The critical consensus on guitar rock in thelate-90s is that sensitive indie bands were overshadowed by bombastic nu-metal. Music writers love the idea that the slack jawed masses were too busy headbanging to appreciate sophisticated slackers like Built to Spill or Elliot Smith.
But since 2013, the infectious British rock group Puppy has gleefully subverted this narrative by bridging these supposedly disparate influences. Will Michael (bass/vocals), Billy Howard (drums) and Jock Norton (singer/guitarist) combine the heavy riffs of classic Deftones and Korn with the indie pop of Grandaddy and Teenage Fanclub. This inspired concept forms the basis for their two EP’s Vol I (2015) and Vol II (2016). Puppy’s increasingly heavy work fuses a metal sense of menace with melodious verve and Jock’s strikingly high and clear vocals.
Billy and Jock have been in the rock trenches together since they were school kids in North London. Via email, Billy discussed the harrowing story of being sent home from school for wearing the f-bomb strewn lyrics of Soulfly’s ‘Jumpdafuckup’ on a t-shirt. He even told me that he was wearing some vintage Deftones gear while replying to my questions. We also discussed the ultimate fictional representation of a 1990s metal head, the hapless AJ Soprano- “There was a golden age in The Sopranos when AJ’s a young, angsty spotty skater and pretty much everything he says or wears is amazing. I’m pretty sure he has a burgundy Slipknot windbreaker with a barcode on the back. I always wanted one but could never find it. AJ Soprano is, for better or for worse, a definite inspiration on the band!”
The band is itself quickly making a name for their image with Billy, an accomplished visual artist, directing a string of winningly odd music videos. Keeping things in-house means the videos “are a really important part of our identity and aesthetic, rather than just a means of promoting a specific song”. My personal favorite is the horror themed ‘Beast’, which does a great update on the old metal music video tropes of hooded cultists and evil fog.
Their most ambitious work to date is ‘Demons‘. “It’s a song about confronting your problems and trying to embrace them somehow. We wanted to work around the aesthetics of various cults, pseudo-sciences and quasi-religions that literally try and sell you an answer to your problems in the pursuit of happiness or whatever”. Further inspiration was found in cultural precedents like Leonard Cohen’s time in a Buddhist monastery and “Beck’s veiled explorations of his own Scientology”.
Hilariously, they circulated the story that they had joined the totally made up Grand Order of Ascension and Transcendence in a bid to become more successful.
“In the build up to the video’s release we started making cultish memes and sharing them along with abstract, nonsensical bits of text about our new found faith and love for the Ascended Master! In hindsight though we maybe went a little overboard with it. We got a lot of worried messages from family and friends asking if we were ok. I think some people thought we’d gone fully Children of God. Whilst maybe it wasn’t the cleverest career move, it was definitely fun”.
Puppy is currently finishing up their debut album for release later this year. Things are poised to get even bigger for them as “last year we signed with Spinefarm Records, which was super exciting for us as they look after some of our favourite bands, like Ghost BC, Electric Wizard and weirdly enough, Korn”. And like their influences, Puppy have the theatricality and songwriting to become cult heroes in their own right.