In a world where overthinking can stifle creativity, PUP chose to embrace spontaneity and raw emotion for their fifth studio album, Who Will Look After The Dogs? Born from a place of unfiltered expression, this record, released last Friday, serves as a tremendous return to form for the Canadian rockers. It’s silly, sad and unpolished, a combination that makes for a perfect PUP record. On the day following the album’s release, I had the chance to catch up with lead singer Stefan Babcock for an in-depth chat about the record.
In the little time that it’s been out, the reception to the record has been nothing short of overwhelmingly positive. Babcock reveals that the record had been finished for almost a year prior to release, resulting in them having too much time to overthink things. “You can go through phases in your brain of like, ‘oh, we made something incredible’. And then, you know, a week later, you’re like, ‘what the fuck were we thinking?’ But no, it’s feeling really good right now. I’m glad to have it out in the world.” Whilst they’ve been sitting on the record for a year, the excitement hasn’t worn off. Babcock explains, “we played these songs together for the first time since recording them on Wednesday, and then we played them all live on Thursday. It felt amazing to get in the room together. It’s been a long time since we’ve been in the same room as each other, so it felt really good on a personal level. When you record a record and you feel really good about it, but then playing it live is different. And I feel like it gave the songs new life and new meaning for all of us. And I’m so excited to play them live.”
It only takes a quick listen to hear the raw authenticity in this album- it’s imperfect and unpolished, which can be felt in every element of the recording. The lyrics are deeply honest and introspective, the vocals are desperate and at times you can hear obvious mistakes, the instrumentals aren’t always cohesive, but all of these things give the album so much heart and there’s an intention behind it. Babcock gives praise to producer John Congleton, saying, “He kept the train on the tracks most of the time, barely. He kept that rawness and that energy and that spark alive.” On how they achieved such a raw sound, Babcock says, “It was all about vibes, you know. We focused on feeling good every day and getting the right take and feeling like we got the take that had energy and excitement that we were stoked on, and we didn’t really fix mistakes.”
It’s no secret that PUP don’t always get along, with one of their most popular songs titled “If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will”, and the making of Who Will Look After The Dogs? was no different. “We have a lot of tension and disagreements. We’re fighting over everything, but as a big picture, we all want the same thing. We all wanted to make the same kind of record and this record turned out exactly how all four of us wanted it to, so we’re not pulling in separate directions but we are arguing over everything.” Babcock admits. “Everybody in this band cares so fucking much about each other and about the band and about the songs. And that’s why we argue all the time and fight. And I would take that any day over playing in a band with three people who are like, ‘yeah, whatever you want’. I’ll be honest, though, it’s an unhealthy relationship, but it is grounded in love and respect and just really giving a shit about it and about each other. And it’s really nice.”
When asked if he thinks this record is PUP’s best work yet, Babcock confidently answers, “Yes, I do. it’s hard for me to ever predict what people are going to like the most. I don’t know that this will be the record that people will like the most, but these songs mean more to me than anything else we’ve done. I’m really proud of every single one of our records, but I think what I’m proudest of this band for is that the four of us keep pushing ourselves and trying to evolve. Every record, to me, has been my favourite record, which is just a really exciting way to look at this band. And yeah, I do. I love this one. ”
A personal highlight on the record is the closing track, “Shut Up”. It encapsulates the messy genius of the rest of the album and has a sense of finality that makes it the perfect closer. Babcock, however, disagrees. “I really actually fought for it to not be the closer. I was three to one on that particular issue and I still am holding that grudge. I think the other guys and John Congleton recognised it as a closer pretty early on.” Babcock explains, going on to share, “The last 20 or 30 seconds of the record is so special for me, because most of that song is just me playing, which was always the plan. I was gonna play this song and then the band was gonna crash in at the end, and we were gonna finish it there. We had arranged something that just was kind of sucked and we were like, ‘well the rest of the song is good so I guess the outro is just going to kind of suck’, and John Congleton was like, ‘no do something different’. And so I played the song from the top and we got to the last 30 seconds. And then we all just started playing, and we all played something different than we had on the last take. And it just worked. And we took the very first take of that.” If Babcock had it his way, the record would have closed with “Cruel”, which he felt was a more lighthearted way to end the album, saying, “I’ve had a bit of a complex with this record because half of it is really very sad and serious, and the other half is really dumb and stupid and fun. I’m always self-conscious about being too serious or being too sad. And I just felt like I wanted to leave the listeners feeling fun and laughing. But, you know, I think that was just me being resistant to accepting the fact that overall this is a pretty dark record by our standards, so yeah the other guys wanted to lean into that and I think they did make the right call.”
Who Will Look After The Dogs? is a unique and beautiful piece of work. It’s PUP in all their glory, and it’s clear from chatting with Stefan Babcock that they couldn’t be more proud of this record, and rightly so.
You can give PUP a follow on Instagram and YouTube. You can grab a copy of Who Will Look After The Dogs? HERE
