Toronto punk heroes PUP released their incredible, ambitious, and aptly titled fourth album ‘The Unraveling Of Puptheband’ last year. The record earned universal acclaim and a slew of sold-out shows. It was swiftly followed by the release of the ‘PUP Unravels Live In Front Of Everyone They Know’ EP. The four-track offering was recorded across multiple shows in the band’s hometown of Toronto.
Today the Canadian quartet are excited to release a new single, comprising of two previously unreleased songs ‘How To Live With Yourself’ and ‘Smoke Screen.’
Vocalist Stefan Babcock has to say of the release of ‘How To Live With Yourself’: “This was the first song we wrote when we started working on our last album. The first one is always the hardest, you tend to overthink everything, so we wanted to start with something simple and fun, something that we wouldn’t get too in our own heads about. This one feels like a classic PUP song to me, and while our goal for the record was to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and try new things, sometimes it feels good to write a catchy, miserable ripper that feels like it captures exactly what this band is about.”
When asked about ‘Smoke Screen’ Babcock said: “This song originated with a Nestor riff. He sent it around, and the thing was so slow that I thought he’d exported it wrong. But his idea was to do a song that was like the “sludgey” version of PUP, something we’d never really done before. The more I listened to it, the more it grew on me. I remember in the height of the pandemic sitting in the backseat of my car at the Home Depot parking lot, anything to try and escape the house, and writing and recording all the lyrics on the spot.”
The band are touring Europe through the Summer taking in key festivals as well as select headline dates.
June 16th – Budweiser Stage – Toronto, Ontario
June 23rd – Jera On Air Festival – Ysselsteyn, Netherlands
June 24th – Vainstream Festival – Münster, Germany
June 26th – VoxHall – Aarhus, Denmark
June 28th – Zeche Carl – Essen, Germany
June 29th – MusikZentrum – Hannover, Germany
June 30th – Rock Werchter – Rotselaar, Belgium
July 2nd – Metropolis – Rotterdam, Netherlands