STACK #210 Apr 2022

MUSIC FEATURE

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PUP L-R: Zack Mykula, Steve Sladkowski, Stefan Babcock, Nestor Chumack

sounds more Palace of Wonders than pedestrian studio. “It‘s a crazy place, with so many rooms,” Babcock says. “There‘s a zone in the basement called the Black Hole; it was like a cave with no end.” And what was inside? “Just junk – garbage,” he grins. “Pete has so much old recording gear, and half of it‘s broken, but it‘s amazing. The house is filled with weird stuff. We had all these toys at our disposal. I‘m the go-to-bed-early guy, but I‘d wake up at 2am and I‘d hear horror music coming down the hall – ‘What the f-ck is this?‘ – and get up and go look. It‘s just Zack sitting in the hallway with some crazy keyboard he found, just whaling on it. It was a weird time, but we loved it.” Immersion in the living-and-recording process (“We didn‘t do anything except work on the record: every hour, every waking moment") meant the guys‘ choices began to splinter off into bizarre avenues, but Babcock attests this was ideal. “By week three or four, we‘d all gone off the deep end,” he explains. “We were making decisions for the record because we thought they were too stupid to not do, or too funny to not do.” Decisions like, for example, the sax hysteria on album closer PUPTHEBAND Inc. is Filing For Bankruptcy . “I hate the saxophone; it sounds like a duck quacking, to me,” says Babcock. “But Zack suggested a saxophone freak-out and I was like, ‘Yeah, sounds cool.‘ I used to play in a ska band, and at some point I made a ‘no saxophone‘ rule – only trumpets and trombones allowed. This is the first time I‘ve had saxophone on anything I‘ve done in a very long time.” Finding themselves on the flipside of a “rational mindset”, Babcock says, was just the ticket. “I look back on this record and I just don‘t know how we did it. Not saying, ‘Oh, it‘s so good‘ – I‘ve been very vocal about the fact I think this band sucks," he says with a smirk, "but I look back and I don‘t understand how we came out with the songs the way they are. But it‘s always [my] goal when recording – [for] the song to be different to what it started as. If you don‘t know how it got from point A to point B, it probably means that something good happened along the way." It may have been, we suggest, the guano. “Bat sh-t‘s poisonous, isn‘t it?!" Babcock yelps. "We were probably high the whole time..."

The Uraveling of PUPTheBand by PUP is out now via Cooking Vinyl.

INTERVIEW

Saying 'yes' to whatever (literal) batsh-t idea bubbled to the surface of their minds was PUP's ticket to triumph, says frontman Stefan Babcock; he spoke to STACK about the lunacy of the Canadian band's fourth album, The Unraveling of PUPTheBand . Read the full article online at stack.com.au. Words Zoë Radas STEFAN BABCOCK PUP

S tefan Babcock is chatting to us alongside his beloved pooch Moose from his Toronto home – the same spot from which he recorded the video for Waiting For Something to Happen , the April 2020 anthem which sent the couplet “You barely feel

completed and then crunching a bum chord. “Honestly, every album we‘ve ever made, half the time I‘m thinking ‘We‘re not going to finish this,‘” Babcock says. “For me, it‘s such an intense, emotional experience. Because the four of us have such strong personalities, and we care so much

like you‘re alive/ You think about it all the time” into the lockdown ether. The already alarmingly self-aware Toronto punk four- piece underwent a further, more acute crystallisation of self-analysis over that period,

about the product, that it feels like we might end each other before we finish the record.” And yet it‘s the ever- increasing collaborative

I've been very vocal about the fact I think this band sucks

nature between the band‘s four members that Babcock cherishes. Yes, despite voting to end democracy – which was, of course, voted down. “It was only one out of four votes, so,” he laughs. “But every record that we‘ve made, I enjoy each one more than the last. More than ever, I can hear all four of us on each track.” Babcock, along with his bandmates (and friends since high school) Nestor Chumack, Steve Sladkowski, and Zack Mykula, decamped to producer Pete Katis‘ Connecticut “bat-filled mansion” to record TUOP , a location that

resulting in the candidly- titled The Unraveling of PUPTheBand .

Its tracklist is interspersed with three vignettes featuring frontman Babcock accompanying himself on

piano, spinning the tale of PUP‘s increasingly impatient “board of directors”, his own vote to “end democracy in this f-cking band”, and how their whole budget went on the piano itself, which Babcock only started learning how to play “last Thursday.” One of these ditties is just nine seconds long, with Babcock declaring the album nearly

Continue reading the full article online at stack.com.au

APRIL 2022

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