A quick Google will tell you they’re a “rock band”, but we’ll respectfully disagree—Portugal. The Man is so much more. Think a prog–rock (read: progressive rock), indie band, with influences from hip–hop to Bowie to Ghostface Killah to the Beatles and then some. Press play while you sort that out...
This band's the baby of bassist Zach Carothers and frontman John Gourley. While these two are the original members of the group, Portugal. The Man's welcomed new faces, lost friends along the way, experienced political turmoil (haven’t we all) and eaten loads of beef jerky. They’ve oh–so–casually dropped eight(!) albums in as many years, before spending three years producing their upcoming project, Woodstock. If you can’t tell, we’re buzzing about it.
With not one, but two shows coming to the City of Brotherly Love, we caught up with the band’s OG member, bassist Zach Carothers, about all things life: what we know (the world’s just about lost it), what we wish we knew (how to make *good* music) and how to get on their good side. We’ll go ahead and tell you right now: shoot them an email as to where they should grab drinks in Philly, and you’ve done well for yourself.
Now, for your daily dose of advice from Street Beats that isn’t your Song of the Day: Go see these guys live. They’re playing two shows in our backyard, Union Transfer, on March 30th and 31st (Ed. note: I’ll be there!). Meaning you have no excuses. Your tickets are waiting for you.
Photo: Maclay Heriot
On what’s *the* essence of Portugal. The Man...
"All Your Light" from In The Mountain In The Cloud. I really feel like that’s the one, if I had to show somebody, this is what our band does in one song It has a little bit of everything, It’s got a hip–hop beat influence, it’s got the vocals that we had during Church Mouth days, it’s got a spastic prog–jam and several covers which range from anything like David Bowie to Ghostface Killah and the Beatles, it kind of has a little bit of everything.
I think that, the live version, it gets upward of 10 minutes. But that’s pretty much the song that just has the most memories for me. We wrote it, we recorded it, and it keeps continuing to grow and change and live and I really like that."
On the new album Woodstock...
It’s very, very different. It’s kinda all over the place. We’ve got a good mix of everything going with it. It’s hard to explain. It’s fresh. It’s by far the freshest album we’ve ever done. We’ve tried a lot of new tricks, and we learned what to do, what not to do.
On how they make music, and good music at that...
Right when we’re done, while it’s fresh in our mind we note what we know what to do and what not to do. We start working on a new one as much as possible. We don’t like sitting still very much.
On how Woodstock's lead single 'Feel It Still' came to life...
It was a side session, we were in the studio working on another song, and just in another room, John started humming the melody and playing the baseline. And we said you know what, let’s just throw that down real quick.
It’s very strange how those things work, and just the lyrics, the 'rebels just for kicks' we had done a long time ago, but nothing else. So we borrowed that and started singing and said you know, that’s the one that works. And so we jump on it, and that ends up being our first single.
On the fact that my mom loves it...
That is very good to hear.
On their live presence...
We’re particularly reserved. We don’t have a long of the theatrics. John especially, our frontman, isn’t a very classic frontman, he hardly speaks at all. He plays mostly with his back turned. We kind of get into our own zone. We have our own fun—lot of shots, lot of beers, lot of improvising, we like to think we have more fun than anybody on stage. And that’s what comes through. It’s always not very planned out. It’s always hanging by a thread, and can come crashing down at any minute, but that’s what we find the magic in and that’s what we love.
On the craziest thing a fan’s done for them…
I guess I’ll bring up Salzberg, Austria. I had a birthday. This was five years ago. I turned 30 there. My friend that happened to live there... A couple of them worked there at an old salt mine, that’s the largest, the oldest salt mine that is still available for tours and stuff.
So we had a birthday party a mile or two underground, and they pretty much gave us the tour except we had a bunch of people, a bunch of their friends, a bunch of bands we’d met and we did an underground party in this thousand year old salt mine, and we brought a ton of beer down there and a birthday cake and it was pretty unbelievable. I ended up...my phone died, I think I got lost, we were at dive bars until very, very late...
On who’s the best songwriter out there…
Check out Tobias Jesso Jr. He’s amazing, he writes unbelieveable songs (Ed. note: Confirmed).
On who you should see next (after them, of course)...
Savages, I’ve seen them several times over the past couple years. They are bad motherfuckers. They are so much fun to watch live. They are so pumped, and goth, and cool. Ihave so much more fun at their shows. You get jaded a lot and I’ve seen so many great acts and it does tend to lose its luster a little bit. When I find a band that makes me feel like a teenager, I rep it hard. Go to a show. It’s more about the energy than the specific songs for me.
On why they make music...
Because that’s what art is all about, it’s the connection. It’s a selfish thing that we do to where we want our own level of originality but we also want to share where all our ideas come from, because everybody gets their ideas from somewhere and we don’t like to hide it. I don’t mind ripping off the Beatles, I mean they paved the way for any and all progressive rock and roll. That’s a very important thing to us. We have to let the people know we’re not just doing it for them, for the listener. We’re doing it for us. You have to keep a little bit of that alive. You can’t just write music for other people, that just doesn’t work—at least it doesn’t work for us. So we have to do it for ourselves and we hope the people will agree what we like.
On how the band’s changed over the years...
John and I have been playing music forever. John and I are the original, orignal members and we’ve been playing music together since we were teenagers. We’ve lost a couple people along the way to girlfriends, college, jobs that played well. We’re always bringing in new people to breathe new life into the live set and the studio setting. Not all of us go down to the studio, when there’s too many cooks in the kitchen, it makes things difficult—the smaller the amount the better. Everyone has their different roles in the band. Right now we’ve got a really good team…It’s a special time for us. We’ll probably stick with this setup for quite a while.
On what they eat on tour…
Lot of coffee, lot of things from home, and a lot of jerky...We venture out. We are not the kinda band that likes to sit in hotel rooms or sit backstage. We like to get out, see the city, get out of the city whenever we can, so we don’t sleep very much. We get off the bus very early, find a good local breakfast spot. We search around to find everything good. We love getting emails from fans on where to eat, what bars to go to, what shops to hit. So we don’t have a thing we prefer to eat right before we play, but it’s always something good and close and local, and fun. In Philly, we’ll probably do the normal tourist thing, and go get cheesesteaks in Philly, I’d imagine. I heard Lorenzo’s burned down, it’s terrible. A bummer man, I loved that pizza.
On how Portugal. The Man isn't all that different from your family...
If there were two John’s, this band wouldn’t work. If there was two of me, it wouldn’t work. It has to be a mix of everybody. And each one of us are complete psychopaths. And together, we balance out, and would be a really great, effective person. Separately, we’re a goddamn mess. Playing music. And it works. We’re a ridiculously tight group. It’s a very dysfunctional family, but still somehow highly functional (Ed. note: Sounds like they're doing it right).
On politics, music, and the fight for humanity...
I’m loving it. I’m loving the fight. I’ve always loved that. It feels like when something like this happens, when an administration like this comes in to power, a lot of people freak out and there’s very good reasons for doing that. But I’m always the kind of guy who finds the bright side but I see all these artists getting together and people rallying in the streets. I’m all about that. So when power’s trying to hold me down, it’s really beautiful to see people come together and stand up and really take care of their brothers next to them and fight.
We’ve been doing that. We just released the video for 'Feel It Still' with a bunch of interactive ways to help the resist movement. We’re never one of those bands that gets crazy–political. We all have our ideas.
It’s really amazing to see this stuff. It reminds me of the stuff I’d read about in the '60’s and it’s very important for the art community and just for humanity in general to rise up. When something bad happens you really see humanity come together in a very beautiful way. So i’m looking on the positive side of it. I like going to town, seeing people holding hands, yelling and fighting back, I love that shit.
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