After Toronto-based four-piece pop punk outfit Pup shared their acclaimed third record Morbid Stuff last year, the group has stayed busy with other projects. Pup released a benefit live album in July that was available for only one day and ended up raising over $27,500 for charity. Now, the group returns with a lively cover of one of their favorite rock bands, Grandaddy.
Pup came together to record a cover of Grandaddy’s 1997 song “A.M. 180.” The group manages to capture the disgruntled energy of the original track while infusing their fuzzy and endearing sound. Speaking about their decision to cover the song, drummer Zack Mykula praised Grandaddy as one of indie rock’s “best kept” secrets: “Grandaddy are one of the unsung hero bands of indie rock,” says Pup’s drummer . “A best kept secret. I mean, forgive me for going ham, but this song is like a lily in an otherwise barren valley. An outstanding piece of songwriting, doing more with less than most any other song of the same caliber. So, that’s why we decided to cover it.”
Along with sharing the lively cover, Pup has unveiled a new edition of their zine, PupTheZine Vol. 4: Quaranzine. The booklet contains cut-outs of drawn Pup figurines, a postcard, each band members’ resume, guitar tabs for “Anaphylaxis,” a pedal board breakdown, a disc of a ska song written in while they were quarantine, and much more. About the zine, Pup said they had originally created it at the onset of the pandemic lockdown before the country turned their focus to elevate the Black Lives Matter movement:
“This zine was created in the first few weeks of our mandatory quarantine. It was printed and ready to ship before the full impact of COVID-19 was felt across the world and before the senseless deaths of George Floyd, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, and Breonna Taylor (to name but a few) further exposed the foundational white supremacy and structural inequality at the heart of American, Canadian, and other capitalist societies. We are grateful for the voices and perspectives of marginalized peoples that continue to play a central role in this worldwide awakening and in the sustained call to dismantle racist and patriarchal structures that have perpetrated violence in our communities. We stand in solidarity with all those trying to envision safer and more just communities and will continue to do our daily best in amplifying and uplifting these voices as we move forward in the world.
With that in mind, we hope you’ll view this thing for what it is: a time capsule. It is the four members of PUP, bored as fuck, fresh off a cancelled tour, trying to create something as silly as possible because, at the time, we wanted a distraction. Although it doesn’t necessarily represent our current emotional states, we had a good laugh making it and had a good laugh revisiting it all these months later. Honestly, that’s why we started making these zines in the first place. If you buy this thing, we hope it helps you find a bit of levity in what has been an incredibly bleak few months.”
Listen to Pup’s “A.M. 180” cover and find the Quaranzine cover art above.