Marisa Dabice Stole Karen O's Microphone (And She'd Do It Again)

The Mannequin Pussy frontwoman talks about teenage cancer, her Napster sins, and why hidden tracks are like sex.

Marisa Dabice photographed by noir33

If you’re inclined to worry about the future of rock music—which, if you believe most of what’s been written about the genre in recent years, has gone the way of ragtime jazz in terms of cultural relevance—then I implore you to listen to I Got Heaven, the new release (as of March 1st) by Philadelphia’s Mannequin Pussy. The first song should be enough to send an endorphin rush to even the most grizzled punk rock heart. If you thought guitar-driven rock didn’t still have the power to piss off polite society and raise your blood pressure in all the best ways, just wait till you hear lyrics like: “And what if Jesus himself ate my fucking snatch?” [Chef’s kiss!]

In this edition of “WHAT’S IN YOUR TAPE DECK,” I talked to Marisa “Missy” Dabice, the lead singer, guitarist, songwriter, and co-founder of Mannequin Pussy, a band name that her mom once suggested changing to “Mannequin Party.” I told Dabice she could meet her mom halfway and change the name to Pussy Party, but Dabice’s mom thought this was “just as bad.” You can’t please everybody!

Dabice and I didn’t talk about the new Mannequin Pussy release. Instead, we talked about The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ 2003 album Fever to Tell, a record she credits with making her want to start a band and sing songs about cunnilingus with Jesus.

Eric Spitznagel: You were diagnosed with cancer when you were just a teen. Was it around that same time when you discovered this album?

Marisa Dabice: It was the same year. I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school, when I was diagnosed with alveolar soft part sarcoma, a really rare form of cancer. And Fever to Tell came out…April of 2003? 

ES: That sounds right.

MD: I had one of my surgeries in February. So, it all happened in the same year. 

ES: There’s never a good time to get cancer, but getting it while you’re a teenager—when you should be focused on friends and school and thinking about your future—just sounds cosmically shitty.

MD: It fucking totally is. But we have this flawed narrative for talking about teenagers with illnesses. It’s not this romantic comedy where I fall in love with a boy and it’s beautifully tragic because he reminds me of what a gift it is to be alive even as I’m dying. Being a teenager with cancer is just like being a regular teenager but with a little more angst.

ES: You’re still self-obsessed and self-destructive?

MD: All of it. It’s just teenage isolation and getting drunk at high school parties and trying to escape. There was still pressure; my parents didn’t let me slack off and become a bad student. They were like, “You can’t let this get in the way of your future. This will make a great college essay one day.” That kind of shit.