Formation and early years (1996–2004) Kittie was formed in September 1996 when guitarist
Fallon Bowman and drummer Mercedes Lander met in a gymnastics class. Four or five months after the band's formation, Mercedes' sister Morgan joined as their vocalist and guitarist. Tanya Candler completed the line-up by joining as the bassist in November 1997. The band performed at Call the Office and the Embassy and signed up for Canadian Music Week in 1999. however, shortly after, NG Records was purchased by Artemis Records, and production was halted. Around the same time, Candler left the band and was replaced on bass by
Talena Atfield. Artemis subsequently reissued
Spit, with different artwork and photographs, on January 11, 2000.
Spit has sold at least 600,000 copies in the United States and at least 40,000 copies in Canada. They supported the album by touring with
Slipknot. Their debut album and supporting tour earned Kittie coverage in
Metal Edge, whose readers voted Morgan Lander for "Female Performer of the Year" and
Spit in Your Eye for "Home Video of the Year" in the magazine's 2000 Readers' Choice Awards. The band was also voted "New Band of the Year", "Who's Going to be the Next Big Thing", and "Most Underrated Band", earning them a total of five
Metal Edge Readers' Choice Awards that year. The success of
Spit led
Billboard to call Kittie "the most successful female band in modern metal" in December 2001. Kittie began jamming on new material in February 2001, and finished writing their second album,
Oracle, by June. Sounding more aggressive than
Spit, the album features elements of
death metal and
thrash metal. Morgan Lander noted how the band members were only 14 years old when writing their debut album and said "We haven't written in 4 or 5 years." She acknowledged a change in influence from their early days, stating, "Then we listened to bands like
Nirvana,
Silverchair, and
Alice in Chains. Now we listen to stuff like
Cannibal Corpse and
Nile." However, the band would continue to write in the same fashion by first composing the music and then using that "as the backdrop behind the vocals." Weeks before the album was due to be recorded, Bowman left Kittie due to creative differences with Morgan and her own struggles dealing with the band's pressures for success. As a result of her departure, Morgan recorded all of the album's guitar tracks herself. Released in November 2001, the album went on to ship almost 220,000 copies in the United States by 2004. On March 18, 2002, Talena Atfield left the band and was replaced on bass by Jennifer Arroyo two days later. In April 2003, Kittie and Garth Richardson sued Artemis over unpaid royalties of $900,000 and eleven breaches of contract by the label; the dispute was settled out of court in March 2004. In 2004, the group added guitarist
Lisa Marx, and Jeff Phillips went to work full-time on his side project,
Thine Eyes Bleed.
Departure from Artemis and Funeral for Yesterday (2005–2007) On March 23, 2005, Morgan Lander reported that both Lisa Marx and Jennifer Arroyo had left the band. Jennifer Arroyo's split was amicable while Lisa Marx's came as a surprise. Morgan cited financial difficulties, which they attributed to Artemis Records' poor promotion of their releases, as the reasons for both members' departures. Lander also revealed that Artemis and the band were in negotiations over whether the band's contract would be renewed, expressing her desire to leave the label. Arroyo confirmed that the split was amicable, and also cited her desire to work outside of Kittie full-time was an additional factor. She would go on to join
Billy Graziadei of
Biohazard in the band
Suicide City. On March 31, 2005, Kittie parted ways with Artemis Records due to "a proposed amendment to the recording budget for the pending fourth Kittie album." In 2005, Kittie added two new members: Tara McLeod on guitar and
Trish Doan on bass. In 2005, Morgan and Mercedes Lander's clothing line, Poisoned Black clothing, started. Morgan and Mercedes also appeared briefly in the documentaries ''
Metal: A Headbanger's Journey and Heavy Metal - Louder than Life
. On February 7, 2006, Kittie released their Never Again EP through Rock Ridge Music. Also in 2006, vocalist Morgan Lander provided vocals on the song "It Turns to Rust", from the album In the Arms of Devastation'', by the Canadian
death metal band
Kataklysm. Kittie created their own record label, Kiss of Infamy Records, and used it to release their fourth studio album. The label name was later changed to "X of Infamy" after a cease-and-desist letter from attorneys representing Kiss Catalog Ltd. (the owner of the intellectual property rights pertaining to the musical group
Kiss) alleging that the Kiss of Infamy trademark was "confusingly similar" to their client's trademark. Kittie's fourth studio album
Funeral for Yesterday was released on February 20, 2007, through their record label. In February 2007, Kittie toured as part of the
Funeral for Yesterday Tour alongside
Walls of Jericho,
36 Crazyfists,
Dead To Fall, and
In This Moment. Doan left Kittie following the tour due to her struggles with
anorexia athletica-
nervosa, which she developed during the recording of
Funeral for Yesterday. From July 6 to September 16, 2007, Kittie embarked on another headlining tour of the United States, the Sweet Revenge Tour, with
It Dies Today,
Silent Civilian,
Bring Me the Horizon and
Blessed by a Broken Heart. Jeff Phillips filled in on bass for the duration of tour. On June 26, 2009, it was announced that Kittie signed to the
E1 Music record label. Videos were shot for two singles, "Cut Throat" and "Sorrow I Know". "Cut Throat" premiered on MTV 2's
Headbangers Ball on September 5, 2009, and on the Canadian show
Much Loud on September 20, 2009. "Cut Throat" also appeared on the
Saw VI Soundtrack released on October 20, 2009, and also in
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, released on March 25, 2011. On September 16, 2009, an announcement was made that German label
Massacre Records would distribute
In the Black in Europe. In January 2010, Kittie returned to Europe to promote
In the Black. Supporting bands on the tour included
It Dies Today and
Malefice. This tour included dates in the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. In a January 27, 2010 interview, Morgan Lander revealed that the band was in talks to film a video for the track "Die My Darling". In March 2010, Kittie embarked on another North American tour with
God Forbid,
Periphery and
Gwen Stacy as support. From May through June 2010, Kittie took part in the
Happy Daze tour headlined by
Insane Clown Posse and featuring
Coolio,
Kottonmouth Kings and
Necro. Kittie participated in the 2010
Thrash and Burn tour through July and August which also featured
Asking Alexandria,
Born of Osiris,
Evergreen Terrace,
Stick to Your Guns,
Chelsea Grin,
Through the Eyes of the Dead,
Impending Doom,
Periphery and
Greeley Estates. This was followed by a one-month stint as one of the two opening acts on
Devildriver's 2010 North American tour. Kittie's sixth studio album, titled ''
I've Failed You'', was released on August 30, 2011. Two videos were released for the songs "We Are the Lamb" and "Empires (Part 2)". In 2011, Mercedes Lander joined the all-female band the Alcohollys featuring former Kittie bassist Tanya Candler.
Documentary, death of Trish Doan, hiatus (2012–2020) On February 13, 2012, Kittie announced that Ivy Vujic was resigning from the band and that Trish Doan would be returning. On September 7, 2013, Kittie performed at the Spread the Metal Festival at
The Opera House in
Toronto. The band would enter a period of inactivity following the performance, citing rising costs associated with touring and writing new music. Morgan later noted declining turnouts at the band's shows as a factor, with her and Mercedes both feeling that Kittie had "overstayed [their] welcome" by the time ''I've Failed You'' was released. Their goal of $20,000 was reached in eight hours. The campaign closed on April 28, 2014, with a total amount of $40,525 raised, 203% of the initial goal. Kittie slated Rob McCallum to direct the documentary and Mark Eglinton to help pen the biography. In April 2015, it was announced that Kittie would tour the United States in June 2015, as part of
Ill Niño's the Civil Unrest Tour. However, a month before it could begin, the band dropped out of the tour "due to unforeseen issues with immigration in the USA". In October 2015, Kittie released a cover of
David Bowie's "
Space Oddity", featured on the
Cleopatra Records tribute album
A Salute To The Thin White Duke - The Songs Of David Bowie. Morgan, Mercedes and McLeod recorded the cover in a single day in December 2014 at Beach Road Studios with producer Siegfried Meier. In October 2016, it was announced that drummer/vocalist Mercedes Lander had started a new sludge/doom metal band called the White Swan that released the single "Illuminate". The debut EP,
Anubis, was released on November 1, 2016. On February 11, 2017, bassist Trish Doan died at the age of 31. Doan had moved to Australia in 2013 and had frequently used her social media accounts to speak of her frustrations with depression. On August 30, 2017, the band announced that they would performing a three-set single concert on October 27, 2017, in their hometown of London, Ontario in the London Music Hall, featuring three different line-up variations made up of both current and former members. The concert marked the launch of their 20-year anniversary documentary, and featured the return of Candler, Bowman, Phillips, Arroyo and Vujic to perform songs from their respective eras. The concert was released on DVD format on March 26, 2019. On March 30, 2018, the documentary
Kittie: Origins/Evolutions, which was filmed prior to the reunion concert, was released on Blu-ray and DVD for the very first time. Like they did with the reunion concert, Atfield and Marx declined to participate; according to Morgan Lander, Atfield was supportive of the documentary, appearing in the initial crowdfunding pitch video, but "didn't think it was the right move for her" to appear. Packaged with the movie was a CD featuring a collection of live performances by the band. In 2019, Morgan Lander expressed uncertainty about the future of the band, the primary reason being that she didn't feel right moving the band forward without Trish Doan. Several months later, it was announced that Lander had joined the melodic death metal band, Karkaos, as their new lead singer. In October 2020, Mercedes Lander stated that it was unlikely that Kittie would reunite to perform again without a significant financial offer and the ability to include all of the band's former members. Like her sister, she also stated that she found it difficult to go forward with the band without Doan.
Return to performing, Fire (2021–present) In late 2021, coinciding with a resurgence in nu metal's popularity, Kittie was contacted by bookers to play several shows, prompting the band to officially end their hiatus in January 2022, with Jenkins rejoining the band on bass. In October 2022, Kittie performed on all three days of the
When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. On May 13, 2023, Kittie performed their first new song in 12 years, "Vultures", at the Sick New World Festival in
Las Vegas. On November 19, 2023, the band confirmed that they were recording a new album with producer
Nick Rasculinecz at Sienna Studios in
Nashville,
Tennessee. On February 13, 2024, Kittie premiered the song "Eyes Wide Open" on
Sirius XM's
Liquid Metal channel. The following day, the band released the song as a single with a music video and announced that they had signed to Sumerian Records. Upon release,
Consequence,
Exclaim!,
Metal Hammer and
Revolver listed the song as one of the best of the week. After the release of "Vultures", the band announced that their seventh album,
Fire, would be released on June 21, 2024. followed by a tour of Europe in August. ==Musical style and influences==