Mannequin Death Squad
I’ve always loved two-piece bands – the music eternally seems to be so raw and urgent, as though it must fill the entirety of each space with sound. Guitar and drums battle, feeding off each other as each song creates a war cry of awesomeness. Well, that’s how it feels to me, and in my mind Mannequin Death Squad fills this headspace quite nicely. Influenced by anything, everything and whatever they want this Melbourne-based duo smash-up the scenery as their angry, angsty, punk rock vibes take over your stereo. Live, forget about it – they will rock your world and blow you away! With the release of their first album, Super Mental Psycho under their studded belts there’s no rest for the wicked and these rock babes are already recording their next one! We can’t wait for that either, but in the meantime we checked out what’s been going on in the Mannequin Death Squad world.
Please tell us a bit about yourselves and how you first got the band together – what’s in the history?
Hi! So ,I’m Elly and Dan is Dan and we play something along the lines of thrash power pop.
The story of how we met is quite underwhelming. We were both studying ‘Music Business’ at the same Uni and decided to jam one day and it kinda just felt easy, so we made it a thing!
Who would you say has influenced/ inspired you – and the band – both musically and personally?
We have like a stir fry of different artists we are inspired by, Veruca Salt gave me the harmony fever at a young age, System Of A Down and Dillinger Escape Plan make us both want to write crazy fat heavy riffs, but honestly every day we’ll be influenced by one song, even by a band we don’t normally listen to, and if it’s a good track, it sticks with you and you naturally want to emanate the same vibe. Lately it’s mostly been smaller and local bands, Calva Louise, Ecca Vandal, Grasshole, Estrons.
Your first album – Super Mental Psycho – is out now and you’ve also started your own record label! Can you tell us a bit about the album and why you started your own label?
It was a relief releasing this album as it’s all the songs we’ve written over the first years of being a band and it captures that time of angst and love, and back to angst really well I think. It’s the introduction to us.
So, with Riot Love we had a lightbulb moment and thought well, we do everything ourselves anyways … booking, editing, set design, managing, socials, you bloody name it (I’m tired just writing this list) why don’t we start our own record label!? We want Riot Love to be able to grow with Mannequin and we wanted it to be from the very first release. When we have found the perfect team to help Mannequin out, and have some more time on our hands, we’d love to sign other artists and give those amazing bands who aren’t getting the love and support they need, some spotlight if we can 🙂
You’re currently working on a new album – can you tell us about that and how you handle the recording process – how does it all come together in the studio?
This album literally just fell out of our mouths and hands and onto Pro Tools! I’ve never had a more cathartic recording process. We were so inspired and influenced by certain things we were going though at the time … and to write it all at once felt really good.
We started out with demos and pre-production, which is done on an electric drum kit, DI guitar but with real vocals. We got demo-itis on this one and ended up loving all the vocals and tempo and structure etc… So, then we basically just went in and recorded real drums and guitar and kept the vocals because it felt too real and emotional and just wrong to try and recreate that. We’re absolutely sooooo excited for this album, it’s a tiny bit different but genuine and I think that’s what’s most important.
What makes you smile and what scares you the most?
When someone who doesn’t smile smiles, and I’m scared of veins.
Find out everything:
https://linktr.ee/Mannequindeathsquad
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