There”s not a lot in Silversun Pickups” swirling, heavy music to indicate the Los Angeles alternative rock band”s four members enjoy busting a move, but it turns out they do – often resulting in collateral damage.
“We love to have dance parties,” says drummer Christopher Guanlao. “When we”re on the road, one of the things to kill the boredom is to have a dance party on the bus. A lot of the times, they”re impromptu, but they go off. We”ve broken tables, lighting fixtures…Luckily our techs are amazing and fix it before we have to return the bus.”
Some of those dance vibes found their way onto SSPU”s third full-length album, “Neck of the Woods,” which came out Tuesday. The album looks like it could debut in the top 5on the Billboard 200, making it the band”s highest charting set yet, topping 2009″s “Swoon,” which bowed at No. 7.
While the songs, including first single “Bloody Mary (Nerve Endings),” are instantly recognizable as SSPU, there”s an added groove that is fully deliberate, whether on the propulsive, insistent blast of opening track “Skin Graph,” the machine-gun rat-a-tat on “Out of Breath,” or full-on dance tune “The Pit.” “We definitely wanted to have more of a groove to the songs,” Guanlao says. “For me, it was really fun to actually do it; to step away from the rock drumming for a bit and get into a groove” on some of the tracks.
In fact, Guanlao was kept very busy on the album, so much so that he”s still figuring out how to replicate the songs live. “There”s definitely a lot more drumming involved on this one and a lot more percussive drumming,” he says. “This was the first time I played a shaker on a song. I did a lot of drum stuff, extra drum rolls, extra drum accents, that goes throughout the songs. It definitely feels like there”s a lot more going on. It gets tricky when you think about it in the live aspect: All of a sudden I realize if I only had that extra arm, I could do everything perfectly.”
For “Neck Of the Woods,” the band, which also includes vocalist/guitarist Brian Aubert, bassist/background vocalist Nikki Monniger and keyboardist Joseph Lester- switched to a new producer, Jacknife Lee, best known for his work with R.E.M., Snow Patrol and Weezer.
“He took out a lot of the fat,” Guanlao says. “If we didn”t have Jacknife around, we might have been going into the prog rock world. We tend to kind of write a lot of parts for songs and I think it worked well with ‘Swoon,” but we definitely didn”t want to continue in that route. We”d give him a song that had six or seven changes and he”d say we only need three or four and he was right. We didn”t need two choruses in a song, we need one good one.”
For a brief time after the album”s release on Tuesday, it was No. 1 on iTunes album chart, a moment captured by one of the group”s managers, who took a screen shot and sent it to the band. “I was like, that’s crazy!,” Guanlao. “I was kind of saying, What a bizarre world where we”re above Carrie Underwood. It”s great. The support that we”ve gotten from all our fans, it means the world to us. That”s why I do it.”
The band remains signed to Los Angeles indie Dangerbird Records, long after majors came calling following the group”s success with “Swoon.” Aubert recently told Billboard that there was nothing a major label could do for them, except, as he joked, offer them a helicopter ride.
Which, quite frankly, sounds pretty sweet to Guanlao. “I read that article, and I was like, ‘I want a helicopter ride…I don”t know what he”s talking about, that”s kind of cool”,” he says laughing. “It you put that on the offer, that”s something to consider, though it”s not a yacht.”
Seriously, Guanlao agrees with Aubert. “He”s absolutely right. What can a major label give us right now? The days of huge signing advances that you could live off for the rest of your life are gone and we wouldn”t really want to do that anyway. We”re happy where we are.”
SSPU”s touring dance card is full through the rest of the year, a prospect that intimidated Guanlao until the band nailed the songs on “Neck” live. “Two months ago, when we didn”t know how to play the songs, that”s daunting. Now, it”s like, ‘let”s bring it on!””
Plus, Guanlao already has some ideas for early 2013. The Los Angeles Lakers fan is a basketball junkie who recently “freaked out” when he met the Orlando Magic”s JJ Redick, especially because Redick is a huge fan of SSPU”s and had even tweeted about listening to the band”s song, “Royal We,” to get pumped up before a game.
Guanlao shared his love for the Lakers with ESPN, hoping it might bring him a little love from his team. I [tweeted] the ESPN [article] to the Lakers, like, ‘Hey, check it out! If you have some tickets.. Do you need a mascot?” He”s heard nothing so far.
Hey Lakers, we hear he may have some spare time after December.