Morgan Lander says that there could “absolutely” be new music from KITTIE at some point in the future.
After the London, Ontario, Canada-based metallers completed the touring cycle for 2011’s “I’ve Failed You” album, KITTIE entered a long period of inactivity during which the guitarist/vocalist focused on a marketing job for a chain of fitness clubs, while her sister, drummer Mercedes Lander, worked in real estate and more recently at a software company. The group also began work on a career-spanning documentary, “Origins/Evolutions”, which finally saw the light of day in 2018 via Lightyear Entertainment in North America.
Asked in a new interview with Pierre Gutiérrez of Rock Talks if KITTIE is still “on hiatus,” Morgan responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “As of right now, yes. Since the documentary was filmed and has been released, there’s been some changes. We are no longer a signed act. So if we were going to make new music, it would be released independently. But we do still have a number of legacy-type projects that we are going to be releasing and working on for the future. We love to be able to pay tribute to the things that we’ve done in the past. And I know that a lot of people are even just excited for re-releases of old stuff and whatnot. We’re always looking for ways to reintroduce people [to KITTIE‘s music] and whatnot. So we do have a couple of things coming down the pipeline. I can’t really give too many details yet, but there will be announcements and it will be awesome and it should be pretty fun. But no new music as of right now.”
Regarding when KITTE fans can expect an announcement regarding said “legacy” projects, Morgan said: “I’m not quite sure, actually. It’s still sort of in the development kind of stages, but it’s just a fun legacy project that I think that certain people and collectors will be stoked about.”
Morgan also confirmed that KITTIE is still very much alive, even if the band isn’t active as a recording and touring entity.
“The thing is, especially for myself and for Mercedes, KITTIE is a part of our lives, and it never will stop being a part of our lives,” she said. “Whether it’s going into a deal to do some re-releases or the ‘Live In London’ concert that we did, or just digging through the archives to give people little snippets of the past. So KITTIE never will die because it lives within us still. We’re still working on the KITTIE legacy, and we still live and breathe that every day. And so absolutely there could be new music. But I just don’t think that — it’s not the right time yet. But there’s always a right time for everything, and I think it could very well happen.”
Last October, Mercedes told the “Thunder Underground” podcast that there were no plans for KITTIE to reunite anytime soon. “I know that we’re lucky to have the experiences that we have had,” she said. And we had a really amazing time when we did that ‘Live In London’ show a couple of years, where we brought everybody back that wanted to come back. And we did like a ‘travel through time’ with all the different members and stuff like that. So that was really cool. We had a lot of fun doing that. But at this point, unless we got a really good offer… I don’t think we would do anything unless it was a really great offer and we could include everyone, in one fashion or another. And I think because at this point, we’re kind of one of those legacy bands, I feel like it would probably really help, or it would be really cool, if we could something with some of the past members as well. ‘Cause right now, we don’t necessarily have… I mean, besides my sister, myself and Tara, it’s just the three of us, technically, in the band.
“It’s kind of hard for us to continue on without Trish, because it would feel kind of weird not to have her there,” she continued. “So there’s a lot of stuff going on with that. But you never know what might happen. If somebody decides that they wanna give us a good offer, and it works out for us, and it’s feasible for us and we’re able to do it, I don’t see why not. But at the same time, we wanna make sure that things are good for the fans as well. We wanna make sure that the people that are coming to the show are getting a good experience, ’cause it might be the last time. [Laughs] We don’t wanna shortchange anybody and have a ‘lesser than’ experience, if that makes sense — we wanna make sure that everybody that comes to a show gets blown away. So we kind of have to outdo ourselves. But we’ll see what happens. You never know.”
Doan passed away in February 2017. The KITTIE bassist was only 31 years old at the time of her death.
Born in Gwangju, South Korea (about 270 kilometers from the capital Seoul), Doan joined KITTIE in 2005 and was in the band for two years before leaving in 2007 and then rejoining in 2012. She can be heard on KITTIE‘s 2006 EP “Never Again” and the 2007 full-length album “Funeral For Yesterday”.
In early 2008, it was reported that Doan originally left KITTIE due to the eating disorder anorexia-athletica-nervosa, which she had been struggling with for almost two years.
Doan relocated to Australia in 2009 to get a degree and try to surf before returning to Canada in 2011. She apparently moved back to Australia in 2013 and kept an active Twitter account and Facebook page where she frequently posted about her life struggles and battles with depression.
“I’ve Failed You” sold 3,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 178 on The Billboard 200 chart.
