Where is the data? What does it look like? Why are you splitting data retrieved from a database? Why didn't you design your database to handle this instead? Why are you calling the subroutine execute_it with no arguments? And why aren't you using Data::Dumper for debugging your data structures?

So many problems bradcathey. Try this instead: (untested)

use DBI;
use HTML::Template;
use Data::Dumper;

my $dbh = DBI->connect(
   qw(DBI:vendor:database:host user pass),
   {RaiseError => 1},
);

my $username = 'jeffa';
my $branches = $dbh->selectall_arrayref(
   'SELECT branches FROM users WHERE username = ?',
   {Slice => {}}, $username,
);

warn Dumper $branches;

my $tmpl = HTML::Template->new(filehandle => \*DATA);
$tmpl->param(branches => $branches);

print $tmpl->output;

__DATA__
<tmpl_loop branches>
  <tmpl_var branches>
</tmpl_loop>
[download]

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)