RAGINPIT MAGAZINE

I was 22 when Kittie came out with Spit. I thought it was rad an all girl metal band came out with as big a bang as they did and they were teenagers to boot. I think a lot of people forget that fact. Ten years ago Kittie literally were a bunch of kids carrying big enough middle fingers that the whole world saw it. Amidst their ten year evolution Kittie has gone through a series of line up changes, professional ups and downs, and personal loss. I think that's quite a bit for anyone to endure really. And as teenagers coming in to adulthood who doesn't go through the ups and downs of reinventing themselves in order to seek and define their true identity? Regardless of whether or not Kittie met everyone's approval over the years these girls have overcome a great many obstacles and have emerged as the musicians and women they are today. Returning with their strongest line up to date Kittie has released In the Black and are getting ready to embark on a European tour in January.

I was able to meet up with Kittie at the Clubhouse in Tempe, AZ to find out the latest happenings in the Kittie camp and also touch on past experiences. This was my first major interview and I have to tell you I was absolutely nerve wracked. I was anxious from the time I met the tour manager until the end of the interview. I didn't even know I had talked to one of the guys from Straight Line Stitch on the bus until I saw him up on stage. I even left my phone on the bus after the interview was over. Seriously. Thankfully the tour manager found me and handed my phone back to me, but yeah, can we say duh?

So I sat on the bus not really sure who I was going to be interviewing, went through my notes and enter Mercedes. We did wait for a little bit to see if Morgan would be joining the interview, but decided to get started without her. Morgan came in when we were just about done with the interview and Tara was eating dinner. Yes, rock stars have to eat too. Thanks to Mercedes and Kittie for their time and for bringing a badass lineup to Arizona. The show after the interview rocked!

I'm here on the bus with Mercedes from Kittie. I wanted to jump right into the album that just came out. For me In the Black is an album that grips more and more every time I listen to it and it's really cool because it's like I'm hearing Kittie all over again for the first time. There are some points where it's sultry and even bluesy. How much experimentation did you do on this album and what inspired you to do so?

Mercedes: I really don't think that we consciously decided to experiment with anything; I think it's just the natural progression of the band. We did set out to, kind of; consciously make an album that was the antithesis of the last album. So that's probably the only thing we really thought about. Other than that it flowed really easily and came out really easily. I think the bluesy stuff, that's definitely Tara because she's a blues guitar player.

As far as the lyrics go, it seems there is a lot of pain an anguish coming from them and are very personal. Can you elaborate on that?

Mercedes: Yeah, I mean there's no point in writing about stuff you haven't experienced, our lyrics, what we write about are everyday occurrences that happen in our lives. It's going to be personal if you're writing about that kind of stuff. It's definitely a way to vent for sure and at the end of the day you kind of leave it open for interpretation so the other people that are listening to the album can interpret it in their own way.

In the Black was released in September after you were signed with E1 Music and European distribution is set to begin at the end of this month [October]. It seems there is heavy focus on distribution on the label's part. Are you maintaining control musically through your label X of Infamy?

Mercedes: Oh no. Actually X of Infamy doesn't exist anymore. We found that we were doing a lot of our previous labels' jobs for them so that's why we started X of Infamy, but we decided that it was too expensive to do on our own so that's why we signed with E1.

With more and more bands looking to become independently successful, what advice would you offer? I mean is it really all about getting signed to a label anymore or is it more about using booking agents and distribution contracts?

Mercedes: The one problem that everybody is going to run into if you're just dealing with distribution and stuff like that is money because it cost a lot of money to hire a promotion company, to hire a publicist, to hire all these people to do those jobs, you know what I mean, because it's really hard to do it on your own, especially once your band starts becoming a little more lucrative. So I would say that getting a licensing deal and getting an advance would be the best way to do it. Getting signed obviously helps because you have somebody paying for in house people that work for the label who do that stuff for you, but being completely independent is hard because you don't make a whole lot of money. And the money that you do make, you're spending it on publicists and promotion companies and stuff like that.

I just watched Global Metal the other night which is Sam Dunn's follow up to A Headbanger's Journey and the DVD itself got me thinking about your European and South American tours. It was showing that Brazil is virtually a metal dominated country. What was that like witnessing it firsthand?

Mercedes: South America in general - everybody is crazy into metal there. The good thing about that whole area is that they don't get a lot of bands from North America coming to play there so when a band like us goes down there, everyone gets really excited. I just think they appreciate it a lot more because they don't get this often. It's insane like how crazy those people are and how into the music they actually are. And it's like they don't even speak the same language as you, but they know every word.

This is with regard to the DVD that you released in honor of your dad.

Mercedes: Oh, we haven't released it, we're not going to. That was something we recorded for ourselves. It was a memorial show for my father. So we got some people to come out and record it just for us. We're not going to be releasing it.

That's good to know. My question with regard to that, because it touched me that you did something like that. My father passed away when I was 15; it's always good to show appreciation to those who mean a lot in your life - so I wanted to know how important you feel it is for parents to get involved with their kids, even if it is metal and they don't necessarily approve of it.

Mercedes: Parents should be involved with everything that their children do and I don't think that parents should put any boundaries on their children and tell them that they shouldn't or can't or it's not acceptable to do something within music or whatever they want to do, acting or whatever. I just think that parents should be supportive even if it's against what they might think. I mean, we play in a metal band, my parents accepted it. They drove us to shows when we didn't have our driver's licenses yet. They were great parents, they did a wonderful job and they might not listen to that kind of music, they might have not gone out and picked up a Metallica CD, but they approved of it and they supported us either way. I think every parent should go out and support their child's choices whether good or bad or whatever.

The part that makes this particular interview special is that our first article for the magazine was actually a show review catching the last show of the Metal Movement Tour in San Francisco. I felt after reading the article the show was extremely inspirational for women. Is there anyway we may expect a part two of some type of tour like that?

Mercedes: I don't know. It was an interesting tour for sure. I don't think the same bands would come out with us again, but I think it would be a lot of fun for sure. I mean we always end up taking out female fronted bands anyway.

Well if you could put together the part two, who would you bring out to the tour?

Mercedes: I don't know. You know, I would like to have a bigger band than us. Like have us open for another band. That would be cool, like maybe Lacuna Coil or somebody like that. Who knows.

They played in Arizona last night too.

Mercedes: Oh, did they? At this venue?

No, at the Marquee, actually.

Mercedes: They're like a day behind us because they were in L.A. a couple of days ago, like the day after we were in L.A. or something like that.

Okay, well my last question is kind of girl advice. Being that you guys are in an all girl band in a heavily testosterone dominated metal world, even with the surge of female fronted metal bands. What survival skills would you give to inspire other all girl metal bands?

Mercedes: Practice, make sure that you play your instrument well, and at the end of the day - it's all about the music. Don't let anything else get in the way.

Awesome, is there anything else you would like to say?

Mercedes: Pick up our new album, In the Black, out now.