PUP have shared two new tracks, ‘How To Live With Yourself’ and ‘Smoke Screen’.
Today’s double release follows the band’s fourth album, ‘THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND’, which arrived last year.
Vocalist Stefan Babcock has explained how ‘How To Live With Yourself’ came from the same sessions to devise the band’s latest record, saying:
“This was the first song we wrote when we started working on our last album. 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.”
Have a listen to the new track below.
‘Smoke Screen’, meanwhile, has been described as the brainchild of bassist Nestor Chumak, who first created the riff. Babcock has said:
“[Nestor] 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.”
You can hear just what that all sounds like via the visualiser below.
Today’s two new tracks come just ahead of the band’s Download Festival slot later this week, before they continue to hit the road for a number of shows and festivals across Europe, US and their native Canada.
June 09 – Download Festival, Donington, UK
June 10 – Primavera Sound, Porto, Portugal
June 16 – Budweiser Stage, Toronto, ON, Canada
June 23 – Jera On Air Festival, Ysselsteyn, Netherlands
June 24 – Vainstream Festival, Münster, Germany
June 26 – VoxHall, Aarhus, Denmark
June 28 – Zeche Carl, Essen, Germany
June 29 – MusikZentrum, Hannover, Germany
June 30 – Rock Werchter, Rotselaar, Belgium
July 02 – Metropolis, Rotterdam, Netherlands
July 07 – Ottawa Bluesfest, Ottawa, ON, Canada
July 08 – Sherblues & Folk, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
July 21 – Utah Is For Lovers, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
July 22 – Colorado Is For Lovers, Denver, CO, USA
August 05 – Osheaga Festival, Montreal, QC, Canada
September 11 – London Music Hall, London, ON, Canada
September 12 – Bell’s Eccentric Café, Kalamazoo, MI, USA
September 14 – The Majestic Theatre, Detroit, MI, USA
September 15 – 17 – Riot Fest, Chicago, IL, USA
