Canadian metallers KITTIE have announced European headlining tour dates taking place in June 2025 alongside their summer festival run. The highly anticipated shows will be the band’s first on that side of the world in over a decade, providing fans with an opportunity to celebrate their 2022 reunion and the release of last year’s critically acclaimed album “Fire”, their first new LP in 13 years.
KITTIE used 2024 to cement their iconic status, never pulling punches whilst boldly exploring the depths of their artistry. The campaign for the new album saw the band release a string of blistering singles as they reclaimed their metal crowns — “Eyes Wide Open” and “We Are Shadows”, which blazed its way through the Active Rock Top 40, “Vultures”, “One Foot In The Grave” and the album title track “Fire”. Upon its release in June, the record received widespread critical acclaim, with Kerrang! calling it “straight, relentless metal” and Metal Hammer declaring the band as having “completed one of modern metal’s great comebacks.”
Having sharpened their teeth on exclusive headline shows across the U.S. and Canada, a truly iconic set at Sick New World festival in Las Vegas and more show-stealing live performances at globally renowned U.S. festivals Welcome To Rockville and Sonic Temple, KITTIE has re-established itself as one of metal’s finest live acts. This run of very special shows will mark a huge moment for the band, with their last European appearances taking place back in 2010.
KITTIE European tour dates 2025:
June 06 – Rock im Park, Nürnberg (DE)
June 07 – Rock am Ring, Nürburg (DE)
June 08 – Tivoli Vredenburg – Pandora, Utrecht (NL) **
June 10 – Hole 44, Berlin (DE) **
June 11 – Rock For People, Hradec Králové (CZ)
June 12 – Novarock, Nickelsdorf (AT)
June 13 – Download Festival, Donington (UK)
June 15 – The Dome, London (UK) **
June 17 – Knust, Hamburg (DE) **
June 20 – Hellfest, Clisson (FR)
June 21 – Graspop, Dessel (BE)
** Headline with support from HOLY WARS
Tickets go on sale Friday, February 21 at 10 a.m. GMT.
In a recent interview with the “Everblack” podcast, KITTIE guitarist/vocalist Morgan Lander was asked about the songwriting process for “Fire”, which came out last June via Sumerian Records. She said: “It was weird, let me tell you. [Laughs] So we basically started from scratch. And when all of this stuff started happening with the record label that we eventually signed to, Sumerian Records, we had no inkling of this happening. Writing new music and touring, creating a new album, creating new music as KITTIE was not on our bingo card at all. And so because it was such a surprise, it was, like, ‘Oh, shit. Okay. I guess we have to put our writing hats on and sort of change gears’ and things like that. And we had gone 13 years between albums. And so while all of us remained within the musical realm, either singing or writing or starting other bands or playing for other people and those types of things, we just didn’t do any of this KITTIE stuff. And so we sort of had to get back into that mode. But it was interesting that we all brought some of the things that we’ve learned over that past decade and a bit to the KITTIE table. And I think it helped to really just sort of strengthen the songwriting and broaden things out a bit. It still sounds very much like KITTIE, but there are some sort of newer elements. The idea was to sort of take a lot of the classic sound, which is associated with — I mean, some of it is sort of ‘nu metal’-ish, but also some of it is… I think a lot of people call us ‘groove metal’, I guess ’cause we have a lot of midtempo stuff. So mixing a lot of those ideas was sort of the thing that we wanted to sort of really hit home with the writing. But it was strange. We all live in different parts of the country, so we had to utilize a lot of technologies — Dropbox and Zoom and all of those things — to write instead of getting in a room together. We did that a few times and we were able to sort of to make the organic kind of thing happen. But a lot of the beginnings of songs start off with Mercedes [Lander, KITTIE drummer] and I. We live close enough that we can get together and sort of do it the way that we did back in mom and dad’s basement back in the day.”
Morgan also talked about how KITTIE‘s legacy grew in the past decade and a half as teenagers across the world discovered the band’s music through platforms like TikTok, which has transformed the way music is consumed and shared. She said: “I think a lot of that distance and that time away really sort of underscored how much something can grow because of things like TikTok or other social media platforms and things like that. We have a whole other generation of people that have discovered our music through those kinds of platforms. That’s where a lot of younger people are discovering music these days. And so the timing, I feel like, was right for it as well, because, for us, even just being away from KITTIE, we were still seeing a lot of that growth, a lot of people being, like, ‘There’s KITTIE‘ or asking for new music for years. And it was this slow buildup. And then being able to sort of release the music and do a lot of the shows that we were doing — we just did a handful of shows in North America last year — but it’s amazing to me how young some of the people are, and then how there are fans that were, like, ‘I saw you 25 years ago.’ And it’s just amazing to me that we can all share in this together, and it sort of jumps past the generational barriers and things like that, where you can have a 16-year-old goth girl in the front and a 50-year-old man screaming, and everybody is enjoying the music. It’s amazing.”
In November 2023, it was revealed that KITTIE was working on a new studio LP with producer Nick Raskulinecz at Nashville’s Sienna Studios.
Raskulinecz, who moved to Nashville from Los Angeles around 17 years ago, had previously worked with such acts as RUSH, ALICE IN CHAINS, KORN, RISE AGAINST, HALESTORM, EVANESCENCE, SKID ROW and the DEFTONES.
In April 2024, KITTIE announced an exclusive run of North American headline dates. The long-awaited shows saw the band perform in five cities across the U.S. and Canada in July and August 2024, giving fans a very special and rare chance to see the band play a full headline set that will include their recently released singles “We Are Shadows” and “Eyes Wide Open” as well as classic hits and some deep cuts not played live since the band’s early days.
KITTIE played its first concert in five years in September 2022 at the Blue Ridge Rock Festival at the Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Virginia.
Joining Morgan and Mercedes in KITTIE‘s current lineup are guitarist Tara McLeod and bassist Ivana “Ivy” Vujic.
Prior to Blue Ridge, KITTIE had not performed since its reunion show at London Music Hall in the band’s native London, Ontario in 2017, celebrating the group’s documentary “Kittie: Origins/Evolutions”.
Vujic joined KITTIE in 2008 and appeared on the band’s fifth studio CD, 2009’s “In The Black”. She also wrote and recorded bass for KITTIE‘s sixth album, 2011’s “I’ve Failed You”.
After KITTIE completed the touring cycle for “I’ve Failed You” album, the band entered a long period of inactivity during which Morgan focused on a marketing job for a chain of fitness clubs while Mercedes 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.
“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.
During a recent appearance on the “Artist Friendly With Joel Madden” podcast, Morgan discussed the overwhelmingly positive fan and media response to KITTIE‘s comeback. She said in part: “Right now we’re in this weird second chapter where it feels like everything that we’ve done so far has just been like a win. And it’s the wins that we never thought that we would have been able to achieve in any other period in our career. And it’s just so weird to see that happening and unfolding in real time. And being able to enjoy it and experience it as the people that we are now, with the experience and the maturity and all of those things, sort of just heading headfirst into the unknown. Things are just lining up.”
Asked if she and her KITTIE bandmates are excited to once again be part of the modern metal scene, Morgan said: “Yeah. Of course. I think that we wouldn’t be back at it if it wasn’t exciting, if it wasn’t a challenge, if it wasn’t something that we didn’t think was important. And ultimately, if it’s exciting and fun, that’s where we wanna be. That’s where we’re at in our career. If it’s not, we don’t want a part of it. I think that’s a beautiful thing… And I feel like all of that experience lends to what’s happening right now. We certainly have a lot of experience. We feel like veterans.”
Morgan also talked about the band’s decision to put KITTIE on hiatus in 2013 after almost two decades in the industry, six studio albums and several lineup changes. She said: “The last few years that we were touring, things kind of kept getting more and more diminished. We had switched labels a few years prior and we put out what I think are two of some of our best albums, but we were touring in a van, the guarantees were getting smaller and smaller, the crowds were getting smaller and smaller, and that can also weigh heavily on your psyche, having to grind it out like that night after night, and feeling like you have to do it rather than you want to do it.
“We are all great friends. We were still at that time,” she clarified. “There was no interpersonal drama or anything. It was just a case of just being tired and feeling the weight of almost defeat, just from putting in so much and sort of receiving so little. And for us, it wasn’t really like a conscious thing. It just like kind of just drifted, just kind of fell through our fingers. We didn’t sit down one day and were, like, ‘Let’s break up the band.’ There was no announcement or anything. It was just kind of, like, we all just started to do our own things and find our own way and it sort of just naturally kind of drifted.”
Morgan previously spoke about KITTIE‘s decision to put the band on hiatus last July in an interview with Primordial Radio. She said: “The industry was sort of in a weird flux position when we were doing those last tours and whatnot. And it was sort of like the transition period between like people buying CDs and people streaming music. And there certainly are a lot of elements that went into it, but I think a lot of it was just personal.”
She continued: “The industry is hard, and [we were] slugging it out on the road, not really feeling as supported as I think we probably could have been by our former label. I thought at the time we were putting out some of the best music that we had written up to that point with very little return, and it got tiring. It can be a really, really tough business, and expensive as well. If you’re just out there in a van not making tons of money, it’s like one show after another. And it is physically and can be emotionally exhausting.”
Asked if KITTIE‘s 2022 comeback, initially only as a live act, was rooted in the band’s desire to return to having fun, Morgan said: “Yeah. I think ultimately if it’s not fun, then there’s no point in doing it. And that’s not to say that it wasn’t ever fun before and we stopped because it stopped being fun. But there were elements of touring back before we took our hiatus that were not very fun. And I think being able to step away from the situation and sort of re-evaluate, and then given this opportunity, we were able to enjoy some of the fruits of our previous labors in a way that we’d never been able to experience before. And that aspect is fun. These are big festivals. We were just shocked at how many people were excited to see the band. And for me, those things are back-to-basics, fun stuff, getting together, reconnecting, playing all of these songs that we’ve played together hundreds of times before. And sometimes just getting into a room together as musicians and friends and jamming and just laughing and having a blast, that’s at the very core of what a band should be — people that are enjoying themselves together and making and creating together. Being creative together, I think, is one of the most fun and rewarding things that you can do in life. And being able to do it with a great group of girls, yeah, that’s it. We love to play live. And, so that definitely was the main thing there.”
Photo credit: Dante Dellamore