Interview – Portugal. The Man roll on

Bloody Hell – What a year it’s been for Portugal. The Man. After over a decade of consistently, yet relatively inaudibly, plying their alterna-psych-indie rock craft on the global stage, the Alaskan five-piece struck sonic gold. After the runaway success of their hit single ‘Feel It Still’ in 2017 (almost 500 million plays on Spotify and counting!), PTM have been catapulted to household-name status, a success which helped to spawn and hone their ninth studio album, the carefree, yet considered ‘Woodstock.’

SYS’ Cherry Anna Brearley managed to secure an interview slot with bassist Zach, who, somewhat miraculously, found time for a good old chinwag, despite having just bounced fresh off the back of a headliner slot at Groovin’ The Moo festival, and being right on the cusp of beginning their biggest Australian tour to date:

Hey man! Thanks for chatting to us. How are you doing?
I’m really good thanks, feeling really great. How are you?

I’m good yeah… but really? Are you sure? You just played two music festivals this weekend. You sound a little gravelly.
Haha! Truth be told, we were out having a bit too much fun last night. So my voice is sounding a bit worse for wear, but it’s okay. I’m really tough.

That’s amazing. I’m just sitting in my office, it’s 11am and I’m already feeling for a bit of a nap. But I guess late nights partying are part of the job, right. You’re a professional rockstar! PTM have really been going for such a time now… would you call yourself a ‘career band’, per se?
Yeah, I definitely would. You’re right, we’ve been going since 2004, and we’ve never stopped. Well, wow, we’ve been so many band members too, so some of us have, but it’s definitely been like a career’s journey for most of us, in terms of the things we’ve learned, and the places it’s taken us. We’ve been doing this, making music together, literally, forever. Our whole lives.

Did you guys train formally in anything, at school, uni, or anything? Have you ever considered what you guys would be doing if you weren’t Portugal. The Man?
Honest to god, I’ve never even thought that hard about it. We’re from Alaska so the obvious choices are you know, fishing… or … It’s a naturally incredibly vast open space, and I’ve always been really into photography too. If I’m being truthful, though, I’ve never not exclusively wanted to play with the band. Of course, there’s a really outside chance that there’ll come a time when the fun’ll end, and we’ll have to, y’know, get ‘real jobs’. But all of us… we’ve always thought we’d always be doing this: there was no time when we thought we’d ever stop playing music, ever! No second option really.

That’s a powerful statement. I’m loving the energy. I honestly thought, having been with the band for such a long time, you’d be more of a cynic.
Hell no man! There’s never been a time, at least not for me. Yeah, of course, there’s been times when I’ve broken John’s ribs, or he’s broken my ribs…

Right…
…hah. But no honestly, it’s just a machine that’s just kept perpetually rolling on. A lot of people seem to go into music with some fallacy that, at some point, it’ll be about the money. We never had any illusions about there being any money, or that there was ever going to be any money in what we did, and it didn’t matter. After we formed, packed up and moved on down to Portland, which has such an amazingly electric local music scene, we started playing the kind of shows they have all around that city, shows you pay $3 on a weekday to see someone random… and just never stopped. I mean, there was always the next goal. It was always, ‘by Christmas we’ll get an apartment,’ or ‘by next year we’ll get that deal…’, and we were broke forever. It was hard for sure, and actually, a lot of our old band members gave up, but we kept going! And it’s taken us all over the world, to so many amazing, incredible places.

You’ve mentioned a couple of times the importance of different places, and of travel, to you and the rest of the band… how has that come through on the new album? It’s clearly pretty got a lot of global references…
Yeah, you’re right. We’re a really politically, socially and geographically conscious band, something that’s really come through stronger with the more travelling we’ve done. We wanted to make a melodic comment on the ‘situation’ happening in America right now. So we thought back: when was there last a time when there was a similar smell in the air, a similar calling of arms, of people demonstrating, nervous excitement in the streets? Then we found one of John’s Dad’s old Woodstock festival ticket stubs. The album rolled from there.

The whole vibe, the whole embodiment of what Woodstock was in the 60s, the peaceful protest, the musicality of it, the outdoorsiness, just the whole vibe, was everything we wanted to create in the new album. It comes through, I think, not only in the lyrical themes, but also in the total mash up and blurring of genres, just like you’d hear during a day at a festival, where people are grooving to hip-hop, funk, to rock, to rap…to just about almost anything, all in one day.

I think that sums it up beautifully. It’s a big old joyful, playful, tetchy, restless mash up of sound, a new statement, calling attention to the mistakes of, and the joyful nostalgia of years gone by. But what’s next for PTM, what are you looking forward to on the horizon?
Ah well, the thing I always look forward to is getting out more, seeing even more of the world, just exploring, man. But at the end of this tour, we’re feeling really great about writing more music, just getting back in the studio. We write and write even when we’re on the road, so we’re really ready to put some new material together, and we’re collaborating with some pretty exciting artists for the next album – not that I’m allowed to reveal who they are yet though. Watch this space!

Oh and lastly, I’ll hate myself if I don’t ask this. Does it piss you off when people miss out the full stop after ‘Portugal’. in your band’s name?
Hahaha! To be honest, when we formed, we never thought we’d ever be big enough for anyone to ever write about us or put the name to paper, then, when we did start to get a bit of success under our belts, realised what a cataclysmic problem it was for music editors! It doesn’t bother us though!

Cheers Zach – You. The Man!

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Catch Portugal. The Man at the following Aus/NZ venues/festivals, Deets here: 

May03 – Forum Theatre Melbourne, VIC, Australia
May05 – Groovin in the Moo 2018, Bendigo, VIC, Australia
May06 – Groovin in the Moo 2018, Townsville, QLD, Australia
May08 – Powerstation, Auckland, New Zealand
May10 – The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley, QLD, Australia
May12 – Groovin in the Moo 2018, Bunbury, WA, Australia

For European and US tour dates, head here.

Review by Cherry Anna Brearley.