It takes a rare breed of musician to steal the spotlight of a show as the opening act. Especially, taking the spotlight from Marilyn Manson---but Die Mannequin conquers this feat.

Care Failure of Die Mannequin radiates sass and self-confidence. She is the epitome of a true rockstar. Humble, with just the right amount of edge. She becomes animated the second she speaks of her love for music, channelling her love for Nirvana and the greats. Paying homage to the idea that music can save lives. In her dressing room moments before being scheduled to take the stage, she is free of nerves. Relaxed, giddy and carefree. The stage is certainly where she looks most at home.

Punk Globe chatted with Die Mannequin before they took the stage opening for Marilyn Manson in Edmonton, Alberta. Check it out:


What have been some of the most interesting tour experiences thus far?

The shenanigans that we get up to as a band are the stranger ones. We beat up a deli tray, Kevyy punched a vegetable tray and we had an orange fight.

Obviously touring with Manson is pretty awesome, if you could tour with anyone, dream tour—who would it be?

We are all going to have a bunch of different answers. For music, it's so HARD to peg! I think for fun and shenanigans, definitely the old school Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff crew. TURBONEGRO!

I would tour with the Foo Fighter's circa '95 or '96, or let me change! Black Rebel Motorcycle Club!

What era of music have you found to be most influential on your love for music, and your signature sound?

When I started getting into music as a kid, it was the 90's, I have album covers from the 90's tattooed all over me. If you trace those bands back, the sounds are like the 60's and 70's. Everything has played it's own part; all eras have been really cool.

How do you feel about the transition from physical albums to digital?

I don't really care. As a nerdist for sound quality, I love tape records. Music has been digital forever, bands just haven't been talking about it. You track live drums and then throw samples over everything. Now it's something that is just more talked about because people are learning how to make music from Logic. I don't know if it's more digital, or if people are just more honest about it. I'm cool with whatever, as long as the song is good and it sounds good, I like it.



We don't really have a choice at this point. Times are changing, so we adapt. I'm kind of an album person,

As digital as music has gotten, vinyl has made a huge comeback. There is a nice balance. It's nice you can access your music any time, any place but it's also nice people are still into the physical copies, especially vinyl. Vinyl always sounds the best to me.

I'm waiting for cassettes to make a comeback.


Lyrically, what song are you most proud of?

I would always pull pieces from different songs, if I could Frankenstein one together.

I like Knock Me Out.

I like Candide the most, it's very poetic.

A lot of it is just taken from the book Candide, by Voltaire. That's probably why it sounds so good, some of it is just lifted lines from the book.

Good artists borrow, great artists steal ha-ha

What are you currently listening to?

Oh man, everything, nothing. Ru Paul the super bitch remix. Die Antwoord.

How hard is it being a Canadian artist in what is mostly an American driven market?

Oh, it's very hard. Thank God we have factor and stuff like that which are grant companies for Canadians to help make records, videos, stuff like that. Stephen Harper and all these fuckheads cut our funding every year, they are always taking away our funding. Our factor is literally the only thing that lets us compete with the states. Taking away those grants, as they do every year is going to fuck us so hard. Not a lot of people realize that the cutting of funding for the arts is almost always factor cuts. I've always made videos with factor, I don't know if I would have been able to without it. I definitely wouldn't have been able to do this tour without factor support, for the tour budget support and stuff like that.

Where do you see the band progressing in the future?

I would see us travelling back in time. Like in Back To The Future, 2 then we'd go to the future future, then back to the past. Then we'd go back to the past, then we'd go back to the future twice and then the past.

Overwhelmingly awesome answer.

I cross-eyed myself from that answer.

What do you hope fans get from your music? Is there a message you're wanting to send?

I'm too dumb to have a message that I'm trying to conceptualize and send. I know it's really cheesy, but we all grew up having albums save our lives. Music that gets us through things and that's what makes the circle complete. This girl came up to me and said something along those lines and that's when you feel like all the doucheyness and industry bullshit, egos, all of that shit, it makes it worth it. That connection makes it worth it. It's corny but it's true.

Is there an album or musician in particular that you can say saved your life?

For sure. We all have those records back when we were growing up. There was Nirvana, the amazing Motown Artists that helped drag us all out of the gutters. I think anyone growing up in the 90's was really affected by Nirvana. I don't know of any other artist since that has had the same impact on us. I wish there would be.

Do you have any advice for aspiring musicians?

I have to take off my jaded hat and put on my cheerleading hat. If it's in your bones and it's what you love to do you should by all means do it. It's not economically the most smart career to pursue. But to be able to wake up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror and know you're on the right path. You've gotta do you, and make it fun. I hadn't been having fun for the last 8 or 10 years and I am now. Now I can unjadedly say go for it, don't have a plan B. Just fuck it!


If you had to pursue an entirely different career. No creativity allowed. What would you be doing?

I love doing merch and things like that for our band, so I would probably be doing something like that.

Gap?

Yeah, Baby Gap. Hahaha.

Any closing thoughts?

A few months ago I got to rebuild my band. I got to pick all my dream players and everyone I've always wanted to play with. It was a crappy feeling to know ‘I have no band' but it's been a new resurgence, new label, new record, new band. We're back…new, new, new. Bulletproof and dangerous---taking no prisoners.