Switchblade Kittens: The Weird Sisters
by Aaron C. Yeagle
Switchblade Kittens
came crashing onto the music scene with their punk
rock cover of everyone’s favorite Titanic theme, “My
Heart Will Go On”. This iceberg inspired hit hardly
caused the Kittens to sink, instead the song began
playing on over 300 college radio stations in the
US, Canada, and Australia. The world famous KROQ in
Los Angeles introduced the band over commercial
airwaves with the cover but the Kittens main stayed
in underground
radio with their new tune, “Ode to Harry” a tribute
to the character from the hit book series, Harry
Potter. This helped pave the way to the UK, while
playing on Steve Lamacq’s show on Radio 1 in the UK.
Steve spread the cat scratch fever with an original
Switchblade Kittens song, “All Cheerleaders Die”
(the theme song from a B movie starring the quirky
lead singer aptly named, Drama). Most notably,
Switchblade Kittens is an all-bass, girl centric
band. The band earned an international ad spot and
sponsorship with ARIA basses for inventing two new
bass sounds. The “Bassorama”, played by the band’s
“token male”, is a bass that sounds like a guitar,
the “Bassola” is engineered to play like a viola and
keyboards and the "DrumBass" is engineered to sound
like a full drumset. These basses, invented by the
singer, give the Kittens an original sound to go
along with their ultra-original look. The singer has
rainbow hair and the Kittens come in rainbow colors.
Their live shows have been described as a “small
colorful punk rock amusement park contained on a
stage”. The Kittens have been able to show their
true colors live by playing shows from opening for
the indie band, the Strokes at the South By
Southwest music festival to performing on the Vans
Warped Tour in 2003 and 2005.
rground
radio with their new tune, “Ode to Harry” a tribute
to the character from the hit book series, Harry
Potter. This helped pave the way to the UK, while
playing on Steve Lamacq’s show on Radio 1 in the UK.
Steve spread the cat scratch fever with an original
Switchblade Kittens song, “All Cheerleaders Die”
(the theme song from a B movie starring the quirky
lead singer aptly named, Drama). Most notably,
Switchblade Kittens is an all-bass, girl centric
band. The band earned an international ad spot and
sponsorship with ARIA basses for inventing two new
bass sounds. The “Bassorama”, played by the band’s
“token male”, is a bass that sounds like a guitar,
the “Bassola” is engineered to play like a viola and
keyboards and the "DrumBass" is engineered to sound
like a full drumset. These basses, invented by the
singer, give the Kittens an original sound to go
along with their ultra-original look. The singer has
rainbow hair and the Kittens come in rainbow colors.
Their live shows have been described as a “small
colorful punk rock amusement park contained on a
stage”. The Kittens have been able to show their
true colors live by playing shows from opening for
the indie band, the Strokes at the South By
Southwest music festival to performing on the Vans
Warped Tour in 2003 and 2005.
