Who Will Look After the Dogs?, the fifth full-length offering from Toronto punk band PUP, is not an album to listen to in the family car (which I did, unsuccessfully). It’s not an album to listen to on full volume while running trails in grizzly country (which I did, inadvisably). It’s an album best served live – singing along with hundreds of other sweaty fans, forgetting the world for a couple of hours.
Only, the last time the band played Edmonton, in January 2025 when they were opening for Sum 41 on the last leg of their farewell tour, the record was still four months away from its release. They still debuted a few songs from the album, but it was clear the connection gleaned from repeated listens hadn’t yet happened.
The record is now out — to critical acclaim, no less — and the band is back to give Edmonton audiences a raucous live show, performing for their devoted fanbase — who, if history holds, will have all the new lyrics memorized.
“Whenever we play live, it feels like people are singing along to every word,” says lead guitarist Steve Sladkowsi. “The music has connected in such a way that people find catharsis and a way through whatever is going on in their life – positive or negative – through these songs. They come to the shows and sing along and mosh and sweat and take care of each other in physical space. It’s really special.”
Growing up, the foursome — made up of Sladkowski, lead singer Stefan Babcock, drummer Zack Mykula and bassist Nestor Chumak — were embedded in the Toronto punk scene, a community that offered a sense of release and belonging. Similar emotions are palpable on Who Will Look After the Dogs?, an album that is hung on heartbreak – Babcock’s specifically.
Lyrically, it hones in on our darkest feelings after a breakup – including the line that inspired the album’s title: “I can’t die yet / Who would look after the dog?” – but, in keeping with PUP’s ethos, it’s buoyed by both upbeat, frenetic guitar and a helping of humour.
“There’s an understanding that humour and self-effacing personalities are part of why this has connected with people. It’s important to us to maintain that,” says Sladkowski.
For fans, listing PUP as a favourite band is almost shorthand to convey your taste: boisterous punk that’s elevated by clever, unpretentious lyrics. (The most random example of that might be a callout in an Airbnb ad from an employee on Conan O’Brien’s podcast.)
“We tried to replicate things about (punk) music that drew us to it in the first place,” says Sladkowski. “And we’ve been really, really lucky that that has connected – whether that’s someone at Conan O’Brien’s podcast or a person in Alberta who’s transgender and feeling like Danielle Smith is not representative of their lived experience.”
Lived experience is something that shows up in PUP’s music a lot, as is obvious on “Edmonton,” a blistering, one-minute song named after the city that was written — of all places — in the bathroom at the Starlite Room, circa 2017.
“There’s a line in there where Stefan talks about missing birthdays and funerals,” Sladkowski says. “I’ve missed funerals and weddings – we all have. This is the flipside of the very glamourous international travel being in a band,” says Sladkowski “One of Stefan’s talents is writing from a place of lived experience. He had a realization and synthesized those thoughts in the Starlite.”
Catch PUP at the Midway Music Hall on Nov. 28, 2025.
