Interview - Unknown Mortal Orchestra

“I had four years of working aimlessly, just trying to use up time because I didn’t know when the next tour would be, or even if touring was going to happen again at all. We worked on music thinking, ‘is there a music industry any longer?’”

We forget now, but such extremities of thought were never far from our minds in 2020. The sense of paralysis and despair was palpable for most of us, although for those in the entertainment industry, there were larger questions marks; namely ‘if’ rather than ‘when’ they would return to normal work.

That’s not to say there weren’t some perks to being a successful musician at the time, or indeed that they deserved our unbridled sympathy. For Ruban Nielson, the mastermind behind Unknown Mortal Orchestra, his time was split between Hawaii and Palm Springs, but the lockdowns coincided with a planned hiatus following years on the road, as he explains over Zoom: “When I finished the tour for the last record (2018’s Sex & Food), I was in pretty bad shape, physically. I was heading towards my Fat Elvis era so I just had to get off the road, I’d been touring for eight years and I’d never had more than two months off. It takes its toll and I wasn’t treating my body particularly well. I worked quite hard, and most of that was in the band. We only graduated to the (tour) bus towards the last album so I was ready to get off the road.”

https://www.clashmusic.com/features/everything-came-together-unknown-mortal-orchestra-interviewed/