With a hit album, festival headline status and plenty of buzz abound, the Silversun Pickups still have a hard time considering themselves professional musicians. "We always have this idea we go in to do these sessions it's going to be someone's garage," frontman Brian Aubert said of the band's L.A. Interface taping. "Then we come here and it's like this big thing, and we think, 'Is this for us?'"

Still, just a few days prior to the studio performance, SSPU rocked SXSW, opening for a little band called Metallica. Was that "professional" enough? "Not after you watch Metallica," Aubert laughs. "You're like, 'Oh, is that what professional musicians do?'"