“Well Thought Out Twinkles”
from the album Carnavas
2006
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In many ways, the Silversun Pickups are the study of a band in reverse: lead singer and guitarist Brian Aubert and bassist Nikki Monninger met on a plane ten years ago. Eventually joined by drummer Christopher Guanlao and keyboardist Joe Lester, the band spent years playing out across their hometown of Los Angeles, amassing a loyal and enthusiastic following and developing their live show. In 2000, the band played a well-received set at CMJ in New York City, the indie expo that packs hundreds of up-and-coming bands into a breathless weeklong marathon of shows. But it took until 2005 before they released their debut, Pikul. This July 25 brings their first full-length offering, Carnavas.
“I’m not sure we ever really had a mission statement,” says Aubert from Los Angeles, though he readily admits that years of playing out had a huge influence on the development of the group’s sound. “We’re lucky in a way… [LA] is our backyard,” and the quartet has relied upon the sprawling city’s ample clubs and bars as testing grounds for new material. Even venturing 30 minutes from the band’s default headquarters of Echo Park “is like playing in another town,” he says. Aubert cites Wilco, Joy Division, Secret Machines, and the Movies (another LA-based group) as influences and heroes, but also credits his fellow bandmates as “the best focus group around… everyone comes in and makes it all better — makes it more real.” He also notes “the luxury of having friends who know how to record,” referring in part to the Ship, a recording studio and informal group of musicians from LA bands such as Earlimart, Irving, and the Movies, who often collaborate and play on each other’s albums and tour together. Having this support network “makes the whole thing less glamorous and easier to understand.”
With the release of Pikul, “we really wanted to make sure the EP wasn’t this thing that, when the record came out, it just sounded like the EP plus four songs.” Aubert emphasizes that both EP and Carnavas are separate works, although he says that “the EP had a big effect on the full-length release,” and he says “playing out for the EP really influenced the LP.” The seven songs on Pikul feature the contributions of Tanya Haden, the group’s occasional cellist, whose long, low notes form a dynamic base for the crunchy guitar bridges and drone-core interludes of “Kissing Families,” arguably the Pikul‘s most popular track. “We never really thought about radio [exposure],” says Aubert, and the band was pleasantly shocked to learn that KEXP in Seattle was playing everything off the EP. Based on the station’s airplay, when the band opened a gig for Brendan Benson at the Crocodile Cafe in November 2005, the venue “was just a madhouse: lines of people by the merch table, it was stunning — we’d never set foot in that city [before].”
While Pikul contains several solid songs, it has a bit of a sketchbook feel when compared to Carnavas. “The EP is really organic in certain ways, [while] the record is more mechanical,” agrees Aubert, and many of its tracks indeed have a homegrown, workshopped appeal that translates into live sets just a bit better than into studio work. But the Seattle experience taught them a thing or two: the LP is more polished, with a greater attention to subtle musical elements and studio tinkerings. “Melatonin” and “Common Reactor,” the first and last tracks, were intentionally written and placed, providing a gradually building and a gradually fading set of sonic bookends to the record. “It was such fun sequencing the record,” says Aubert. “It was such a great process — we thought it was going to be hard.” Beginning with the expansive, dreamy opening chords of “Melatonin,” the first portion of the album contains the moodier, upbeat numbers, such as “Well Thought Out Twinkles” (a strong contender for their next radio single), drawing comparison to the Smashing Pumpkins’ mastery of blaringly loud melodies. Aubert’s vocals even gain a bit of the classic Billy Corgan wail. The second portion of the LP capitalizes on the spacey, quieter guitar elements first addressed on Pikul, drawing on elements of Hum and Grandaddy for their slo-mo build and intensity.
And for the band’s next trick? Aubert thinks the band might finally be getting around to making a music video. The song hasn’t been picked yet, but Aubert already knows what he wants: Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach walking the streets of Echo Park, lip-synching the Silversun Pickups. Stay tuned: the band’s time-traveling tendencies may soon work on ’80s glam-metal stars as well.