PUP's Apocalypse Survival Guide
Tips on fighting morbid stuff from the guys who brought you 'Morbid Stuff.'
Here’s a photo I took of PUP a while back, an outtake from this feature. I like this photo because it looks like they’ve conspired to kick my ass.
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Pretty early into this pandemic, I developed a theory, or at least an approach to mental health: We are all prone to having bad days and good days throughout all of this. Well, I guess it would be more accurate to say “bad days and days that suck slightly smaller amounts of ass.” Anyone who purports to have a positive attitude every single day throughout everything we’ve collectively been going through is either a liar, a lil freak, or a con artist. But here’s what I realized is most important: If you are currently riding a good wave, you have a duty to pay it forward to someone who is not faring as well on that particular day.
That all said, it feels like a fitting time for Canada’s favorite fatalists in PUP to release a new EP, which they’ve entitled This Place Sucks Ass. “That wasn’t even the original title,” frontman Stefan Babcock told me recently. “The other title in the running was: This EP Is Called ‘Fuck’.”
It seems entirely appropriate that the EP includes a cover of Grandaddy’s “AM 180,” a song that soundtracked the lone whimsical scene in the otherwise grim zombie apocalypse film 28 Days Later. That scene is PUP in a nutshell—a moment of fleeting levity peeking through the darkness.
Since PUP’s songs are always brimming with apocalyptic sentiments, I figured that surely they must have some reliable coping mechanisms to wield the emotional fortitude required to sing lyrics about the world burning 200 days a year. So, I asked Babcock and guitarist Steve Sladkowski what they’ve been doing to keep their mental health on the up and up in a year without touring. Maybe their routines and comfort habits will help you during these hyperstressful times as well. I don’t know! I’m just trying to be the good vibes conduit here!
Walk me through a good mental health day for you.
Sladkowski: I walk. I have to get at least five miles of walking in and eat well. It'll start with a smoothie and a little French press. And also, trying to stay engaged. While it’s possible to overdo it on news and current events, the luxury to check out from the news is one that’s not equally afforded to people. As white guys, it’s much easier for us to get away with checking out on the news. I’m trying not to do that.
So you’re forcing yourself to stay engaged?
Sladkowski: Yes.
But how do you balance that? Because it can be like mainlining a direct light beam of negativity.
Sladkowski: I’ll go for a walk, just to do the act of walking, and I’ll listen to Democracy Now!.
Because it’s informing you or comforting you?
Sladkowski: I think there’d be something deeply wrong with me if I was comforted by what I was hearing on Democracy Now!. But I think [walking] forces me to not be sedentary. If you’re moving around while you’re listening to this kind of stuff, it can be easier to process. You’re not just sitting and staring at your computer screen or your phone. You have to be more in the world when taking this information in, which contextualizes it a little more.
Babcock: I have a little cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I wake up here and I feel very lucky because I’ve had this for much of the pandemic. Having this place has made things a lot easier for me. I wake up and I have coffee and I’m pretty much outside 50 percent of the time, cutting the grass or swimming or whatever. The other 50 percent, I’m sitting down with a guitar. The more I get into this career, the more I get into writing songs. A lot of how I look back on a day is based on whether what I wrote that day is something I feel is good.
What is your comfort music?
Babcock: I’m most comforted by a hockey podcast I listen to called The Steve Dangle Podcast. You feel like you get to know people listening to their voices. I find that more comforting than music.
Sladkowski: Ambient, minimalist stuff. Just as far away as I can get from what I do, whether that’s Philip Glass or just some piano music or real ambient electronic stuff, like Biosphere or something. At moments, it can feel like barely music.
I like that I asked you both for your comfort music and respectively got the answers “not music” and “barely music.” How about comfort watches?
Sladkowski: For me, it’s the NBA.
Babcock: I don’t find hockey comforting because I find it’s stressful, so I can’t give that same answer.
Wait, so you don’t like hockey? You just like listening to people talk about hockey?
Babcock: No, I love hockey! But I can’t say that it’s a comfort thing. I get caught up in it and it puts me on edge. So, I guess for a comfort watch… I watch a lot of DIY home-reno Youtube, especially stuff I will never undertake myself. I find those very comforting. I’ll watch videos on how to properly do a below grade foundation. I’m never gonna do that, but it’s nice to absorb some knowledge about building and not have to retain it. I think it’s interesting, but also, I don’t really give a shit because I’ll never do it.
Comfort reading?
Sladkowski: There’s this Penguin series called Great Ideas. They’re works over the course of contemporary history, and much older ones. They’re short, under 100 pages. I have a couple of those and I’ve been going back through them and they’re interesting reads and they force you to think. And I’ve been reading poetry more. Just like Pablo Neruda, and I read a really good collection called Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky.
I am such a simpleminded person but until my dying day, I will never be able to hear the words “Pablo Neruda” and not think of The Simpsons.
Sladkowski: Yeah, his stuff is very beautiful and very motivating. When he says something like “people will not be defeated,” you really want to get up and believe it, even though he wrote it 100 years ago.
Steve, I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda. Stefan, what about you?
Babcock: I love that you’re getting the two polar opposites of PUP right now. Steve is such a smart intellectual, reading poetry and meditative stuff. I would say I’m the band simpleton. I do love reading but my go-to comfort reads are usually autobiographical graphic novels. There’s a really great one called Drinking at the Movies by Julia Wertz and a few by John Porcellino. They’re just really simple but they’re so relatable. It feels like hanging out with a friend and you don’t have to use your brain. It’s a warm embrace for me when I’m feeling bummed out.
Do you have any daily mental health tips or habits you’d advise avoiding?
Babcock: I make sure I do something physical and outside, no matter what the weather is like, every day. It’s really easy to hunker down in your bedroom and realize it’s 8 PM and you haven’t left all day and you’re squirrelly as fuck. So I go outside and either bike or jog or walk, something physical. It helps me cope.
Sladkowski: Stefan will tell you that I’ve harped on this until I’m blue in the face. I haven’t slept with a phone beside my bed for about five years. I have a radio alarm clock that I wake up to and I try to wake up at the same time every day. And I try to get “properly dressed,” which sounds silly, but at least I’m not wearing sweatpants all day.
Boy, this lil talk sure did make me miss seeing these boys in person and taking pictures of them while they play music and stuff. Here are some photos I took the last time I saw them and I hope we can get back to that one day soon:
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