Silversun Pickups Frontman Brian Aubert Talks About the Evolution of the Band

Sandra Miska

16 years after they first formed in L.A.’s Silver Lake district, Silversun Pickups, best known for their classic hits “Panic Switch” and “Lazy Eye,” are bringing their current “Better Nature” tour home to Los Angeles for a concert at the Hollywood Palladium. Lead singer and guitarist Brian Aubert recently spoke with Entertainment Voice about how the city shaped the band, the evolution of their live performance, giving new experiences a shot and the importance of staying connected to home.

Silversun Pickups exploded out of the Los Angeles underground with “Carnavas.” How important was the local scene in the band’s rise?

For us, it was really important. In fact, I can’t even imagine being a band without that sort of community. At that time, for about four or five years, we were just playing in local clubs and playing with our friends, and that really shaped everything. I think the main thing it showed us, when I think back on it, is it sort of took the pedestal out from being in a band. People we were hanging out with that with we were making such awesome music, we were listening to their records and they were pretty regular in a way, you know? It kind of took the make-up off of it and it gave you the confidence to be able to give it a shot.

What was your favorite club to play at?

The Silverlake Lounge had something going on. It was funny because when we started playing these places, these were places we started playing because A) we lived in the area and also these were the places we were allowed to play at. As the East Side of Los Angeles started to gain this notoriety, you’d find all these bands from everywhere doing their best to try to play the Silver Lake Lounge because they heard about it, but when they stepped inside it they went, “What?” There’s no stage or anything. I always really loved playing there, myself. It felt like I was in the movie “Valley Girl.”

With over a decade and a half having passed since the founding of Silversun Pickups, how have things changed for the band over that time period in regards to creating and performing?

You never really think too much about it, because you just are and things slowly change and you always think you’ve just kind of been the same. But when I do think back to the beginning, especially when we first started to tour, we were pretty bad at it. This was such a whirlwind, and the thing that made us bad at it is that we weren’t good at keeping an eye on our home lives, like, watering our soil back at home. We were really gone, and we showed up and everything had moved on for a year and a half to two years. That really affected us. So I definitely know what we’ve gotten really good at as band is making sure that we have one foot at home at all times. We always stay very, very connected. And now that we’re older and some of us have kids, it’s just important to make sure that your presence is still there so that when you come home there’s a home.

A lot of bands seem to set a goal of “capturing their live sound” on their records. How much consideration do you give live performance during the creative process?

We just sort of sounded restrictive when we started making albums, in fact it was a major point for us shed the idea of live and shed the idea of how many hands we have and make an album and almost, like, produce this thing, and that’s sort of how we see it, and then, we’ll deal with live. We’ve just always sort of believed that the two are so different and when one of them is being held back by the other, it doesn’t make for more interesting music; we don’t think so. Our live shows are definitely pretty accurate to the records. It almost feels more like the record than it is exactly the record. You almost just want something to be a little different, you know?

I just saw Radiohead at the Shrine, and I’ve been seeing those guys for so long and the thing that makes you so excited about them, what makes them human is when they speed up, they speed up the sound, and it’s just awesome. That’s what our deal is; we just want to keep the two apart. It’s so weird, for some reason when we first started rehearsing songs we literally try to replicate them and it just feels so different. It doesn’t feel like the record. You almost have to redo it and relearn it and heighten little things and get rid of certain things, and then when you do it, it really feels like the album. It’s such a strange thing. And vice versa, when we first started recording we though, “You just go in there and you record!” We learned quickly that what worked live was so flat on a record…  You learn that when you hit that pedal and the noise it makes there and you scream live you have to be quiet there. That’s the only way for it to represent the same sort of feeling.

Speaking of live, with such a strong catalog to formulate set lists from, what goes into creating a Silversun Pickups set?

It’s so funny that we actually think about that. When we are making music we get nervous. We’re like, ‘Sigh.’ What are we not going to play?” You know, you kind of just design a flow. The way we sort of do it is there’s some songs that are staying in the set, and they generally always do, and we sort of build the show. There’s just sort of an energy to it and we get from one place to another and we fill in with these songs. Now, of those, some of the songs we rotate. This one sort of has the feeling of that, and this one sort of has the feeling of that. So we’ll have A sets and B sets, and sometimes there’s wild card songs. In the encore we’ll flip those around.

One thing I noticed that was very common for us, and we just kind of broke it, what can happen sometimes is we usually rehearse all of the new record and we have lots of the old songs and things like that, and somehow or another one or two of those songs just, you know, maybe you play once and they just sort of fall away. You almost build a fear of it, like we’re afraid of that song. We never play it live and all of a sudden we trick our heads [into thinking] it’s too hard. We’re not good at it or something, and it’s just because you’ve just ignored it. What we’ve been doing lately is we sound check these songs and try to get them in and not be afraid of them.

That was actually my next question. Has the band’s approach to live performing changed over the course of four albums? More risks?

I think we’re only comfortable when we’re uncomfortable. You want to grow, and your interests do change, but it’s almost like we never have a handle of it [laughs]. Even now, the whole thing, even writing music and playing music, for us, it’s always been this thing of not quite being in our grasp, of always reaching for it. I think in our heads what we hope is happening is we have gotten there, but now we want there, you know? The thing can come crashing down any second. That’s how we always feel. While we’re moving forward, there’s like this perpetual state of being frozen. It’s like the same feeling, but we’ve grown [laughs]. Sometimes when I just take myself out of it and see [my bandmates] playing, like on the road, that’s when I’m, “Oh, shit. You got good.”

“Better Nature” was your first album to be funded via PledgeMusic and released on your own label. Did you find this approach a better fit and is it one you plan on returning to for future releases?

I can’t remember how that actually came about. We were just making the record and they became involved. First, we didn’t quite understand it that well, but then what happens is you just kind of put together these little packages and these things that we’re always too lazy to do. Like fans always hated us because we just didn’t think, we were that kind of band that didn’t have shirts for seven years. And so it made us really focus on doing things like lyric sheets and things like that. That was actually really quite fun, and at first we felt a little shy about it. We felt like, “Oh, why would anybody want these things?” By the time they started going out there to people it was really quite lovely to see that people are excited about these little things.

But, I think so. We’ve never been a band that really had a big committee behind us or a huge label or any of that stuff. We’ve always pretty much been left alone and sort of done this anyway. I would do that again. It was a fun thing to do while we were making [the album]. It felt like people were more connected while we were making this record.

How has Silversun Pickups’ Summer tour compared with this year’s Spring Fling Rock AF tour with Foals and Cage the Elephant?

Fun. Those guys are our friends. We took Cage out for one of their first tours about six years ago and we became really close. Foals, we’ve been touring with for a while, since December. It’s just like family. Bear Hands was a part of that too. It was just three weeks of hanging out with some people you know really, really well, almost so well that you don’t even talk to each other sometimes. No one’s going to care. The camaraderie is insane. And all those bands are so good live you didn’t want to be the one that sucked. The first time we played after Foals, I [got so hyped up]. I was like, “Rawr!” I never really thought about how the band before you makes you react. It’s jazzed me up so much that I was just going too hard.

We’re always so lucky because we get to just do so many things. We get invited to all these things. It’s just so awesome because everything changes. Things change so much in the tour, so it’s not like we’re doing one linear thing, it’s almost just like a wave signal. It’s fun to do. Maybe you’re getting tired of being in theaters too much, all of a sudden Coachella happens. Now we’re in Hawaii. I’m sitting in Hawaii right now and we have a show tonight.

Do you get downtime to relax, or are you always on the go?

Sometimes, but not too often. We’ve learned to make time. Everybody kind of goes into their own world. I think I’ve learned, especially, to carve out an hour or two to just be still or quiet, to just sort of hear [myself]. Everyday that we do these shows, the most important hours, for me, are the show. Everything around it should lead up to that. But we’ve also, we’ve been touring so much and we know each other so well we also have times now we have definitely, in the same respect of being quiet, we’ve also learned to get out of the bus at [certain] times and get out and go to restaurants, get outside of the city, go and see stuff, go to that museum that you love, go and see that person that you met a year ago. So we also make sure that we take advantage of the travel part of [touring].

What sorts of projects are on the horizon for you and the members of the band?

We’re still pretty much in the middle of this “Better Nature” tour. We’ll probably be on and off tour, if things are the way they always are, until maybe Summer of next year. Little things are popping up. There’s one that we’re really excited about that we’re supposed to start working on in September, but I’m not allowed to say. I wish I could, because I’m excited about it, but then it might not happen. It’s pretty cool.