Hello everybody, we're joined here by Mercedes from Kittie today. How are you?

I'm doing wonderful. How are you doing?

Good.

We’re here on the first day of the Motocultor festival. You'll be playing in a few hours. How do you feel about it?

Looking forward to the show. I think it's going to be a ton of fun. We've never played this festival before. Really looking forward to seeing everyone's happy smiling faces. I think our set is about an hour, and I’m really looking forward to it.

How different do you feel your crowd is from before your hiatus and today?

I think we have a lot more young people that have discovered the band in the last 15 years. When we play our headlining shows, for instance, we look out into the crowd and there's people that are my age, and there's also 13, 14, 15, 16 year olds out there as well. It's kind of neat to see the difference in the people. I always like to say that Kittie is for everyone. It's very indicative of our live show. There's a lot of different types of people that come to our shows. We don't just have one type, which is nice. We like variety.

You played at Hellfest last year, so you've already played a feature time in France. How do you feel about coming to Motocultor?

We love France. We love coming over here for many reasons. Our show at Hellfest last year was fantastic. We loved it. It was very warm that day. We had such a great time. Hoping for a repeat and looking forward to seeing everybody today.

Lots of things are changing. The music industry is changing too. Is there something that changed that surprised you when making and releasing the “comeback” album Fire?

I think one of the big differences is that people don't tour like we used to. We used to stay out for nine months out of the year. That just doesn't happen anymore. We do really short bursts. Most bands do really short bursts of touring now. It's super neat that that is a thing now. We don't have to spend 90% of our lives on a bus, which is good. I find with us in particular, we've been very picky about what we do. Only doing things that we feel are really worth it. I think in this day and age, it's good to not over saturate yourself. I think that's one big difference. You don't have to kill yourself on the road.

Through some line-up changes and the evolving of the band, how do you feel the dynamic within the band members has evolved too?

I feel like... Having someone like Tara in the band, who is an absolute powerhouse guitar player, very talented… Having someone like that in the band, and having an actual real lead player, it's been fantastic. For the last four or five records, just having her adding that extra bit of sauce has really helped to elevate the songwriting and elevate the band to a different place. And then, of course, having a very competent bass player was very important to us as well. So having Ivy in the band is fantastic.

That girl, I swear. She has two small kids, so she doesn't spend a lot of time doing things. She always has to go home to her kids. So whenever we record, she flies in for three days, rips her bass lines, and is just like “Hey, see you later. Bye, guys.” It's great. I love it. She's so good at her job. She's just a fantastic person.

So I feel like this iteration of the band has been very stable for a long time. It's been wonderful to be able to play with competent musicians. Because a lot of times, Morgan and I always felt like we had to support the other people, certain people that were in the band that weren't necessarily very good.

I can remember one tour where our sound guy didn't even have that one guitar player in the mix at all because it was just not very good. So he panned my sister's guitar to both sides of the PA. Which is funny, right?  But again, it's just one of those things. We're at a level now where we don't have to carry the other musicians, which is very nice.

You recently revisited some of your songs from Spit more than 20 years after the original album. The music changed a lot over the years. Why was it important to revisit the songs?

Well, I feel like because we've been playing those songs, and we chose the songs that we play live still from that record. And the reason why we chose those songs is because we wanted to give the fans an updated version of what the songs sound like live now. I mean, they're clearly the same songs, but just an updated version of them. So what you hear on that recording is how you're going to hear it live.

We re-recorded those songs because it's just a night and day difference, right? I mean, a lot of times it's the same intensity but just in a very different, probably a little more finite version, I guess. So yeah, I loved it. We were just happy to be able to have the opportunity to be able to re-record those songs. And it's cool. We just wanted to give the fans a little bit of extra, like “here, this is what this sounds like live, just in case you can't see us live.”

So you feel still really connected to your roots, even when putting out new music today?

Yeah, of course, of course. I mean, there are our songs, right? These are songs that we wrote when we were super young. And it's interesting because a lot of those songs still hold up, which is very nice. So it's kind of like a rewarding thing to look out into the crowd and hear those people sing those songs still, you know, 26 years later.

I think we only have one question, and then it's done.

After everything you have experienced, many challenges with the industry, changes in the music world, what is the thing that still makes you happy, excited about being in a band all together?

I think friendship. That's like… We were talking about this the other day. It's so nice to be able to wake up and play music with your best friends. You know, we all hang out together. We all eat dinner together. We go find coffee in the morning together. It's so nice to be able to spend time with each other and have that friendship. So, yeah, I think that's kind of what sticks the band together.