Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
When it comes to punk rock, Mannequin Pussy has mastered the element of surprise.
It was musical, it was comedy.
It was kind of drag in a sense, where theres these extreme outfit changes.
Performance, to the band, trumps music.
Bear:We were trying to do a virtual thing.
Missy:It was like, boom, song done, next song.
Bear:It felt like riding a bike after not riding a bike for a years.
People who had never heard of our band before really connected to that song.
Missy:Weve given ourselves a lot of space to write songs.
Were just going to allow it to be exactly how it came out of us.
you’re able to just keep going.
It made the process so much less intimidating.
And now we have Epitaph [after signing in April 2019].
And we just want to try.
And that connection is still real, its just happening on a different kind of plane.
I was definitely one of those 30-somethings who discovered TikTok for the first time during quarantine.
Before, when I thought of performance, I didnt really think too much about the audience.
Its nothing I can explain.
Something that was like, Oh yeah, this was clearly written in 2020.
And its gonna, unfortunately hopefully it stops but its probably going to go on after 2020.
Its not lost on me to know that we have a predominantly white audience, and thats fine.
But I also see myself out in the crowd.
I was like,How can I put this in words?
Ill come with riffs, and Ill be like,Marisas got this.
[Then we] had this moment where she was like, I think you got this, Bear.
And I was like, Oh, really?
He has important things to say.
Thats also how you reach your own communities as well.
Creating a varied body of work
Missy:[Darling] came from a demo graveyard.
And Will was like, We need the super-sad song.
Thats the song thats gonna connect all this.
Its always stuck in my mind as a song I loved.
Luckily, everyone was super-supportive, like, Yeah, lets flesh this out.
Its nice to be able to surprise your listeners.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
