Credit: Rebekkah DrakeSilversun Pickups' new album, Better Nature, is out now. As the band's fourth album, Better Nature is a part of Silversun Pickups' continuing effort to try something they've never tried before.
"It was just pretty much our attempt to completely alienate any kind of critical thought that we have on ourselves," frontman Brian Aubert tells ABC Radio of Better Nature. "I know every time we make a record we try to get closer to being somewhat free and not being constricted by your own sort of rules that you put on yourself to make yourself sort of safer in a way, safer in your brain."
"This one was...as close as we've ever gotten to just not listening to anything that's in your head to keep you from not being a little more brave," he continues.
That approach manifested itself in the lead single from Better Nature, "Nightlight." While Silversun Pickups' music is full of cathartic moments, the band has never been known for writing "traditional" choruses. However, when Aubert first wrote "Nighlight," he realized that he had written one of the band's biggest, most anthemic choruses -- an impulse he initially resisted.
"I worked so hard to try and figure a way around it, because I thought, 'This is just too damn much, I cannot do this, we cannot do this thing, this is so strange,'" Aubert laughs. "And Jacknife [Lee], our producer, says, 'Listen, this is what you wrote, this is how it came out, and you're trying to fix it and it's completely not working, you just gotta do it.' And then once we did, it just felt right."
"Nightlight" currently sits in the top 20 at Alternative radio. Silversun Pickups have been a mainstay at the format ever since they released their breakout single "Lazy Eye," from the band's 2006 debut Carnavas, but Aubert is still surprised to hear his songs on the radio.
"We always sort of think whenever we're on the radio, it will be the last time we're on the radio, because it's so strange the concept that we get to get on the radio, because I know how difficult it is," he tells ABC Radio. "We're baffled that it ever happens to be honest, it's really strange. But we're happy that we do, we're just amazed that we still do."
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