Silversun Pickups
07.23.06
Q&A
words: Phoebe Assenza
photos: Official Band Site

I feel compelled to talk about Los Angeles’ Silversun Pickups at nauseating lengths only because the band’s frontman, singer/guitarist Brian Aubert, won’t talk about them at all. Since I’m only given a certain number of words for these interviews, I only have room to tell you that their pretty brilliance has bought them soft-spot real estate in many-a-busted indie heart. If you’ve heard the touchingly plaintive, restrained raucousness of “Kissing Families,” the single from their debut EP, Pikul, then you must also know The Pickups take what was great about the “Alternative” genre of the early nineties, and, (despite my admittedly biased opinion--I went to high school with, and have known Mr. Aubert, for something like 13 years now), are resurrecting the substance-over-style ethos that has been painfully missing from popular music for well over a decade.

Their debut full-length album, Carnavas, is out now, and they’re touring all over the U.S. I tried getting Brian to talk about all that, but we kept deviating into conversations about every other band on the planet besides his. Enjoy.

Brian Aubert: How’s it going out there in the 917?

Loose Record: Great! Really humid, though, kinda gross.

BA: Humidity gives everybody on the East Coast such cool hair. Like those ironi-froes. Every time I’ve been to Florida my hair ended up looking like one of those models on the boxes of hair dye they sell at Rite-Aid. It just goes whoosh, and makes a perfect wave.

LR: Is that a good look for you?

BA: I’m gonna put my foot down and say “No.”

LR: So, let’s talk about the new album; otherwise, I know we’ll spiral into incoherent banter.

BA: Let’s talk about Lollapalooza ’93. A young, little, nubile Phoebe jumping into a pit for two seconds…It was the quickest damage I’ve seen, in the smallest pit I’ve ever seen.

LR: It was at the second stage—

BA: Wasn’t that during Free Kitten?

LR: It was that Beastie Boys’ spin-off punk band! Adam Horowitz’s band DFL. “Dead-Fucking-Last.”

BA: That was it! For about two seconds you were having the greatest time in the world.

LR: In my defense, I was 14, and the pit was like, me and 12 guys. It was all dudes, so I got kicked in the face pretty quick.

BA: It’s a boys’ world.

LR: Those were the days of combat boots, so I got a steel-toed boot to the nose, and started bleeding everywhere…

BA: Yes, the good times. I recall at that same Lollapalooza, that one guy, what was his name? Sam?

LR: Sam Merians.

BA: He got hurt in the pit at Arrested Development, okay? NOT during Rage Against the Machine, not during Tool, or Primus or Alice in Chains, not any of those bands. Arrested Development. He got hurt.

LR: (laughs uncontrollably) I almost forgot about that.

BA: So if there is anything to even out your bloody nose, it would be Sam getting bruised at Arrested Development.

LR: We should clarify; We’re talking about Arrested Development the afro-centric and mellow hip-hop group, not the TV show with the same name.

BA: Right, not the TV show, which has pretty easy pits, you can deal with those...So did you get all that down? That’s it. That’s the new record.

LR: That’s all you have to say about the new record?

BA: Our inspiration for the new record was to make thirteen year old girls get hurt in two seconds. It’s about tough love!

LR: Now it’s my mission to get hurt in a Silversun Pickups pit. I’d have to start one first, and then make sure I get booted in the face.

BA: It’s such a funny world now. We play some places, and when people start to go a little crazy, other people in the audience get so angry about it. People get really mad about other people jumping around and stuff.

LR: Have you noticed that in anywhere in particular?

BA: Everywhere, really. Back in the day people would just go crazy and that was the (common) notion.

LR: It was the norm.

BA: And now, unless it’s like little kids and emo bands, it’s not a regular thing. Which is good, I guess, because I think that whole pitting thing got stupid. Like how you were saying, you running into that DFL pit shoulda been fun, but when twelve humongous jocks are in there, and they’ve seen “moshing” on MTV, they think they’re supposed beat the shit out of each other...I got hurt at a Weezer show! It sounds silly, but the crowd was so full of these beefy dudes and they just wanted to punch people. I remember jumping up and down, and some guy knocked me and I flew like 8 feet. I was like, “I can’t believe this,” and I opened my eyes, and saw my girlfriend at the time, who was there with me, punching this really big guy (laughs). But I remember thinking “This is over.” Damn that MTV.

LR: The frat boys ruin everything! I went to go see Modest Mouse on their last tour—

BA: I heard about that!

LR: The frat dudes far outnumbered the skinny little indie kids.

BA: The Radar Brothers were on tour with them for a little while, and they were like, “Man, the Modest Mouse crowd has changed.” It’s just from that one song. I mean, that band deserves everything they get (in terms of success and a larger audience) because they worked their asses off. I’ve seen them so many times over the years in such small venues, and they’re so great and worked so hard to get where they are. But it’s still funny to hear people say, “Man, the crowds at Modest Mouse shows are crazy.” There’s a bunch of beefy dudes yelling like, (in jock’s voice) “Play FLOAT ON!” And a small little indie kid behind them like, (in nerd’s voice) “Play Cowboy Dan!”

LR: It’s tragic! I couldn’t enjoy the show because I had this thick-necked dude in front of me singing the breakdown to “Ocean Breathes Salty,” like he’s Fred Durst nu-metal rapping.

BA: That’s such a bummer. And that record (Good News for People Who Love Bad News) is great. If you see a buncha shows, you don’t wanna be jaded, but you kinda can’t help it. Crowds can bum you out. People consider smaller bands personal. Like how Modest Mouse was for a lot of people; you go home and listen to them everyday, and odds are, most people you know aren’t (listening to the same thing). It’s a personal experience, and then you go to this venue to see them, and you realize there are twenty thousand meatheads all sharing your personal experience...Then you don’t enjoy the show! It’s not an elitist thing, those frat boys need to hear Modest Mouse, too. And hopefully, in certain ways, they can take it and (laughs) I don’t know, learn from it or something.

LR: They must be getting something completely different out of it than the rest of their audience.

BA: It’s amazing what happens when you’re on popular radio. We’ve actually played some shows in Santa Ana and places like that, and being from Los Angeles, we had a moment like, “Uh oh, what’s this crowd going to be like?” It ended up being awesome because there are tons of kids down there and they’re bored, and when you come and play for them, they are really happy.

LR: I think some of the best shows I’ve ever seen around L.A. have been at the Glass House in Pomona.

BA: The Glass House is awesome. It’s made such an impression that touring bands always go through there. They play Los Angeles, and the Glass House. It’s important to play both because L.A. is so big. You have to have to make sure everyone that wants to see you can make it to a show.

LR: I remember sweet talking a security guard at the Glass House to get me backstage at a Pavement show.

BA: Do you mean blowjob? Is “sweet talking” the New York term for blowjobs these days?

LR: Oh my God, no. But—okay, it actually wasn’t anything like “sweet talking.” It was more of a pathetic plea. I was like, “Pleeeeeeeease, I love them so much, I need to hang out backstage.” Once I got back there I thought, “Now what am I gonna do?” I couldn’t talk to any of them because I was so embarrassed.

BA: Like there’s so much glitz backstage at the GlassHouse. It’s like, “Wow! Hummus!”

LR: So, you guys will be touring soon.

BA: Yeah, we’re playing in New York twice at the end of July. We’re doing this pool party in Brooklyn--

LR: The McCarren Pool, that’s gonna be awesome.

BA: I know, I’m excited. And then we’re playing the Mercury Lounge in August. And you’re not allowed to go to any of them. It would be weird and uncomfortable. I have to get all those people to believe in this phony version of myself, and with you there, it’s gonna pull me down to reality. I cannot have that, Phoebe.

LR: But I was going to pass out pamphlets about your Doc Marten phase. I’ll tell everyone about Smashing Pumpkins.

BA: Actually, I heard Gish recently and I liked it a lot. They turned into such a bad band, such a painfully awful band. I forgot about what was good about them, and hearing Gish not too long ago made me think, “Damn, that’s good!” It’s hard when you like a band, and then somebody (like Billy Corgan) becomes a personality that you don’t really buy into. It makes it hard to look back at them knowing the direction in which they were headed. I really liked them, and then I was like, “I don’t know what these guys are doing anymore.”

LR: Billy Corgan’s “Zwan” group was actually not-so-bad, I still like that album.

BA: I never listened to it, really?

LR: It was really good. Fun and pretty, not like “Rat in a Cage.”

BA: “Rat in a Cage” is when they jumped the shark. People think they jumped the shark with the Batman stuff? No. Or, the electronic stuff? No. Or calling their record “Machina: The Machines of God?” No. They jumped the shark with “Rat in the Cage.” Once that “Zero” shirt and bald head entered the scene, it was over. With Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, it was over. Two records? Come on.

LR: I thought Mellon Collie was okay.

BA: People say that, and maybe there’s a good record in there somewhere...I don’t know, I liked Gish. And Siamese Dream. That was good.

LR: I still like the “Tonight, Tonight” song on Mellon Collie. With all the strings, it’s really pretty.

BA: That was pretty. It’s funny when you start hearing those old songs again. Like, Oasis is a band I used to HATE.

LR: I never liked them either!

BA: I didn’t like them until recently.

LR: Some of those songs are amazing.

BA: Pop music right now is pretty awful, and it kind of makes me reminisce like, “Wait, Oasis was massively popular, but they were actually really good.”

LR: I like the Wonderwall song, and...um...all those hits. What are some of your favorite bands right now?

BA: I don’t know...I just saw Fiery Furnaces for the first time.

LR: LOVE them.

BA: They blew me away. I’ve always liked their music, but never owned their CDs. I think Secret Machines are still fucking doing it. As far as big bands, they’re one of the best, I think. I don’t know. That new Wilco live record is great. I love Wilco.

LR: Did they break up?

BA: No, no, no. Remember that guy Nells Klein?

LR: No. Is he in Wilco?

BA: He’s an amazing guitar player, he was in Geraldine Fibbers, and used to play with Mike Watt a lot in these punk things, a real avant garde player. He’s in Wilco now, and it’s just amazing.

LR: What’s his name? Nells Klein?

BA: N-E-L-L-S K-L-E-I-N. You just lost all your indie cred.

LR: I lost that a loooong time ago. So, can you please tell me the name of your new album? I need something to write about to make this look like a real interview.

BA: Okay, our new album is called Carnavas.

LR: Thank you.

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