It’s kind of hard to believe this summer marks 20 years since Silversun Pickups dropped their nu gaze classic Carnavas, featuring insta-earworms like “Lazy Eye” and “Well Thought Out Twinkles.” But for Brian Aubert, guitarist and singer for the Los Angeles outfit, the anniversary barely registers, as for him the timeline of the group just blends together. It also doesn’t hurt that the alt-rock band is still plugging along with just as much relevancy now, maybe even more so, evident on their newest album, Tenterhooks, which is also the third with producing legend and Garbage drummer Butch Vig at the helm.
“It feels like the most creative I’ve ever been, most free I’ve ever been,” Aubert tells Vanyaland. “We come into this house around 11, we catch up till noon, and then from noon to about four, it’s straight work. We’re just going for it. And then we’re kind of done. And that just tight four hours is more productive than anytime we’ve been in the studio for 12 hours.”
This weekend, Silversun Pickups brings their tour in support of Tenterhooks to New England for three shows. Tonight (May 8), they’ll be at District Music Hall in Norwalk, Connecticut; Saturday (May 9) in Providence at The Strand, and then Monday night in Portland, Maine, at the State Theatre.
Ahead of the trio of performances, Aubert sat down with Vanyaland for a 617 Q&A (Six Questions; One Recommendation; Seven Somethings) where he talked about not getting caught up in the nostalgia of the past, how Vig broke the cycle of their revolving door of producers, and what’s kept him on tenterhooks over the years. Along the way, he also waxed on his love for a classic ‘90s action movie.
:: SIX QUESTIONS
Michael Christopher: I want to start off by asking about a song you mentioned as being underrated on a podcast you were on a number of years ago. “Over the Edge” by L.A. Guns.
Brian Aubert: Oh, big time. Big time. Huge. Hugely underrated.
When did you first hear that song, and what grabbed you about it? Because I loved it, and it was in Point Break…
I’m trying to remember if that record came out first, Hollywood Vampires. There’s something about – first of all, Point Break? Point Break rules. There’s something about that song… I respond to these things in an emotional way. And the way that song sets up, the way the chorus dips down, he’s screaming in the verses, really, singing really, really high, and there’s all this stuff. And then the chorus backs up and chills out, and he lowers his voice, and it sounds just so nostalgic in some weird way, even then. And honestly, it’s sort of like a real left turn for a band like that. You know what I mean? To go in that sort of direction… they have some good songs, but that one, they just knocked out of the park.
And then I remember in that movie, as time has gone on, it’s just such an incredible time and place. You get these two people, Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, in this ultimate summer movie. I remember seeing that movie in theaters running out, my friend and I, and wanting to jump out of planes, join the FBI, and start jumping on the beach. And it’s like Kathryn Bigelow, the director, it’s just her shooting masculinity in such a way. It just works. It’s just perfect in the whole thing. I’m from Los Angeles, so hanging out on beaches at night and stuff like that really was a summer sort of thing. And I remember feeling like how powerful those summers were, and you’re with some friends, and every year you get older, and things change, and… just these little time pieces.
***
And I believe that song is in a part where they’re all [having] a bonfire, and they’re all kind of talking and chilling before things get a little crazy. So, this is their peaceful moment where, honestly, these people should all get along in a weird way. And when I look back on that, I just find that vibe in that scene and that vibe of that song is just perfect to me. And I still feel that song in some sort of fire hangout nighttime thing. What about you? What brought you to that song? You’re the first person that’s ever mentioned that song to me.
Well, first of all, I’m a huge, huge Point Break fan. And I love how people have warmed up to it over the years, because at the time, it was kind of goofed on as “Keanu can’t really act.” And he’s so good in it. And all the songs on that soundtrack just fit the moments.
I think the Ratt song is killer, too.
It’s so good. I would say Point Break was like… It didn’t do well, I remember, but I remember people who saw it were like, “Dude, this is one of the best action movies that we’ve ever seen.” But just as time’s gone on… I think it’s just because there’s just the perfect storm of all the actors in place, the idea in place, a summer movie, action movie, again, all this masculinity all through the lens of Kathryn, and this feminine energy looking at the not toxic parts of masculinity, but those actual friendships. And Bodhi [Swayze] and Utah [Reeves] have an interesting relationship. They totally dig each other. The friendship stuff, Bodhi, him blowing it by going too far, knowing he screwed up, and everyone dying around him was fantastic.
So, let’s jump into Silversun Pickups and Tenterhooks, which is the seventh album. It’s been 20 years since you released the first record, Carnavas. I know you were a band for a good time before that, but when you look back, what are some of the biggest differences you see in how you approach going into the studio and making new material these days?
Well, back then, it’s hard because it does feel for us one gelatinous blob, meaning it all feels connected. We’re still connected to those first days because it’s all one running narrative. You know what I mean? It doesn’t feel like there’s been chapters. It’s just that we’ve been moving along. I would say that we used to do things where we’d rehearse songs, rehearse songs, rehearse songs, and then just go and record them. And by the third record, we wanted to come in not so locked in, so we could be a little more… let our creativity happen more in the studio. And so, we’d have looser arrangements and things like that.
But now with Butch, the last couple of records, I’ll just go, “I have a bunch of ideas.” I’ll just go to his house, and the band will come, and I’ll just start playing the acoustic versions of certain… a loose arrangement of a song or an idea or things like that. And we just start getting to it right away. So, what it does is it frees us up to be spontaneous and creative. For me, the way Butch works and the way our work really melds together. We’re very good at working together.
Historically, it’s typically been two and done with the band and producers.
That’s what we were going to do, but now, I can’t… actually, right now, with Butch, he’s one of my best friends. As a band, we’re really close with him and his family. And I do stuff with him all the time. When people ask me to do things on projects or this and that, I just call him and go, “Hey, you around?” He’s like, “Yeah, come on, let’s go.” I’ll go to his house and do it. Or if we’re going to do a Fishbone cover or Yo Gabba Gabba! or things like that, I just contact him. Because he loves to just record with us, and he gets the spirit of we should also be having fun with what we’re able to do. We should also enjoy this, and that’s important.
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Do you feel like you kind of found the producing muse for the band now?
For me, yeah. I mean, for me, I mean, I can speak for everybody: I would say, “yes.” Christopher [Guanlao, Pickups’ drummer] loves him because he’s a drummer. So, Butch is, like, a member of an established, still very current rock band, and he is a drummer, so he’s approaching some of the stuff as a person in a band. You know what I mean? So that’s cool. And then Nikki [Monninger, Pickups’ bassist] and Joey [Lester, keyboardist] is always… they love him. And yeah, I can work pretty quickly and have a lot of ideas that I throw out pretty fast, and he can catch them. We just go through stuff. We’ve moved it forward fast, then we can go home and have a life. So, to me, it’s so far, we’ve got this down to a place that just feels, I don’t know, feels perfect.
I mentioned how it’s been 20 years since the first album, and was wondering if you’re one for nostalgia. Will you let that 20th anniversary or Carnavas pass quietly, or will you acknowledge it somehow?
Quietly. “Au Revoir Reservoir” is a song that Nikki sings on the new record, and it’s basically about “don’t be crushed by nostalgia.” Nostalgia can be fun, and it could feel good to dip into it and get some gooey feelings, but don’t be crushed by it. You know, we have the luxury of getting older; that’s something a lot of people don’t have. And I’ve seen people spend a lot of their lives under the weight of looking backwards, and I think that’s not healthy or a good place to be. Like I said, though, Carnavas and those records are, to us, they’re just a part of what we’re doing. All of this is just, again, a continued… it’s all in one piece for us. So, we don’t really look back on that one and go, “Oh, that was the time and place really.”
But if you’re referring to anniversary shows and things like that, we will do it, but we don’t care what the number is. The dates don’t work. We’ve said, “Listen, we’re at this place where it’s hard for us because we are still continuing as a band.” Nikki made a good point where she was like, “It’s easier for other people to time it correctly because a lot of times they get back together or something.” But our timing falls as it falls, and we have a new record, and we’re like, “Alright, we’ll just push that back and push that back.” So, if it’s the 21st or 22nd [anniversary], nobody cares. We don’t care what the number is. We’ll go out and do it, though. We’ve talked about it, trying to figure a way that we feel good about doing an anniversary tour. We had to scratch our minds around it for a minute, but now we’ve landed in a place where we feel pretty good about it. [laughs]
People love pigeonhole bands and artists, especially when there’s a scene happening. And when you started to get some notoriety, there was a lot of trying to put you in a box like, “Well, they’re part of the post-punk revival thing or shoegazey.”
They’ve never quite figured [us] out. [laughs] We get called different things. When people ask us what we are, I always say, “a rock band.” It’s all I can do, because I don’t know what else to tell people. We’re really loud, so it’s hard. We’re too loud for twee, and we’re too twee for the heavy, and that sounds good to me.
I guess that’s an easy way to put it. Just say you’re a rock band.
I just say we’re a rock band and then let them decide when they hear it. Those boxes probably help people understand things in a way. And it doesn’t really bother me. We know who we are, you know what I mean? Right. And we know what we’re interested in. And there’s a certain core sound that we have that we can’t really do anything about. So, we feel, like, critic-proof because we don’t really read anything. We don’t really care to. It’s like we just assume that you think we’re awesome or we’re terrible. We don’t really need to read it to know that. We just don’t let anything in our world as far as, like… we just like to keep the creative part free from praise and critique.
The fact that people care at all is really amazing to us, but we don’t get riled up by people talking if they’re… I don’t know. It just doesn’t hurt us at all because we just feel like there’s nothing we can do about it. So if you’re into it, cool. If you’re not, go find someone else. We’re just in charge of our own world, and we don’t really care where we matter in the grand scheme of it all. But honestly, we almost feel so lucky that we’re in the space that we are. We’ve always been in this interesting place where, like, we get to do really cool radio shows that we love with Bob Mould and Low and The Breeders and these cool bands. And then we also get invited to these sorts of more mainstream things, a little goofier, but still, it’s like we’re invited to the party and we’ll come. And so, like I said, we swim between the indie world and the radio world.
We always talk about how when we play this festival, we’ve been, for 20 years, on the same [place on the bill], up and down a little, but not too much, while all the bands ahead of us and all the bands behind us disappeared. [laughs] So we’re just like, “Let’s just stay and put our head down, just don’t look too hard. We’ll just do our thing.” It’s a very luxurious place to be.
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:: ONE RECOMMENDATION
I think for this complicated world that we’re in, with the amount of insanity that we all have to deal with at all times, even if you’re not paying attention to it, you’re getting the residue on you. It’s a cantankerous place, right? I have been into meditation, and the deeper I’ve gone into it… I’m not into the hoodoo, all that sort of stuff. I’m more just interested in the chemistry of it all. And for such a wild time, and if you’re somebody that has lots of thoughts, and I don’t know how you don’t nowadays, you might be doing it already, and you don’t even know it. If there are things you do, little creative spots where if you can get in any kind of place where there is no past, and there’s no future, it’s just a present tense moment where you’re just sitting there, and you’re working on something or you like what you’re doing, that’s basically meditation, right? Basically, getting into a spot like that.
So, I recommend that people give themselves a chance and get just one of those little free apps or something, and just see what happens when you take 20 minutes to yourself. Don’t even worry if you’re thinking too much or anything like that. Just shut down for 20 minutes, sit there, close your eyes, and you’d be surprised how helpful it could be to navigate what it is you’re doing.
:: SEVEN OF SOMETHING
The new album is Tenterhooks, which is a word that refers to being in a state of anxiety or having suspense about something. Tell me seven times in your life when you were on tenterhooks.
I think the first one probably… a good one was when my son was born. We knew he was coming any minute, but that was a good one. But tenterhooks doesn’t necessarily mean bad, but it was just like there’s so much unknown in that.
I remember being on tenterhooks trying to get PJ Harvey tickets. That was actually just a couple years ago. Hoping I could get into this show because I love her, and I’d heard it was incredible.
I’m trying to think of more fun ones because the ones that are going to be more boring, like, “Oh God, elections,” there’s those things, but I don’t want to even bring those up. I can bring up real tenterhook stuff, but no, let’s get fun.
I was on tenterhooks because I wanted Michael B. Jordan to win the Academy Award. Because I love Sinners so much, and I felt like I was championing Sinners constantly. And I just kept saying, “Dude, this dude has more chemistry…” Hey Nik. Nikki just came in. Nikki, name of time you were on tenterhooks, for real. I’m cheating. What’s the last time you were anxious about something?
Nikki said her daughters are in this playgroup, and the person who runs it knows she’s in the band. They have, like, musical moments, and if they go like, “Hey, maybe you should play.” And so Nikki gets swept up in it, and she has to learn a ton of songs, and she’s learning them right now, which – she’s picking up the bass – and so she’s on tenterhooks for the moment that she’s able to learn these things.
***
I was on tenterhooks knowing that I had to sing [with] Curt Smith from Tears for Fears. I had a benefit with Butch Vig that I do with him every January. It’s for epilepsy. It’s called Joey’s Song, and it happens in Madison every year. Butch and I go, and I play guitar and do Silversun, but we play, and different people come. And so, I’m playing in all these people’s things, and I think that one of the ones that I was on tenterhooks about because I was waiting to play with Curt Smith. Because I was a big Tears for Fears fan. I was really shocked that I was going to be playing with him on these songs. [laughs] And so I was on tenterhooks, to be honest. That was exciting. And he was the best. And then I’m just up there playing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” I’m like, “What the fuck, dude?”
And speaking of Boston, that’s also when we met Belly and how we became friends with Tanya Donelly and all that. That was tenterhooks. I love her. She’s in the cameo in our video for “Long Gone.” She sent a little video, so you can see her for a snippet. Tanya’s the best.
I was definitely on tenterhooks when I got sober, not knowing what was coming next. And again, yeah, it’s just the unknown more than anything. There’s a tinge of darkness, but I don’t find being on tenterhooks necessarily pessimistic. It’s just more like, “What is coming? What is it?” It’s just like you just don’t know what the next phase is. And getting sober, I just didn’t know where I was headed. And it’s one of the best things that ever happened to me. But at the time, you just don’t know. You’re not in the headspace to have such a big change. And so, I remember that one being pretty intense.
SILVERSUN PICKUPS + GIANT WASTE OF MAN :: Saturday, May 9 at The Strand Ballroom & Theatre, 79 Washington St. in Providence, RI :: 7:30 p.m., all ages, SOLD OUT :: Event info
