Portugal. The Man Interview

Portugal. the Man recently graced Boulder with their presence and entertained with some really great music:  soulful, harmonious, ambitious, layered, etc. etc. etc.  And if their talent and verve weren’t enough to earn your respect and listener-ship; they also dig Weird Al, work as hard, or harder than, any other band in the industry and spend virtually every waking minute together– and they can finish each other’s sentences to prove it.

Ashlie: Have you finished recording your follow-up album to Censored Colors?

Zach (Bass): Yes, it’s done.  We did it last month in Boston, and we had a really good time doing it.

John (Guitar/Vocals): Yeah, it was pretty intimidating going in there with Paul*, I think, just because of the experience all of them have had, I mean, we’ve always just done all our albums with friends.  It was something where we felt like we had to get really prepared, in advance, and we’ve never done that before either.  And honestly, that helps so much, as you can imagine– writing in advance (laughs), knowing what’s going to happen before you get to the studio really helps.

* Paul Q. Kolderie has worked with the likes of Radiohead and the Pixies.

Ashlie: So, do you guys have a release date set?

Zach: Just the summer, I think, June or July.

John: I imagine it will come out along with all the festivals we’re playing.

Ashlie: What festivals?

John: We’re playing Bonnaroo, and a bunch of festivals in Europe.

Ashlie: Does the new album sound similar to Censored Colors, or is it entirely different?

John: Somewhat.  I guess at points.

Ryan (Keyboard): Similar-ish.

John: It’s a big change, structure-wise, I think, more than anything.

Jason (Drums): It seems like a focused transition, to the next record.

John: Yeah, I think it’s the obvious step– in albums.  I mean, Waiter: “You Vultures!” was kind of drum-machines, and Church Mouth went to rock & roll, and Censored Colors was strings, so i think it’s kind of a mixture of everything.  It’s a great record.

Ashlie: Now that you’ve established yourselves to be a prolific and experimental band, do you feel a pressure to be innovative, or do you feel like you’re more pressured to find something and stick with it?

John: i feel like we’ve always been looking for something, I mean, we’ve always been going for something every time we go into the studio.  It’s not like we’ve gone out of our way to make anything weird.

Zach: Yeah, I hate it when bands do that.

Jason: It’s just pressure to find a tune, we always experiment pretty well.

John: Yeah, we just have fun playing together and I think all of that just comes out.  That’s why the music is so much different with every record, it’s just all of us going to the studio and seeing what works best.

Ashlie: So more feeling it out as you go along?

Zach: Yeah.

John: Yeah, Definitely.

Zach: We don’t have a plan (Laughs).

John: (Laughs) No plans, no expectations, for the people in Portugal. The Man.

Ashlie: How seriously do you take criticism, does it have any bearing on your work?

Ryan: We’ve never heard any.

Ashlie: Really? (Everyone laughs)

Zach: Actually, we really like bad reviews, we like them just as much as good reviews.  Those are the only ones that I ever search out on the Internet.

John: Yeah, we can’t expect everybody to like our band.

Jason: It’s just funny when you have some guy who has completely different tastes than you and he’s just throwing it all out there.

John: I know, they’ll tear it apart too, if somebody doesn’t like something, it gets torn apart, which is just so funny to see.  It’s fun to see how much somebody could actually hate it.

Ashlie: Whens the last time you were blown away by a piece of music?

Ryan: When we finished our record. (Laughter)

Zach: Whoa! (Laughs)

John: I still, I really love that “Sound of Gold” record last year, just the sounds…

Ryan: Erykah Badu…

John: Yeah, Erykah Badu, that record is so, so good.  I think that’s one of the most consistent albums I’ve heard.

Ryan: I think that I got blown away by Bon Iver’s record.

Jason: Yeah, so we get blown away all the time, by new and old.

Ryan: Yeah, we’re easily impressed.

John: Honestly, I don’t think there’s been a lot of really, really great music coming out.  I mean, there’s a lot of like, really good stuff, I feel, but nothing that tops like, David Bowie and The Beatles and shit like that.

Zach: We listen to a lot of David Bowie on this tour.

John: Yeah, I think to be blown away I’d have to top some of the tops, you know? Do you feel that too? (Looks at Jason)

Jason: Well yeah, I do feel that way. were you looking for specific bands that are out now?

John: Like new bands?

Ashlie: Yeah, or old…

Jason: Well, “Sound of Gold” is current…

Ryan: I said Bon Iver, that’s current…

Jason: And I’ll say Earthless, I’ll throw that out there.

Ashlie: I get a bit of a reggae and surf vibe from some of the songs on “Censored Colors,” like the song “Salt” especially, because of the guitar reverb and some of the beats.  I was wondering if this is a sound you are going to pursue in the future, or have already meddled with?

Zach: We throw it in a little bit, it’s a really fun thing to play on stage.  I think it’s just got a really happy and good vibe to it.

John: Summer jam (laughs).

Zach: Yeah, summer jams. (laughs)

John: Yeah, you know what, it’s weird, it didn’t really find it’s way onto the new record that we just did, but it was something that I think we were all really happy with on “Censored Colors,” and I think, live it’s so much fun to jam around with that stuff.  It’ll come back around I’m sure.  That’ll be one of the sounds that makes it’s way around.

Zach: But, we’re not going to over-do it, we’re not going to become a reggae band or anything.

Jason: Yeah, I was going to say that reggae is like bleu cheese, if you ever do it too much, it’s trouble. (everyone laughs)

Ashlie: How important are lyrics?  Do they come second to the music?

Zach: Yes… no, just kidding.

John: I think it all so goes hand in hand.

Jason: Yeah, melded… forged…

John: Intertwined…

Zach: Woven…

John: (Laughing) woven… Yeah, it’s all so important, i mean, bad lyrics can ruin a good song and I guess good lyrics can be crushed by a shitty song…

Jason; … And good lyrics can be lost by a terrible jam.

Ryan: You have to have a pretty good mix with those things, I think they’re both very important.

Ashlie: As far as your busy schedule goes, with all the touring and recording, do you ever get cabin fever, like, do you guys get sick of each other?

Ryan: Occasionally.

Zach: Yeah, we have a really funny way of doing it though, we argue a lot…

John: No matter what’s going on– nothing bad’s happening, we’ll argue anyway just in case.

Zach: We’re around each other a lot, so we get annoyed with each other more…

Ryan: And we try to annoy each other.

Zach: Yeah, that’s the thing too, we’re not shy about it.

Jason: Seems to take a few years though, to learn everyone’s, you know, hot temperatures.

John: Everything’s been really good though, i mean, we’re also one of those bands who once we get home from tour, a day will pass…

Zach: And we’ll all hang out again.

Ashlie: How does your lifestyle affect your relationships?

Zach: It makes it pretty much non-existent.

Jason: Yeah, I’m pretty sure we all broke up with girlfriends when we hit the road for real.

Zach: It makes it really difficult.

Ryan: I have more friends now, but they’re not as close.

John: We’re not even like a crazy party band, it’s just like, the stress of us always being gone, i mean, we tour so much.  There’s just really not a lot of room for that, at least at the point where we’re working this hard.

Jason: It really tears at the heart-strings of people back home when we take off for two months at a time then we come back for five days.

Zach: But as far as I’m concerned, I’m used to it, I’ve been missing people for so long that…

Ryan: I don’t even miss them anymore.

Zach: I don’t, I don’t.. i miss, like three people.  i don’t miss any of my friends, i get back home, i love them to death, but I get back home and we catch up for five minutes and we’re back to where we were.  it’s no big deal, you can talk to everybody and…

John: Yeah, it’s really weeded out the friendships that don’t last, you know…

Jason: Mmhmm, all the fake ones.

Ryan: Yeah, you stay with your tight dogs… to put it in some ’09 terms… (everyone laughs)

Ashlie: What would you be doing if you couldn’t be musicians?

Jason: I’d be counting pills or slinging zoz, probably.

John:(laughing) What?

Ashlie: Counting pills? Like a pharmacist?

Jason: Yeah, something like that.

John: He worked at a pharmacy before this…

Jason: Drug dealer…

John: Yeah, I was about to say, sounded like a drug dealer for sure…

Zach: I’d probably be working for Pepsi, I love it.

Ryan: I was going to college furthering my education.

Ashlie: What were you studying?

Ryan: General stuff.  It was only my second year and I was working at Quiznos, so maybe I would have mastered the art of the sub.

Jason: Probably go straight into management and design new sandwiches…

Ryan: I’d open my own…

Zach: Jimmy Johns in Portland and eat there every day…

John: Big money…

Jason: he’d be building houses every month in Alaska (gestures to John).

Ryan: So, none of us would be stoked, that’s what we’re getting at.

Zach: Yeah, we’re not good at anything else.

John: I like building houses…

Jason: I like building houses too.

Zach: We’d be making money though.  I’d probably have a home, and a dog, and a girlfriend…

Ashlie: Does music add to the chaos of life or is it an escape?

Jason: Well, it just seems to be both.

Zach: Yeah, it just is life.

Jason: Yeah, i mean, it seems like sometimes i only have a sleeping gap when I don’t hear music, or i don’t want to hear music, you know what i mean?  Whether I’m enjoying it on headphones or whether John’s writing a new tune or something.  So music is like everywhere.  It’s around more than the food is.

Ryan: When we take a break, that just means we listen to goofier music, but we don’t stop listening to music, we pop in the Weird Al.

John: (laughing) We listen to Weird Al.

Ryan: The thinking man’s band…

John: The working man’s band…

Ashlie: Do you feel accomplished and satisfied yet as a band?

Zach: Yeah, I mean, it’s awesome, we’re so lucky we get to do this.

Jason: Yeah, if you look at how many times we’ve been to Europe and the fact that there’s already the fourth album out, you know?  That’s pretty awesome, that alone is pretty much steady ground to be happy about everything.

Zach: I would have been happy with one.  It’s all extra, it’s all bonus now.  There’s obviously some more thing we want to do, I want to go to Japan…

Ryan: We never want to stop.

Zach: Yeah, there’s still some stuff we want to do, yeah, but if it all ended today I’d be happy with it.

Ashlie: so, if you guys do have any down-time, what do you do?

John: Write music.

Zach: Yeah, we really don’t have any down-time.  There’s usually about a solid week at Christmas that we actually don’t do anything.

Ashlie: Jeez…

Ryan: Yeah, the down-time is when we do nothing, I guess.  We watch movies and TV…

Zach: Go hang out with our friends if we’re at home, yeah, but not a whole lot…

Jason: Park walks are nice. (laughter)

Zach: That’s what Jason does…

Jason: hanging out with animals, i like to do that…

John: (laughing) You sound like a pervert.

Jason: No honestly, I appreciate alon time when we have off time.  Just, solitary things like walking around, in you neighborhood, that’s awesome.

Ashlie: Do you guys get to move around a lot, or exercise at all?

Zach:  We get a little bit on stage, and then loading in.

Ashlie: Yeah, I think that would be the hard part for me, not being able to go off wherever I wanted or do whatever i wanted…

Zach: Yeah, it’s kind of difficult, when you have, you know, seven people with you, and if you wnt to do something, you have to make sure that everyone else wants to do it too.  Sometimes, it’s really annoying, sometimes we’ll all be starving, and we’ll walk around for like, two hours trying to find a place to eat because everyone wants to eat something different.  But we have to do it together, we never split up.

John: (laughing) Everything. We do everything together.

Ryan: We can split up for dinner…

Jason: We can, we don’t want to though…

Ryan: But we don’t…

Zach: Yeah we never do…

John: Because we just want to hang out…

Zach: We’re best buds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From left to right: John (vocals, guitar) Zach (Bass) Ryan (Keyboard) Jason (Drums)