Cats In Boots Kicked And Klawed

Cats In Boots full length debut album was a hard rocking, heavy blues inspired sound not yet typical of the bands of the time. Engineered by Mark Opitz (AC/DC, INXS) and Garth Richardson (Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers), and originally released on EMI Records in 1989, Kicked and Klawed would quickly reach gold status in the US and blow up the charts in Japan. The album's two singles, "Shotgun Sally" and "Her Monkey", would see heavy rotation on MTV.

One of the Merry Hoax’s demos fell into the hands of Seiki Matsu guitarist Takashi O’Hashi in Tokyo, however. Convinced that Ellis was the perfect man for the job of fronting the band, the Japanese axepert flew to LA and convinced both Ellis and Meers that their future lay in the far East with Seiki Matsu. The Tokyo based group had released three albums, the last of which had sold something in the region of 400,000 copies. The addition of the two Americans to the existing duo of O’Hashi and bassist Yasuhiro Hatae was expected to increase such a figure next time out of the box. A name change to Cats in Boots and a demo album, suitably entitled « Demonstration-East Meets West » was released on the indie label Bronze Age in Japan to great success, finding the band at their rawest.

Cats in Boots subsequently toured Japan for four months, the majority of the club shows being complete sells outs. A deal with EMI records was negotiated and signed with the band winding up in the studio and Kicked and Klawed tore it's way onto MTV's rotation.