Brian Aubert of Silversun Pickups doesn't believe in perfect families, just ones where you feel safe and loved. Everything else, he says, is colouring. On this episode of Identified with Nabil Ayers, he traces where that idea comes from: a childhood in Los Angeles shadowed by his mother's brain tumour, she was given six months in 1980, and lived sixteen more years, and summers in Kailua, Hawaii, inside a sprawling "calabash" family where nobody's quite sure who's actually related.

Along the way: the grandfather who drove around Kailua with "Pearl Harbor Survivor 19" on his car, the great-grandmother with hidden whiskey bottles and four husbands, an engineer father "fascinated and terrified" watching his son on stage, the son who draws the band's merch and sleeps through their sets, and why, for a man who performs for a living, family is the one place you shouldn't have to.

Guest: Brian Aubert (Silversun Pickups)
Host: Nabil Ayers
Executive Producer: Kieron Banerji
Creative Agency: Palm Tree Island
 
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Check out our Podcast:
➡️https://linktr.ee/identifiedpodcast

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00:00 The myth of the perfect family
01:33 "Safe enough to be a jerk"
02:30 His mom: given six months, lived sixteen years
04:18 Two sets of grandparents, best friends
05:36 Pearl Harbor Survivor #19
06:54 Gran-Nana Leah & the hidden whiskey
08:24 A math man watches his son on stage
09:41 Nico, the band's youngest artist
14:27 Hawaii: island fever & calabash family
20:18 A place where you don't have to perform

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Identified is a podcast series that explores identity, race, culture, and family through personal conversations. Hosted by author and music executive Nabil Ayers, each episode dives into lived experiences that reveal how our backgrounds shape who we are—and how we find belonging.

Nabil is the author of My Life in the Sunshine (Viking, 2022), and has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, and GQ on themes of race, music, and personal history. He’s also the President of Beggars Group US, co-founder of Sonic Boom Records, and founder of the record label The Control Group / Valley of Search.

Identified brings together notable voices for reflective, vulnerable conversations about where we come from—and where we’re going.

Read more about Nabil:
➡️https://www.nabilayers.com/