While reminiscing with a friend about furry friends that had gone to live on the farm, PUP’s video for Sleep in the Heat came to mind.
WARNING! SAD STUFF AHEAD!
Sleep in the Heat, off of the 2016 album The Dream is Over, is a follow up to the events that took place in the Guilt Trip music video from 2014. Guilt Trip depicts the fictionalization that brought the band together in their adolescence due to a traumatic event, forming an everlasting bond of 4 boys. Finn Wolfhard, known for appearing in Stranger Things, is rooted in his involvement with PUP and has appeared in several other music videos. Playing frontman Stefan Babcock in the Guilt Trip video, he suggested they do a sequel while himself and the band members were gathered in Toronto one evening in support of a movie Babcock was filming. As conversation ensued, Wolfgang asked Babcock if the song was about a break-up. Babcock disclosed that it was actually about his pet chameleon Norman who passed away while the record was being written.
Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux, director of all the PUP videos, was all in to direct again. Babcock, Wolfgang and the band memories commend him on creating something so heartfelt and relatable on the topic of man’s best friend. The events in the video, taking place 3 years after Guilt Trip, Chronicle the young band now on tour as they live the punk/DIY lifestyle out of a van. A stray dog approaches young Babcock, played by Wolfhard, and the rest is history. The dog becomes a road companion. After awhile, they announce at a gig that the dog is kind of sick and needs a new home. The dog chases the van, not willing to be left behind.
As the video reaches its climax, there is a montage of real life band members with their furry friends that have passed. Full emotion of the song is felt in force, especially after young Babcock sells his guitar for the vet bill, only for it to be fruitless. The most powerful relationship to PUP’s energy and though is when Babcock goes back to the pawnshop and steals the guitar back and gets back on stage with his band. That’s where all anger and power are shown through raw vocals.
I went and saw PUP in Pittsburgh a little over a month ago and this was my favorite song played. I also realized that mosh pits were not for me and it’s almost everyone is sweat soaked by the end of it. For all my Columbus friends, check PUP out on 9/27 at New Port Music Hall!