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PURE M Magazine
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Interview by Stacy Walsh
annequin Sex Drive formed in Dublin, Ireland, in
2013. MSD describes themselves as “the world’s first
(and only) electricousticrockinfolkpop band”. The
band has a vast mix of exciting genres in there. So far,
the band has digitally released two singles “Hollow
Heart Boy” and “I’ve Got a Message”.
In December, Mannequin Sex Drive won the Northern Lights Competition
ran by Twelve Bar Productions. The band is certainly a band to watch.
Mannequin Sex Drive are:
Benz Kristopher - Lead vocals & guitarAndre Carvalho - Lead
guitarUtku Sarper - BassDamien Hickey - Percussion & vocals
I caught up with Benz and we chatted about how things kicked off for
MSD, recording plans and the story behind their crazy band name!
First off, congratulations on winning the Northern Lights Competition
last month. How was that for you?
Thanks! It was great because we went into it with the hope of maybe
playing to a few new people and we ended up taking first prize so it was
pretty cool and a great way to finish off the year.
So how did it all begin for Mannequin Sex Drive?
On a bus journey back from Limerick. I had just kind of had enough of
what I was doing up until that point. I had been playing in bands that I
really didn’t see making any kind of progress or making any real impact
and I just felt like doing something different. I came up with the idea of
using electric and acoustic instruments together to create an edgy but
organic, original sound.
I got Andre and Utku on board (we were playing together in another band)
and added Daymz as the final piece. It took a while but when we got the
sound right, we all kind of musically jizzed ourselves! (Is it jizzed
ourselves or jazz ourselves? Doesn’t matter… it sounded nice). And every
gig we play just seems to get better and better.
I like the two tracks you have released so far. Are there any upcoming
releases for Mannequin Sex Drive? Perhaps an EP?
Thanks again. There will be new music coming in the next couple of
months. We’re in the process of recording as we speak but I doubt we’ll
do an EP. The way the industry is going, there doesn’t seem to be a big
call for EP’s as much as before. With digital music (and we will be
releasing all our music for the foreseeable future through digital media
only) there would seem, to us anyway, to be more of a call for singles; as
in individual stand-alone tracks.
We want to let people download the songs, listen to them and want to
hear more. Then duly hit them with more. It’s going to be tough but we
want to try create a st XY H