Silversun Pickups
Pikel EP
in stores July 26th
www.silversunpickups.com
Kissing Families:
MP3
The Tumbleweed Effect. Brian Aubert attributes the formation of his band, Silversun Pickups, and the tight-knit musical community surrounding it to this phenomenon. “It just blows along and people stick,” he says. Aubert, bassist-singer Nikki Monninger, keyboardist Joe Lester and drummer Christopher Guanlao will unveil a new EP, entitled Pikul (Dangerbird Records), July 26.
The tumbleweed began blowing along even before Silversun Pickups started playing together. “I met Nikki on a flight to England about 10 years ago,” Aubert explains. “That’s also where I met Ariana, from Earlimart [another of the east side Los Angeles bands in this scene], and that relationship spawned the meeting of Joe later on. Everybody just knew everybody in a roundabout way. Christopher was also a friend of a friend. Again, the tumbleweed rolls.”
A similar mechanism was at play as the band built their following. “We were thrust into playing live before we really knew what the hell we were doing,” Aubert says. “We started getting gigs at Spaceland and the Silverlake Lounge right away – to a painful degree. Before Christopher, we had a drummer we were teaching how to play drums five minutes before the show. I wouldn’t even go to the mic – I was singing way far away from it – because I was so shy onstage. But even though we were a mess, people would be there somehow. They understood it, and more and more of them came.”
What these people understood was a mercurial creature born of distorted guitars, delicate melodies, hypnotic, left-of-center rhythms and Aubert’s unvarnished vocals. “We like loud, growly guitar, but we use it in a way I think is pretty,” says the singer-guitarist. “The guitars hum. They’re big but warm, not something that’s gonna make your ears freak out. We like melodies a lot, and when the guitars are going nuts, those can get lost. We love bands like Can and NEU! and My Bloody Valentine and white noise and these really long, bizarre things, but we also love listening to oldies and singing in the car. As much as we love that cool, avant-garde stuff, we can’t help but have a song somewhere in there that you can hum along to.”
The six-song EP Pikul – its title is a tribute to a dear friend who died – covers a range of emotional territory, though that terrain is not always clearly mapped. Asked about “Kissing Families,” the record’s lead track, Aubert says, “It communicates a certain emotional tone more than anything else.” He points out a “positive melancholy,” then reiterates, “Even though the lyrics are abstract, people tend to get the tone right.”
Aubert calls “Comeback Kid,” another highlight of Pikul, “as to-the-point-rock as we will ever get.” “Booksmart Devil,” which also name-checks “streetwise angels,” is a “haiku kind of song” about people not being what they seem. “All the Go In Betweens” speaks to Aubert’s fear that apathy is genetic, that “people pass on their failures and the things that make them miserable and alienated.”
Silversun Pickups are endlessly inspired by the bands they play with, hang out with, live with. This is evidenced by the lovely, haunting cover of The Movies’ “Creation Lake” and the prominent appearance of Pine Marten’s Mark Wooten on “The Fuzz.” Many of these groups are part of a loose collective known as The Ship. They go to each other’s shows, play shows together, play on each other’s records, support each other through the vagaries of being independent musicians in Los Angeles.
Asked why this group is called The Ship, Aubert notes: “It’s from a house the Earlimart kids lived in. It was actually called The Filthy Whore. The people who lived there collected ship stuff, and then when they all started recording bands, they built a studio in [the northeast L.A. enclave of] Glassell Park, and they called that The Ship, too.” He’s never understood why bands become competitive. “When we did our residency at The Echo, we set up a table for local bands to sell their stuff,” he says. “We figure, if you like us, you’re gonna love them. We’re into the idea of holding hands with a bunch of people. How else are you gonna get by?”
Silversun Pickups have recorded several tracks and parts of tracks at The Ship. The group had its beginnings when Aubert quit the band he’d been playing guitar in (“a favor that went on too long”) and he and Monninger – who’d just picked up the bass – started “tinkering” together. He says of their inaugural recording session: “It was just a tape running in the middle of the room; it sounded like crap. I was only sort of singing. I’d never sung in a band before. I was an accidental singer.” Still, that introductory recording sparked the band’s first performances and their ongoing streak as a must-see local live act.
Silversun Pickups’ other recording adventures have included a track on 2003’s The Fold Compilation. It moved no less than the New York Times’ Neil Strauss to report: “Thus, the boon of this compilation of alternative-rockers who have performed at the well-booked Fold at the Silverlake Lounge in Los Angeles is not in its songs by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Patrick Park and Polyphonic Spree. It’s in allowing the rest of the country to discover quality unsigned SoCal acts like … [among others] Silversun Pickups” (Dec. 5, 2003).
The band also self-released what Aubert calls their “official demo.” It sold upwards of 700 copies and elicited these comments from the Houston Chronicle: “Silversun Pickups don’t just crack the glass ceiling that is the five-minute song. They bust it wide open and trawl around the dark and dusty crooks and crannies of the attic. The Los Angeles-based four-piece … relishes quiet spells, if for no other reason than to shatter them with tempestuous sonic waves. Aubert’s guitar shifts from a warm, fuzzy stray to a snarling cur with little notice. Likewise his voice is a supple marvel, offering androgynous calm one moment and furious howling the next” (Dec. 3, 2004).
That recording was overseen by Rod Cervera, who’s produced tracks for Weezer and a cavalcade of respected L.A. bands. Cervera was also on hand for production of the Pikul EP, lending his expertise to “Kissing Families” – which showcases the cello of frequent Silversun collaborator Tanya Haden – “Comeback Kid,” “Booksmart Devil” and “Creation Lake.” (“All the Go In Betweens” was recorded by Earlimart’s Aaron Espinoza and “The Fuzz” was recorded by Brian Thornell, of Pine Marten).
For all its dynamism and depth, however, the EP is just another manifestation of the Tumbleweed Effect. “Kissing Families” was one of the first things to blow along. Other songs duly stuck to Silversun’s repertoire, with “Comeback Kid” drifting in most recently. Affirms Aubert – the “accidental” singer whose band generally released music only after poorly recorded bootlegs forced them to address a demand – “We’ve always been pulled along by events.” Expect to hear the tumbleweed’s subsequent accretions on Silversun Pickups’ full-length debut, due in 2006.
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