Video: Silversun Pickups, ‘Scared Together’

Kevin Bronson on July 11th, 2022

0

Silversun Pickups (Photo by Claire Marie Vogel)

Silversun Pickups mastermind Brian Aubert says he had a lot of visitors during the COVID-19 lockdown. But they weren’t people. They were sounds, which coalesced into songs, such as the ones heard on the riffy new single “Scared Together.”

The tune introduces the long-running L.A. quartet’s sixth full-length, “Physical Thrills,” produced (like its predecessor, 2019’s Widow’s Weeds”) by Butch Vig. The album will be released Aug. 19 via the band’s own label, New Machine Recordings.

“You never know what can bring two people together,” Aubert says of the new single, no doubt inspired by pandemic-fueled anxiety. “Sometimes it’s something light and comfy. Sometimes it’s a shared love of some kind of totem or idol that is dear. Other times, it’s something a little more dreadful. But whatever works, I say. To each their own. This song is about becoming close and intimate with someone through hardship. Being thrown into something quite frightening brings out some shared qualities that connect them.”

Aubert explains that “Physical Thrills” took shape during his lockdown days of house-husbandry, caring for his son while his wife worked. “I would sneak off and start writing these songs, and I didn’t know what they’re for because I didn’t really think about Silversun on any level,” the singer-guitarist says. “I was just doing it to keep myself calm and keep myself company.”

Eventually, he and bandmates Nikki Monninger, Christopher Guanlao and Joe Lester convened with Vig to record the songs.

“This record is alive,” Aubert says. “It sits somewhere in between a collection of songs and an imaginary friend. A friend that from March of 2020 to April of 2021 would not only introduce itself to me but keep me company through that time of intense isolation. A friend that would remind me that in this instance, the whole world was feeling the same way as well. A comforting, playful, sometimes frightened, often delighted friend. A friend that was finally introduced to Butch Vig, once we got vaccinated, and blew through his studio like a tornado made of cotton candy, leaving little pieces of residue everywhere. But most importantly, this friend really doesn’t give a fuck. I know. That sounds brash. I just mean it’s a thing that is truly free. And now, this little living head space no longer visits me. I visit it through this album. I hope you like it. My friend wouldn’t care. Little rascal.”

The Pickups, alone and then together and then together with friends, party on in Claire Marie Vogel’s video for the track.

||| Watch: The video for “Scared Together”