KITTIE Releases Music Video For 'Do You Think I'm A Whore? XXV' From 'Spit XXV' EP

On Friday, September 19, Canadian heavy music pioneers KITTIE will release "Spit XXV" EP, a four-track effort celebrating the 25th anniversary of their gold-certified debut album. The collection features freshly updated and re-recorded versions of four of the albums biggest tracks, "Brackish", "Charlotte", "Do You Think I'm A Whore?" and the title track, "Spit", all produced, once again, by Garth Richardson who helmed the original 1999 sessions at EMAC Studios.

The official music video for the EP's second single, "Do You Think I'm A Whore? XXV", can be seen below.

KITTIE vocalist and guitarist Morgan Lander comments: "We're beyond excited to revisit and reimagine songs that that started it all for us with 'Spit XXV'. Re-recording these songs has been an emotional and empowering journey. It's a chance to honor our roots while bringing a new level of energy and experience to the music. 'Spit XXV' isn't just a celebration of where we came from, but a thank-you to the fans who have stood by us for the past 25 years.

"'Do You Think I'm A Whore?' has always been the dark horse of our debut album and it was such a pleasure to give it the updated treatment and celebrate how awesome of a song it really is. Pair that with the unbelievable music video visuals from William Felch at Wombat Fire and it’s clear the track is finally getting its flowers."

In a recent interview with Manuel Paredes and Carlos Cortez of Spain's Metal Remains, Morgan spoke about the decision to re-record some of the material from "Spit" and how KITTIE went about choosing the songs to rework for the project. She said: "For a really long time, and I'm talking probably 20 years, we have internally discussed the idea of re-recording some of those songs in various stages of our career for many different reasons. Some of them, the Taylor Swift reason — we don't own those masters, and so it only makes sense. But I think ultimately being able to celebrate in this way and mark 25 years of KITTIE and of 'Spit', of being a band out in public, it's a really cool way to celebrate."

She continued: "I think it was pretty easy to choose the songs. I know that we had discussed redoing the entire album, which I think — it's tough. Some of those songs, I think, may not have translated as well with a more modern twist, and so for us we chose songs that we still play live. And so they've had the chance to evolve over time — songs like 'Brackish', like 'Charlotte', like 'Spit', 'Do You Think I'm A Whore?', those songs we have played live all throughout our career since they've been released. And when you take a song out on the road and you've played it thousands of times, it starts to change and become a little different. And you can compare back to back — they're still the same songs, but there's a lot of different things kind of going on. The musicianship you can clearly tell is different as well. So we wanted to choose the songs that we were able to update to represent who we are as a band now and still sort of apply that same sound, those same sonics that we accomplished with [KITTIE's latest album, 2024's] 'Fire'. We had Josh Wilbur mix, who also mixed 'Fire'. And a fun little nod to the past with working with Garth Richardson again. So, yeah, I think it was an easy choice, because those songs have really become different, they've become stronger with all of the play that they've got over the years. So we just wanted to give it a shot and see what happens. I think people are liking it so far."

Asked if there was any "nostalgia and memories floating around during the recording sessions" for "Spit XXV", Morgan said: "Yeah, absolutely. We really had a great time with Garth. It was really lovely to revisit the songs and just kind of talk about our experience then, because it happened very quickly back in 1999 when we recorded 'Spit' with him. We went into the studio, [and] we were there for only nine days. And we spent 14 days just doing those four songs with him this time around. And so it was really neat to go back and relive a lot of those memories and just kind of talk and reminisce and stuff. It's also kind of a fun little anecdote that when we recorded 'Spit' the first time, we didn't have a lot of really great musical equipment, and so Garth had had trucked in a bunch of his really amazing vintage amps and things like that, many of which he still has at his studio out west. And we used some of those same amps that we recorded with on the first album and just sort of threw them in there just as a way to sort of recapture things, but also, again, it is a more modern and updated and potent version of those songs. Yeah, it was just great to be able to reminisce. I think there's been a lot of reminiscing happening surrounding the 25th anniversary [of 'Spit']."

When the milestone project was first announced in August, Morgan said in a statement: "It's hard to believe that 25 years after its release, and almost 30 years since KITTIE began, people are still talking about 'Spit'. There is something truly unexplainable in why our debut album is still resonating with people, finding a new audience and has had such a lasting impact on so many.

"Reimagining some of these classic songs for the 25th anniversary of 'Spit' was a lot of fun and a true testament to their longevity. It reveals just how relevant in the musical landscape they still are today. We were honored to work with Garth again where it all began after more than two decades, and doing so was a cool way to pay homage to the past while updating these songs with a modern sound, bringing them into the future."

Released on January 11, 2000, "Spit" transformed KITTIE from four Canadian teenagers into international heavyweights, achieving gold certification with over 660,000 U.S. sales. The album became a defining moment for women in heavy music, with its aggressive sound and uncompromising attitude proving that metal made by women could achieve both critical respect and commercial success during nu-metal's completely male-dominated peak era.

The original "Spit" earned critical recognition from Rolling Stone, who ranked the title track No. 82 on their "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Songs Of All Time" in 2023. The album's influence continues rippling through generations of musicians, with artists like Serena Cherry of SVALBARD crediting it as "the reason she became a metal musician," while experimental artist Poppy covered the title track in 2023.

The "Spit XXV" EP arrives as KITTIE continue their triumphant second chapter following 2024's critically acclaimed comeback album "Fire", their first new material in 13 years. The album reached No. 13 on U.K. Rock & Metal Albums charts and No. 20 on Billboard Top Album Sales, while single "We Are Shadows" became the band's highest-charting song on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Airplay chart at No. 20. The album earned the band a 2025 Juno Award nomination for "Metal/Hard Music Album Of The Year", confirming their continued artistic evolution.

Reuniting with Richardson again proved both nostalgic and revelatory for the band, who last collaborated with the producer during their breakthrough era. The reunion has allowed KITTIE to approach these foundational songs with two and a half decades of musical growth while maintaining the raw power that made them revolutionary.

Since returning from their hiatus in 2022, KITTIE has experienced a remarkable resurgence across demographics, with their 920,000 monthly Spotify listeners spanning longtime fans and new generations discovering their music through social media. Their performances at major festivals including Sick New World, Welcome To Rockville and Sonic Temple have demonstrated the band's enduring live power, while their successful 2024 North American headline tour proved their enduring and undeniable ability to command stages as headliners.

"Spit XXV" EP track listing:

01. Spit XXV
02. Do You Think I'm A Whore? XXV
03. Brackish XXV
04. Charlotte XXV

In a recent interview with Andrew Slaidins of The Rockpit, Morgan stated about the lyrical and musical inspiration for the "Spit" album: "Yeah, well, it's tough, because — well, if you look at 'Brackish', for instance, it was the first song that we had written as a band together. And so I think at that time, I might have been 14 years old. What kind of life experience do you truly draw from? And so our bubble was small, our world was small, our experience was limited, but I think, as young people, you still have perspective, you still see things in a certain way, you still feel things. Especially being so young, you feel things very deeply. And I think that is what resonated a lot with people, hearing the emotion that was sort of put into it. But a lot of it was just our own life experiences."

She continued: "'Brackish' is about a friend in a toxic relationship. [Some of the other songs on the album are about] other experiences of just being a woman in a band and going out there in the world and sort of being judged or looked upon differently. Yeah, just a lot of those kinds of concepts were in it as well.

"We did have a lot of interesting experiences, being as young as we were, being women and playing out there in the world," Morgan added. "And even with the first album, the experiences that we wrote, they were about that stuff. It was very close to home, though. Not — I don't wanna say too deep, but I think the emotion and the seriousness was there."

Asked how she feels about "Spit" now, 25 years later, Morgan said: "It's interesting. For a really long time, I sort of felt like there was a real push sort of maybe in the mid-to-late 2000s to sort of get away from the idea of 'nu metal'. Our first album is a very nu metal-influenced sound and it truly is really the only album that we did that really kind of really harnessed those ideas and those influences. And for a long time, nu metal was a bad word. And while we did still play a lot of those songs live, we did musically gravitate away from that, and it had a lot to do with, I think, just trying to branch out and try different styles, but also prove ourselves as more than just a nu metal band or a one-trick-pony-type thing. And that's just the chip on our shoulder that we've always had. It's always like, well, we still have to feel… It's tough — the pressure to feel like you always have to prove yourself. But I think I've come to realize how important 'Spit' was, how influential it was, how much it did resonate with people and how the nu metal sound that we had was, it was fun. And it only lasted for one album, but the impact of that single album has lasted for the duration of our career. We are, 25 years later, still talking about the album. People are still listening to the album, a lot of them. And so it's really interesting to me that it has had the staying power."

In a 2002 interview with Ballbuster Music, KITTIE drummer Mercedes Lander stated about "Spit": "I think 'Spit' is probably the least polished record I've ever heard in my entire life. It was recorded in nine days on Fender Squires. It was a point in our lifetime, and it was like a snapshot of what we were like back in 1999."

She added: "We'd been a band for so long, we played over 200-some-odd shows before we got record label interest. We were playing every weekend that we could. Sometimes we were playing during the week. We traveled to Toronto, to Detroit; we played a lot of shows. A lot of bands that play 12 shows before they get signed, they sound like crap on their record; they're experimenting on their recording, and they don't know what they want to do. We were just lucky because we knew what we wanted to do."

When you discovered KITTIE has a direct influence on how you see them. For those on board from the beginning with "Spit" in 2000, KITTIE was part of nu-metal's explosive rise. Through later albums including "Oracle" (2001),"In The Black" (2009) and "I've Failed You" (2011),the band evolved into something far more sinister, viewed as a serious metal outfit. After a prolonged hiatus broken only by a 2017 hometown show and 2018's documentary "Kittie: Origins/Evolutions", the band returned in 2022 following festival offers including Sick New World.

12.6 million career streams later, vocalist/guitarist Morgan Lander, drummer/backing vocalist Mercedes Lander, guitarist Tara McLeod and bassist Ivy Vujic maintain that KITTIE never broke up because it remains ingrained in their identity. Their 2024 album "Fire", produced by Nick Raskulinecz (FOO FIGHTERS, RUSH, ALICE IN CHAINS),marked their triumphant return with renewed fury and unfathomable sonic brutality. As KITTIE now pay homage to their past whilst also bringing it firmly into the present day, with the new "Spit XXV" EP, the new era of KITTIE continues to blaze forth, illuminating the way as they take their rightful place as torchbearers for heavy music.

Photo credit: William Felch