Everyone remembers where they were in March 2020 . Toronto punks PUP just started their spring tour , when suddenly they were told to pack it up and go home . Instead of spending their nights playing to fervent fans around the world , they were sitting on their couches trying to fend off boredom . Frontman Stefan Babcock couldn ’ t stand it . He doesn ’ t like being idle for too long . “ My brain goes to dark places if I do too much of that ,” he says . So , he started writing . Not necessarily with a new record in mind , just trying to kill time . It ended up being the longest span of writing time Babcock has had . “ Usually we tour so much , or at least we did in the before times ,” he says . “[ For ] all of our other records we had three months in between tours . So , it was like , let ' s write a record and record it . This was a much more drawn-out process where we could be more intentional with the songs and how we wanted the album to sound .” ` In July 2021 , Babcock along with Nestor Chumak , Zack Mykula , and Steve Sladkowski entered an “ American Horror Story style mansion ” to turn Babcock ’ s impromptu writing into an album : THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND . Andthey didn ’ t leave the house for five weeks . Fast forward to March 2022 . Babcock is in his hometown of Toronto preparing for a spring tour and gearing up for the release of the new album . Though he admits March 2020 was a hard time , he manages to find the silver lining in it . “ As awful as the last few years have been , it
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was kind of a wonderful thing for me ,” he says . “ I don ' t want to diminish the situation or how much it affected other people and even really affected some of us , but the four of us laugh about it because I sort of believe if we had kept doing what we were doing , which is pretty much touring ten months of the year , we wouldn ' t be a band right now . If we didn ' t have this forced hiatus , we would ' ve burned ourselves out and murdered each other . This forced break maybe saved the band in some respect .”
It would be a shame if that ’ s how PUP ’ s story ended . Formed in 2010 under the guise of Pathetic Use of Potential , the band started as an excuse to hang out , make loud music , and drink beers together . Playing intimate shows around Canada earned them a small following . But the band would start to see a rise in popularity with their 2013 self-titled debut album . The band only got bigger with each successive release . It ’ s safe to say things were looking good for PUP . But as they approached their fourth album , they realized something needed to change . “ We ' ve been a band for nine years or something like that . And we ' ve made three records in the past and we ' re all really proud of those records . In my opinion , each of the records has gotten better , but at the same time , the goal was to keep making the same record without repeating ourselves and to make it better ,” says Babcock . “ I think we ' ve reached the logical end of that journey on our third record [ Morbid Stuff ]. We were so happy with how the record sounded . It just felt like it would be
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a mistake to try and recreate it . We would actually be moving backward .”
“ I love being in a band ,” he continues “ but it ' s also really tough . There ' s nothing I can imagine that would be worse for the band than doing something creatively unfulfilling , you know what I mean ? If we had just stuck with the process , the tried-and-true method , we would ' ve made a decent album and we would ' ve felt creatively unfulfilled . And the band would probably collapse pretty quickly .”
Wanting to shake up their recording process , PUP ditched the “ nine-to-five ” routine of going to the studio in the morning , spending eight hours recording , and going home at night . This time , they rented out an eerie mansion in Bridgeport , Connecticut , and worked on the album day and night without leaving the house . Sounds like the setting of a horror movie , yet it ' s another experience the usually pessimistic Babcock looks back on with some fondness . “ There was definitely a whole bunch of cabin fever . We were there for five weeks , and barely left the place , which led to some interesting decisions because after five weeks without any other outside stimulation you start to make questionable decisions ( laughs ),” Babcock says . “ I say it like it ' s a negative thing , but it was actually a positive for us to let go of choices we ’ d normally make and lean into the cabin fever a bit . Because of that , we ended up with something a little more interesting than if we ' d just done this like we ' ve done the other albums .”
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Babcock called it an all-encompassing experience . “ I would wake up at seven in the morning and start recording and the other guys would join when they got up . Then I would go to bed pretty early , like 10:30 or 11 and they would be up until two or three just fucking around .” With 24-hour access to a studio , the band started throwing all their ideas , no matter how weird or dumb , into the album to see what stuck , which differs from past recording experiences . “ In the past , we would write songs , practice the shit out of them in the basement , get them sounding awesome , and then go into the studio and record them ,” says Babcock . “ They would sound like the fucking best version they could be .”
“ This album was a different thing where the songs were mostly written in the basement , but we had all this time in the studio and there were all these weird toys we never had access to . There [ was ] so much more opportunity to try different things . We just wanted to try everything . Turn the whole process on its head and see what else is out there for us .” Babcock admits not everything was a hit , but some of it struck a chord with the band , such as their lead single “ Robot Writes a Love Song .” While the song is unmistakably PUP , it goes on a slightly different path . Most PUP singles are fast , furious unbridled rage , and hyper energy . This one is more mellow with a lo-fi bedroom pop influence . Babcock admits it ’ s mellower than the rest of the album , but the tongue-in-cheek lyrics and
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