Sitting in a park in Edmonton, Alberta as the sun begins to sink, drummer and one quarter of PUP, Zack Mykula is taking a moment to himself before joining his bandmates for the second gig of their tour.
The scrappy Canadian punks who spent their early tours crammed into a van and crashing on friends and fans’ floors are finally seeing the fruits of their labour. Not only has their success allowed them to swap their van for a tour bus, it has created an opportunity to give back which saw PUP announce a new initiative to raise money for local charities on each stop of their tour.
“It was mostly about wanting to do something more tangible and trying to make an impact locally in the communities we visit,” says Mykula. “A lot of the time we visit a place, we take a portion of the culture and the people away from it and we never get to leave any kind of impact positively.”
While their 2016 track ‘If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will’ offered an exaggerated look at the strain of incessant touring, Mykula assures the band have adopted strategies for coping with “extremely long periods of being on tour with people you’re basically married to”.
PUP are currently on the road with their latest album, Morbid Stuff; a compilation of exactly that. Thematically the album is drenched in darkness, picking at the scabs of vocalist and songwriter Stefan Babcock’s depression, though it avoids self-pity through tongue-in-cheek quips and jabs at the ‘tortured artist’ trope that often sees the glamorisation of mental health issues in the music industry.
“I think the message by and large is not taking yourself too seriously but also taking care of yourself, that’s such an important part,” says Mykula.
“I’ll be sure to write it down/When I hit rock bottom/For all the people who love to fetishize problems,” shouts Babcock in ‘Full Blown Meltdown’, offering what Mykula describes as the band’s brazen perspective on mental illness.
“I’ve had my own share of longstanding mental health issues and I’ve personally tried to always fight the stigma of that conversation, so it’s very gratifying that people who have these issues can have a voice and find a voice in this time. It feels good,” he says.
Though Morbid Stuff features the band’s heaviest sound yet across a handful of tracks, the overall sonic direction of the record sees the subject matter juxtaposed by buoyant, pop-punk melodies that wouldn’t feel out of place at a party.
“We kind of wanted to subvert the gloomy nature that most of the lyrics can tend to have by putting it against happier backdrops musically,” says Mykula. “But at the same time, it’s heavier in a global sense that the subject matter is much heavier.”
Morbid Stuff comes in the wake of 2016’s The Dream Is Over,whose title alludes to what was almost the end of the band just as they were straddling the precipice of commercial success. The words were uttered to Babcock by a particularly blunt doctor after a cyst on his vocal cords haemorrhaged. The diagnosis: he’d have to quit singing.
“We were mostly just worried for his health and his mental health, because he puts a lot on himself,” says Mykula of that time. “Being unsure of the future, everybody has that anxiety, but for me that’s kind of moot when one of your best friends might have to quit doing what he loves doing.”
After taking time out to recover, Babcock undertook vocal training to protect his voice from future damage and PUP reclaimed their dream. Despite the physical and mental obstacles they’ve faced, there’s still plenty of bite left in these PUPs.
Morbid Stuff is out now via Little Dipper/Cooking Vinyl Australia.
