This Wednesday is opening night of what is likely to be the most exciting double-headlining tour of the fall, when longtime friends and collaborators PUP and Jeff Rosenstock (and openers Ekko Astral) team up to bring their no-frills DIY punk rock to massive nightclubs and ballrooms across the US. And, during a recent chat with PUP frontman Stefan Babcock, he assures me that it will indeed be exceptionally exciting for all parties involved, although perhaps none more so than those on stage.
PUP are touring behind fifth full-length Who Will Look After The Dogs?, which dropped this May and has had the Toronto-based punk rockers on the road around the world ever since. The 12 songs of Who Will Look After The Dogs? started with 30 that Babcock penned when his life unexpectedly imploded just days after the announcement of 2022 LP The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND (Yeah, it creeped him out, too…), making for PUP’s most introspective collection yet, enabling the vocalist/guitarist to come to terms with seemingly all of the significant interpersonal relationships of his life and come out with more hope and peace than anything else.
Fittingly, Babcock tells me that the album had PUP returning to the roots of their recording process with the help of producer John Congleton (who’s worked on a plethora of amazing records by phriends of PHILTHY like BAILEN, Bully, Chelsea Wolfe, Heartless Bastards, Kimbra, Land Of Talk, Mothers, Murder By Death, Pink Mountaintops, Rubblebucket, Sarah Kinsley…), who had the band out to LA to complete the sessions in just three weeks, less than half the time of The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND.
“Get Dumber” — the album’s third of four singles, which dropped this March, alongside the announcement of the double-headlining tour – features Jeff Rosenstock splitting vocal duties with Babcock, who actually wrote the song in Rosenstock’s basement while house sitting. During our recent Zoom chat, Stefan implies that you can definitely expect to hear a live rendition of “Get Dumber” on the upcoming tour, but that there are likely to be a lot of additional collaborations between the two, as well. However, he also tells me that while PUP and Jeff Rosenstock have toured together once in the past, this long-awaited redo is quite possibly the only chance fans will get to see such a collaboration.
*Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Izzy Cihak: Earlier this year you released Who Will Look After the Dogs?, your fifth full-length, marking your 15th year of officially releasing music. I understand that you consider it to be sort of the culmination of all of that time together, but also the most fun you’ve had in the studio in quite some time. What do you think are the ways the recording process has most evolved in all that time?
Stefan Babcock: I think it’s funny to ask about the recording process, because the recording process has actually devolved [laughs]. Our first record was very simple. That was recorded fairly fast out of necessity, budget essentially. As the band did better, we were able to spend more time in the studio, more time twiddling knobs and doing that kinda shit, which was great for a bunch of those records, but it kind of got to a place where maybe we felt like we were losing something from the songs, spending too long finding the right tones and picking songs apart and stuff like that. On this record, we kind of wanted to go back to finding that joy and spark of discovery, trying to capture that incredible feeling of playing music with your friends, not tweaking an EQ with your friends [laughs]. So, we went backwards in that way.
But, how it’s different from the first two records is we’ve been playing together for 12 years. We’ve been on the road, we’ve all become way better musicians and songwriters in our own right, but also way more cohesive as a band. We trust each other musically, we trust each other’s instincts, and we are able to read each other a lot better. So, it was kind of like going back to the beginning, but with a decade’s worth of experience and skill and relationship-building under our fingers.
Izzy: This was your first time working with John Congleton. How was that process? He’s worked on so many amazing records. What do you feel like he brought to the sound or just the sessions?
Stefan: So much! John’s amazing! An overlooked part of being a producer is making things fun and the atmosphere comfortable, and John is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. He has the same incredibly dark sense of humor that we have. Even before making the record, just talking to him, it felt like, “This guy already fits in with our band!”
Technically, or practically, what he brought was really reinforcing this philosophy that it was about the performance and capturing the spark, really nailing what made the song special and not worrying about the other shit. In the past, I would plug in a guitar and be like, “That sounds cool!” and then try like 13 other amps. This one, I would plug in and be like, “That sounds cool!” and he’s like, “Yup, we’re recording! It sounds great!” It was like, “Oh, I guess I’m committed to this now [laughs].” But it was actually a wonderful way to work and made things way more exciting.
He’s also great at suggesting some of the weirdest shit that works, things that we would consider in the past but take a long time to hem and haw over, but he would just be like, “Let’s do that!” It was kind of nice to not have very much time, it just made us commit to things quicker and then build off of that. At every step, we’re just trying to find the excitement, and it was right there!
Izzy: Earlier this summer, you performed your first “proper” Tiny Desk, after doing the “(Home)” edition when everyone was doing that. How was that experience? Was it what you expected?
Stefan: Yeah, it was really great! I feel really lucky to get to do it. Obviously, we’re a loud band, we don’t have any acoustic guitar shit [laughs]. We also did it between two tours. We had no time, we just tried to play the songs as best we could quiet, and I think it went really well. That’s a thing that, had we done that six or seven years ago, I don’t think the four of us knew each other enough musically to understand each other’s tendencies and actually pull that off without a ton of practicing. But, because we know each other so well now, it was surprisingly easy to get into a room and just play the songs differently, and I’m really proud of how it turned out.
Izzy: On that note, you’ve spent a lot of the time since the new record dropped touring throughout the UK, Europe, Canada, and Australia. How have those dates gone so far?
Stefan: They’ve been awesome! When you put out a new record, it’s always kind of weird, because you play the old songs and people go off, and you play the new songs, and you don’t know what to expect. Playing the new songs off of this record, the reaction has been better than any new record. Even when we put out our second record, and “DVP” is probably our most popular song, when we were playing that to people who didn’t really know the song yet, the reaction was tepid, people wanted to hear the first record. A handful of the songs from this record seem to be going over really well live, and that makes me feel really good, like we did something that’s connecting, at least with people that already like our band.
Izzy: Do you notice any particularly significant differences in PUP fans throughout different portions of the world, whether the things they most love about the band or just the way they react in a live setting?
Stefan: Yeah… I mean Australians are kind of freaks. They like to go really hard. And there are places in Europe that are definitely on the tamer side, and places in Europe that are also insane because they don’t get shows and they’re like figuring out how to be at a show when they’re at the show. The crowds are definitely different, but I also think that it feels like a really big community. I feel like every time we play a show with people who care about music and care about the same shit that we care about, care about the world not being as awful as it is, it feels like everyone in the room, no matter where we are, are there for the right community-building reasons. We make our politics pretty clear and have that onstage, so what that’s done for us is create this community where people feel safe to be there, and the only people who aren’t welcome are the people who don’t want to make it feel good for everybody. So, it’s been really positive. Everywhere we go, it just feels like we’re surrounded by like-minded individuals which, in this day and age, is one of the few respites that we have from the horrible reality that we all exist in [laughs].
Izzy: Considering this is a Philadelphia publication, I have to ask about any thoughts on or favorite memories of the city, as you’ve played here so many times over the years, between Golden Tea House and Kung Fu Necktie and Boot & Saddle in the early days, to these recent shows at Franklin Music Hall, which is like crazy-massive.
Stefan: So many of our friends when we started touring we were all from Philly; it was such a good community. The Cayetana people, The Menzingers were the first band to take us on a real US tour, Modern Baseball was the second band to take us on a real US tour. It’s a big, really strong community in Philadelphia, and we were kind of accepted into it and fit into it very quickly. I love going there and seeing all of our friends. I think there’s been something special going on there for at least a decade, if not more. It does feel like Toronto, where we’re from, in that sense.
In terms of concrete memories, Golden Tea House was the best show of that tour for sure. It was the most fun show at that point in the States, just such a beautiful DIY community and people who didn’t know our band, but showed up and were excited to see it. That’s always the sign of a great community, when people show up excited to see a band that they have maybe heard of, but never listened to, and we felt that the first time we came through Philly, like nobody in that room knew who we were, but everyone was excited to be there, and that felt good.
Izzy: You have this upcoming US tour where you’re playing a lot of these massive ballrooms/nightclubs/music halls, so I’m curious how you like playing these spaces, where you’ve kind of found yourselves playing these days, compared to the punk rock spaces in the early years? I feel like the bigger rooms can often be less charming, but it’s also nice to have a big stage to run around on, and it’s nice to see that that many people are there for you in each city.
Stefan: I love – I truly, truly mean this from a genuine place – all the shows we play. I love the fact that we get the opportunity to play for people, whether it’s 50 or 5,000. I feel grateful to do it, I have fun on stage, we all have fun on stage. One of the great things about our band is we’re in this unique position… I don’t think many bands that are playing bigger club venues ever go back and do small rooms because they want to, and we do all the time. We just did six shows in Toronto, and the smallest one was a house show, and the biggest one was like a 3,000-cap venue, and we played everywhere in between. So, it keeps everything exciting and interesting for us.
I will say, to your point about the small shows having a lot of charm and the bigger ones not as much, I think we have done a great job of finding the small show charm in the big rooms. I think that a lot of bands, and this is not in any way a judgement, as they move into the bigger rooms, start to play to tracks, just because it’s expected of them. So, you get more structure: you can’t slow down, speed up, stop, you can’t interact with the fans. Again, not a judgement at all, but as you get on a bigger stage, it’s almost like you’re pushed to become a bigger version of yourself. I think the attitude is like, you need to be big so that the people at the back of this arena or whatever can see what’s going on. But we are very much not that [laughs].
We are very much ourselves in any situation. Whether we’re playing to 50 people or 5,000, my banter doesn’t change and I still try and connect with the crowd. We’ll wear the same bullshit that we’ll wear walking our dogs. We’re not putting on a show in that sense. We’re just trying to be up there and be our genuine selves and connect with people as much as possible. And Jeff Rosenstock is like that as well. He’s one of my closest friends, and I’ve seen him play to nobody and I’ve seen him play to like 35,000 people, and he’s just Jeff no matter what. I think people really connect with that, even in a large space.
Izzy: Your tour with Jeff is just about to start, and I know that you have toured together before and that you’re real-life friends, so I’m curious what are some things about this tour that you’re most excited about?
Stefan: The first tour we did together was 10 years ago, and it was long, but we were getting to know each other. We didn’t know each other before then, and we formed some incredibly strong bonds with all of those people. I see Jeff every week that neither of us is on tour. The other guys in Jeff’s band, we spend New Year’s with them most years. We’ve played one-off shows together fairly regularly. Every time they’re in Toronto, our whole community is there. Every time we’re in one of the many places they live, their whole communities are there. It is a really special nine-way friendship that we have [laughs]. It’s really exciting to get to do this whole six-week tour together. It does feel like a first, even though we have toured together. With the crew and everything, I think there’s gonna be 15 or so of us, and I would consider them to be 15 of my best friends in the whole world, and I think everyone would say the same thing. I just think it’s gonna be a really special time.
I don’t wanna give away too much, but we are planning a lot on stage together. Jeff has sung on our songs for a long time and PUP has been the gang vocal quire for the Jeff Rosenstock band for many albums. We finally have this opportunity to do it together in a big, exciting way, and I think this is gonna be a really special tour. It’s not like, “Here we go on tour again,” this is a once in a lifetime kind of thing, because there’s no band that we’re closer with than Jeff, and we’re not gonna do this again… maybe in 20 years, but we’re not doing this again anytime soon. It’s hard to make work with his – and I mean his whole band — schedule and our schedule. So, this is gonna be a pretty unique, special thing that’s not gonna happen again, and I’m excited about that.
Izzy: What can you tell fans about what can be expected of the evening and live experience, whether it be setlist, production, or just the general energy of the night, which seems like it’s gonna be pretty insane in the best way possible?
Stefan: Yeah, I think the energy’s gonna be through the roof. We kinda spur each other on, our bands, we push each other into uncomfortable territory. Like, we dare each other to do stupid things. It’s very much gonna be the kind of show that’s not perfect, but it’s gonna be different every night and very exciting. Much like how we did our last album, we’re gonna be focused on capturing the spirit of the friendship that we have and the spirit of the songs that we play. We’re trying to capture something more than playing our record perfectly. And I think Jeff’s band is really gonna help us get there, and vice versa. Like I was saying before, our bands are so interconnected, there’s gonna be a lot of overlap. We have rehearsed nothing, but that’s kinda part of the fun!
Izzy: You’re doing all of the US dates with Ekko Astral, who are also super cool! What are your thoughts on the DC band? Are they also friends of yours?
Stefan: We don’t know them. I’ve chatted with them a little bit on the internet [laughs], but I’ve never met them in real life. They seem like wonderful people. It seems like their ethos fits in very much with ours and Jeff’s, and their band’s great, so I’m excited to hang with them, and I hope it’s a really fun tour for them. They’re walking into a group of people who are really friendly and excited to play with them, so I hope they have a great time, and I think they will. It’s just gonna be a great tour for everybody!
Izzy: Finally, what are the plans for after PUP’s current dates wrap in December, if that’s something you’ve even thought about? What are the plans for 2026, if you’ve even gotten that far yet?
Stefan: The plan is not having plans [laughs]. We put out this album May 2nd, and the tour started May 2nd, and it runs till December. I’m at home right now, but I’ve been at home for less than a week and I’m leaving in two days, so I’m really looking forward to, once this tour is done, taking a second and reevaluating what I want to do with life and what we want to do with PUP moving forward. So, this is a big tour for us, we’re kind of deep in it, really focused, having a great time, and when it’s done, we’ll need to take a step back and think about life [laughs].
*Get your tickets here.
