Ruban Neilson of Unknown Mortal Orchestra (NZ/US) on adapting ‘Multi-Love’ for the live stage!

Unknown Mortal Orchestra released possibly one of my favourite albums of the year in the acclaimed Multi-Love. Since its release in the earlier part of the year, UMO have been on the road consistently, building their now-renowned live presence stronger and stronger. Having last seen the band perform out this way on the Laneway Festival tour, I remembered being struck by the band’s inventiveness as a live unit and the way in which their music had the capacity to instantly draw hundreds in with ease.

As I chat briefly with vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Ruban Neilson ahead of UMO’s Australian return in December, he remembers that particular festival tour and notes how fans Down Under should be anticipating these upcoming dates.

“I think that people who saw us at Laneway are going to be pretty surprised,” he says. “There are a lot of new songs and a lot of new elements to the set. It definitely is a different vibe, I think we’ve expanded quite a bit.”

Expansion and development within their creative aesthetic has been something Unknown Mortal Orchestra highlighted on Multi-Love brilliantly. Having worked on the material with his brother Kody meant a lot to Ruban brought a new perspective to the album-making process and now, with new member Quincy McCrary on keyboards, he comments on the band’s dynamic as they’ve moved forward with album number three.

“My brother was quite a big part of this record in writing and recording.” he enthuses. “Making the record [with him] was quite a big deal; he’s more of a keyboard-based guy, he’s not really a guitarist or anything like that, so a lot of the things that he would put together were on the piano. In the end, those things ended up adding on – the keyboards and stuff – so it was a big deal to get the right person who was enough like us, in terms of how we viewed being on the road a lot and stuff. It’s really great that we found Quincy.”

“We haven’t really had much time to really breathe,” Neilson says of the band’s 2015 so far. “We’ve been on the road since February. It’s been amazing. It’s kinda funny because we had a bunch pipe dreams, Jake and I (who’ve been in the band from the beginning), about where the band might be after years of being together and it’s kinda weird to be going through it and ticking all those boxes off. We’ve been touring so solidly as well, so it’s nice to see it pay off it. It’s been really good, we’ve been bouncing back and forth between the States and Europe all year and just having fun. We’ve got Quincy on keyboards, and he’s a great human being and a great musician – it’s a good group of people here.”

Having been a hot commodity on festival and headline stages in Europe and throughout the US this year, Neilson does admit that the schedule and momentum the band has found themselves whipped up in off the back of this album, while amazing, has also been quite tiring. But, the pay off is worth it.

“It’s hard, playing a lot does take a toll on your body,” he says. “But I can’t really complain! When we’re working and playing this hard, it does get on top of you to some degree but I spend most of my time being super grateful that I get to do this.”

Especially now, with an added musician to the line up, Neilson is obviously excited about the opportunities to continue fashioning some excellent and creative live UMO performances in the future. These upcoming Australian shows will have the band performing a run of headline shows around the country, not to mention festival sets at both Meredith and the inaugural Fairgrounds Festival this December, so we’re keen to see what the band has up their sleeves for us this time round.

“It wasn’t quite as hard as I thought it would be,” Neilson says of making Multi-Love work onstage. “It’s like we’d become so used to making a lot of sound between three people, that adding a fourth person just seemed so luxurious! It made the whole thing seem so easy. The big thing for me is that I was the guys in my band to be super inspired all the time and I want [good] morale within the band. If we want to tour this much, everybody has to feel like they’re doing something worthwhile and are being able to express themselves. We put a lot of effort into trying to recreate the feeling of that [familiarity of the songs], but at the same time, we leave the songs completely open to reinterpretation, so there is a lot of improvisation. Everybody has an interest in improvisation and it’s a lot more fun for us. I think a lot people like to see us play like, five sets seven times in a year, just because they know that it’s going to be different every time.”

Catch Unknown Mortal Orchestra at the following live dates:

December 3rd | Astor Theatre, Perth
December 4th | Metro Theatre, Sydney | SOLD OUT
December 5th | Fairgrounds Music Festival, Berry
December 6th | The Triffid, Brisbane
December 8th | Corner Hotel, Melbourne | SOLD OUT
December 9th | 170 Russell, Melbourne | SOLD OUT
December 11th – 13th | Meredith Music Festival, Meredith

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