It's like getting really drunk at a party and spilling your guts in front of everyone and feeling incredibly great and cathartic about it, and then waking up the next morning and realizing what a complete fool you made of yourself."

Fuck You, I'm Stealing Home: A baseball themed band that toured the coast playing primarily basements and selling matchbooks with our name on them. The oddity of the theme alone helped move some serious units.

Aftermath: My first band when I was 12, named after the fourth Rolling Stones' (our biggest and practically only influence) album (Aftermath), and also because we rehearsed after math (well, school).

New York City Rhythm: Just straight up ripped off the title of a Barry Manilow song. At this point I was starting to become proud of the fact that I had no shame in admitting I liked what some might refer to as the more shameful side of AM Gold. 

“The time we were opened to that world is when we talk to other bands. People who are great people, amazing musicians. Then they release a new song, and I’m like, ‘That’s not them. I’ve been on tour with them for months, that’s something they would not do. That’s where we’ve seen it the most, honestly.” When it is suggested those artists drank the Kool-Aid, Joseph adjusts the metaphor, replacing “drank” with “served.” “They weren’t given a choice. They were painted into a situation where they were going to get shelved or a plug was going to get pulled, by people in control who think they know [what works].”

For the sixteen-track album, the band invented fifteen fictional personas, each with its own sound, aesthetic, and backstory that draw from different decades of club culture. Genres range from Studio 1 reggae to indie rock, under pseudonyms like Burning Phlegm, White Virgins, and Noah's Dark.

But even if being in PUP sounds like a living nightmare for Babcock, it’s all he’s got. Gig or no gig, he’s waking up most mornings on the floor with more apologies than dollars in the bank, coming to the same conclusion over and over again: that voice in my head telling me I’m a loser was right all along.