Upon the return of Mannequin Pussy for their debut album on Epitaph, lead singer and guitarist Marisa Dabice has a message she wants to make abundantly clear: “I still love you, you stupid fuck!”
The Philly punk group has announced that their forthcoming record Patience is due out June 21, opening their newest chapter amidst the sloppy chaos of a breakup via their new video for “Drunk II” (released yesterday, April 24). Yet the booze-soaked picture that the vid paints for viewers actually elicited clarity for Dabice, who also directed the clips.
“It’s too easy now to look back on that song and feel a mixture of pity and disgust for myself and the emotions I poured into it,” Dabice explains. “I never saw a breakup as anything other than emotional torture. But now, I understand that a breakup is a gift. Heartbreak is a gift. Someone leaving your life when you don’t expect them to is one of the most honest things we can experience. By electing to leave your life someone is telling you their truth: that they can’t be there for you the way you wish they could. That they can’t love you the way that you loved them.”
She adds: “It took me a long time to realize that it is better to be alone than to be with someone who doesn’t really want to be there. You should never have to convince someone to love you. At the end of the song when I sing ‘Everyone gather round, I have the answer now’ — that is what I’m saying.”
Tune into her message in full below.