Silversun Pickups Impress The Blogosphere

Just call Silversun Pickups the accidental rock group.

"We never thought about making a band," muses Brian Aubert, the frontman for the Los Angeles fuzz-rock quartet. "We were just kind of hanging out and playing music for fun.

"Then we made a tape and sent it to the CMJ music festival, and we got in. That was when we officially formed as a band, when we really just wanted to go to New York. It was like, 'Yeah, we want to go to New York and see all these bands play... we're gonna have to play a show somewhere in there, though, and I don't know how that's gonna happen.'"

But the band's first indie EP, Pikul, ended up being so well-received that Silversun Pickups resolved to make a solid studio album as a follow-up. Enter producer Dave Cooley, known for his work with J Dilla and Rolling Blackouts — and also for being a strict taskmaster. When asked what the most important thing he learned while working with Cooley was, Aubert answers with an emphatic — and thankfully joking — "How to deliver a punch to the face."

Aubert laughs as he goes back and revises his statement.

"He really made us work. We knew we were gonna go in and make a total studio record, and he really pushed us to sort of think about things. He would act as an opposition to everything, and then one of two things would happen: we would change something that we were too lazy to change in the first place, or we had to stick up for what we thought was right. And in doing that, we realized that we really believed in it. That was pretty important."

Aubert pauses in thought.

"Also, the best thing Dave taught me was the location of this really amazing little Mexican place that has these great fish kebabs. That place just opened up the doors."

Speaking of opening doors, thanks to frequent positive reviews from online music blogs, Silversun Pickups have significantly expanded their reach to MP3-savvy hipsters. Aubert explains the phenomenon as such:

"For bands left of centre and stuff, the internet is this huge area where people can just talk about what they like instead of what's being forced upon them. It's been really, really amazing to have that support. We've been learning more about it as it's been going on, too. We've been so busy that we haven't had time to pay attention to what the blogs are saying, so when we do interviews, we'll be asked about it. We'll be like, 'Really?'"

But even with all the props from digital media, there's one group that the praise from the blogosphere won't really impress: Aubert's parents and grandparents.

"We once got this weird thing in the Wall Street Journal," Aubert says, "and those are the things where you can be all, 'Hey dad, check this out.'

"It's like, don't show them the music magazines or free weekly things — those won't mean anything to them. Don't even bother with Rolling Stone. But show your parents and grandparents the newspaper mentions, and they're like, 'Wow!'

"Hopefully, by now, Aubert's family elders can be reassured that their son really is a rock star.

Find out for yourself when Silversun Pickups play Toronto's Lee's Palace with Viva Voce on October 17 and at Vancouver's Commodore Ballroom with Wolfmother on December 4.