Credit: Travis ShinnDED is alive again with “A Mannequin Idol (Lullaby),” the latest single from the “Anti-Everything” rockers.
As frontman Joe Cotela tells ABC Audio, the new track is about “false gods.”
“[The song is] kind of taking a shot at the music industry,” Cotela explains. “[It’s about] the way consumers consume, and questioning why they consume what they do, why they identify with certain things, [and] hopefully posing those questions for people to think about themselves.”
The title “A Mannequin Idol” sounds like a play on American Idol, which Cotela says was originally coincidental, though he now finds it fitting. Cotela adds that he doesn’t mean to specifically call out American Idol — tune in Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC! — but rather the general “fluff” that the music industry produces.
“I’m imagining a lot of other people aren’t into the super cookie-cutter, put-together nonsense, and that’s kinda what [the song is] about,” he explains. “It’s not for me, and I guess it’s, in a sense, a battle cry for all the other people that aren’t into it either.”
With the “A Mannequin Idol” video, which dropped last week, Cotela and DED wanted to “reintroduce” themselves three years after they dropped their debut album, 2017’s Mis-An-Thrope.
The clip unveils a new look for DED. Gone are the opaque, white contact lenses the band members wore during the Mis-An-Thrope cycle: They’ve been replaced by face paint and a viking warrior-type vibe. Cotela explains that the feeling around the new single, along with an upcoming album, inspired the change.
“This is what I’m doing right now, and this is kind of the way the music makes me feel, I guess,” Cotela says. “There’s kind of a tribal vibe to it, to me.”
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(Video contains uncensored profanity.)
