Liberty's flirting skills aren't quite up to scratch.
Union Sound Set were known as Prego until fairly recently, and have been touring tirelessly and recording brilliant EPs for the last five years to little avail. It seems that with the new name has come a change of luck and a bit more recognition, as they're just about to release their debut full length and go on their first headlining tour. To find out a bit more about it, I sat down with frontman Edd Simpson – who I had a massive crush on in my late teens – and proceeded to giggle and ineptly flirt my way through a few questions...
Most people probably still know you as Prego. You've had a bit of a line-up change, but was there any other reason that you changed your name?
That was the main reason – because we wanted to feel ownership of the band. In the past, there were quite a few different member changes in Prego, and we were going for a couple of years, so when we went in to record the album, we wanted it to be about us, and that's why we decided to change – it was a bit of a rebirth essentially.
Was there any particular reason you chose Union Sound Set as a name?
It was Simon, our guitar player, who came up with it. It was an imagery thing – he liked the idea that you had a union or a community of sound, because that's what we're trying to create in one way or another.
As Prego, you've been working hard releasing EPs for a few years now – how does it feel to finally be releasing an album?
Oh, it's joyous. It's been a long and winding road and there have been ups and downs, but I've always been proud of the work we've done and believed we could make a record that represents us fairly. Our producer did a really good job, it was really great to work with him and hear the album come together. I'm so excited.
Did you find the writing/recording process different on a full length than on your EPs?
I think the sustained studio time makes a difference, it really allows you to settle in and it becomes a bit of a home. It's great just to be able to get together and experiment for longer and work out exactly what you're trying to achieve. You achieve more continuity within an album. We've tried to make it a bit of a journey through the record – you don't really get the same chance on a single or EP.
I think you guys have got a really distinctive, quite unique sound – how did you develop that?
It's great that you think that! I don't know, really. When I started writing for what was then Prego, I was working with another girl called Julia and it was very much a Mouldy Peaches type affair. Then I came to London and started really listening to and getting excited about more post-rock bands like Explosions in the Sky. After that I had a vision that was very different and I knew I needed other musicians to do it. The different musicians have just brought different things to the band along the way, but I think the mission has always stayed the same in terms of what we're trying to achieve with the songs.
Are you worried about releasing an album into a climate where people don't really buy music any more?
Yeah, of course. Especially when we've got investment behind the record and the label, we've got people who want to sell records and we want to sell records so that we can be heard and things like that, and we're scared that we might sell ten records and no-one will acknowledge us again. There's always that fear, and absolutely now it's more of a fear because people don't buy records any more – there's this expectation that music should be free.
As a musician, what are your thoughts on downloading music?
It's not something I do, although I do download films so I'm a complete hypocrite. I don't do music out of principle because it's the area I work in, but it's just the way it is for some people. I don't think music should be free because someone made it – someone put their heart and soul into it.
Do you have any tactics to get people buying your record rather than downloading it?
We're touring in October and we've been doing the whole social network thing, and trying to get out there as much as possible – radio, press, any way we can really. As a band we just want to be fairly judged, and we won't get an opportunity to be fairly judged if we don't get heard enough because radio and music press is so selective.
What are your plans for next year?
Next year we're looking at completely reworking the record into an acoustic album and we're working on a new record – we'd ideally like to release that in 2011 – touring some more, and just generally having a great time.
Union Sound Set's album Stop/Start is released on October 24th and they'll be playing The Luminaire on October 26th. Check the band out here
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