Returning to the metal trenches after a short break, Kittie have returned to the states with a powerful fury. Sporting a new bassist by the name of Jennifer J. Arruyo and a headlining tour featuring Flaw, Skin Lab and My Ruin this promises to be one very busy spring for this Canadian export. Still out supporting their second release ORACLE, I got the chance to catch up with ,Morgan Mercedes and Jennifer for the following interview. Considering this was the first date of the tour, the girls seemed to be in very high spirits.

SW: For the last three months what have Kittie been up to?
MORGAN: "Well we took a couple of months off, we went to Europe and did a headline tour of the United States in January so that’s like pretty much it. The past month has just been practicing. We live in London Ontario, theirs really not much to do."

Did you get a killer response from Europe from the last time you visited?
MORGAN: "Oh yea, it was awesome it was totally wicked. It was all headlining stuff."

Fans in Europe are a lot more critical, do you feel going over well there is a lot more rewarding?
MORGAN: "Totally, it’s big. We played a lot of really large places that we didn’t expect to play. We’ve only been their a few times. We’ve played smaller places like bars in Amsterdam where their was like fifty people their and now this past tour we played like to a couple thousand. That’s insane."

What's your view on the overkill of metal bands out there now and what will it do to the metal scene?
MERCEDES: "I think it’s a big over kill and there is a lot of bands that shouldn’t be in the scene right now because a lot of them are bad. It’s just reality. When something stars to catch on of course every one is going to try to imitate the originator. With a lot of copy cat bands they just seem to get worst. It becomes more and more like a formula."

MORGAN: "When you have a band that starts something and people imitate it tends to become more and more diluted and less and less clear. Like Mercedes was saying it’s like jumping on the band wagon and copying something."

Do you think due to the large gap between releases this added to the drastic change in your music?
MORGAN: "I don’t know how drastic it was but when we were on the road we could obviously see the progression. With the first album being written and recorded in 1999 their has been some maturity."

Do you feel Oracle has gained you some respect as more than just a girl rock band riding on a gimmick?
MORGAN: "Totally, I think it was important, we only do what we love and we love heavy metal."

What would be your dream tour for Kittie?
MORGAN: "Well, right now I am kinda hoping that one day we will get to tour with DOWN. We are huge fans and their new album is just fucking awesome, it smokes. We were going to tour with PANTERA but that never happened so I was kinda bummed about that, it would have been one of my all time favorite tours. Theirs a lot of bands we would love to tour with but I think it would be fun to be an opener, we haven’t done that in awhile."

Being from Canada, do you have a lot of trouble at the borders?
MORGAN: "Yesterday we spent four hours at the border because of our merchandise. We didn’t say we had merchandise but we had all the paper work. The guy was just being a dick. They looked thru everything over and over, it’s the same shit over and over again. We gotta get to America because that’s where the shit is. We did meet some nice army guys that are coming to the Detroit show at Harpos so that was rad."

Is there any heavy canadian bands coming out that we should keep a eye out for?
MERCEDES: "Theirs a lot of heavy bands around the scene but I can’t really think of any. Sloan is a good band but their not heavy, well their first record was good."

Is their any truth to the rumor that you will be touring with Coal Chamber in the near future?
MORGAN: "I think it would be fucking hilarious considering they said a lot of shit about us. I would love to, I think it would be fun."

What is Kittie's plans for the summer?
MORGAN: "Yea, this tour will take us to mid may and then we fly over to Europe to be part of the OZZFEST as well as some other festivals like DYNAMO and all that shit. It’s going to be awesome."

Do you get any crazy pick up lines from your fans due to your crowds being mostly males?
MORGAN: "Yea their is some weird people. This dude not to long ago walked up to MERCEDES and was like, don’t you remember me. She told him no and he was like, I was in your dreams last night. That was totally brutal."

Do you like that your parents no longer go out on the road with you and stay home to do the band management?
MORGAN: "Either way man, we still have fun. When you get into this kind of business their is alot of sacrifices that you have to make and my parents totally understand. Their is certain times when you have to let go."

Are there any rumors in the press that you would like to set straight?
MORGAN: "Pretty much everything. Every thing that people say that is negative. When I was in Europe we did a bunch of Australian phone interviews a one guy was like, “I head you just recently got married”. I was like, no. If you want to make up your own stories to make my life more interesting go ahead."

JENNIFER: "You come to a point when you read it and kinda laugh. Were about just going up on stage and destroying."

MORGAN: "Rumors are for the people that feel threatened by what we are doing."

Were you afraid that with the heavier approach on Oracle some fans of your first release might not like your newer sogs?
MERCEDES: "We have to play music we like to play and please our selves before we please any one else."

MORGAN: "If we’re happy and we put that confidence into our music then people are going to gravitate towards that."

After spending a little while with Morgan and Mercedes, I have found a new respect for a band that I admit I thought would never amount to anything. Quite the contrary, Kittie stands tall in a mass of self inflated so called, next big thing bands infesting our air waves these days. No, you probably won’t hear heavy rotation singles from Oracle on your local mall rock radio stations but who really cares. In the end all that matters is Kittie is a pretty kick ass metal band.