Unknown Mortal Orchestra: From Introverted Albums To Celebratory Live Shows

The translation of an artist's recorded works into the live setting can be fascinating, the two mediums being naturally so drastically different. Some bands follow the album close to note for note, some bands take it to all new and different places, and all points in between. Formerly Kiwi, now U.S. based alt/psychedelic outfit Unknown Mortal Orchestra prefer the schizophrenic approach, as Aussie audiences will discover when the band tours here for the first time in three years this coming September.

"I've heard people say that the records can be quite introverted," explains main man Ruban Neilson, from on tour with the band in Germany, "when I'm writing, I'm often by myself, writing about sad things and stuff, but the live show is much more a celebration. Listening to the records you might think the live show is somewhat of a sombre affair, but it's not, it's quite the opposite."

"We take a lot of liberties with the songs too, like we extend them, change them or improvise and stretch things out. The shows are never the same, they're all at least slightly different every night. People come and see us and it's not that uncommon to have fans of the band come to see us ten times and every show they've seen has been different."

The band's new record, Sex & Food, was released in mid-April, and several tracks from it will be featured in the band's live set come September. Its creation was inspired, at least in part, by the dark and uncertain political climate the world, especially America, finds itself in right now, although the title and content of the album are more of a reaction to that rather than a reflection.

"My thinking behind it as I wrote the record was that the world was getting really complicated and really dark," he recalls, "politics was getting really serious, and there was a lot of really serious things starting to happen, violence, and I live in America and just on a day to day basis I started noticing people starting to look at each other sideways, and we just seem to be living in a very paranoid era. I just knew that this was going to influence the record, I couldn't really escape that.

"But at the same time I didn't want politics to take over the record. I think I called it Sex & Food because I really wanted to explain what I thought life was about, and to stop the record from becoming too serious. There's enough seriousness in the world as it is."

Now that the album is out, the band will be on tour for much of the rest of this year, Australia being just a small part of that. Neilson has his own special way of dealing with the sometimes daunting thought of being on the road for such extended periods of time. "I've kind of been living life like that for a number of years now, I don't actually look at the list of dates," he admits, "I try not to think about it. I'm fortunate enough to have management and booking people who run the machine and I just kind of go.

"My mindset is that tonight I know I'm playing Dusseldorf and tomorrow night I'm playing Paris and I try not to think too much about what happens after that. I try to stay in the now, and maybe the tomorrow, I don't look at the dates because it seems endless, it might stress me out." He laughs.

The balance and the contrast between the down times of writing the new record and the unrelenting nature of being on tour once the record comes out is also what gets him through life as a travelling musician. "As the band starts to do a bit better, the gaps in between the records start to get a bit longer," he reveals, "in between records and tours I try to make sure that I'm home 24/7 for longer stretches at a time.

"Because I've got kids, it makes it hard, but I kinda just hope I can find that balance and it all comes out in the wash in the long term."