Kittie, cornered

London, Ontario's decibel-delivering debutantes cough up a few furballs

By GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

A growling monster face peers out from a pair of green buttocks. Beneath it, the words "I look in the mirror, the whore is all I see" are scrawled in red letters. Sound like a turn-off? C'mon, don't be so shallow as to judge a CD by its booklet art--you'd be doing exactly what Kittie expect you to do: judging them by their appearance.

They may look like a fluffy, post-Spice, gothed-up teenage girl band, but these London, Ontario musicians beg you to forget that they happen to be both teenage and female--a combination which often leads to not being taken too seri-ously--and concentrate on the music, man. Part of the latest wave of nouveau metal, Kittie adds special effects and sweet, melodic vocals to their intermittent Beelzebubbian snarls over grinding guitars which lead into lengthy, more downtempo, quasi-hip hop breakdowns. The Mirror chatted with Fallon (guitar and vocals) about merengue-metal fusion, Britney Spears and boy groupies, while her bandmates Morgan (guitar and vocals), Mercedes (drums) and Talena (bass and vocals) hovered in the background.

Mirror: You guys seem pretty angry. What's the meaning behind such suggestive titles as "Spit," "Suck," "Do You Think I'm a Whore?" and "Get Off (You Can Eat a Dick)"?

Fallon: Well, we're just writing about things that happen every day and could happen to anyone. They're not girl issues, they're not guy issues. Take the song "Spit," for example. It's about how some people try to puff themselves up by putting you down. We've actually met quite a lot of those people that put us down and don't give us a chance. They'll just go, "Oh, it's a song about sex." And it's like, no, if you read about it, you'd see that it's about people who've got big heads and want to make you feel smaller. And it if a guy band did a song called "Spit" they wouldn't get crap for it.

M: What makes Kittie angry enough to write a song?

F: People who use you, misconceptions... how people perceive us. Like when people read our song titles and automatically assume it's about sex. "Do You Think I'm a Whore" is about how people just look on the surface and don't dig any deeper. They'll just judge a book by its cover. They'll look at us and have these preconceived ideas.

The softer side

M: Okay, so a lot of stuff makes Kittie angry. But what about the kinder, gentler side of Kittie? What does Kittie love?

F: We love sleep. We're gonna write a song dedicated to sleep. Sleep's a luxury now.

M: What else?

F: Cats. We love cats. Seriously, if you hear us talk on tour, we're like, "Aw, I can't wait to see my cat." We don't care about our families, we're just like, "I wanna see my cat!"

M: What do you do when you're not rockin' out?

F: We're all computer geeks. I'm a computer gamer and everyone else is an Internet girl. Cyber girls.

M: What does Kittie look for on the Internet?

F: The other girls go to every Kittie Web site and sign the guestbook and keep in contact with the fans. I don't have the Internet.

M: So Kittie loves cats and the Internet?

F: Hmm, I don't know. I'll ask the other girls. (To the others) Yo! If there was a list of things that we love and hate, what would it be? Okay, love: I said cats.

Another Kittie (shouting): We love cats and ice cream...

F: Ice cream and Michael Jackson.

M: Michael Jackson?

F: Michael Jackson, put that down.

M: Okay, so ice cream...

F: Not me though, I don't eat ice cream. And I hate meat. I'm the veggie in the band.

Unidentified Kittie (yelling): We hate Pokemon!

F: Hey--I like Pokemon!

UK: Hate it!

F: That's our conflict right there. We hate pop culture and mainstream.

M: Okay.

F: Fritos!

M: Fritos?

F: Oh no, don't put that down. That's just what I'm buying right now. Morgan says she hates stupid questions and loves intelligent people. She also loves eccentricism.

M: You mean eccentricity?

F: Yeah, ex... yeah. And she hates the cold. And she hates seven-string guitars, the ones with huge-ass necks.

Britney fears

M: What would you be doing if you weren't in Kittie?

F: I'd probably be in the army.

M: What about the other girls?

F: Morgan was thinking of going into forensic science, which is doing, like, police stuff. Mercedes says she'd be a wrestler. Talena said she'd be in another band.

M: Aren't you guys still in school?

F: Um, no. We tried to do the school thing on the road. We were gonna try and do correspondence where they send it to us...

M: What grades are you guys in?

F: Um, well... we're done school basically.

M: How old are you?

F: We're like, late teens... we tend not to focus on it, 'cause with the whole Britney Spears thing, we always get grouped in with her if we come out and say how old we are. It just gets really irritating.

M: That's a drag. So that's a constant issue for you, getting compared to Britney?

F: CONSTANT. And that's not an exaggeration either. We don't even talk about her and the press always manages to take her out of the sky and bring her into the conversation. And we're like, "Aurgh! No, no, no..."

M: So I heard that some of your parents are your managers. Are they touring with you?

F: Yeah, under Ontario law, they have to be with us. They're with us now.

M: Do you get along?

F: Oh yeah. They're a very supportive bunch. We get along very, very well.

M: Who are your fans?

F: 50/50 guys and girls. We can't say that boys or girls like us more. And the age range is so broad too. We had a five year old at our show once, the cutest little girl! And they can be as old as 60. Seriously. I'm not lying. This guy was like (puts on old man's voice), "Man, I've been a fan of every band that's come out and it's so cool to see girls in the music business." And I was like, "Whoa, man, how old are you?!" And he was like, "I'm 59 years old, goin' on 60." It was the coolest thing.

M: Wow. Are you into girl power or feminism?

F: We don't really have a take on it. We're not feminists. We're for people. The power... of people.

Pedal to the metal

M: Why do you think metal made a comeback in the last couple of years?

F: Metal is ALWAYS there. It just goes through stages. It has high points and low points, you know, it's got its drops and its peaks and right now it's at a peak. A lot of new bands are coming out and a lot of them really rock hard.

M: A lot of the new metal is fusion-oriented, incorporating hip hop, techno and a lot of electronic music styles.

F: Yeah, there's even merengue metal now.

M: Merengue metal? Get outta town!

F: Yeah! I've heard it. I swear to God! There's this band called Puya from Puerto Rico and they're so cool. They have trumpets, a big horn section. They're amazing.

M: What's the first metal you were into that made you want to play?

F: AC/DC, Kiss... yeah, those are the older bands we're into. Actually, personally, I grew up on R&B and hip hop and I only got into metal recently, within the last six or seven years.

M: What about fashion? How much do you guys put into your look?

F: We're not really dressing up for anybody. We just dress the way we dress. This is the way we dress all the time. We're not really into fashion.

M: So no upcoming fashion spreads in Teen People?

F: We don't do the fashion magazine thing yet. I don't think we ever will. Music is the focus.

M: What does the future have in store for Kittie?

F: We're gonna be at Ozzfest this summer and Pantera's gonna be there too!

M: Are you excited?

F: About playing with Pantera? Yes, man, they're GODS!

M: What about boys--do you guys have boyfriends?

F: No, none of us do. It's too tough when you're on the road. It's a non-issue really.

M: What about boy groupies, got any of those?

F: We don't have any. Actually, we were discussing this yesterday. The band that we're touring with now, Slipknot, they have all these groupies sitting all over them backstage and we're like, "Where are ours?" We were just joking around. Like, these girls would come backstage and be like "Who are you?" and we're like, "Uh, we're with the band." And they just walk away. We were just trying to make conversation and be nice.

M: So you don't want your own groupies?

F: No, we were just kidding. They can stay home. :