Mannequin Pussy are still standing

“Oh, this is fucking perfect!” Marisa “Missy” Dabice intones with an eye roll. “I’m not really one for irony, but I started hearing that word a lot: perfect. Of course this would happen now, when things were really on an up.”

It was March 2020 when an escalating global pandemic ushered an abrupt end to Mannequin Pussy’s high-profile tour with Best Coast. It was a blow for the Philadelphia punk trio, made up of frontwoman Dabice, drummer Kaleen Reading and bassist Colins “Bear” Regisford who, a decade and three albums into their career, have seemingly been permanently on the cusp of greatness. It’s a good thing, then, they’ve been primed to adapt.

Mannequin Pussy formed in Connecticut in 2010, initially as a duo between childhood friends Dabice and guitarist Athanasios Paul, who left the band earlier this year. “It’s a lot of work to do this,” Dabice says of his departure, “and it’s especially a lot of work to do this when you don’t have the instant gratification of playing shows and having [music] be the forefront of your life.” Together, the pair released a storm of ramshackle EPs with sinewy titles like Meatslave and Bonerjamz! before eventually relocating to Philadelphia. Dabice and Paul completed their lineup with bassist Regisford and drummer Reading, which led to a deal with Tiny Engines Records. Their 2014 debut album, Gypsy Pervert – renamed GP in 2016 to distance themselves from the Romani pejorative – was stacked with minute-long, freaky hardcore jams. It became an instant favourite in their local DIY scene.

Philadelphia’s music scene prides itself on its accessibility and inclusion; a place where women, BIPOC and queer artists like Mannequin Pussy have space to express themselves without limits. Participate in the community, and the community pays it forward. In that sense, Mannequin Pussy may very well be your favourite band’s favourite band; a beloved-yet-underrated act that has firm roots in their community, buoyed by their tongue-in-cheek take on punk.

But it was 2019’s critically acclaimed album, Patience, that really elevated their profile. Their first release for revered pop-punk imprint Epitaph, which was founded by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz, was something of a misfit among the label’s roster. “I definitely thought about their history when they started talking to us,” Dabice admits. In contrast to the more produced emo stylings of labelmates Thursday or La Dispute, Patience was an unpolished, euphoric pop mess. The reception proved to be career-altering: comedian Jason Mantzoukas couldn’t stop talking about their song Drunk II, followed by a lucrative booking at Coachella – a slot the band accepted, despite festival owners AEG having previously donated to anti-LGBTQ+ charities. (“It seems like almost half of the venues in the US are owned by AEG,” the band wrote in a statement. “The network of what AEG owns makes it close to impossible to do a mass boycott.”) Then came a cameo in Japanese Breakfast’s Be Sweet video, a feature in supernatural comic book series Witchblood and, most recently, a dream sync in the form of HBO murder mystery Mare of Easttown, in which a band on the show performs Mannequin Pussy covers.

And yet, for a band who has seen relative success, their lives are still tethered to DIY culture. Without touring revenue, Reading started teaching drums over Zoom at School of Rock. “It’s kind of nice to get paid to work out technical difficulties with six year olds on the other end,” she jokes, coincidentally, over Zoom. “I say ‘Mannequin Puppy’ if I’m there.” Dabice, on the other hand, has balanced filling mail orders with a return to her old part-time job to make ends meet. It wasn’t ideal, but they were making it work. Then, as if to twist the knife, their tour van was broken into. “That’s a common thing that happens in Philly,” Regisford sighs. “People will cut out the catalytic converter because there’s platinum in there and you can sell it for a lot of money.” When he filed a report about the incident, he stepped outside to realise someone had stolen the van entirely, eventually dumping it in another part of town three days later.

Despite this setback, Mannequin Pussy still managed to make something beautiful: the Perfect EP. “It was kind of funny, naming our EP that, because no matter what, someone has to call it perfect,” Dabice laughs. “Even if they hate it, they’re calling it perfect.” Recorded with local hero Will Yip at his Studio 4 in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, the band entered the room without having pre-written songs for the first time ever. What’s more, they also hadn’t seen each other in real life for months. Unsure of what would happen, inspiration took hold and they finished all five tracks in just two days. Opener Control, the album’s exasperated lead single, is the band at their guitar pop best, as Dabice delicately sings, “I’m in control/ 
That’s what I tell myself
/ When all the walls around me close in
”. The title track is a throat-shredding hardcore jam with equally confrontational lyrics about feeling insecure. Contrastingly, To Lose You and Darling showcase a new, softer side to Mannequin Pussy, imbuing the kind of tender, shoegaze-indebted pop that you might find on a Cherry Glazerr record.

But at the centre of the release is a Regisford original, titled Pigs is Pigs, which directly confronts police brutality and racial inequality. “George couldn’t breathe/ Yah this is fucked/ Breonna needed sleep/ No knock, no knock/ Why is that the brightest stars/ Always get got,” he bellows, before chillingly reflecting, “Oh god, don’t wanna die alone.” It’s the first time the group’s sole Black member has taken the lead. “I was going crazy and the things I was feeling trapped about are things I was feeling trapped about before, just magnified,” he says. “I went ham.” The project, Dabice explains, is bound by grief. “Loss is what ties all the songs together – whether it’s losing control, losing a person to violence, or just someone that you were close to who is no longer in your life. When you write heavy things, but can still feel hopeful, that is the kind of work I aspire to make. I don’t want it to feel like a doom scroll. We have enough of that.”

This approach is made evident in the EP’s music videos, both directed by Dabice herself. In Control, she wields a sword and sets a bed alight on an abandoned golf course in Philly’s public FDR park. For Perfect, the band parodies Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion starring drag queens, while they scream out, “Laugh at my face/ Spit on my tits/ Tell me I’m perfect/ Tell me I’m it/ Oh, don’t you think I’m perfect?”

It’s exactly this wry humour and vulnerability, to the tune of a thousand distorted guitars, that has helped Mannequin Pussy stay the course. Resilience, optimism, hope – as the band prepares to regroup, these are the qualities that they’ll be keeping close. Regisford sums it up best: “The most important thing about creativity is learning to make do with what you have. People need entertainment. They need to know that you’re there.”