Side Stage Magazine interviewed Mercedes Lander, drummer and co-founding member of heavy metal band, KITTIE on January 12, 2018. Since their formation in 1996 the Canadian band has made a name for themselves as pioneers who that paved the way for many women in the music industry today. On March 30, 2018 the band will be celebrating their 20th Anniversary with a documentary DVD/BLU RAY and CD release bundle. Lander will give an inside view of what fans can expect with the documentary, fun memories and so much more. Any true KITTIE fan does not want to miss out on this interview!
Side Stage Magazine: Congratulations on the upcoming 20 year Anniversary of the band. That’s huge! You just announced that you will be putting out an anniversary package for the fans in March. What made you decide to do this?
Mercedes Lander: Ummm, Well 20 years is kind of a big deal, not a lot of bands get to that point. I never expected us to ever get to that point. It’s kinda cool that we did. We just kinda wanted to give something back to the fans for supporting us for so many years, throughout the years.
They’ve always been a very integral part of the band. I like to think we are a pretty fan oriented band. So yeah, we really wanted to give them something, something for them. We give them a little bit of us. A look inside the way the band actually ran and stuff like that.
So what can the fans expect? Are there any special features like any new music included? In general, what can the fans expect to come along in the bundle?
Basically, it’s a BLU RAY also a DVD, they’ll be packaged together. We also have some choice cuts, live cuts. We are putting a live album out along with that, as well which is kind of exciting because we’ve never really done a live album, full album. We’ve only done EP’s with a couple live songs on them. We’ve got some other stuff coming down the pipe which is kinda going to be cool. But we are being tight lipped about that right now. We’re going to see what goes on with that. Our Indigo backers get some special stuff as well.
Over your career obviously it’s been 20 years, I know this is a broad question but what would you consider to be some of your fondest memories you have cherished the most?
Oh God (laughs), that can take forever.
I know (laughs back)
To be honest with you all the best memories always happened when we were on the road. I would say we were a road band for sure. We definitely toured a lot. We truly enjoyed playing live. So yeah, we’ve done so many great tours. Pretty much every time we went to Europe it was awesome and when we went to Japan and Australia. The last time we were in Australia, as well in 2012 that was really memorable.
The last US tour we had a lot of fun. There’s just so many, there’s not really one. We definitely had a lot of fun on the road. All of the bands that we ended up taking or going out with, I’d say ninety-nine percent of the time were a dream to work with.
That is nice. You don’t hear those stories sometime. So that’s good.
I think it has to do with the fact that we are Canadian. We’re just kinda super laid back.
Do you plan on touring the US for this anniversary bundle? We’d love to see you here again.
I don’t know. It just depends. To be able to go in the US and tour has become more increasingly difficult because cost have risen, I think, forty-six percent in the last year or two. So it’s really expensive to go to the US and work there as a musician. So I don’t know. We’ll see kinda what we come up with. But as of right now it’s a maybe.
I was just wondering if there was going to be a tour included in general. Do you think you would do one at all? We would love to have you here.
Yeah, the doors open but we just wanna kinda get this out and see what happens after that (in regards to tour and getting out bundle). If anything I don’t think we go out as a four piece if that were the case. We’d go out and take the full line-up from the show we did in October.
Thank you for taking the time out to talk.
Thank you!
