Die Mannequin: Injuries And Unicorn Steaks

04/02/08 11:30am

by Matt Reeder (CHARTattack)

When Care Failure started Die Mannequin in 2006, she quickly started recording songs even though she was without a full-time band. Jesse Keeler (Death From Above 1979, MSTKRFT) soon stepped in to help Failure by providing beats and manning the production knobs on what was to become the rowdy sounding How To Kill EP. Skip ahead to today and its tough to believe just how much has happened to Failure's beloved band during the short time that's elapsed. She's recruited a bassist and drummer who seem nearly as wild as she is at shows, has recorded a second EP with Billy Talent's Ian D'Sa and producer Junior Sanchez, and, perhaps most impressive of all, landed a series of Canadian dates opening for hair-rock holdovers Guns N' Roses. ChartAttack recently caught up with Failure to chat about Die Mannequin's raucous live shows, their newly repackaged EP collection Unicorn Steaks, and working on the band's first full-length.

ChartAttack: Die Mannequin are known for having a pretty rowdy stage show. Have you ever injured yourself onstage?
Care Failure: Yeah, I should say, "Have I ever not injured myself?" All the time, and it sucked because at the start of the last tour I really fucked up my foot getting tackled while we were playing, and I really fucked up my ankle and for the whole tour I couldn't walk. Sometimes it's weird because offstage I think about it and I'm careful and stuff. I think that's why people are always going "Care-ful" because of [the name] Care. Onstage, I just forget or something. Maybe I should think about it more.

You guys have played some big stages — opening for Guns N' Roses and now finishing up some dates with Sum 41— but you still play a lot of smaller shows as well. Which do you prefer?
I like the smaller ones, but the big ones have their magic over me as well, I guess. I like when there's no stage, but the sound is a lot better at a big venue, and that helps me, too. It's so weird. We played in someone's garage on the last tour to a bunch of weird kids and there was like a fire pit and stuff. Sometimes those are way better than playing the Air Canada Centre.

Your first two EPs — How To Kill and Slaughter Daughter — have been combined and repackaged into a new disc, Unicorn Steak. But there are two previously unreleased songs on there as well. "Empty's Promise" is an original, right?
It's one of the first things I ever wrote. I did that a while ago. I wanted it to be on one of the EPs, but it never happened. So that was written and recorded around the How To Kill era. I was in a weird headspace at that time. I got kicked out, a guy stole my puppy dog. It's kind of Sabbathy. I like that song.

The other unreleased song, "Hand In Hand," is a cover of a song by German punk band The Beatsteaks. Why did you decide to include that?
There are so many covers I'd like to do. That was only supposed to be on the German disc. I thought it wouldn't make much sense in North America because it's by a German band that no one knows here. It makes sense in Germany, but the song was done so well I figured I'd rather just include it. I was also trying to cover "Crazy On You" by Heart, which might come out at some point.

You just returned from L.A., where you were doing some songwriting with the likes of Chantal Kreviazuk and others. Did you actually manage to finish off any songs for your upcoming debut full-length while you were there?
Yeah, a ton. I did a bunch with random [people] and by myself, too. It's hard to write a record sometimes at Queen and Bathurst [in Toronto]. So that was neat. I've got so much stuff done already, but I've never done a full-length record, and so I want to try and make it amazing. You can't just sit in one place and have no idea what's going on, so traveling helps.

So Unicorn Steak is something to hold fans over until a new record is ready. When can we expect that from you guys?
It's weird how it works. Labels need records, like, half a year before they're due, so to most people it seems like forever when I say I want it to come out in a half a year. But it's due in a couple, you know. So I'll be done writing it in a couple of weeks. It's funny because for me it's old [material]. It's shitty, but it's how the machine works and we're part of it, so I'm not going to complain about it or anything.