MANNEQUIN PUSSY's Marisa "Missy" Dabice confronts deepening rage and the quest for unbridled self-expression in their explosive fourth album, 'I Got Heaven', a raw blend of personal and political punk anthems. Check out our latest Upset cover story.

Words: Linsey Teggert.
Photos: Millicent Hailes.

"They tell you that you get less angry as you get older, but I've actually found the opposite to be true: my rage has only deepened, but I've got much better at coexisting with it."

Mannequin Pussy's guitarist and vocalist Marisa "Missy" Dabice is ruminating on the themes of the Philadelphia band's upcoming fourth album, 'I Got Heaven', a record that finds the four-piece at their most vital and visceral.

"Sometimes I feel like I need to appear powerful and unhinged and dangerous and confident, so people don't fuck with me, and I'm able to walk unbothered," continues Missy. She's specifically referencing the hard-hitting first lines of album opener and first single, also named 'I Got Heaven', which immediately conjure an image of the unbridled: "I went and walked myself, like a dog without a leash, now I'm growling at a stranger, I am biting at their knees."

It brings to mind the oppressive and outdated trope of the hysterical woman who needs to be controlled - something Missy is very aware of. "In the band, we have our own vocabulary we've created together," Missy explains. "When we play live, I play guitar for half of the set, and then I put the guitar down and perform without it. I can run around stage and scream in people's faces and do whatever I want with my body, and we started calling it 'going unleashed' - I'm free of my guitar and get to go full Missy unleashed.

"I'm almost comparing myself to a wild animal who gets to untether myself from this thing that's been holding me back. I think it's good to feel in touch with your animalistic qualities. As women, we're held back from doing things that we love, or we have to reassess how to do the things we love just so we can be safe doing them, and that's a very universal experience. I want to be just like a wild animal that's free every time I'm able to leave the sanctity and safety of my apartment, but that's not always my reality."

Mannequin Pussy have always been a band who skilfully combine the personal and political, and 'I Got Heaven' sees them hone their firebrand approach even further, raging at the state of the world while also exploring desire and empowerment.

In between 'I Got Heaven' and their third album 'Patience' in 2019, the band released their 'Perfect' EP in May 2021, bridging the gap between records while pandemic restrictions were still in place. The band, also consisting of Colins "Bear" Regisford on bass, Kaleen Reading on drums and new addition Maxine Steen on guitar and synths, toured the EP relentlessly as soon as they were able, and amongst the chaos of being on the road found their bond and love for their art reinvigorated.

"To be able to play cathartic music in that wide open emotional space is really what connected us again to each other and our relationship to the art we create. Having access to touring and each other again and access to the joy that it brought us felt grounding, and generally, I would never describe touring as grounding!"

After solidifying their bond, Mannequin Pussy decided to recalibrate their approach to writing, leaving Philadelphia to write an album essentially from scratch together in LA with acclaimed producer John Congleton. Carving out space and time to focus on being present with each other and their creativity led to what Missy refers to as an "indescribable magic" that comes with putting together a song in real-time.

Perhaps it's a combination of this magic and the natural evolution that comes with maturity - it's been a whole decade since they released their self-titled debut album - but 'I Got Heaven' is Mannequin Pussy at their most electric and alive, digging deep into some of the fundamental questions of what it means to be human today. "With experience and maturity, you're able to look at situations in a way that isn't as narcissistic," says Missy. "You start to see yourself and your place in the world instead of just yourself as the world."

One of those big fundamental themes that recurs throughout the record is religion and holiness, specifically, the issue of Christian hypocrisy. Album opener 'I Got Heaven' contains one of Missy's most brilliantly provocative lines to date: "What if Jesus himself ate my fucking snatch?"

"I'm not going to play dumb and pretend that I wouldn't know why someone would be offended by that lyric. I don't care that anyone might be offended," states Missy defiantly. "I'm so much more offended by the advent of Christian fascism, especially in America, where the idea of what religion is is fused so deeply with the idea that the only way to be a respectable human is to allow someone else to tell you how to live.

"I grew up going to Church, and my relationship to Christianity was so different to the way it's currently being wielded as a weapon. I find it to be one of the most alarming and dangerous things in modern society that we have these antiquated systems by which we judge and command and control people.

"There's also another layer to it; the idea that no matter the type of person I am, even if I was so close to Jesus and that he loved me so much that he performed that sort of act on me, the type of woman I am would still not be enough. Even to have Jesus' love like that, I would still be judged."

It's Mannequin Pussy's ability to cover these huge themes in a way that's so cathartic and feels universal to so many that makes them such an important force. At their heart, Mannequin Pussy are a punk band. Though they have their softer moments, they are here to rage, and there's a lot to rage about.

"I'm in a privileged enough place where I can write something in a song, and there are people who are going to listen to it, read those lyrics, and dissect them. Then maybe I come closer to being able to find my people, or maybe have the potential to affect someone who needed to hear that and not feel so alone in how they feel about the world.

"There are such obvious propaganda tactics at play, especially in our Western civilisations that are so keen to divide people, because ultimately we're just one step away from having class consciousness and from realising that all of us are closer to having nothing than we are to being millionaires or billionaires. The way politicians have any control over us is to make it seem that us common people are what's standing in the way of each other's success, rather than the people at the very top. So, when our ire is turned on each other, it obviously only benefits the people at the top."

Despite all the rage, love and lust play a big part in this album; after all, love is one of those key fundamentals we can all identify with as humans. As previously mentioned, Mannequin Pussy have that special ability to blend the personal with the political, and there's a healthy dose of introspection at play here, with Missy, in her typically witty and barbed fashion, questioning love in the wider context of what it means to be a woman.

"I ended a relationship about two years ago, and when I ended that relationship, I realised that I have been someone's girlfriend for nearly thirteen years straight of my life, and I've always been expected to be someone's girlfriend. I've gone from relationship to relationship, becoming embroiled again in someone else and their expectations of me. I had to stop belonging to someone else.

"In the absence of that romantic distraction, I finally had to pull out those parts of me I'd been hiding from for a decade, and it's been the most healing period of my entire life. There's also a lot of lust and horniness and desire in this record, too, a lot of innuendo and horny little jokes, because in the absence of another, you do start to fantasise in a new way.

"I'm entering one of the most creative and professionally rewarding periods of my entire life, and I don't think it's a coincidence that I spent the last two years looking inward and really connecting so intensely to my bandmates and the relationship we have. There's a line in 'Loud Bark' that I'm really proud of: 'I'm a waste of a woman, but I taste like success'. I've always felt very judged by some people for choosing this alternative, unconventional life for myself. You can see me that way all you want, as a waste of a woman that didn't fulfil the type of role you put onto me, but fuck, if I don't taste like success." ■