School girls Mercedes Lander and Fallon Bowman met in gym class and said, "let's play together!" And thus, Kittie was born. At least, that's how legend has it and it's not that far from the truth. Four teenage girls with a love of heavy metal, a desire to prove nay Sayers wrong and a passion to rock, formed the hard sounding metalesque quartet in 1997, while still in high school. One part glam rock and one part death metal, the women of Kittie signed with the Ng Records-distributed Artemis Records after a stint of playing covers of Nirvana, Silverchair and even Corey Hart. By the time indie record producer GG Garth had gotten a hold of their demo, they had graduated from teen-pop to pushing their sound up a notch along the likes of L7 and Godsmack. The full-length Spit, showcasing their incisive sound, was released late in 1999. Paperdoll followed a year later.