Pygmalion has developed something of a reputation for finding obscure, on the rise bands and bringing them to Champaign. Bands like Yeasayer, Surfer Blood and Japandroids each rocked C-U before playing much larger venues.
This year one band that could go on to greater things is Unknown Mortal Orchestra. A three-piece group out of Portland, UMO took the Cults route to success with just a single on their Bandcamp page back in 2010. This year the band has hit the road extensively and released their first full length on Fat Possum records. I spoke with lead singer Ruban Niebla, who may or may not have been going through tunnels or hanging out in Death Valley at the time of the interview in advance of Pygmalion.
(Some of the phone conversation was inaudible, apologies to readers and to the band for any lost pieces of conversation. Ellipses within the dialog below indicate a portion of the interview that could not be transcribed.)
CD: Hey, my name is Chris from Smile Politely.
RN: Hey, how’s it going?
CD: Good, how are you today?
RN: Pretty good.
CD: What are you up to now, are you at home?
RN: I’m just in L.A. now.
CD: I saw that you had a break from tour right now, how is that going?
RN: We’re actually sort of back on tour now, we did a show last night and we had an in-store today. We just shot down to L.A. but we’ve been off for a few weeks before and the time off was really good. It’s the most time we’ve had off this year.
CD: I’m sure it’s been a busy year, with the release of your first album and all, what has been the best part of this year so far?
RN: The best part? I don’t know, I think the break was pretty amazing but in general the year has been great. A lot of driving the van, playing show after show…last night there were a bunch of fans lined up, I guess we’re starting to get noticed and our hard work is paying off…
CD: Are you looking forward to your tour with Toro y Moi?
RN: Yeah, I’ve never seen him live before but I really like his music…I think that will be good…
CD: Have you ever been through central Illinois before?
RN: We’ve never been.
CD: Are you looking forward to playing here, for Pygmalion?
RN: Yeah, we’ve played Chicago three times this year. Apart from that we’ve never been down that way at all…
CD: For those of us down here who have never seen you, what could we expect from your performance?
RN: In general it’s a lot of fun playing with Jake [Portrait, bass] and Julien [Ehrich, drums]. We play a lot of songs from our album but at the same time we add things to the live show and improvise to the live show at times…We play with old fashioned musicianship, you know what I mean? Some people say that we are a lot more of a rock band because we rock harder than they would expect.
CD: What influenced you while you were writing your debut album?
RN: I was really influenced things like Syd Barret and the first Floyd album, Captain Beefhart and stuff like that. The Beatles, obviously, and also it sort of got influenced by 90s hip hop…that kind of music.
CD: The album has been received well, how does it feel to have your music go over so well critically?
RN: It’s good…a good review is cool, but sometimes it’s just like it’s equaled by a bad review. I don’t really take reviews that seriously, it comes down to how I feel myself as to whether I’ve done a good job or not. But it helps to have reviews and know that people are reading about us…In general I don’t really believe in looking at a review to get an idea of whether it’s a good album or not.
CD: Is there anything else about the tour or the album you wanted me to include?
RN: I think we just want people to show up on drugs. (laughs)
Unknown Mortal Orchestra plays at 8 p.m. at the Canopy Club on Thursday, September 22.
Band photo by Pierre