Mannequin Pussy tell it softly

Mannequin Pussy appear in our Spring 2024 Issue with cover stars Liam Gallagher/John Squire, Kevin Abstract, the Marías, and Palaye Royale. Head to the AP Shop to grab a copy. 

The members of Mannequin Pussy have spent their post-pandemic years relatively outside of the spotlight, working day jobs, prioritizing personal and mental health, and experimenting with new sounds, styles, and configurations. The Philly-based band embarked on an ambitious cross-country 2021 tour that left them short one van full of gear and equipment, the itemized list for which is still at large on r/indieheads, and earned them a reputation as an electrifying rock band with live performances that fall somewhere between Metallica (see Kaleen Reading’s stint as a drummer for the all-female tribute band Misstallica) and Patti Smith. But their new record, I Got Heaven, takes a more solitary approach. 

“We are a live band, but the goal for this record was also to be something that you could listen to as a solitary experience. It’s very reflective of that headspace, at least lyrically,” says the band’s frontwoman and songwriter Marisa “Missy” Dabice. “But the live show is such an opportunity to express our collective creativity and engage in the collective rage that we have in a larger music community. People are looking for release.”

Read more: Bethany Cosentino and Bully’s Alicia Bognanno find beauty in disaster

Dabice, too, has been looking for release. Deeply personal, and at times dealing with trauma, her songwriting has served as a salve through abusive relationships and battles with health. Using rage as a cathartic engine, Mannequin Pussy’s anarchic perspective quickly became a favorite of contemporary punk listeners and critics alike. As the band’s frontwoman, Dabice’s despondent howl has become a rallying cry for reckless romantics. On I Got Heaven, she assumes a dreamier vocal register, inverting the strung-out sound that gave Mannequin Pussy their laurels. 

Since their 2013 self-released debut, Mannequin Pussy have carved a space as an outspoken, heartbroken rock band unafraid to toe the line between riot grrrl and romantic. Their aptly titled 2016 album Romantic became their “breakthrough” with its unabashed, head-thrashing sound, and Patience put harsh sounds to even harsher feelings while holding out hope in the “Emotional High” that belays rock bottom. But there is new hope for the hopeless romantic: With their first full-length release in five years, Mannequin Pussy debut a softer sound, belied with fits of passion. From mosh-ready “OK? OK! OK? OK!” to the spiraling sing-along “Nothing Like,” the blows may soften, but their bluntness remains. 

Our call falls a few hours after the release of “Nothing Like,” shared with an AI-generated music video to mixed reviews from the public. The loyal Mannequin Pussy fanbase, who once erupted in a “Fuck Ohio” chorus against the state where the aforementioned gear had been stolen, voiced feelings of betrayal and disappointment at the use of AI by the band who have taken a stand on everything from police brutality to tech censorship.

For steadfast fans, it may feel like something’s changed — and it has. The departure of Athanasios Paul, and the addition of Maxine Steen on guitar and synths, are felt in both sound and sentiment, nestling I Got Heaven in a more pop outcropping of the music landscape that oscillates between boygenius and Bikini Kill. The band are mixing up their sound while maintaining their self-sacrificing songwriting — the tough love “tiny pill” fans love to swallow.

As Colins “Bear” Regisford puts it, “We tapped into a few ideas on the softer side that we’ve never really tapped into before, but I still feel like it has the same level of rawness and vulnerability.” 

I Got Heaven softens the sinew-ed songwriting of the indie-punk band and a new romance emerges as Dabice tempers the highs and lows of love in solitude. 

Today is a big day with the release of a new single. How are you feeling about putting out more music?

MARISA “MISSY” DABICE: I’m definitely feeling very excited about the song finally being out. I don’t want to say I’m enjoying the controversy that’s coming from this video being used by an AI artist, but I’m really interested in it. We do things as a band that are controversial. There’s this perception of “AI-generated,” meaning no real human hands or artists actually touch the footage, but the video is by a real artist who spent hours of time animating over a real video of me and used AI as a tool to create images that are also completely unique and are not plagiarism. Any artist has tools in their tool belt that they use. People see AI-generated as a dismissive clickbait term for what the video actually is. It took so much time to create with real artists’ hands, but the perception is that it’s plagiarism because of the words AI. But I don’t live on Twitter.

Can you tell me a bit about the decision to use AI?

DABICE: Well, to be real, we spent most of the budget that we had on our prior music videos. Our creative directors showed me this animator, Connor Clarke. I thought his work was fascinating, beautiful, glitchy, and creepy. He’s a real artist — he creates every single frame. I do understand the perceptions, and I don’t want to disappoint people, but sometimes people also don’t understand what is going on and what goes into it. They just hear a word and then assume the worst about the actual intention and artistry. Connor is a real artist, and I think he’s very talented and made something that was beautiful and original and spoke to the intensity and the lightness of the song. 

Does it feel different delivering something to a wider audience now that you’ve reached “rock star level”? 

DABICE: Do you think we’ve reached the level of “rock stars”?

People are excited about you — there’s a big fanbase. But I feel like for musicians who are living their same lives, sometimes it doesn’t feel like much has changed.

DABICE: It feels like a lot has changed. In the last few years, things are on a completely different level than they’ve ever been for us. It’s so overwhelming at times to realize that your life is changing, and you have to adapt to those changes in the best and cleanest way possible. 

We’ve realized we’re expected to be operating on this much higher level than we ever have before. All of us have really dug into our own health and mental wellness in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever seen us collectively do before. It shows a lot of growth and maturity and what it looks like when you’re reaching success for the first time in your 30s.

With the addition of Maxine, do you feel like the sound has changed and the chemistry that you have together?

DABICE: Maxine and I met [in Berlin] getting stoned and making music. We were just hanging out in a room making music, and from 2016 on, Maxine was one of my favorite producers and musicians. I just felt so inspired and excited by the way we shared ideas, and she made my ideas feel bigger and more realized, and now I get to be in a band with three of my favorite musicians. It’s a pretty blessed circumstance. 

MAXINE STEEN: Missy and I were friends for a while, and we’ve been working on music together under a project called Rosie Thorne. We were instant collaborators. We share a lot of the same drive to make art, and I think we have a lot of fun making art with each other. I feel very lucky to be in the Mannequin Pussy fold. But I also felt like when you’re here, you’re family. I took my first estrogen patch in the Mannequin Pussy van with my friends. I just feel like we have such a beautiful, honest relationship with each other. We’re all such good friends that I think working together is just a byproduct of our relationship with each other. 

COLINS “BEAR” REGISFORD: The band had been a certain way for so long, and Maxine brought such a different light and texture, especially with her synth wizardry. It just elevated our ideas and made a lot of these songs a lot brighter and more fun, and it’s great that she’s a freak like the rest of us. 

Have you developed a new creative process, in terms of how everyone contributes to a song on this album? 

STEEN: I feel like every song was so different in the way it was created. Some songs were written with all of us in the room. Some of them start as shitty demos on my computer. One of them me and Missy wrote when we were tripping on acid in the woods in New Hampshire — “Split Me Open.” All the songs came together in their own ways. 

DABICE: Yeah, “OK? OK! OK? OK!” started from just that vocal valley girl affectation I was doing in the practice space, and then Kaleen started doing that drum fill, and Maxine and Bear filled in the space between the top line melody and Kaleen’s drum beat. You never know, when you’re in that creative space together, how a song is going to fall out of you. You just have to be listening to the moment that makes you want to write it. 

In terms of this album feeling healthier and more mature, it feels like that comes through lyrically, too. 

DABICE: I think so. Nothing about this album makes me uncomfortable, because it’s really not an album that’s about anyone else. It’s a lot more about spending time in solitude, spending time with yourself and your own thoughts, thinking about how desire plays a role in your life, [and] realizing that you’re probably not at a place where you should be inviting anyone in. So often I think it’s very obvious that we live in a society that pressures people to be in relationships, especially young women. You are encouraged to be immensely self-sacrificing for the people that you love. We’ve seen it with our mothers and our grandmothers on and on and on. There are just certain sacrifices that are expected of you. I feel like it’s expected that we will sacrifice the very person that we are for someone else. 

It’s interesting to hear you say that nothing in this album makes you uncomfortable. I think so much of music, and your music, is about making people uncomfortable on purpose, or giving people space to feel those uncomfortable feelings that they might not express anywhere else. 

DABICE: Discomfort is quite inspiring. I think, like with our music, that good rock bands are supposed to make people uncomfortable and piss people off and get people thinking in new ways. 

How does Mannequin Pussy prompt people to think about the world, and themselves, in new ways? 

DABICE: The world of Mannequin Pussy is a self-sustaining entity that continues to push us into corners of the world we never knew we could end up in. Bands are basically socialist experiments where everyone has a say, everyone has a place to share their input and their creativity, and we’ve seen how it all forms and congeals between the four of us. We’re taking the risks. We’re assuming the losses. We’re celebrating the wins, all as a collective unit. 

STEEN: I think the main goal is expression. We want to keep writing, keep creating and growing, and getting older is hot. Like, let’s rock until the wheels fall off.

Makeup by Nina Carelli

Hair by Yukie Nammori

Styling by Amber Simiriglia

Studio assistance by Brooke Marsh

Source: altpress.com