Dangerbird's Wings: Silversun Pickups' Label Bangs Out a Template for a Post–Major Label Landscape

In between responding to e-mails — he estimates he receives around 1,000 a day — Castelaz writes PABLOg!, an incredibly candid, often heartbreaking blog about Pablo’s experience, which includes posts by Thrailkill and their older son, Grady. The openness, Castelaz says, is his attempt to defuse the shame and secrecy that he’s seen infect families of those struggling with cancer at the hospital.

Castelaz’s naked ambition is unlikely to be satisfied anytime soon (even if Swoon meets Burnstein’s very high hopes). Still, this is a guy who understands that even the sky is a limit.

Jennie Warren

Dangerbird Records co-founders Peter Walker (left) and Jeff Castelaz

Silversun Pickups

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“I guess you might call us idealists, but we’re not idealists in the way that a lot of idealists are, where it’s all cloud and no ground,” he says of the way he’s trying to grow Dangerbird while many (if not most) of his peers are busy scaling down. “There are a lot of motherfuckers in this world who have the party and put out the press release and the fucking logo and the advertising, but they never get to actually doing the work. And now they’re selling their Aeron chairs on eBay. You know what I’m talking about: the dot-com boom.” He shakes his head. “It’s like, how about you go home at night and rest and enjoy life, whatever your shit is: kids, surfing, skateboarding, running. Then come back here and work hard again the next day.”