Released in 1996, Kitten Licks catapulted Brisbane indie-rock three-piece Screamfeeder into the '90s alternative-rock boom alongside Powderfinger, silverchair, You Am I and Regurgitator. International tours, regular festival shows, and TV appearances followed. And yet, commercial success for Screamfeeder was comparatively short-lived. By the end of the decade, the band’s outlook was bleak: at a career standstill and unable to record new music. Today, both Screamfeeder and Kitten Licks endure as fiercely loved cult icons. In its vitality and idiosyncrasy, Kitten Licks captures a moment of cresting change for a band, a city and a national scene, while continuing to delight and inspire those who discover it anew.

This book tells the story of Kitten Licks in the words of those who lived it, and who still do. How it was made, how it was swept up into '90s mythology and what the journey tells us about the fickle nature of music production in Australia, namely: how to survive it.

Ben Green is a research fellow at Griffith University, Australia. He is the author of Peak Music Experiences: A New Perspective on Popular Music, Identity and Scenes (2021) and co-editor of Popular Music Scenes: Regional and Rural Perspectives (2023).

Ian Rogers is a senior lecturer at RMIT University, Australia. A popular music studies scholar, he is the author of Popular Music Scenes and Cultural Memory (with Andy Bennett, 2016).