Pulp launch their own tea as Island era singles hit streaming services

14 June, 2023

Richard Hawley and Jarvis Cocker onstage at the Leadmill in Sheffield

Pulp have launched their own brand of teabags, and announced that singles from their Island era will be arriving on streaming services.

The band teased both new updates on social media – the first of which was their own signature brand of tea.

Made in collaboration with Dragonfly Tea, frontman Jarvis Cocker took to Instagram last week to unveil the band’s own blend of Black Tea, which comes equipped with snippets of their lyrics.

“Monday mornings can be hard. This could help: Pulp Monday Morning Tea,” Cocker wrote on the update, sharing an image of both the box of tea and an accompanying tea caddy. “In collaboration with @dragonflyteauk … we have come up with the perfect Black Tea to get you up & running on Monday, or any other day of the week.”

He continued: “The small white object to the left of the picture is a mini tea-caddy! So you can take sachets of tea with you to have whenever wherever. [And] if you are at a loose end, each tea-bag has a line from a Pulp song lyric printed on the tag to help you plan your day … Tea’s up.”

The second image in the post showed an example of the lyrically inspired tabs on the end of each tea bag, with the one posted reading “Dance, and drink, and screw because there’s nothing else to do” — a line from their hit 1995 single ‘Common People’.

This isn’t the first time that members of Pulp have shared their own signature blend of tea. Back in 2020, the Britpop frontman also joined forces with the Dragonfly brand to share his mix of peppermint tea – named ‘Peppermint Jungle’ – which he released under the moniker ‘JARV IS’. Find out more about the collection here.

The launch also coincides with another recent announcement from the indie veterans. Taking to Twitter, the band confirmed to fans that they would be releasing a variety of singles on streaming platforms.

The tracks will all be taken from the time that they were signed to Island Records and, as per the update, a new EP will be added to various streaming services each week.

The first one released was the band’s own ‘Lipgloss’ EP, which contained the title track taken from their 1994 third studio album ‘His ‘N’ Hers’, as well as B-sides ‘You’re A Nightmare’ and ‘Deep Fried In Kelvin’ – which originally appeared on the deluxe version.

Last Friday (June 9) the band also released the second of the forthcoming EPs – ‘Do You Remember The First Time?’. Also taken from around the time of their third album, the EP contains the title track ‘Do You Remember The First Time?’, as well as two B-sides to the single, first seen on the deluxe edition – ‘Street Lites’ and ‘The Babysitter’.

“Do You Remember The First Time? Well do you? And why did you choose them? Was it the drink or the time of year or the position of the planets? Or was it just their hair?” read the caption announcing the second EP, also teasing that a video is set to be released soon.

In other Pulp news, the band recently performed their first live shows in over a decade.

This arrived after Cocker confirmed that the band would be hitting the road this year for their first gigs together since 2012, and later confirmed a UK reunion tour in October.

They kicked off the live shows in Bridlington on May 26, where they broke out hits including ‘Disco 2000’, ‘Common People’ and ‘Babies’, before returning to the stage for two encores and closing the set with a rendition of ‘Glory Days’.

The band also added three more gigs to their comeback run – playing a huge outdoor show at Manchester’s Castlefield Bowl on Tuesday July 4 and two intimate gigs at London’s Eventim Apollo Hammersmith on Friday 28 and Saturday 29 July.

Last November, frontman Cocker said that Pulp would “probably play in other places around the world” following their UK and Ireland tour.

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