Mannequin Death Squad are a duo with the strength of four-piece. They come barging onto stage with a flurry of punchy, electro-punk jams and then swap instruments halfway through the set, treating it like a caffeine-fuelled punk relay, with heavy metal fidget spinners. Elly (vox, guitar drums) and Dan (also vox, guitar, drums) are like an espresso martini or rather molotov cocktail of punk synergy. They’ve drawn the attention of another (erstwhile) party-punk duo that some of you may have heard of and even collaborated with them on Safe and Warm. A track that burns hotter than white phosphorus on an open wound as it oozes out your melting speakers.
Yes, I’m talking about the greatest band in Australia (sorry, I can’t be impartial here) DZ Deathrays, who also invited Mannequin Death Squad on the Victoria leg of the absolutely massive Weekend Warriors regional tour. They were kind enough to let me tag along and pester them on this run and pester them I did. Straight after a delicious brunch in Ballarat (thanks to Pat’s Sandwiches) with a full belly, and no means to defend themselves while digesting our gourmet feast, I lunged at them with our Five Quickfire Questions!
1. Your latest release is a collab with the very wonderful Emmy Mack titled Don’t Care. I was wondering if either of you may have a peculiar or quirky ritual that you just Don’t Care what others think of it?
Dan: Ha!
Elly: That’s a good question, I was not expecting that.
OB: That’s how I roll.
Elly: Hm, a ritual that I don’t care about? We might have to do separate answers and come back to it. I’m blank.
OB: That’s okay, we can come back to it
Dan: I do wait… I swear we have rituals.
Elly: We do have rituals, what are they? We… don’t eat before a show. Is that a ritual?
OB: That’s not peculiar, that’s a pretty industry wide practice, not eating a couple of hours before show time.
Elly: A ritual, I don’t know. Wait, I tend to speak in a Scottish accent when I get stressed or down on myself. Like if I stub my toe, I’m like “Aye ye barstaaaard!” or like…
OB: Ha-ha-ha! Like, like Shrek?
Elly: A little bit yeah, ha! If I’m stressed, I’ll just ramble on in a bad Scottish accent.
Dan: Yeah, before shows usually involve not eating and a lot of speaking in bad Scottish accents, because we are somewhat nervous.
OB: I love that! So, if during this interview you start speaking in a Scottish accent, I know I’m done, I’m cooked!
Elly: Absolutely, and I don’t know how you are going to transcribe it if we do!
(Editor’s note: Phonetically because that’s how they tend to do it with actual Scots funnily enough)
Dan: Or it’s maybe we feel like going for a run or something if we are feeling like shit. Just to get the body going. That’s something you (Elly) did yesterday.
Elly: That’s something I feel people might be like “Oh lame!”.
OB: No! It gets the endorphins going, it’s good.
Elly: Yeah! You know, if I am feeling a bit seedy after a big night or just a late night, we will go for a run. Blow off steam.
Dan: Between the next show it will just be coffee, food, and survive…
OB: Sometimes using a Scottish accent, right?
Elly: Sometimes we like to have a cappuccino or espresso on stage.
OB: On stage? As conservative as that may sound, I’ve never seen that before.
Elly: It’s a bit fancy. The ritual coffee cup.
Dan: You know what? The ritual we have would be to try and get a coffee as close to the show as possible. And it’s by any means necessary.
Elly: Now the ideas are all flowing.
Dan: Ah-ha-ha-ha, off we go!
2. Honey Punch has a double meaning. It could either mean an unexpected (yet deserved) surprise attack, or it could be a sickly-sweet boozy cocktail. If it’s the former, what goes into a Honey Punch cocktail? (It doesn’t necessarily just mean alcohol by the way)
Both: Oh!
Elly: Well, it definitely has to have honey, maybe even…
Dan: It has to punch you in the face so it would have some tequila.
Elly: And something sour I’d say. Because after a punch, you’re a bit sore or sour.
Dan: A honey tequila sour, it’s going pretty Mexican now.
Elly: Honey, tequila, and maybe honeydew. Can you put that on the top of it or something?
OB: Of course you can, it’s your recipe.
Elly: I’m feeling watermelon though.
OB: What about something Blue or something Cherry?
Dan: True, true, true!
Elly: Hey you know more about our band than we do!
OB: Research!
Elly: You know how in Mexico they blend mango and chilli? We can blend it into something like that.
Dan: Ok, so what have we got? What’s the cocktail?
Elly: Honey…
Dan: Honey, watermelon… I want watermelon.
Elly: Watermelon?
Dan: Ah no, that doesn’t make sense.
Elly: Honey, tequila, sour… what sour?
Dan: Grapefruit juice, I like grapefruit juice. That also goes in the rituals sometimes.
Elly: And honeydew melon, that’s it. Honey, tequila, grapefruit juice, and honeydew melon.
Ob: With a cherry on top.
Elly: And a punch in the face! Ha-ha!
Dan: It gets served with a punch in the mouth. Ha-ha yeah!
3. You had another very successful collab with DZ Deathrays last year. Is there anyone out that may be Addicted to You that you might like to collaborate with in the future?
Both: Woohoo! Oh, there are so many artists, many, many!
Dan: This is like a boxing callout. “And you’re next!”.
OB: And I’ll send it to them!
Elly: Geez, we were unprepared for this! But like oh my God!
Dan: It’s like… everybody!
Elly: Everybody? You’ve always liked a System of a Down, but that’s next level, pretty crazy.
Dan: No. that’s not happening,. They’re not doing anything at the moment anyway.
OB: How about an Australian?
Elly: Yeah, let’s bring it back to Australia.
Dan: We love Ecca Vandal.
OB: Oh, that would be sick. Yeah DZ did the Fear the Anchor collab together, so good!
(Editor’s Note: Funnily enough, I first saw Ecca Vandal opening for DZ back in 2016 and now she’s opening for Limp Bizkit!)
Elly: We’ve always loved her.
Dan: Yeah, we’re big fans. And she is dropping even more cool stuff now.
Elly: Yeah, we got into her through DZ.
Dan: That would be cool if Ecca would be up for it.
4. Is there a band that you feel that more people should be Movin’ Too see?
Elly: Oh, as in an act that we feel are underrated? They are so many we believe are underrated.
Dan: Heaps. There is our mates band Grasshole, they’re amazing. From Melbourne. It’s our mate Karis Hawkins. He is the guitarist and writer, and his dad Rick plays drums. The most incredible song writing, grunge, fuzz rock stuff. They’ve toured Europe,and are amazing. You have to check them out.
Elly: Yeah, I feel for me it’s really the music and the songs that are important to me. If I remember and can sing along, that’s what I like the most, the genius of good writing.
Dan: Yeah, it’s not rare these days, but it is harder to find good song writing with good hooks. I’m all-in with emotions in the lyrics, and they (Grasshole) have that in spades.
5. Our good mate and your touring buddy Jake Doyle of Drunk Mums was going to ask you question number five, but they’re across town at the moment, so I’ll have to pass your response on. What’s your favourite venue that you’ve played in? I mean you’ve travelled far and wide for eight years non-stop now.
Elly: Oh, that’s so cute Oh wow, thanks Jake!
Dan: Supersonic in Paris for sure right?
Elly: Yeah, I’d say that.
Dan: We played there two times, and I think DZ has a show there coming up too. We played both shows on a Tuesday, a year apart. And as soon as the first song plays, they are rioting, and there’s a balcony… Like there are two levels, with a pit and a balcony with people looking down on it from above… People were crowd surfing and climbing up the barrier from the first song. It’s crazy!
Elly: The first show we did there was my first time ever stage diving and crowd surfing while performing, so it’s my favourite to look back on. And then the next time everyone else was crowd surfing and stage diving.
OB: So, wait. While you’re crowd surfing, does that mean Dan is doing vox, guitar, and drumming all on his own?
Dan: No, Elly still had a guitar (while crowd surfing), I was holding it together drumming and singing…
Elly: I was playing guitar and crowd surfing. I can’t say it sounded great ha!
Dan: But everyone was having so much fun. Definitely the best, it was a party.
OB: Supersonic…
Dan: Yeah, after the Oasis song.
(Sorry Jake! Something can be said here about the six degrees of separation…)
Mannequin Death Squad are about to release their second album Wise and Dangerous and are going on tour across Australia for it starting this month, so make sure to get around it!
