Pup released their album The Unraveling Of PupTheBand in April 2022, but spoiler alert: they haven’t unraveled at all. The group embarked on a co-headlining tour with Joyce Manor this March, and on Wednesday, June 7, they dropped two new singles.
“COUPLE NEW SONGS OUT TODAY, ‘How To Live With Yourself’ and ‘Smoke Screen.’ B-sides from ‘The Unraveling,’” the Toronto quartet posted to Instagram. “We like these songs, they’re only B-sides because we couldn’t agree on an album tracklist and we got into a big pissing match and ended up choosing songs based on what we thought would annoy one another the most. A flawless system, perfectly executed by grownup well adjusted individuals who are definitely not man-babies, never ever. Anyway, these songs are the casualties, hope you like em!”
Pup vocalist Stefan Babcock explained the inspiration behind “How To Live With Yourself” in a press release statement.
“This was the first song we wrote when we started working on our last album,” he said. “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.”
Babcock offered the same insight for “Smoke Screen,” saying, “This song originated with a Nestor [Chumak] 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.”
Listen to “How To Live With Yourself” above, and check out “Smoke Screen” below as well as Pup’s upcoming tour dates.
06/9 — Donington, UK @ Download Festival
06/10 — Porto, PT @ Primavera Sound
06/16 — Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage
06/23 — Ysselsteyn, NL @ Jera On Air Festival
06/24 — Münster, DE @ Vainstream Festival
06/26 — Aarhus, DK @ VoxHall
06/28 — Essen, DE @ Zeche Carl
06/29 — Hannover, DE @ MusikZentrum
06/30 — Rotselaar, BE @ Rock Werchter
07/02 — Rotterdam, NL @ Metropolis
07/07 — Ottawa, ON @ Ottawa Bluesfest
07/08 — Sherbrooke, QC @ Sherblues & Folk
07/21 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Utah Is For Lovers
07/22 — Denver, CO @ Colorado Is For Lovers
08/05 — Montreal, QC @ Osheaga Festival
09/11 — London, ON @ London Music Hall
09/12 — Kalamazoo, MI @ Bell’s Eccentric Café
09/14 — Detroit, MI @ The Majestic Theatre
09/15-17 — Chicago, IL @ Riot Fest