IPOD
RADIO
Silversun Pickups
By Daniel Robert Epstein
Mar 3, 2006
Silversun Pickups are living the dream, man. THE DREAM! Back in 2000 they were literally a brand spanking new band and they got into the CMJ Music Festival just on the basis of a tape. Since then they’ve been puttering around and improving their and they just released their first EP, Pikul, which basically will catch everyone up to who they are and where they are coming. I got a chance to talk to their lead singer, Brian Aubert.
Buy Pikul
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hi Brian!
Brian Aubert: Hello! Where are you calling from?
DRE:
I’m in New York and you’re in Los Angeles, right?
BA:
Yeah.
DRE:
How long have you lived there for?
BA:
My whole life. I’m an LA native.
DRE:
How’s the tour going?
BA:
We just did New York and Seattle and Santa Barbara, but we just finished touring with Brendan Benson.
DRE:
You guys get to tour with some interesting people.
BA:
I know. I feel like we’ve played with a lot of people already. It’s been so much fun. It’s been really cool that we’ve been able to pull so many different kinds of people. I had never even heard Brendan Benson’s music until right before the tour.
DRE:
What’d you think?
BA:
I thought it was pretty cool. The songwriting was really poppy but it was good. I was excited.
DRE:
How was it going back to CMJ in 2005 with an album?
BA:
It was better. Amazing what a couple years will do. CMJ was so much fun. I was literally in trepidation about it because those things are such clusterfucks for bands. It’s so insane. If you go there without your own gear and stuff like that you’re schlepping your own stuff to a cab and hopefully the cab will take it. Sometimes they’ll just take off because they’re scared. They don’t like all the gear.
DRE:
I know the feeling.
BA:
Once you do get to the club, it’s really difficult. But it was totally fun and a lot of work.
DRE:
Were a lot of people that were there also there when you first went back in 2000?
BA:
The only people that I knew there was this one band. I remember when they walked in, we were like “Oh no. No one’s supposed to know about this.”
DRE:
How did the audience respond to the 2005 show?
BA:
It was so great. We couldn’t have asked for it to be any better. I couldn’t even imagine it to be. All the shows were so good. The parties were really fun and it was really cool. It ran the gamut performance wise. Our first one was nuts because amps were blowing up and I chopped a cable in half with my head accidentally.
DRE:
How did that happen?
BA:
It was pretty late in the evening so there was some whiskey in my blood. I jumping on an amp and I fell over and my head chopped a guitar cable in half.
DRE:
Oh my god.
BA:
It was pretty stupid.
DRE:
It’s a good rock and roll story though.
BA:
It was funny because I didn’t realize like I chopped it in half. My friend Aaron put the cable in his pocket and said, “I’m keeping this.”
DRE:
Why did it take so long for you guys to put out an album?
BA:
In 2000 we were just not the same. We didn’t really know what we were doing. CMJ was our first show ever after only playing for a couple of weeks. We were just kind of making stuff as we went along. I think we got some good stories in the press because since we got the CMJ gig just by giving someone a tape.
DRE:
How did the band get started?
BA:
We’ve known each other for awhile. I’ve known Nikki for like ten years. I went down to a friend’s practice space and monkeyed around on guitar and stuff. Nikki wanted to learn how to play bass so she came down with me and we’d monkey around and that’s when my girlfriend at the time was like “I want to play drums.” So she came down and just started tinkering on drums. Then we got into CMJ.
DRE:
I read something funny about the band on a music blog. That you guys “sound like Queens of the Stone Age but with a wussier singer.”
BA:
I thought that was really great. That’s a compliment. That was pretty rad.
DRE:
Are you guys already working on the next album?
BA:
Yeah because Pikul is just an EP. Pikul is a lot of songs from over the years. When we signed with Dangerbird, they wanted to put out an EP that covered some of our past. We remixed it and put it all together in a big pot. There are sessions from 2002 and there’s some from 2003.
DRE:
Who hooked you up with producer Rod Cevera?
BA:
He’s a friend of ours. I’m not exactly sure where we met him. He’s just sort of been around. He’s just some guy that you drink with sometimes. He was good friends with Tanya Haden who plays cello with us. About four years ago we were just going to parties and hanging out with him. When we came to CMJ he went with us just to hang out.
DRE:
What do you know about SuicideGirls?
BA:
They’re crazy. There are a lot of them. A friend of mine described it to me as like Friendster but with naked girls.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Silversun Pickups are living the dream, man. THE DREAM! Back in 2000 they were literally a brand spanking new band and they got into the CMJ Music Festival just on the basis of a tape. Since then they’ve been puttering around and improving their and they just released their first EP, Pikul, which basically will catch everyone up to who they are and where they are coming. I got a chance to talk to their lead singer, Brian Aubert.
Buy Pikul
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hi Brian!
Brian Aubert: Hello! Where are you calling from?
DRE:
I’m in New York and you’re in Los Angeles, right?
BA:
Yeah.
DRE:
How long have you lived there for?
BA:
My whole life. I’m an LA native.
DRE:
How’s the tour going?
BA:
We just did New York and Seattle and Santa Barbara, but we just finished touring with Brendan Benson.
DRE:
You guys get to tour with some interesting people.
BA:
I know. I feel like we’ve played with a lot of people already. It’s been so much fun. It’s been really cool that we’ve been able to pull so many different kinds of people. I had never even heard Brendan Benson’s music until right before the tour.
DRE:
What’d you think?
BA:
I thought it was pretty cool. The songwriting was really poppy but it was good. I was excited.
DRE:
How was it going back to CMJ in 2005 with an album?
BA:
It was better. Amazing what a couple years will do. CMJ was so much fun. I was literally in trepidation about it because those things are such clusterfucks for bands. It’s so insane. If you go there without your own gear and stuff like that you’re schlepping your own stuff to a cab and hopefully the cab will take it. Sometimes they’ll just take off because they’re scared. They don’t like all the gear.
DRE:
I know the feeling.
BA:
Once you do get to the club, it’s really difficult. But it was totally fun and a lot of work.
DRE:
Were a lot of people that were there also there when you first went back in 2000?
BA:
The only people that I knew there was this one band. I remember when they walked in, we were like “Oh no. No one’s supposed to know about this.”
DRE:
How did the audience respond to the 2005 show?
BA:
It was so great. We couldn’t have asked for it to be any better. I couldn’t even imagine it to be. All the shows were so good. The parties were really fun and it was really cool. It ran the gamut performance wise. Our first one was nuts because amps were blowing up and I chopped a cable in half with my head accidentally.
DRE:
How did that happen?
BA:
It was pretty late in the evening so there was some whiskey in my blood. I jumping on an amp and I fell over and my head chopped a guitar cable in half.
DRE:
Oh my god.
BA:
It was pretty stupid.
DRE:
It’s a good rock and roll story though.
BA:
It was funny because I didn’t realize like I chopped it in half. My friend Aaron put the cable in his pocket and said, “I’m keeping this.”
DRE:
Why did it take so long for you guys to put out an album?
BA:
In 2000 we were just not the same. We didn’t really know what we were doing. CMJ was our first show ever after only playing for a couple of weeks. We were just kind of making stuff as we went along. I think we got some good stories in the press because since we got the CMJ gig just by giving someone a tape.
DRE:
How did the band get started?
BA:
We’ve known each other for awhile. I’ve known Nikki for like ten years. I went down to a friend’s practice space and monkeyed around on guitar and stuff. Nikki wanted to learn how to play bass so she came down with me and we’d monkey around and that’s when my girlfriend at the time was like “I want to play drums.” So she came down and just started tinkering on drums. Then we got into CMJ.
DRE:
I read something funny about the band on a music blog. That you guys “sound like Queens of the Stone Age but with a wussier singer.”
BA:
I thought that was really great. That’s a compliment. That was pretty rad.
DRE:
Are you guys already working on the next album?
BA:
Yeah because Pikul is just an EP. Pikul is a lot of songs from over the years. When we signed with Dangerbird, they wanted to put out an EP that covered some of our past. We remixed it and put it all together in a big pot. There are sessions from 2002 and there’s some from 2003.
DRE:
Who hooked you up with producer Rod Cevera?
BA:
He’s a friend of ours. I’m not exactly sure where we met him. He’s just sort of been around. He’s just some guy that you drink with sometimes. He was good friends with Tanya Haden who plays cello with us. About four years ago we were just going to parties and hanging out with him. When we came to CMJ he went with us just to hang out.
DRE:
What do you know about SuicideGirls?
BA:
They’re crazy. There are a lot of them. A friend of mine described it to me as like Friendster but with naked girls.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
