JULIA HAS A QUICKIE WITH MORGAN AND MERCEDES LANDER
Ok, so maybe it wasn’t so quick. But really, what could I possibly complain about? Kittie is one of the few bands that I’ve been listening to since I starting listening to metal, and they just keep getting better. I sat down with them before their show with God Forbid at Northern Lights on 3/5… after they got back from an impromptu trip to the local Walmart that is. Tremendous thanks to Morgan and Mercedes for sitting down with me, it was truly a dream come true. Oh, and the show was BEAST in case you were wondering. So what did the metal maidens have to say? Read on…
So, what did you get at Walmart?
Morgan: Well, Mercedes wanted to get different shoes…
Mercedes: My feet are too big for the shoes that I have and they were starting to hurt.
Morgan: And we also needed a part for our trailer, but they didn’t have it there… and I bought a Miley Cyrus because I secretly think some of those clothes are cool.
Well, kind of on the topic, you guys are very fashionable, and lately we’ve especially seen you glam it up in photo shoots and videos… How does glamour and fashion fit together with heavy metal?
Mercedes: I don’t know if it really does or not-
Morgan: But that’s what makes us so different and unique and fun, honestly!
Mercedes: I think there’s a lot of women in bands that go the other route and really kinda skank it up, where as we would much rather take the conservative route and look good and make it tasteful.
Morgan: Yeah, you know its a double-edged sword cause a lot of the time, as Mercedes was saying, women will go the extreme route, and it makes people… it takes away from the music and it makes people question the validity of what they’re doing. There’s nothing worse than seeing a female singer and she’s wearing a pleather mini skirt.
Mercedes: And her boobs are hanging out…
Morgan: …a fishnet shirt, you know what I mean? When I, personally, as a musician look at that I think, well, it just looks like they’re trying too hard. For us, we are who we are and we appreciate the fact that we kinda walk that fine line between masculinity and femininity and we’re able to have the best of both worlds. We can be a metal band and throw down and do a crazy live show and its very natural and a lot of aspects are very masculine, but we can still appreciate makeup and look nice. It’s not something out of the ordinary for us.
Read a shit ton more after the jump!
Is there any question you hate more than “What’s it like to be a female in a metal band?”
Morgan: NO! That’s the number one question. It’s ridiculous because what could we possibly compare it to?
Mercedes: Yeah, cause last week I had a penis and I was in a band.
It was totally different!
Mercedes: Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense. Like how am I supposed to know?
Morgan: I think it seems like journalists, a) they’re not really doing their research and they just have something to ask and b) they’re expecting this scenario of four women being in a band and… is it a panty party that they’re expecting?
Mercedes: It’s like they’re either expecting none of us to get along and just hate each other or hate other bands, OR they just think that we’re banging everyone. Or banging each other. None of the above is happening.
When was the last time you watched Spit in your Eye?
Morgan: (Laughs) Actually, you know I’m not gonna lie. I haven’t actually put the VHS or the DVD in to my player probably for a good ten years since it came out, but every once in a while, especially after a tour I usually go on YouTube and search live stuff and every once in a while a clip of it will pop up and I’ll watch it for nostalgic purposes…
Mercedes: I just try to focus on watching you and I
Morgan: Yeah, but it was a really exciting time
Mercedes: And we were really excited people.
Morgan: Yeah, we were having a lot of fun, obviously! But, it’s weird because I think a lot of people expect that to be who we are now. And while we do have that much fun, it’s a more adult kind of fun. We can do it with a beer in our hands now.
Mercedes: We’re still silly and ridiculous and we make a lot of jokes, but it’s just different now.
Do you keep in touch with any of your former members?
Morgan: Some of them. Yeah, just a few of em.
Mercedes: Just the important ones.
Morgan: I talk to Trish [Doan, bassist on Funeral for Yesterday], she actually just moved away to Australia, so I can’t really talk to her that much anymore but I can talk to her online. Tanya [Candler, Spit] our first bass player, is one of my best friends.
Mercedes: She lives down the street from Morgan and I.
Morgan: I write to Jen [Arroyo, bassist on Until The End] every once and a while. Christmas, birthdays…
Mercedes: That’s pretty much it. You know, just the nice ones.
Any favorite tattoos, or any tattoo regret?
Mercedes: Nope. I don’t have any tattoo regret. Cause when you get tattooed, and I get a lot of my tattoos on the road; it’s like a snapshot of that particular moment in time. I can look at pretty much every tattoo that I have and remember what I was doing, where I was…
Morgan: What tour it was…
Mercedes: Yeah, so I definitely don’t regret anything. But at the same time, when you get tattooed when you’re sixteen, you’re gonna have some weird shit. Stuff that you’re like “Well, I probably wouldn’t do that now” but it’s like crack. Once you start you can’t stop. I like all my tattoos.
Morgan: What’s your favorite one?
Mercedes: I don’t think I have a favorite one. They’re like all my children.
Morgan: I think my favorite one of yours in the Jason one. And I really like the Hello Kitty zombie one too.
Having five albums under your belt and over a decade long career while still in your 20’s is an amazing feat, but do you ever think about what you would be doing if you didn’t have the band?
Morgan: Yes, all the time.
Mercedes: I’d probably be living out of a dumpster somewhere.
Morgan: Usually, when we think about it, it’s not always a positive thing…
Mercedes: I have no idea. Literally. How could I? I have no…
Yeah, it’s all of your adult life!
Mercedes: My whole teenage life as well.
Morgan: It’s hard to imagine doing anything else. I could maybe think of a few things that I might want to do, but honestly when all of my friends were choosing their universities and colleges… nothing at that point had really happened with the band yet, but I knew anyways that something good was gonna happen so I decided not to.
Mercedes: I was still in 10th grade so…
Mercedes, what is the story with the bear on your drum kit?
Mercedes: It’s actually a bunny. I think it’s a bunny anyway.
Morgan: Is it? I thought it was a dog.
Mercedes: I don’t know. It’s either a bunny or a dog. My first drum kit was this putrid orange red Maxwin kit and it was covered in stickers because the color was so ugly and I had weird shit on it, and one of those weird things was that stuffed animal and it just moved from drum kit to drum kit.
Morgan: And it has to be there.
Mercedes: Yeah, and I had somebody in Europe be like, “Where’s the bunny rabbit?” And I had to explain that it wasn’t my drum kit. But I’ve never done a North American tour without it.
Morgan: How it is strapped on there anyways?
Mercedes: A piece of ribbon.
Morgan, do blondes have more fun?
Morgan: Yeah, I think so! I enjoy my hair!
Mercedes: But be honest with you though, red heads have more fun…
Morgan: Technically, I’m a red head too. So underneath all this… I’m not as red as Mercedes, but I would be considered a red head. I have the best of both worlds.
So, what do you think is the future of heavy metal?
Morgan: That’s really tough, because yeah, you have to look at the underground to see what is going on in order to see what the next big thing is. But right now, I think we’re kinda stuck in a really bizarre rut where the hardcore and metalcore sound is what’s hot right now.
Mercedes: And that kind of music never really appealed to me.
Morgan: I don’t know what’s next though.
Pagan metal’s big right now…
Morgan: Viking metal…
Mercedes: Who knows? I mean, I just hope we’re involved and that it just keeps getting better.
And then, when you think of all-female heavy metal bands, you guys are the first to come to mind, hands down. Do you think there’s any reason why there aren’t very many other all-female metal bands?
Morgan: Honestly, I’ve been asked this question a lot and I wish I had a better answer, but I think… it’s a lot more complex that what we make it out to be and not just that women don’t want to be involved. Why there’s a lot of intimidation…
Mercedes: I think women are more competitive with each other than they are with anything else.
Morgan: It’s easier for one woman to be in a band with guys than have all women together.
Mercedes: So they can be the center of attention. I like my role in the back.
Morgan: It is difficult to find the right chemistry of women and I think a lot of all female bands dissolve because of that.
Mercedes; There’s always somebody trying to push their way to the front. We’ve had that A LOT obviously with previous people.
Morgan: Yeah. I don’t know, it’s really strange. I think that more women need to pick up instruments. I think it’s important that it’s something that is taken more seriously in music. Not just being a front person.
Mercedes: People need to learn to not be so competitive and learn to work together instead of competing with each other. I realize that being competitive is in our nature… thousands of years ago we were competing for a mate. But times have changed; I think it’s time to be competitive in the musical sense as a band. Not to say that I don’t enjoy being the only band at this level like this, that kinda awesome! But at the same time…
Morgan: It would become a more accepted thing if just more women could play.
Mercedes: And play well.
Morgan: Don’t rely on the age old “Well, if I take my clothes off then people will pay attention to me.”
-Julia
