KITTIE Drummer: 'I Still Have So Much To Prove In The World Of Music'

Blasting-Zone.com recently conducted an in-depth interview with KITTIE drummer Mercedes Lander. Several excerpts follow:

Blasting-Zone.com: What was the main motivation behind starting your own label?

Mercedes Lander: "We've always been a do-it-yourself band with everything. On our last three records, we've had our own PR people and we hired our own radio people because our old label (Artemis Records) wasn't getting the job done. We're a self-made band, we've always done things ourselves and that was really just the next step, ya know? To take our destiny into our own hands a little more than we already had. It was just one more step in the right direction towards being the ultimate do-it-yourself band. We'd also like to…eventually…give other bands the opportunities that we didn't have in the beginning. We're just trying to make everything work for us the best that we can. And so far, it's worked our wonderfully. We've had so many amazing things happen since we started our own label. It's all good and we're kinda excited about it."

Blasting-Zone.com: What prompted the group to change the name of the label from Kiss Of Infamy to X Of Infamy?

Mercedes Lander: "Basically, it was just one of those things, ya know? (Legendary KISS bassist/vocalist) Gene Simmons owns the name KISS within the entertainment genre. Anything that has to do with entertainment… he owns the name KISS, so you can't use it. I guess that's where he was coming from, but I don't see where the two could get confused. But at the end of the day, we don't have the money to go into court and keep our name…so it was just easier for us to change the name. It would have taken a couple of years and the legal system is quite slow, as most people know. Obviously we had to do something so we could get the album out, so X Of Infamy is just as good with an 'X' being the universal sign for a kiss."

Blasting-Zone.com: Overall, as a group, how did you feel as you made the transition from being signed to Artemis to starting your own label? Was it as nerve-wracking as I'm imagining it was?

Mercedes: "It was one of those things where you don't know what's going to happen afterwards. You'd think we'd be all happy, breaking out the champagne and getting hammered and stuff, but it wasn't a party at all because we didn't exactly know what was gonna happen next. After that, there was a good two-year period between when we severed our ties with Artemis and went out on the last tour. It was just a really hard time for Morgan and I because we were kinda just left pissing into the wind (laughs). And that's where a lot of the new songs came from. A lot of the new songs were written when we didn't even know if we were gonna be a band anymore. Obviously, at the end of the day, we decided it would be a good idea (to continue as a band) because we couldn't let our supporters down. There are a lot of kids out there that would probably be really upset about it. And I would personally be really upset about it because I've been in this band for over ten years now and I don't know anything else. At the end of the day, that was what really kept us going… the fans and that Morgan and I have worked so hard to get where we are. We just couldn't abandon it now, ya know? So we continued to write more songs and started trying out guitarists and bass players from the area and everything just fit into place, which is nice."

Blasting-Zone.com: At this point, how major of a role does your father have in the day-to-day operations of the band?

Mercedes: "Well, Morgan, myself and our Dad have a management company which was Kiss Of Infamy Management but is now X Of Infamy Management (laughs). Basically, he takes care of our day-to-day dealings….with the label and distro people. He does the managerial duties. So he does the bitch work, basically (laughs). He gets to go in and yell at people so we don't look like assholes. And Morgan and I are very involved in that aspect of it as well. We have our own management company and we manage the bands THINE EYES BLEED and UNCENSORED. Right now, we only have a couple of bands on our roster, but THINE EYES BLEED just did two SLAYER tours and is about to do a third, ya know? We're doing fairly well for ourselves. THINE EYES BLEED is definitely one of the best metal bands in quite a while. They're definitely very different than a lot of other bands. But I'm into different types of music. I'm not into listening to the same fucking bands over and over again, ya know? And I think a lot of metal fans are the same way and I don't think people are being original. It seems to me that all those American metal bands just rip each other off. It happened in the '80s, too, ya know? All the hair-metal bands started sounding exactly alike, ya know?"

Blasting-Zone.com: At this point in your career, do you feel being a woman to be a disadvantage?

Mercedes: "The only disadvantage we have is people thinking it's a disadvantage, treating it like a disadvantage or a handicap. It seems like bands, like the bands that we go out on tour with, think we're going to be one thing, but then they realize we're exactly like every other band out there. I don't think of it as, 'Oh, I'm in an all-female band and I have to do this, this and this.' I think of it as, 'I'm in a band and I have to do this.' The thought of being in a female band never crosses my mind, although in retrospect, I think it's made us work a lot harder for things. I think we've worked a lot harder to get a lot of things because we always have to prove something. For the rest of our lives, we're always going to be proving something and that's alright by me because that's the drive to create music and that's the drive for me to keep going. I still have so much to prove in the world of music."

Read the entire interview at Blasting-Zone.com.