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Canadian punk rock quartet PUP<\/strong> have had a slow build to the start of their career, but now look ready to start making waves. Having recently re-released their self-titled debut (originally out in October 2013), the young band tagged along with Frank Carter\u2019s post-Gallows project Pure Love\u2019s last tour.<\/p>\n Already Heard<\/strong> caught up with singer\/guitarist Stefan Babcock and drummer Zack Mykula before they played Banquet Records\u2019 weekly Kingston-Upon-Thames indie night, New Slang.<\/p>\n Already Heard: A lot of our readers won\u2019t be very familiar with your band; could you give us a potted history of PUP? AH: You brought up there that you grew up in Toronto, certainly a fertile ground for punk bands, producing the likes of Fucked Up, METZ, Death From Above 1979 and, not too far away, Alexisonfire. What is it about Toronto that makes it such a productive place for punk groups? AH: In Canada, you guys get quite a lot of arts grants from the Government as well, don\u2019t you? A big part of having an all-ages scene is all those kids who got to see punk music every weekend when in their teens, when they turn 21\/22 they all started their own bands. So, in that way, Toronto and the surrounding area has been cranking out bands like crazy because of the all-ages scene – all of the kids we used to see at those shows all have their own bands now. Unfortunately, there\u2019s not a great all-ages scene anymore for punk – I\u2019m personally afraid it\u2019s all gonna dry up in 5 years, when all of the bands who are active now have called it quits or moved on or whatever and there aren\u2019t any younger bands coming in to take their place.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n AH: Canada is such a vast country with great swathes of nothing – you get cities like Toronto that produce a shitload of bands because few places elsewhere can – does it get insular at all in its scene? SB: We\u2019re not restricted to playing with other punk bands.There\u2019s another band from Toronto called The Strumbellas who are a folk band, but we really like their band and they really like us, so we play together sometimes and while it\u2019s not a good match sonically, sometimes it\u2019s just fun to play with other bands that don\u2019t sound like you rather than having 4 loud bands in a row.<\/em><\/p>\n ZM: There\u2019s the same shared spirit.<\/em><\/p>\n AH: That must be something you\u2019re experiencing with Pure Love, because while Frank (Carter) and Jim (Carroll, formerly of The Hope Conspiracy and The Suicide File) come from a punk background they aren\u2019t necessarily a punk band themselves – how have these shows been for you? ZM: But it was awesome!<\/em><\/p>\n AH: Where did you play last night? ZM: They (Pure Love) definitely represent the kind of energy that we aspire to bring, they have wild shows and musically they\u2019re awesome – they fit a lot better (with us) than I thought they would, and it\u2019s great.<\/em><\/p>\n AH: This is your 2nd time in the UK – how do you like the British shows? AH: We do indeed! SB: Every time we play a show in Canada everyone is so polite, they just clap and say \u201cThank you! Thank you!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n AH: That\u2019s the Canadian stereotype all over – you\u2019d punch one in the face and they\u2019d say sorry for getting in the way of your hand! The way you\u2019ve built an audience has been quite organic – you dropped the record last October as a free download on Bandcamp, and only recently signed to SideOneDummy and put the record out again – did anything inspire that choice? Was it a conscious decision to do things that way?<\/strong> AH: So who have you been touring with in the US? ZM: I remember the second time we played with Titus (Andronicus) in Toronto, they\u2019re one of all of our favourite bands because they\u2019re obviously great. I got plastered for the show, it was such an experience for me and I was screaming the entire show so my voice was gone but at the end of the set I got up on stage and Pat (Stickles, Titus Andronicus singer) was trying to pack up, and he had been sick, and I came up to him (in a drunken voice) \u201cHey man, you\u2019re one of my favourite bands, and I can\u2019t believe we get to play with you, how are you doing man?!\u201d and he says \u201cMy throat actually kind of hurts\u201d, and my arm was around him so I was totally invading his space. So I said \u201cOkay, it was great to talk to you, I really love your band\u201d and stumbled off\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n AH: You were totally \u201cThat Guy\u201d!<\/strong> AH: I\u2019ve had many a brush off from a band when I\u2019m drunk as fuck and shouting \u201cI love your band guys!\u201d AH: Another question for the benefit of those who aren\u2019t very familiar with your band and might not know – could you explain the back story of your band\u2019s name? ZH: We just played a freaking awesome show at a record shop (Banquet Records) in the UK and we\u2019re a shitty punk band from Toronto, that\u2019s pretty astounding!<\/em><\/p>\n AH: You\u2019re living the dream of every guy in their early to mid twenties who wants to quit their menial job and be in a punk band, so fair play! AH: What have you guys got coming up? You\u2019re doing Groezrock this weekend [at the time of interview], what else does this summer have in store for you? AH: Awesome! Thank you very much for your time today guys – I heard Pure Love mention Nando\u2019s, and you definitely don\u2019t want to miss that!<\/strong><\/p>\n ‘PUP’<\/em> by PUP<\/strong> is out now on SideOneDummy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n PUP<\/strong> links: Facebook<\/a>|Bandcamp<\/a>|Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Zack Myulka (ZM): Me, Steve (Sladowski, guitarist) and Nestor (Chumak, bass) grew up in our own little insular scene in the West End of Toronto, and all started playing together in high school – we started a shitty ska band, as you do! We played a few gigs, and it turned out that Stef (Babcock) was in the same scene, he was in his own shitty ska band, so we were always in the same sort of world. Nestor and Stef both went to University at the same time which eventually caused both bands to dissolve, and having played with Nestor and Steve forever, it naturally just fell together when Stef needed a band and we were looking for a project – classic high school shit!<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>Stefan Babcock (SB): Kids in the suburbs are really pissed off, and there are a lot of suburbs! Another reason is that when we were growing up and the generation before us, there were tons of all-ages venues in Toronto.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>SB: Yep, and this led to DIY venues, proper all-ages venues putting on punk rock shows every weekend, so when we were 14-18 year old kids, before we could get into bars in Canada, we were able to go see punk bands. I remember going to see all of the bands you\u2019ve just mentioned, bar METZ because they\u2019re newer, seeing them when I was 15\/16 years old thinking \u201cHoly shit, maybe this is something I can do!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>ZM: Not really; people are super supportive of each other – obviously there are very separate scenes, but when the groups encounter each other there\u2019s a natural friendship – the thought is that \u201cYou come from the same place I do, why wouldn\u2019t we be friends\u201d. We\u2019re not like enemy gangs or anything!<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>SB: Well, we\u2019ve only played one\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>SB: Lincoln – best show of the tour!<\/em> <\/p>\n
<\/strong>SB: They\u2019ve been fun. This is our second tour, our first tour was before the record came out so it was a little more difficult, those shows were a fair bit smaller, but it\u2019s really novel for us to come across an ocean and have kids show up and sing our songs, scream them into our faces, which has been pretty cool. We\u2019re just having fun and enjoying it, we\u2019re grateful that press here has been good and the fans have been receptive – I think your country loves loud rock music!<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>ZM: The other cool thing is that the British aren\u2019t afraid to interact, whether it\u2019s negative or positive; it\u2019s largely positive, but they razz you in very creative ways! They’re \u201cbig brothers\u201d to us, random guys who come to our shows and tease us – it\u2019s not mean, but they propel us to keep playing.<\/em> <\/p>\n
SB: No, I think that it was in line with our expectations; we made a record and we put it out in Canada, did a Canadian tour and that was kind of it – we put it out in Canada like we intended to because we couldn\u2019t get a broader reach at that time. It just spread from there; we got on a couple of big American shows in the north-east close to Toronto, and now we\u2019re here and feeling really lucky.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>SB: We just finished a tour with Solids who are awesome, we\u2019ve done tours with bands like Cancer Bats, played with Fucked Up and Titus Andronicus. It\u2019s amazing that we suddenly got to play with some of our favourite bands in the world, which is pretty unreal.<\/em><\/p>\n
ZM: He was super appreciative though, just said, \u201cThanks man!\u201d when he probably really wanted to say, \u201cFuck off, stop breathing into my mouth!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>ZM: Yeah, feels good, man!<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>SB: Oh man, sorry Grandma, we\u2019re gonna make you look bad again. We\u2019re called PUP, which doesn\u2019t stand for anything, but the origin of the name was Pathetic Use of Potential, and the band was called that for a brief second. When we first started we had a different name, we all quit our jobs to do this band thing full time, they were pretty good jobs and there was a rough time where, once you quit your jobs to play music and people ask you what you do, you say \u201cI play in a band\u201d and when you have to tell them the band has no name, they say (in sarcastic tone) \u201cSure, you play in a band!\u201d. It was a pretty dark time for all of us, my family is so supportive of what I do, but they tease me, saying \u201cOh, you quit your job, gonna go play in a punk rock band, isn\u2019t that a bit of a pathetic use of your potential?\u201d, referring to me having a pretty well-paid job before, going from that to being broke as shit, which is how the name came about. It\u2019s \u201cpathetic\u201d in the sense that we all quit good jobs that paid a lot and we\u2019re now broke as fuck and have nothing, but it\u2019s not pathetic in the sense that we\u2019re all having a really good time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/strong>SB: Just for the record, my family is incredibly supportive!<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong>SB: During our UK tour with Pure Love we\u2019re also doing Live At Leeds on our own, and after this tour we\u2019re going to hop on an American tour with The Menzingers, which is about 6-7 weeks, and after that we\u2019re doing a bunch of festivals in the US, coming back to the UK to do Reading & Leeds and Pukkelpop which should be really fun – we\u2019re planning to come back to Europe as much as possible.<\/em><\/p>\n