MP: They mean a lot of different things because there are so many of them. I studied art in college. I studied all different kinds of things like painting, sculpture, glass blowing, printmaking, colour photography. I like to make things. I was in the Christian Puppetry Youth Ministry when I was a kid but I didn’t take it that seriously. After I got out of college and moved to New Orleans I started doing these shows at Pussycat Caverns. I was mostly booking bands, I wasn’t in a band at that time and I was sitting there one day and thought I should do a puppet show, so I did.

I thought the puppets should start a band and I’ll try to convince everyone in the world that they have a band. That was the beginning of Flossie & the Unicorns. I made a zine for them and all these stories about Princess Pandora Stardust, Flossie and Snicklefritz the guitar playing turtle. Nobody wants to go on first. Bands never want to go on first because there’s this whole pecking order thing but to me it was great! I’ll go on first then I didn’t have to pay another band. It was a practical weird thing I did and it took off. I haven’t really stopped doing puppet shows since.

What I’ve discovered and why I think I keep doing it is because it’s the greatest art project of all time! I feel like maybe when the Dada’s… like when you first make a collage when you’re a kid, oh this is so cool I can cut up magazines and paste things together! I felt like doing a puppet show and making everything myself, I had discovered the greatest art from. It’s unassuming and it involves sewing, painting, sculpture and writing and parapsychology, recording – electronic soundtracks are really fun to make. It was also a way for me to be around people that I liked being around. I didn’t really fit into the art world but I love going to museums and I love art but the art world is kind of evil. I always thought that being around bands and rock clubs was more fun. I just made it work out.

What do the puppets mean to me? Well it’s a parallel universe. I think they have a life of their own after a certain point. They tell me the story. I’ll think it’s going to go one way and then it goes another. Right now I’m working on a new movie. I’m working on Trixie & the Tree Trunks part two.

I saw that your Kickstarter goal to fund it had been reached.

MP: Yes it has! I have until January 6^th then it’s over. I reached my goal pretty early. With that one there are these certain characters where I know that there is not certain stuff in the script but I just know it’s going to happen—that’s the best! I don’t know what but I know there’s something. When you don’t know something that’s the best, it’s like a surprise! You follow a path long enough and hopefully end up a place somewhere that you don’t know where you are. That’s what puppets do for me.

 Flossie & the Unicorns were invited to do a Peel Session once weren’t they?

MP: Yeah! They got to do a Peel Session. John Peel was still alive. I didn’t meet him though, he wasn’t there. It was pretty great. We got to go to the BBC recording studios, there were two engineers and it was on reel-to-reel tape.

As you mentioned earlier you throw parties at Spellcaster Lodge, I once read a comment from you in an interview that said you think there’s an art to throwing a party.

MP: I like having parties, I like having people over even though I can be a pretty private person. I like to hang out in my own little world most of the time and invite people in so that’s kind of what a party is to me.

Just to back track to the Kickstarter funded project for a moment, I noticed one of the rewards for people who donate money is a limousine ride with you and Quintron.

MP: Yeah! Somebody got it and luckily they’re a really nice person. At first I was like, oh my gosh Quintron! What if you’re trapped by someone really creepy? The limousine is pretty special. Antoinette K-Doe gave us that limousine the night that Obama was elected president [laughs].

 Music-wise will there be anything new from you guys soon?

MP: We released an album Sucre Du Sauvage that came out early last summer. It’s the recordings that we did at the New Orleans Museum of Art. There’s going to be a record of the 9^th Ward Marching Band come out really soon, after that I’m not really sure.

Quintron has a new invention that he is working on called The Singing House. It’s a synthesizer that he built that’s controlled by the weather. You leave it on in your house all the time. It’s really nice, it’s really weird. Part of it is controlled by the wind, part of it is controlled by the sunlight, another sound is for the sunrise and the sunset, there’s a sound for the full moon or lightning and there is a special sound for rain. You leave it on and its very drone-y and peaceful sounding. It speeds up if the wind is going faster.

What’s one of the greatest things you’ve learned from Quintron?

MP: I’ve learned so many things from him! The list could go on and on. He taught me to make a marshmallow casserole [laughs]. That’s pretty good!

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Tags: Antoinette K-Doe, Demolition Doll Rods, Dorothea Tanning, Flossie & the Unicorns, Fly Like A Rat, mardi gras, Miranda Lash, Miss Pussycat, New Orleans Museum of Art, Olivia Wilde, Princess Pandora Stardust, puppets, Pussycat Caverns, Quintron, Quintron & Miss Pussycat, Snicklefritz, Spellcaster Lodge, Sucre Du Sauvage, the Singing House, Trixie &the Tree Trunks