Silversun Pickups Break Down New Album Physical Thrills Track by Track: Exclusive

Kelly Park
·15 min read

The post Silversun Pickups Break Down New Album Physical Thrills Track by Track: Exclusive appeared first on Consequence.

Track by Track is a recurring feature series giving artists the platform to break down every song on their newest release. In this latest edition, Brian Aubert and Nikki Monninger of Silversun Pickups open up about the band’s new album, Physical Thrills.

Silversun Pickups have released their seventh studio album, Physical Thrills, today (August 19th). Helmed by legendary producer Butch Vig (Nirvana, Garbage), the new LP sees the veteran quartet finding new avenues to push the envelope within their well-established sound.

The record feels universally current, bringing forth feelings of isolation. The unrelenting, driving beat of “Hereafter (Way After)” walks the line between the intense yet delicate state of the world, depicting the paradoxical bittersweetness that comes with significant change.

“It’s about the push-pull of all the things you are going through, and that you have so much time to think about,” lead vocalist Brian Aubert tells Consequence. “The world and the stuff that’s good about it, the stuff that’s dark about it.”

Still, in the presence of universally felt themes, Physical Thrills is also largely intimate. “Quicksand” takes a magnifying glass to his relationship with Aubert’s late father.

“I’m still dealing with it, and I’m not sure what the outcome of it all is. But no matter what, he is no longer around, he’s gone and passed away,” says Aubert. “This is a song I’ve had for a while, and I knew this was the time and record that I really, really wanted it on, and I knew it would end it and I knew it would be really sparse.”

Physical Thrills captures precious vignettes in time and fully embraces every ebb and flow that each moment brings. Listen to the album and read about the inspiration behind each track on the record below.

Silversun Pickups are currently on the road in support of Physical Thrills; grab your tickets now via Ticketmaster.

“Stillness (Way Beyond)”:

“Stillness” is one of the first ones that I wrote in the really early days, and it would just be like a little 10 minutes of time in my bedroom. I knew it was the beginning of something, the beginning of opening up again. At the time, I wasn’t necessarily thinking about Silversun. My friend and I were always toying with this sort of musical-like horror thing. And I thought, oh, that must be what this is.

When I brought it to Butch Vig, I remember going, “Okay, here we go, buddy. Follow me down on this one and let’s see what you got. I want it to get My Bloody Valentine-y in here, so imagine that.” And I played it and asked him, “Do you think this could be a Silversun song?” And he was like, “Yep.” So that’s how the record starts. — Brian Aubert

This song sets the tone for the album, cleanses the palate. I love the choral openness of it. — Nikki Monninger

“Sticks and Stones”:

That was the first song that I played for the band, the one that just kept coming out of me. I have really fond memories about playing that song by myself, with these little solos and breakdowns.
All of it just came out pretty quickly. When I hear that song, it sounds to me like I’m enjoying this time alone. You’re not going to come in and stop this. We’re in our little hole. And you know what? We’re fine. Leave us alone. That’s what that song is about to me. We’re fine, go on about your business. Don’t take me. I won’t go. — B.A.

“Hereafter (Way After)”:

That one came about pretty quickly. It’s about the push-pull of all the things you are going through, and that you have so much time to think about; the world and the stuff that’s good about it, the stuff that’s dark about it. At the time of writing, things were kind of “over.” People were coming around. I was watching people around me really go through the anxiety of opening.

I think that’s why I had more anxiety of re-entering normalcy than most. It’s more just being like “God, I hope that these things that everybody finds lovely about this [period of isolation] stay in our minds.” I know, like once things go back to normal, the next thing you know, it’s the same worries and same shit, and we don’t hold on to the things we find. But you’re going to try. — B.A.

I wanted to do something fun with the bass on this one. It feels tentative but hopeful to me. When I was recording bass for this, the guys were throwing balloons at me. I always get really nervous when we’re recording and that helped break the tension. — N.M.

“Dream at Tempo 050”:

I wanted Nikki to sing all of the “Dream at Tempo” songs, but eventually she just sang that one. And in the beginning, it was much more pirate-y sounding. Finally, everybody said, “This is just too damn pirate-y. I don’t want it to be that shanty-ish. Here’s this other melody that I really like, and I think we’ll work on it.” I said, “I want this first string thing to just be this little moment and I want it to be reminiscent of like Sparklehorse and Portishead, while the next one is going to be like raging shoegaze.”

It’s just these little moments of tapping into all these influences that were really important to us, especially way back in the day, like going really into some old inspirations; stuff that has been in our bones for so long that we haven’t even thought about it. Since the pandemic for me was not really about listening to new stuff or watching new stuff, it was really rediscovering why I love the stuff that I love and hearing things again for the first time in a long time. — B.A.

I have a soft spot for this one. It comes in like an apparition between songs. Originally, it was more of a pirate song but once we moved it into a Sparklehorse realm it felt more like us and tapped into our roots as a band. — N.M.

“Scared Together”:

I find “Scared Together” to be a little sexy. A little bit of like, look how good we are when we’re fucked. I remember going, “Butch, I want you to put this note in: talk box, buddy, talk box.” And he kept putting it off like, “OK, I don’t want to do this” and he kept trying to make all these sounds [in different ways]. I was like, “That’s great, but we’re going to get a talk box, right?” And he goes, “Sure, we tried it with Garbage once. We didn’t like it.”

I said, “I can’t wait to get this thing. We’re going to order this thing and get it.” I remember we walked into his studio and there it was, on a chair. He lit up like “Ta-da!” He’s like, “OK, Butch, now you’ve got to face your demons. We’re doing this.” And from the first take, Butch lit up like a Christmas tree, like “This is so great” and I’m like, “Yeah, we gotta talk box everything now!” That was such a thrilling moment when the thing actually worked in the way we wanted. — B.A.

You should have seen the look on Bri’s face the day the talk box arrived at the studio. I’ve never seen him so happy. Butch was a little hesitant but Bri would not be derailed. He was determined to get the talk box on this song and by the end, he made Butch a believer. — N.M.

“Alone on a Hill”:

“Alone on a Hill” came out while I was sitting on the piano. On this record in particular, I really wanted Nikki on it a lot. She was more joined with me on the previous record, but for this one I had in my mind to have her record vocals because she brings such a different thing to it. I get sick of hearing me and there’s something that she can do that I just can’t do. It’s just going to add, at least for me, so much to these songs. — B.A.

In general, I’m not a very confident singer and I’m fortunate that the guys and Butch really believe in me. This song exposes a side I didn’t know I had in me. Butch knows how to get a good performance out of someone and is the most patient person I know and I’m eternally grateful for that. I’m also eternally grateful for all of the amazing microphones he has. — N.M.

“Hidden Moon”:

That one probably had the least amount of writing on it. I came in and just thought, I really like this kind of parsed out riff. I mean, it’s so riffy. So, I just started playing it over and over, and we were messing with tones and all the little things came into shape pretty quickly. That one really got built in [the sessions with Butch Vig and the band] more than the others.

But I remember the fun part about it was it seemed so fundamental. In our heads, Side A ends on “Alone on a Hill” and then Side B starts with “Hidden Moon.” It’s cranky and angular, and there’s finger tapping and weird things, and we wanted to feel like a new shift. The new phase of the record you’re going into.

The ending of the song has this because we just did this — we call it Butch’s bag of percussion. He just brings out this bag from his closet. I said, “Here’s this little bridge. It’s not going to be a bridge. It’s going to be a musical break, just going to be drums, and I’m going to use every one of these things, and we’re just going to make bell sounds and weird things.”

I wanted it to feel like a break, like the way, when I was a kid in the ’80s, records had breaks or early hip-hop had breaks. I wanted to just have like a break with drums, and the thing at the end that sounds digital because it’s just me playing a drumstick on Butch’s Grammy. — B.A.

“System Error”:

This bass riff I’ve had in my head for a while, before the pandemic. It’s this really wiry, post-punky thing that I love playing, but I never knew what to really do with it. And while this record was shaping up, it became clear like, “Oh man, I want Nikki to have this sort of ripper.” And I remember thinking a lot about Talking Heads and bands like that — a sparser version of them — and Gang of Four.

Originally, we just wanted this really sparse song. The lyrics are kind of bonkers and backwards, and it’s basically about somebody really struggling because the person they love has fallen into the rabbit holes and unfortunate world of conspiracies and shit. That’s why I’m singing, “I miss you, babe, and I don’t feel right.” What does a person do when somebody they love is gone?

Nikki took to that bassline, so she always was practicing that thing, no matter where we were. She wanted to get it so right on the money. And she did it, and it’s a tough one because she’s moving so much. But it was such a sparse song for us, which we really did like. But the language of it didn’t flow with the rest of the record. It was too minimalist. So we just added bursts of things and feedback and stuff like that.

Except for this guitar solo that I was like, “Butch, guys hear me out. I want to do this kind of roaring all of a sudden guitar solo, but it’s going to break down and fall apart, and it’s going to sound like it’s barely holding together, and then we all just come back in” and everyone’s like, “OK, man.” — B.A.

Brian had been running with the idea for this song for quite some time. I was super excited to tackle the bassline, the little inflections were challenging because it moves so fast, but I’m very pleased with how it turned out. — N.M.

“Empty Nest”:

Nikki crushed it. It was pretty put together right away. Just like I knew talk box was going to be something, I knew I wanted the song to just be tremolo-palooza, just like tremolo, tremolo, tremolo guitar the whole way with a real backbeat drum. No geometry in this one; just chug and hear these weird words. Nikki did so great, and I was so happy. Nikki was excited about doing that one in particular again, because it’s a bigger song, just in terms of its sound. — B.A.

Bri was so supportive of me taking the lead vocal on this song. I was intimidated because I didn’t know if my voice was strong enough, but I’m so happy I didn’t let my fears take over. — N.M.

“Dream at Tempo 310”:

Super My Bloody Valentine-y. For me, it still has this slightly devilish feel of the first one, but it feels a little more intense. It’s almost like a primal scream on the record. It’s a minute and a half moment of the loudest. It’s just crazy, crazy strings, going as fast as they can and the loudest guitar we can get. — Brian Aubert

Originally, I was going to sing on this one, but Bri made a guide track and nailed it. I knew that vocal was in his blood and I wouldn’t have brought the same intensity. I love the yin-yang effect of our vocals between this one and “Dream at Tempo 050.” — N.M.

“We Won’t Come Out”:

We won’t come out, we won’t! You’re not going to trick us into coming out — don’t you even try! When I wrote the line, “So empathetic, must be genetic,” I was rolling on the floor because I love that. I don’t necessarily know what that means, but it means something and I love it because it’s snarky.

Silversun is never going to get that snarky — even on this record, it’s hopefully only going to be in these certain ways when you hear it. I think the connective tissue with this record and the rest of them is we haven’t been trying to beat people in the head like, “Hear us, or here’s our point of view, and here’s what we have to say and you must hear us.”

That is not interesting to us on any level. These things mean a lot to me, but they mean different things to Butch and Nikki, and they mean different things to everybody else. People get the general gist of it, the little snark and the mischievous feel to it. This one feels mischievous to me.

[Our keyboardist] Joe [Lester] came up with the sound for it. The song had no existence whatsoever [before the band gathered with Butch], and Joe came in and started playing that on the piano. I really liked it and then went home, and wrote the rest of it. — B.A.

This bassline makes me happy when I hear it. At one point Butch left the room and Bri was recording me having fun on it and after about 20 takes we realized we weren’t saving anything and didn’t really know what we were doing. We felt like naughty schoolchildren. Lucky for us, Butch came back before we did too much damage. — N.M.

“Stay Down (Way Down)”:

“Stay Down” is about bad advice, almost being so shaken by everything. There’s discourse that can rattle you into thinking that you should just put your head down. That song to me is just about getting stuck in this place of paralysis and thinking in your mind that it’s the right move. But it’s not, it’s not good for you. It’s not the time to stay down. — B.A.

This song makes me want to dance. — N.M.

“Quicksand”:

“Quicksand” is about something with my father that happened, and it’s a really long, complicated, unfortunate, pretty shitty story. I’m still dealing with it, and I’m not sure what the outcome of it all is. But no matter what, he is no longer around, he’s gone and passed away.

This is a song I’ve had for a while, and I knew this was the time and record that I really, really wanted it on, and I knew it would end it and I knew it would be really sparse. I didn’t know I was going to do it about my father. But once it came down to it, I pretty much knew, like, I’ll just deal with it. — B.A.

I was hesitant to add my vocals to this one because it seemed so personal for Bri. I wasn’t sure what I could bring to it and I didn’t want to take away from the intimacy, but after we added my voice to the chorus it felt right. — N.M.

“Dream at Tempo 150”:

It was always going to be a little piano out. That was it. But we added a little ghost vocal at the end. It was kind of like, “OK, everyone, thanks for your time. We’re going to ease you out of this record. Please make sure to clean up after yourselves. The exits are over there, thank you for spending time with Silversun. If you want to again, please press play. If you don’t, then it was fun seeing you.” — B.A.

Silversun Pickups Break Down New Album Physical Thrills Track by Track: Exclusive
Kelly Park

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