Canadian hard rockers Kittie [ tickets ]--guitarist/vocalist Morgan Lander, bassist Jennifer Arroyo, drummer Mercedes Lander and new guitarist Lisa Marx--recently released their third Artemis album, "Until the End," the follow-up to 2001's "Oracle," which reached No. 57 on The Billboard 200 and has sold over 220,000 copies to date.

The London, Ontario-based group should never be confused with Courtney Love, The Go-Go's or any other female act. Their pure metal mix has landed them touring spots with Slipknot, Soulfly, and Pantera.

Guitarist Marx, who does not play on "Until the End," was recruited from Seattle-based punk band To See You Broken. Interim guitar duties were performed by the group's former guitar tech Jeff Phillips. Phillips had replaced Fallon Bowman, who along with former Kittie bassist Talena Atfield, formed Amphibious Assault.

22-year-old Morgan Lander spoke with liveDaily while in the midst of Kittie's current club tour.

liveDaily: I'd read you said that this "feels like the first album" for the band.

Morgan Lander: There were a lot of "firsts" that went into this album. It's also been three years since the last one, so it gave us the opportunity to really sit down and concentrate on the songs and let them develop on their own, instead of just writing something and then having it come out in the next six months. There were no deadlines, so in a way it was like a first album. You have your whole life to write your first album, and then you usually have only six months to write your second. So the last three years were spent writing, and whatever we wrote we took on the road with us.

There was just a renewed sense of excitement. This is the first CD that Jennifer has played on with us--although she's been in the band for two-and-a-half years. So everybody is sort of re-discovering the band. A lot of people thought we'd broken up and faded into nothing, and in reality we were out trying to keep our name alive. It's very much a new band. We have a new outlook, and we've definitely found our sound.

You hired Lisa Marx while you were recording "Until the End." Why did you decide to add a fourth member at that time?

There were some issues that we needed to deal with. Jeff [Phillips] was our touring guitar player at the time, and we wanted to find the right time to talk with him about what he wanted to do with his life. He had a band that he wanted to do full time. So it was about finding the right time to make our amends and say good luck with everything. He was our guitar tech four or five years ago, was sort of the official-unofficial member for the past three years. He really helped us out, and we want to help him out.

Token testosterone.

Yes, exactly! Although I think we have that down just fine.

No argument here. When did you first play with Lisa?

She came up to try out for a week when we were in the studio, and we really hit it off. She was there to see a lot of the process. I don't know, I think everything happens for a reason. If we had done our search earlier on, we may not have been so lucky.

Was it a good fit right away?

Yeah, definitely. With the style of music she was playing, definitely the chops were there. But for us, almost more important was the fact that we needed to get along. Mercedes, Jennifer and I have a really great chemistry together, and we wanted to find someone that we knew could balance everything out and share in our jokes--who was one of us, like a sister. I think that's really important. You can be the best guitar player in the world, but if you're an a------, it's not going to help you. So we got the best of both worlds. It's all good.

What was it like growing up with the musical family with your sister Mercedes?

By no means are my parents musical at all, although my mom has an amazing [knowledge of music]. She knows names and dates of songs and performers from the '50s on. She could go on rock-and-roll Jeopardy and make us all millionaires. My grandfather tuned pianos by ear for a living, and he can pick up pretty much any instrument and play it. Maybe there's some sort of musical lineage there, but my parents were pretty much fans of rock-and-roll when Mercedes and I were growing up.

I can remember us being five and seven years old, and making up songs on the piano. I'm going to tell you this, and I've never told anyone this before--when Mercedes and I were little kids we wanted to make a band and call ourselves The Beautiful Bitches. It was so funny, we were just kids. We'd crimp our hair and be all crazy. [laughs]

When you say young, you mean under 10? And you thought of the name The Beautiful Bitches?

Yeah, when I was maybe six or seven. There was always some knowledge that we were going to be in music. I believe in a lot of things, and I believe that some things are pre-destined. I've personally never worried about school or anything like that. When all my friends were choosing colleges, I was like, "I'm not, because I know I'm going to be doing this music thing." And everything happened for the band at around that time.