They’ve got cat class and
they’ve got cat style, and now
they’ve got their very own album.

Gritty Kitty will be performing
tonight at the 40 Watt Club and
releasing its debut CD,
"Mistaking Airplanes For Stars."

The band formed in Athens
just over three years ago (That’s
21 in cat years). Three of its mem-
bers came to Athens in the same
month and at the time none knew
each other.

While guitarist John Hart
attended classes at the
University, drummer Jessica
Slavich came down from South
Carolina, bass player Polly
Hanson moved from
Pennsylvania and guitarist Jason
Taylor moved in from Ohio.

"We’re all so different, it’s really
unusual that we’re together,"
Slavich said.

The band’s influences and
inspirations vary almost as much
as its geographic base.

"Jason is married, so a lot of
the songs are about his lovely
wife, Julie," Slavich said. She said
Hanson is inspired by items such
as "silos and wheelbarrows."

Drawings of both appear inside
the CD cover.

The band’s association with
Ryan Lewis, future founder of
Kindercore Records, began early
in its career.

"I saw their first show in the
bass player’s backyard," Lewis
said. Soon thereafter Lewis, the
drummer for Kincaid, started
Kindercore Records and put out
the CD "Treble Revolution Vol. 1,"
a compilation of local bands on
which Gritty Kitty appeared.

"We’ve been with Kindercore
from the beginning and they’ve
been really good to us," Slavich
said.

Earlier this year the band
started recording its debut CD
with Kincaid’s Greg Harmelink at
his Greg 2000 studios. The full
length album contains 18 songs
and will be available tonight at
the 40 Watt and in record stores
around town.

"I think we’re really glad it’s
over, but it was really exciting,"
Slavich said about the recording
of the album.

"While we were recording the
album we heard it so much that
we lost perspective," she said, but
now that the technical aspects of
recording are over she said the
band is very happy with its
results. "Now we’re just going to
relax for a couple of weeks," she
said.

While Kindercore Records has
given many local bands the oppor-
tunity to record, Gritty Kitty has
done something no other band
had done before.

"They’re the first band to actu-
ally sign a contract with
Kindercore," Lewis said. The
label has since signed other
artists such as his band Kincaid
and Masters Of The Hemisphere,
who will be opening for Gritty
Kitty tonight at the 40 Watt.

"They’re really easy to work with
because they’re so fun and enthu-
siastic," Lewis said.