The American rock band Silversun Pickups has been active for more than 20 years, releasing their eighth studio album, “Tenterhooks,” in Feb. 2026. The band has been going strong, touring to promote the album throughout the first half of the year until May. For a band with that longevity, the feat is impressive.

Looking back

Vocalist and guitarist Brian Aubert reflected on the length of their tenure as a group while discussing the album. “For us, especially for me, it was a very present-tense experience,” he said. “It’s almost meditative. There’s no past or future. You’re just working on something, and you’re doing it, and then you’re playing shows, which are very present tense.”

Aubert said that he did not know that Silversun Pickups would go on for as long as it has. “After we’re done with the long touring, we always go, ‘Okay, maybe that’s it.’ And then you start hearing songs in your head and you go, ‘Maybe I should record those,’ then you record them and then you say ‘Maybe we should tour them’ … and you’re still doing it.”

Their latest album was their first in four years because of extensive touring. “We try to play as much as we can, so that takes up quite a lot of time. When you’re doing that, it’s not really a place to start hearing yourself making music,” Aubert said. He also said that many younger bands feel a need to keep making more and more music, which is a philosophy they don’t believe in. “You’re flooding your own market with yourself. You’re putting too much out there. Just calm down,” he stated.

Album talk

Aubert described “Tenterhooks” as an album to vent the band’s frustrations with the current state of the world. “I always think about this movie, ‘Drag Me to Hell,’ a Sam Raimi horror movie where they’re trying to cast a demon out,” he said. “The whole plan is that they put a demon into a goat and then kill the goat. And we were thinking of the album as that.”

Speaking about their song “Au Revoir Reservoir,” Aubert discussed the themes of the song as being about not sticking to nostalgia. “I’ve seen people sometimes thinking about how much they think it was better then. You’re doing this to yourself,” he said. “We came out of a scene in Los Angeles, specifically Silver Lake, that was such a time and place, and it’s not bad or good but just different. It’s changed, as everything changes. It’s just not that kind of place anymore … and it’s saying goodbye to that and being okay with it.”

Aubert also spoke about the band’s touring experiences. “We didn’t get a lot of rehearsal time, so we really had to figure out a way to best represent the record and the best way to weave around the material,” he stated. “Honestly, trial by fire, which is how we’ve always done it and the most effective way to do it. Just doing it in front of people will really fast-track how you feel about something.” He also said that Silversun Pickups might be coming back to Salt Lake City very soon.

Speaking about what’s next after the tours, Aubert had this to say: “Normally, I would say ‘no.’ It’s all about what we’re doing now. However, there’s an anniversary tour of our first record that we’ve been putting off and putting on, and we’ve decided that after the ‘Tenterhooks’ tour, we will 100% be working on and going on an anniversary tour of one of our records. There’s a lot going on.”

Silversun Pickups’ latest album “Tenterhooks” is available on major streaming platforms.