MANNEQUIN PUSSY // “I Learned A Lot In This Process In Terms Of A Healthier Way To Approach Music”

Philadelphia-hailing rockers Mannequin Pussy have been conjuring music that moves, both physically and mentally, since forming back in 2010.

MORE: NECK DEEP: Rating: 8 Middle Fingers REVIEWS: BLOOM: Maybe In Another Life // BANKS ARCADE: DEATH 2 // MANNEQUIN PUSSY: I Got Heaven // DEALER: Glass Preacher

A band who make you feel truly alive through their riotous charm and clear adoration for one another, the band now sit poised on the release of a fourth studio album, with I Got Heaven due out on Friday 1 March via Epitaph records.

An album steeped in zealous energy and an unshakeable driving message, I Got Heaven marks album #4 for Mannequin Pussy, following on from their 2019 album Patience and 2021 EP Perfect, the road to I Got Heaven began in earnest at the end of 2022. And the upcoming new album also offered the band a chance to re-channel their creative focus in unexpected ways, as guitarist and vocalist Marisa Dabice recently shared with HysteriaMag.com.

“We were recording the record by March of 2023,” says Dabice, “so in kind of classic teenage procrastination…not that it was procrastination, but things really started falling into place with our ability to step away from touring and step away from playing shows and focus completely on making the record.”

“During the pandemic, we had to go through some big changes as a band to re-situate our creative energy,” Dabice adds. “And to get Maxine [Steen], who has been a dear friend of mine for eight years coming into the fold – she is someone who I’ve wanted to be in a band with ever since I met her. Things really worked out in the way that I had been kind of waiting for them to, but would never push. I was just going to allow it to happen.”

Relentlessly touring in 2021 and 2022 to make up for lost time following the pandemic years surrounding their most recent releases, the realisation for Dabice and the entirety of Mannequin Pussy for how to reignite their spark became abundantly clear when Dabice received a call from Epitaph Records owner (and Bad Religion legend) Brett Gurewitz.

“Brett Gurewitz called me,” says Dabice, “and he was like: So, the record. How are you feeling about it? What’s coming out? And I was like: Honestly Brett, I think we need to get away from Philadelphia. He had suggested us recording it there, but I was like: I think we need to get out of our homes and go somewhere and just write together. And I’m just so incredibly lucky to have Epitaph because Epitaph was like: Yeah, that makes sense. Let’s buy you all plane tickets, get you into a studio with John Congleton, our producer, and just start writing. And we were able to all afford that time because it was on someone else’s dime, it’s thanks to The Offspring’s Smash that we were able to afford to go out to California and just focus on writing for a week.”

Working alongside Grammy Award-winning producer Congleton, whose production work spans everyone from Blondie through to Eddie Vedder and Thrice, I Got Heaven’s creation also resulted in the fastest ever writing time for Mannequin Pussy, as well as some deep creative revelations.

We wanted to continue that bridge in our music that allows us to chase parts of us. We all love hardcore music and we love punk music and we love being able to just go completely unhinged in a song and just scream what it is that’s inside of us. But we’ve also matured, we’re all in our thirties now and we have different ways of wanting to express ourselves and wanting to experiment in new ways.
[ Marisa Dabice, Mannequin Pussy ]

“I learned a lot in this process in terms of a healthier way to approach music,” Dabice says. “In the past, sometimes I would spend months or years working on a song to really try to figure out how to finish it. There’s an example of that on this record, Nothing Like was a song I first started writing six years ago and I just couldn’t figure it out until this timeline that we were in together. And sometimes that’s just true for songs, sometimes you do have to spend some time on them; other songs you write in 15 minutes and you’re like: How the fuck did I do that? Romantic and Drunk II were songs where I sat down and within 20 minutes they were written. That also just happens sometimes.”

As for I Got Heaven? Dabice shares: “All of us just were just going into a studio and everyone was like: You got any ideas maybe? We just started to play and chasing ideas in real-time. It was just a really intoxicating way to do it because we were in a space where we were just trusting our intuitions, we were trusting each other, we were trusting everyone’s contributions. And with John, I think also having him be part of those writing processes for us, to also just sit there as an observer and a participant; he encouraged us to chase things that were worth chasing and then also encouraged us to leave behind things that just clearly weren’t working.”

Once again defying any one key genre label throughout the ten tracks on I Got Heaven, Mannequin Pussy cover a vast sonic palette on their brand new release, shifting between softer moments of beauty through to earth-rattling ragers in the blink of an eye. But amongst the fluctuating moods and moments, a sharp thread of cohesion spreads throughout; and the end result stems from the band in full command of who they are at their core.

“We were our own stylistic reference for this record,” says Dabice. “This being our fourth album, we were kind of starting to look at the body of work that we had thus far and really wanting to marry the rawness and the chaotic catharsis of Romantic with the kind of polished, more pop and experimental new sounds of Patience. And we wanted to continue that bridge in our music that allows us to chase parts of us. We all love hardcore music and we love punk music and we love being able to just go completely unhinged in a song and just scream what it is that’s inside of us. But we’ve also matured, we’re all in our thirties now and we have different ways of wanting to express ourselves and wanting to experiment in new ways.”

“I think that’s really the beauty of when you’ve been doing something like making music for over a decade. It’s natural to want to experiment with new sounds and just see new ways that you can write songs because, at the end of the day, we are just writing songs – but how we approach them I think is what’s changed the most. And I love the people that I’m in this band with so much and what we bring out of each other. It’s a really exciting time for us.”

Not merely boasting an abundance of sonic delights to coax your ears into a stupor, I Got Heaven also firmly touches on the conflicting reality of humanity and the beauty of the natural world around us, alongside more personal elements.

“I hope a listener takes home from this album that there’s a lot of beauty to be found in solitude,” Dabice says. “And the way that you are intentional about your solitude, that then washes over you in a way where you are then intentional about your collaborations.”

“Myself, Maxine, and Bear [Colins Regisford], about two years ago we all went through breakups at similar time,” adds Dabice, “and we were all people who might be very quick to jump into another little romantic adventure. I would be falling in love every fucking day, I’d be in one relationship, it would end – I’d find myself in another one a few weeks or months later. With that kind of serial monogamy thing, I think it’s also very expected of women that you’re supposed to be on the hunt at all times for the person who’s going to make you feel unlike any way you’ve ever felt. But also what happens in those times is that I feel like I’ve been this fantasy projection for people where ultimately what they were attracted to was not maybe what they wanted, and then wanting to change me in ways that I couldn’t bear to be changed.”

“I am not going to contort myself to the way that someone else expects me to be and I can’t sacrifice the things I want to accomplish to be there for someone else. And so when we all ended these relationships and we all found ourselves in this moment, we’re like: Oh, we’re all kind of choosing to be alone. We’re all choosing to just kind of sit with ourselves and work on ourselves and work on that healing and also work on making something together. We really kind of dug into the creative sides of ourselves in a way that didn’t have any of the distractions of the past. I feel like I am really someone who allows love to overwhelm me, and I feel it’s such a lovely distraction – but ultimately it is a distraction sometimes, especially when there’s things that you’re trying to create that you need space for and you need to put yourself away from other people in order to do so.”

Dabice is quick to add that I Got Heaven is absolutely not a breakup album, with 2019’s Patience instead taking that mantle. 

“I Got Heaven is: what does it mean to sit with yourself in that solitude, assessing what it is that you need to do, assessing the ways that you’re expected to show up for different people, assessing the ways that expectations are put onto you, that you’re supposed to behave in certain ways,” says Dabice. “And just challenging all of that and ultimately being more intentional at the way that you share your time with other people instead of just allowing anyone to choose you and feeling like they’re doing you a favour when you’re kind of the prize. 

“You have to spend time on yourself to make sure you’re in a really healthy place in your life to allow those sorts of distractions. I spent my whole twenties being someone’s fucking girlfriend…and the beginning of my thirties!”

With multiple shows already locked in this year in North America, the UK and Europe, including an appearance on the insanely stacked lineup for Leeds Festival this August, can Australian fans dare to hope to witness the band on our shores any time soon?

“All I can say is that I’ve been wanting to go to Australia my entire life,” says Dabice. “I am so excited that it might finally be happening this year and we’ll actually get to have sort of a reunion for the first time. It’s a meeting, but it’s also a reunion in a strange way.”

Between releasing I Got Heaven on Friday 1 March, a hectic upcoming rehearsal and touring schedule, and continuing her crafty pursuits, including showcasing her “love language” of making tie dye onesies for her friends’ new babies, Dabice certainly has her hands full in 2024 as Mannequin Pussy continue to cement their rousing and ever-growing sonic crown. But amongst the mayhem that often follows life as a musician, her own idea of heaven is ultimately as powerfully beautiful as the impending new album.

“My idea of heaven is anytime I’m surrounded by people who can appreciate the small beauties in life, anytime I’m with people who can appreciate the natural beauty and feel like the natural world itself is worth protecting and worth preserving, and people who really see that everything we need is already here,” says Dabice. “We’ve just…I can’t even say allowed it, because I don’t think any of us really allowed this to happen…it was just a system in which we were born into, we live under a system that has no regard for nature, one that only sees nature as a means to its own acquisition of wealth.”

“Anytime I’m surrounded by people who just are in awe of the natural beauty of the world and find delight in that beauty – that, to me, is very heavenly. The clear connection that exists between all of us on this planet does not cease to delight me and inspire me.”

“I think this world is so unbelievably beautiful and it’s one of the reasons I want to go to Australia too, because there’s so many beautiful things that I have yet to see.”

I Got Heaven is out now via Epitaph Records.