Kittie formed in London, Ontario, Canada in 1996, when high schoolers Fallon Bowman and Mercedes Lander decided to start a band together. While still in high school, drummer Mercedes Lander and guitarist Fallon Bowman decided to start a band together. In need of a singer, Mercedes sought out her older sister Morgan to tackle vocal duties, and once bassist Tanya Candler was recruited, the first iteration of Kittie was born, though Candler would part ways with the band before the release of its debut, replaced by Talena Atfield. In 2001, Fallon Bowman left Kittie to pursue other projects, but Morgan and Mercedes have remained the band's sole constant members through every subsequent era of the group.
The band's breakthrough came fast and hard. After a fortuitous booking at Canadian Music Week in 1999, Kittie signed with the NG Records-distributed Artemis Records and entered the studio to record their debut full-length album in just nine days. That record, Spit, arrived in November 1999 and became a defining moment for women in heavy music. Assisted by internet word-of-mouth and Kittie's touring efforts, Spit was a commercial success, reaching number 79 on the US Billboard 200 chart and being certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in October 2000. They supported the album by touring with Slipknot, and their debut album and supporting tour earned Kittie coverage in Metal Edge, whose readers voted Morgan Lander for "Female Performer of the Year," with the band also earning a total of five Metal Edge Readers' Choice Awards that year. The album's enduring stature was reaffirmed decades later when Rolling Stone ranked the title track No. 82 on their "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Songs Of All Time" in 2023. Kittie's career arc was marked by relentless evolution and a revolving lineup around the Lander sisters' songwriting core. Their subsequent albums Oracle (2001) and Until the End (2004) saw the band transition towards a heavier, more aggressive albeit melodic sound featuring characteristics of alternative metal, groove metal and death metal, though neither album was able to replicate the success of Spit, and Kittie parted ways with Artemis Records in 2005. After leaving Artemis, Kittie created their own label, X of Infamy, and released their fourth album Funeral for Yesterday in 2007, which became the band's most successful album, being certified gold by the RIAA. By that point the lineup had shifted again, with Kittie comprising the Lander sisters alongside guitarist Tara McLeod and bassist Trish Doan by 2006. In 2009, the band signed to eOne Music, with whom they released In the Black (2009) and I've Failed You (2011), both with bassist Ivana "Ivy" Jenkins. Tragically, former bassist Trish Doan passed away at the age of 31 in 2017. After I've Failed You, Kittie stepped back from the spotlight, though the pause proved temporary. After the release of I've Failed You, Kittie went on an indefinite hiatus and the band's members pursued various other projects, and in 2018, a documentary, Kittie: Origins/Evolutions, chronicling the history of the band was released in co-ordination with its 20th anniversary, followed by a one-off reunion concert. In 2022, Kittie reunited to perform at the Blue Ridge Rock and When We Were Young festivals, and the band's comeback culminated in 2024 with Fire, described as their triumphant second chapter following 2024's critically acclaimed comeback album "Fire", their first new material in 13 years. The band has continued to celebrate its legacy since, releasing the anniversary EP "Spit XXV" in 2025, and its influence on women in heavy music remains widely acknowledged, with Kittie having provided a crucial template for female representation in extreme metal, proving that gender is irrelevant to the ability to create powerful, aggressive music. Kittie's ferocious live reputation in the early 2000s made them a natural subject for concert photographers documenting that era's heavy music scene, and they are represented in this archive by a single show that Wayne Dennon photographed in 2004, right around the release of Until the End. The resulting twelve images, viewed by archive visitors 9,697 times, stand as a small but meaningful record of a band that helped reshape the landscape for women in metal, captured through Wayne's lens at a pivotal moment in their long and winding career.
