PUPPY SQUAD

puppy squad is probably one of the weirdest and angriest songs we’ve ever written.

it was conceived, born and released inside a pandemic. we were still figuring out how we were going to keep being a band with the world ending around us - and listening to it now I can really feel that weird mix of confusion, fear and frustration again.

it’s about realising you can stand up for who you are; you don’t have to be anyone’s sidekick. biting back at manipulation and controlling people. it’s not about a specific person as much as a specific type of person.

definitely the song for ‘anger’, as far as the 5 stages of grief go.

we had the structure and instrumental for this one for a little while but I’d been struggling to find a lyric that i slotted with.

one day, i woke up from a dream about scrappy doo?

I remember nothing about it, except the words ‘puppy squad’ rattling around in my head all morning. later that day all the lyrics poured out of me.

loads of people thought calling it ‘puppy squad’ was a joke - and i guess to some extent it was, initially.
it was a working title for ages, and inevitably the working title became the real title because it felt weird and forced to call it anything else. there’s definitely ‘cooler’ examples out there but i love the idea of scrappy doo as a role model. it doesn’t matter how big the fucker is - bark back, puppies.

we got to be super experimental when we recorded it. it’s one of 3 songs on ‘L’appel Du Vide (Part 1)’ produced by Neil Kennedy at The Ranch in Southampton - who let me play with all these vintage Russian radio mics for those distorted and weird vocal passages. There’s so many little whispers and details in this.

THE MUSIC VIDEO

when it got to video-time, pandemic restrictions were in full swing.

we’d originally planned another ‘we go down together’-style large-scale, cinematic adventure for this one - but there was just no way we could make that happen with the world the way it was.

i set up a black backdrop at our HQ, put my camera on a tripod, set up some lights and pressed record.

i left the building, and one by one each of the guys went in and did 3 or 4 takes with the song. we only saw each other from a distance, if at all. utterly bizarre.

I took all the footage home and tried to make something cohesive with it - and I actually think it remains one of our best videos.

i love the grittiness of it. it’s super intimate and aggressive and i think it’s actually better than the original video idea we had. it fits the song so well.

LISTEN & DOWNLOAD:

LYRICS

Sit down and glare from the other side of you
You’ll never live if you can’t climb back out the tomb
Skin is crawling and it’s crawling and it’s crawling-

Your aesthetic is anaesthetic
A hollow echo and it’s pretty-in-pink pathetic
And it’s crawling and it’s crawling and it’s crawling
You think you’re such a skill on the eye
It all melts off in the summertime

I have tasted you before

I’ll come alive again
You won’t like when I close this door
or burn it down again
Yeah I’ve tasted you before
and I’ll come alive again

Can’t hear ‘em, turn it up,
Ring it out, it’s in my fuel lines
And the blood that they sell me so

Well now, they tell me I’m cold
Got a gutter-bound heart and a rusted soul
An angel’s kiss just get out alive
And some kinda shower party for a cult survivor
It’s easier now to let them have it all
another coffin lid just to break the mold
you’re rotten, honey, I love every inch
and I wanna drink it all



I have tasted you before

I’ll come alive again
You won’t like when I close this door
Or burn it down again
yeah I’ve tasted you before
I’ll come alive again

Lily looked at me from across the room and smiled
And I thought aw, honey, you’ll never understand
What these creatures can do
She looked at me deep, with those godforsaken baby blue eyes
And I laughed
And I said

Are you feeling alive, cutie pie?

And just like the blades they say
Tell ‘em bout the flames they play
and while they fake the fame
Well I got something to say
Yeah your pretty face won’t cut out my tongue
We ain’t no house band
and

we don’t jump for no-one.

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