Kittie vocalist/guitarist Morgan Lander had an in-depth interview with London Groove Machine. In addition to speaking of the groups coming 20th anniversary documentary & book, the chat touched upon the financial strains of the band touring today, their past and their future.
On the current status of the band:
“The status of Kittie is kind of complicated. The last full tour that we did was summer of 2012. However, we did do one show last year in Toronto. Right now we’re sort of … I don’t want to say we’re on hiatus, because we technically are still talking about things, working on things, thinking about potential shows, ideas for the future.
I guess, to put it plainly, it came to a point where doing the band full-time became too much financially, especially touring in the States. There just isn’t enough demand or money for us to support ourselves fully with the band. We haven’t broken up or anything like that. It’s just we decided that focusing on other career choices were equally as important at this time.”
When asked how she is supporting herself:
“I work at the head office at (a chain of fitness clubs). I’m in marketing, which is cool. (It’s) a place where you can move up in the world, and I certainly have marketing and PR experience, so that’s where I have my eyes focused. I’m not, like, telling people to do push-ups and stuff in the clubs [laughs]. It’s fine by me. I feel like I can apply a lot of the experience that I’ve had in dealing with people and booking shows and doing our own managing for the last few years. We all have jobs or whatever, and to me it’s not that big of a deal.
I feel bad for my sister, because she went and got her real estate license and metal websites were like writing articles about her like, ‘Oh, this is so funny.’ It’s not funny. Everyone has a fucking job. Just because you have to go and find other sources (of income), does that make you a failure? Absolutely not.”
“…We made a conscious decision. We understand that nothing is going to last forever, and while we do obviously have a wildly loyal fan base – the Indiegogo campaign is a reflection of that – the way that things are, we’re not making enough money. Even if we toured nine months out of the year, it’s not enough to pay our bills. Even having to do things like pay for accountants and lawyers and that sort of thing. It just started to become overwhelming, and it’s like it’s time to try to make some money other ways, so that maybe we can continue with the band and put that money we’ve made into it.”
On future plans:
“As it stands right now, the main focus is getting all the things together for the book and the DVD. It’s gonna be a long process because there are a lot of people involved. Mark has to go and interview everyone, and that’s like ten people. He has to have enough time with them for them to be able to tell their story as well, so we’ll be focusing on that. With the release of the DVD and the book we’re hoping to do a box set. We’ve talked a little bit with the label about trying to re-release as a box set all of our back catalogue, so that might be in the works.
And then to coincide with that release obviously there’s gonna have to be some sort of promotional thing that goes along with it, whether that ends up being a band tour or a book signing tour or that sort of thing. There will be things that come along with that, but it’s too far out to tell right now. We’re gonna keep working on that, and if the right show or festival comes along we may look into that, but as it stands right now we want to focus on trying to get the stuff done and make those the best that they can possibly be.”
