Music Interview with "Missy"
If you have seen the long overdue video Shell Shock by Lazo, it opens up with Nemo Debevoise skating to “I Got Heaven” by Mannequin Pussy. Pretty fucking fitting for Nemo. Back in 2018, I attended Riot Fest with an artist wristband from one of the Twin Peaks members. Back before I was really involved in that industry and knew how serious that shit was taken. Mannequin Pussy was performing that year. Although I did not see their performance, I did go to a speaker booth—not sure if it was Bose or something—but they just said show your artist wristband and say what band you are in. My friend and I did, in fact, say we were in Mannequin Pussy to get a free speaker, which I still have.
How did you come up with the name Mannequin Pussy? Have you seen the
movie Mannequin from the 1980s?
Marisa “Missy” Dabice: Uh, yeah, I have seen the movie Mannequin with Kim Cattrall, but that’s not the source of it. I don’t know, it was just divine inspiration.
When I first heard the name, I literally thought of that ridiculous movie. What range of music would you listen to, lightest to heaviest?
It’s a wide net. I’m opening my Spotify to see what I was recently listening to. I listen to a lot of classical music to try to quiet my mind a lot of times. I was listening to some Franz Liszt recently. They’re beautiful piano concertos. There’s a lot of really heavy music I listen to. I don’t know, sometimes I feel like a Cannibal Corpse mood or Ministry, which is kind of heavy in a different way just like industrial beats and a very spirited kind of top line. I would go anywhere from Franz Liszt to Ministry.
Of course, it depends on the mood. Do you listen to classical music to soothe yourself? Do you do it when you’re cleaning or doing yoga or something like that?
Yeah. Before they started over-prescribing Adderall to people it was a little trick. Just listening to instrumental music helps your mind focus on what’s in front of it and be soothed. I really like listening to it when I have something I need to do around the house that I don’t want to do, like cleaning up or washing my dishes. It makes me feel very focused and productive. I feel like I am trying to give myself more permission to just lay down and listen to music as though music is so often relegated to a background experience. And just the act of laying down, closing your eyes and listening to an album, it’s something I’ve been trying to get myself to do recently in the last couple of months. I think classical is another great world to close your eyes and escape into.
Yeah, I will have to try that because if I am anxious or anything like that, I’ll usually just listen to a 1972 live Europe Grateful Dead album that’s soothing and it eases my anxiety. I’ve never done the classical music thing, so I’ll give it a try.
I was just listening to American Beauty recently, so I’ll get down with some Dead moments. But I would recommend it. One of my favorites is, I think it’s just called Romantic Favorites for Strings. It’s a Leonard Bernstein one. It’s just really beautiful and romantic and just a gorgeous orchestral arrangement.
I’ll definitely check that out. Do you have any crazy fan stories that stand out?
There are a few that come to mind. I think we’re pretty lucky in that our fans are definitely passionate, but they’re not like scary crazy. I was involved in a proposal once where these two women came up to me at a show and they wanted to take a picture together. Then the one girl whispered to me, she’s like, “I’m going to propose to my girlfriend right now and will you film it and be part of the proposal?” In my mind, a public proposal seems like a humiliation ritual, potentially.
I would be so embarrassed.
For me, personally, that’s got to be a private moment for sure because what if they say no? But some people like humiliation. I guess, if you’re doing that in public, usually you’re probably sure what they’re going to say.
But yeah, I was like, “Are you absolutely sure she’s going to say yes?”
And she was like, “Oh yeah, definitely.”
And I was like, “Okay.”
Your confidence is there so we’ll do this. I was filming them while she proposed to her. That was really beautiful.
That’s wholesome, but I wouldn’t want to do the public thing. But yeah, I’m glad your fans are passionate and not scary. That shit always freaks me out.
Yeah, I’d love for it to stay that way. Our fans are mostly just very romantic, passionate people. I’ve heard of a lot of people saying that they met their partner at a Mannequin Pussy show or something like that. It’s nice that somehow within the world of punk and rock that we’ve carved out, there’s also this space to be romantic and just feel aligned with other people or wanting to connect. It’s the romantic stories that I like the most.
That’s so cute. This goes for a show you attended or performed, but do you remember a terrible show at all? Like one that you will remember forever.
I do remember being young. I lived in New York very briefly in my twenties and I would go to shows a lot, a couple times a week. I was just obsessed with music but didn’t realize that I could play it yet. Part of the impetus for really wanting to start Mannequin Pussy was not only did I have a lot of personal emotions and intense trials that were happening in my life. I love music so much and I’d go out to shows. It was mid 2010s where the coolest thing you could do on stage was look like you didn’t want to be there at all. There was this real obsession with nonchalance and being too cool to show enthusiasm. It’s cool not to care, was very much the ethos back then, I think. I’d go to a lot of these shows and oftentimes it would be a man on the stage just looking so bored to be there. Not really pouring into the audience, pouring into the emotions of the song. Yeah, it just looked like they could not give less of a shit. To me it was like, if I ever got the chance to be on stage that would feel like such a privilege. I’d want to pour as much as possible into the performance and the audience. So that was an inspiration where I felt so bored going to shows because the performer looked bored. That was when I realized that there is a symbiotic relationship between how the performer is feeling about the show and what they put into it and then what the audience gives you.
Yeah, when the bands and the audience feed off each other’s energy, it makes way more sense. Now you do have the opportunity to show how much of a privilege it is for you. Do you feel like the most at home when you’re on tour? Or do you like being home for a detox and breather.
Yeah, no. I do not think touring feels like home at all. I think it feels like work that never ends. It feels like a job that is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No, no, no. I feel at home when I’m at home and when I’m on tour I feel like I’m at work.
Well, it looks like you get a little bit of a break before touring again.
I’ve been on a break since early January. We’ve had little pockets of things to do and it’s been really busy. That’s the thing. You’re not just working when you’re performing. There’s a lot of other work to do all the time. We had to be very committed to our time off so that we could just have space to write new music and be people who are allowed to resettle themselves and take their time building a home. My home life is so important to me. My domestic life is so important to me, because it’s something that I’m sacrificing sometimes half the year to do something that I love and I’m thrilled to be able to do. But it’s tough. I think it’s an unnatural setting to find yourself in for it. So, this year we’re just doing less. Last year, we did around a hundred shows and this year we’ll probably do 50 shows, which feels so much more manageable to me.
What do you do when you are at home that you love?
I’m really into decorating my space, making it as comfortable as possible. I love cooking. I cook pretty much every meal at home. I’m in this new studio space right now that does have a good garden potential so I might start gardening and make a community garden with myself and some of my friends because we’re all traveling in and out. I’d be nice to have something to literally plant some seeds and watch it fucking grow. I think that’d be wonderful. I just want to learn some new tricks, and gardening feels like the right time for that. But I mostly just like exercising, cooking, hanging with people I love, and then working on new music.
Do you have any rituals or routines that you do before you go on stage and perform?
I usually try to do a meditation, stretch, do my fucking glam, pick out a fit. I do a lot of vocal warmups. I spend as much time before the show as I can alone. I try not to talk too much, save your voice, just warm it up. It’s nice to have a semblance of a routine before it, because it gets you in the right headspace every time you get on stage in front of people for an hour or so. I feel like the older I get, the more my routines are so important to me. I feel like touring taught me some of the importance of having those and then having those on tour, I was like, oh, I need to bring that into my life. I need to not only be nice to myself when I’m touring and something is hard, but I need to be doing that all the time.
Have you ever not had time to do your vocal warm-ups and then it totally fucked up your performance?
Yeah, I think I’ve been on a year-long learning curve for what I need to do to be in the best state to sing and scream and perform. Anytime I’ve not given myself enough time to work out my voice, I’m just like, this hurts. I hate singing and I don’t want to go on, but that’s what I’m supposed to do. When you fuck up your routine or you’re a little lazy, a sloth about it, that’s when you realize you should have done that. I should have been on top of my shit. So, it’s good to reinforce the lessons of what you need to be doing.
Do you have any documentaries or did a deep dive on any bands that changed your perspective and you were like, I want to do that?
I remember being in middle school and wanting to be in a band. To me that was just the clue. I fucking hated having to go to school and spending time in school. I didn’t want to be there. I did not enjoy the educational system. I was creative and interested in different things and there’s not a lot of support for kids who are showing different sets of skills, if anything. If they were, you try to force them to do the thing that they’re expected to do. So it really took me a very long time. I was just talking to someone about this last night that when we were both kids and especially in early high school, we were making movies with our friends and just being creative. The difference between us was that, for them, their parents saw them making films and stuff and were like, “Hey, you’re really interested in this. Maybe this is something you should continue.”
But for me, no. No one was like, “Oh, you’re interested in these creative things. You should just be creative.”
Not in a malicious way I don’t think, but I don’t think we’re trained to see creativity as something that’s worthwhile, when really human beings are uniquely creative beings, basically. We kind of are meant to be here to create something or to be inventive about the way that we see the world around us and involve ourselves with it.
Back more to your question, I wanted to be in a band so badly. I think the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were a huge one for me, seeing them on TRL and live performances. I realized that you could scream if you were a woman. You could be in a band. It did take me a long time to feel like seeing another woman in that position who made it feel like it wasn’t just for the boys. I still think a lot of young women deal with the industries still being incredibly male dominated. So, if you’re going to enter a male-dominated space, you must be incredibly confident and self-assured that that’s where you want to be.
You totally have to be confident. Do you still have any struggles now, even though you’ve been doing it for this long, being a female in that world or not really?
No, not really. I feel very respected by my peers and our fans and the world in which we inhabit. I think I’m very lucky for that. Every now and then you get a bunch of little driveling trolls coming your way, saying you don’t belong in a space. But you’re like, obviously we do, so it doesn’t really matter what your opinion is on myself or the music that we make. Clearly, it’s hitting with people. You got to just put up those protective barriers. I think meditating has really helped me a lot with that. Having this space of my own mind rather than feeling like I need external validation for the things that I do.
Do you listen to meditation music and how long do you usually meditate for when you do that?
I meditate for 20 minutes in the morning. Twenty minutes at some point at night if I have time for it or I’m in a place where I can. But I drink the Kool-Aid, I do transcendental meditation like David Lynch-style. He’s been talking about it for 50 years. Rest his soul.
Was it hard to train yourself how to turn off your brain?
No, because that’s not what TM is about. It’s about feeling connected to your mind and what the thoughts are that you’re having. The goal is not to turn anything off. It’s to tune in. Thoughts are not the enemy. It’s rare to sit down and have no thoughts.
Yeah, I overthink everything. I’m glad meditation has helped you a lot. If you were to go back and give yourself any advice, 10 years ago or something, what would it be?
I mean, there’s a part of me that would be like, I don’t think I’d have to give her advice. I think she knows exactly what she’s doing. Maybe just a light gentle reminder that it takes about 10 years to build a reputation and to understand your craft and your talent. A reminder that if you really commit to a creative practice that you love and commit to your creative collaborators, there’s so much that you’re capable of experiencing and achieving together. When I think about young me, she would be so fucking hyped at the direction of the way things have gone and the way that our life has been able to go. So yeah, I think she’s just got it.
She killed it, obviously.
Yeah, she’s doing okay. I think we have to have a lot more grace for the times where we’re failing and struggling, you know?
Because you learn.
Most things are temporary. Success can be this temporary thing. So it’s just whatever mode of life you’re in, you have to find a way to make it through that.
It sounds like you’ve known what you’ve wanted to do since middle school, but if there was another career path you’d take, what would it be?
I’d be a film director.
That’s awesome. Have you dabbled in that with music videos and stuff?
I’ve directed a lot of music videos for Mannequin Pussy and for several other bands. I would love to write a short film or feature film one day. I love the world of directing because, in my mind, it’s very similar to being in a band where it takes a creative vision, and then a bunch of different people with a myriad of talents coming together to chase that vision. I love creative collaboration. I love a group of talented people coming together to make something. I really hope that down the line I’ll continue to be able to explore and collaborate with other people. Touring is really hard on the body, and I think it’s good to take little breaks from music and be creative in different ways, because it keeps you coming back to music in a way where you still have a reverence for it.
Do you have a favorite music video that you were like, oh my god, I love that vision that they had for that?
Favorite music video that’s an incredible one? There’s a Kylie Minogue video “Come into My World” directed by Michel Gondry, where she’s walking around this block in what looks like Paris or a European city. There are all the different versions of her that appear in this. It’s like a one shot video but then there’s multiplied versions of her. It’s just cheeky and it’s just so inventive. They’re also the Everything Everywhere All at Once. Those guys, the Daniels [Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan], they directed a music video. I think it’s “Turned Down for What.” That music video is amazing. It’s like someone who’s falling through the floors of an apartment building. It’s so good. So many directors really get their start with music videos so it’s really fun sometimes if you find a director you really love. If you go early into their career, they’re doing amazing work. Like Hiro Murai, too, who did the “This Is America” video for Childish Gambino.
That one was amazing, too.
He’s done a number of ones, not only for Childish Gambino, but for other artists. I love the medium. I think everyone kind of hates music videos because they usually have a very small budget, but it is also the only chance to be creative sometimes. A lot of people just get most of their work from commercials in the commercial world. So it’s just a nice chance to do something a little out of the box.
I love music videos because you get to see how the artist wanted you to visually see their song. If you were to fangirl over anyone that is dead or alive, or both, who would it be?
I would lose my mind if I was able to talk to Amy Winehouse. I just worshiped the artistic ground that she walked on. She was the first celebrity musician that, when she died, I felt devastated, and I cried on and off for days. I still feel emotional sometimes when I listen to her music and I think about how early in her life she passed and what music, potentially, we would’ve gone on to experience with her. I absolutely worship Amy Winehouse and think she was such a generational talent. Her voice was so unique and comforting at the same time. So many people were writing about relationships and about heartbreak, but she did so in a way that was so poetically universal. Universal but also so specific to her experiences, to how she was navigating her heartbreak and the betrayal she had. I think she was an iconic, incredible artist who, if I ever had the chance to spiritually connect with her, I would fangirl out.
The documentary that came out about her, I was literally sobbing. Have you ever been in a space where someone and you were like, holy shit I can’t believe they are here?
There’s not that many people I think I would fangirl over. I did see Jessica Pratt backstage at Pitchfork Fest last summer and I just had to tell her how much I absolutely adore her music. Every now and then you run into another artist you really respect, and you get to dap each other up. A lot of times, in these ways, you’re really meeting each other as peers. So, I think it’s sometimes inappropriate to fan too much and create that distance if you had the opportunity to befriend some of your musical heroes, you don’t want to fuck it up.
