Kittie was formed in the year of 1996, when Mercedes Lander and Fallon Bowman met in a high school gymnastics class. The lead singer, Morgan Lander, is sister to Mercedes. Their original bassist was Tanya Candler, who was forced to leave the band in the winter of 1999 due to health problems. She was replaced with Talena Atfield. In 2001, Fallon Bowman left Kittie without citing her reasons (although it was alleged that it was due to the rest of the band's discomfort with Fallon's obsession with the Columbine killings) and eventually started a new project called Amphibious Assault. No replacement for Fallon was made at this time. The band's guitar technician, Jeff Phillips, filled the spots during tours, but was never officially made a member.

Talena Atfield left in 2002, also without elucidating her reasons. She was replaced on bass guitar by Jennifer Arroyo. Her departure made Kittie lose some fans due to the fact that Talena was one of the popular members of Kittie despite not being the most talkative.

In 2004 they added a fourth member, the second guitarist Lisa Marx, and Jeff Phillips went full time to his side project Thine Eyes Bleed.

In 2004 Kittie released the album Until the End. As a joke, a band by the name of Until the End named their newest album Kittie to return the favor.

Until March 2005 they were signed to Artemis Records but parted ways due to "a proposed amendment to the recording budget for the pending 4th Kittie album". Problems between the group and record label had been rumored for a long time. The only official sign of these problems was a settlement out of court for unpaid royalties in March 2004.

On March 23, 2005, Morgan Lander made a post indicating that both Marx and Arroyo had left the band. Arroyo's split was amicable while Marx's was a surprise. Financial reasons were cited as well as, in the case of Arroyo, the desire to work outside of Kittie full time. Arroyo joined with Billy Graziadei of Biohazard, to form Suicide City.