Tara: I like Faetooth a lot! They fucking rule. Admittedly, I don't listen to a lot of new music because I am an old lady. I always go blank when this question comes up, it's like I've never heard music before in my life.
Morgan: I know, it's like everything in my mind goes blank! We've shared the stage with some really great bands, like obviously Jinjer and Spiritbox. I've always loved Alissa [White-Gluz] and what she's been doing with Blue Medusa, that's really cool. I love that she's just been taking over with an all girl band too. Holy Wars too, we love those cats.
Mercedes: All of the bands that we've played with in Europe were great, like Crypta and Vexed.
Morgan: We really liked them, they're awesome people and so good live.
Mercedes: Harpy as well! There's another one... Split Chain! We're always happy to support those new bands. One day, I'll be old or dead and they'll still be playing music probably.
Alex: Then they'll be the grandmas supporting the new up-and-coming bands.
Alex: What is your favorite thing about playing festivals such as Sick New World or any other festivals you've played?
Mercedes: The anxiety of playing a festival because nothing works until like five minutes before you go on stage. And even then, sometimes it still doesn't work. No but honestly, the crowds. Like looking out into the crowd and seeing people that I know, that I've seen at Kittie shows, and thinking "I know that person! I've seen this motherfucker at like ten shows!" It's so wonderful, I love it. Just to see the pure joy that I feel like we bring when people come to our shows. Everybody seems so happy, and I know I look very happy too. It's so much fun, I had so much fun today even though five minutes before nothing was working.
Alex: Yeah, especially with all of the bands being stacked so close together.
Mercedes: It's a very throw-and-go situation, but that's a festival, right?
Morgan: You just have to pretend like everything's fine and nobody will know. I think with festivals too, I always forget, especially if you've been doing this for as long as we have, how many people you know. The backstage area is always where you're running into people that you toured with 25 years ago and you're like "Hey! Remember me?" It's so crazy to me the people that you can meet up with and be able to catch up in person and be able to chat. It's always neat.
Tara: The size of the crowd is overwhelming in a very exciting way. Like I love an intimate venue, there's nothing like looking people in the eye and being able to actually physically touch each other, but the sea of people that are experiencing this with us at the same time is such a powerful feeling.
Alex: Would you guys be open to playing Ozzfest since its return was announced?
Mercedes: Absolutely! The minute there were rumors, I messaged our booking agent and said "Hey, just so you know, we're down," and he said "Copy that."
Morgan: Yeah, we would definitely be down. I think it would be really cool! We did Ozzfest 2000 and the European one in 2002. OF COURSE. If they put in the call, we would answer.
Alex: Especially because playing Ozzfest 2000 was so integral to your popularity exploding. Do you have any favorite memories or crazy stories you want to share?
Mercedes: That entire tour was a crazy story.
Alex: I bet! How old were you?
Mercedes: I was 16.
Morgan: I was 18. It was like two months long as well.
Mercedes: Yeah, it was like one day on and one day off, but it was a travelling festival, right? So thinking about we would play, and then have a day off, and then we'd play again. I would go nuts now, but we got in so much trouble because there was so much off-time. I remember one time we ended up having an off day at the same time as Tommy Lee, and we went bowling with him! Like, how wholesome? Or one time, we had a day off and we ended up going to see No Doubt in concert, but we rolled up in a bus and they just let us in. Like "Yeah, come on in!" and we were laughing so hard. Then No Doubt caught wind that a tour bus just literally rolled up to their show and apparently they were trying to figure out who we were. We were with somebody us, like it wasn't our bus. Actually, I think it was Tommy Lee's. But yeah, hilarious.
Alex: What were your interactions with Ozzy like?
Morgan: We did a photoshoot with Ozzy for Ozzfest. It was like the youngest band and then the old man.
Mercedes: He was not that old back then, he was only in his 50's! I just remember the photographer being like "Put your arms around them," and he said *cue Ozzy impersonation* "I'm not a fuckin' pedophile, I don't want them to feel like I'm a pedophile!"
Morgan: He was great. Well Pantera was on that tour, so there was a lot of shenanigans. A lot of fireworks, a lot of whiskey.
Mercedes: I remember Vinnie Paul had life-size cutouts of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears that he would carry around with him. They would set fireworks off around Christina.
Morgan: Yeah, they shot Britney a bunch of times.
Mercedes: I remember there was also a time, Pantera always had the bad things, like "good" bad. They had a pellet gun, it was a BB gun but it was automatic, like an uzi, but they were just shooting a mirror and I walk in the room and they're just shooting stuff with this BB gun. I'm like "What the fuck?" and then Darrell put his hands over my eyes, he's like "I don't want you to get shot in the eye." It was ridiculous.
Massive shout-out to Kittie's PR manager for allowing me to interview the band. Of course, thank you as well to these incredible women for their time and for being super cool and down to earth.
Be sure to show some love for Oracle XXV, released on Friday, November 13th.
