KITTIE Frontwoman: 'It's Really Nice To Be Playing In Front Of People Again'

Metal Fanzine conducted an interview with KITTIE frontwoman Morgan Lander after the band's set at Peabody's in Cleveland, Ohio on March 22, 2007. A couple of excerpts follow:

Metal Fanzine: "Funeral for Yesterday" just came out a few weeks ago...How's it doing so far?

Morgan: Great, great... The tour's been great...Uh, the single is going to radio, and we're in the Top 40 now, so that's a big, big step for us, especially being a newly formed independent label, and a newly independent band... Uh, and so far the result has been clear, the album is selling really well, and the kids are coming out to see our shows, and singing along, so I can't complain, ya know, we've been given a second chance, and it's really nice to be playing in front of people again.

Metal Fanzine: I do know that there has been a lot of trouble with the band in the past, and it's been a hard long road...How did you make it through it?

Morgan: Um, It was really difficult. Ya know, sometimes out of that despair, and hopelessness comes inspiration, and these past few years have been really difficult for Mercedes [Lander, drums] and I. We didn't have a label, we didn't have a finished lineup for the band, and we were really contemplating breaking the band up, but, ya know, overall, we decided this is all we knew, and out of it came some great music, I mean, we put our energy into it instead of feeling pity for ourselves, we put our energy in to trying to redefine who we are, and fall back in love with the music, and this album is the result...

Metal Fanzine: What do you think of the online community? Like MySpace? And what is it doing for KITTIE?

Morgan: I think a lot [of] it's really good, I think it's very helpful for a lot of bands, especially smaller bands, like us. It's nice to keep in contact with our fans, ya know, we're not too big for them and that sort of thing. We like to do this sort of thing, like hanging outside and talk to the fans, and online, it's the same way, ya know, we like to be part of the message boards and part of the online community. We run our own MySpace, so we are in touch with the fans...It's us giving the information from the band to the fans, so it's really nice, and I like that kinda stuff.

Metal Fanzine: How do you do it with the vocals, singing really nice then switching to the huge metal death scream? How's it done? And how do you do it day after day?

Morgan: Honestly, I really don't know. It's something that comes naturally, I've had to work on the singing part of things, the screaming comes naturally for me, and my voice has gotten stronger over the years, and it's like I've been pretty much on tour for the last eight years, so it's either gonna get better, or worse, but lucky for me it got better, and I didn't have to do anything to improve on it, other then trying to learn how to sing better...and that comes with time.

Read the entire interview at this location.