If you like to jam out and you haven’t heard of Portugal The Man, then you’ve been missing out!
Pyschedelic rock band Portugal The Man has an appreciation for the finer things in music like guitars, synthesizers, tambourines, keyboards and drums.
Composed of members reigning from Alaska and Oregon, Portugal The Man has a fan following that’s almost cult-like and they enjoy every minute of it.
GlobalGrind caught up with Zach Carothers and Ryan Neighbors of Portugal The Man to chat about their encounters with Sarah Palin, celebrity crushes and of course, their music.
Check out the exclusive interview below!
Global Grind: Your music gives a nostalgic, good feeling. It captures a little bit of the ’70s sound. What’s behind that?
Portugal Man: A lot of that is just our upbringing, especially John and I. John’s the main song writer. We both grew up in Alaska and we didn’t have a lot of fresh new music up there. It was all what our parents gave to us, The Beatles, The Stones, Pink Floyd, Crosby Stills and Ashton Young. And we had oldie stations and listened to old soul records and stuff like that. So that’s pretty much what we were raised on, and then we moved from there down to Portland and just got flooded with all the underground, artsy weird ass stuff. And so it’s pretty easy to see those two things, we try to blend those two together and try to come up with something.
Back in 2009 you had an album Satanic Satanists, Majestic Majesty. It was two parts. That’s a very interesting title. What’s behind that? Who came up with that title?
Zach: Originally it was going to be The Satanic Satanists of the Majestic Majesty, but then there’s a Rolling Stones album that we never heard of that’s incredibly similar, so we had to switch it up. We just thought it was a funny name really. We knew that all the songs were very positive and very colorful and the packaging is very colorful. So we’re big into contrast, so we’re trying to think of what’s the most evil thing we could name this thing and we just thought of Satanic Satanists. So it’s about that and pretty much all of the album is about John’s childhood and growing up in the middle of nowhere, nobody’s around at all, so it’s about being a complete and total outcast.
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We know you guys probably get a lot of questions about Sarah Palin and any encounters. In your song “Skatepark” you talk about it. She was trying to shut down your skate park?
Zach: We were trying to build one and then she was resistant. She was resistant and then she said yes if we raised a certain amount of money, the city would match it and build it. And we did raise that money, we raised $85,000 and then she said no. We were obviously like, what are we supposed to do with this $85,000 we just raised. I had to argue with her for quite a while, but eventually she ended up giving us the skatepark and it’s awesome now.
So what is it like growing up in Alaska?
Zach: It’s a lot of wilderness. It’s beautiful, a lot of mountains, a lot of wildlife. It’s just gorgeous, but there definitely isn’t a lot of things to do as far as entertainment. I guess there is a lot of music, there’s a pretty good bluegrass scene and a lot of metal. It’s kind of a rule if you grow up in Alaska that you have to listen to Slayer and stuff like that. You’ll get killed if you don’t and if you did. But it’s a really good place, it’s really cool. It’s very isolated, I love it a lot. A lot of people can’t handle it and I can see why, but I am totally fine with being in the middle of nowhere with nothing around.
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So you guys went down to South X South West right? How was your time down there?
Zach: Yeah, we saw Wu Tang, that was the only show I went to. It was busy. We only did two shows but we had a lot of press, a lot of photos. We were busy all day every day but it was really cool, we got a lot of stuff done, got to meet a lot of really cool people. We rented a house kind of out of town. The last few times we’ve been to South X we partied really hard. This time we stayed a week in a house a little out of time so it was a little more relaxing. We only had one party night in town, the rest of the time we were just in the house chilling.
So what’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you at SXSW?
Zach: Well some friends of ours got punched. That was funny. My friend tried to buy weed from a random dude. He was like, ‘where the weed at?’ And he got ripped off by this dude so a couple of our buddies, our sound guy, guitar guy, and manager went with him to try and get his money back and there were just a bunch of dudes waiting for them. We’re just a bunch of scrawny dudes that can’t fight, so a couple of dudes took a punch to the face. I thought it was awesome.
If you had it your way, who would be your dream collaboration?
Zach: I’d probably want to work with Thom Yorke but he probably wouldn’t want to work with me. I think that guy knows what he wants, he’s probably not looking to hang out with guys like me. Still, that’s my dream collab.
Ryan: I don’t know who mine would be. Eventually I want to do something with Beck. He’s always got really interesting stuff. Oh, the Beastie Boys. And John would say RZA, Jason would say Ween, we just want to hang out and eat pasta salad with them.
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What is your favorite thing to do besides making music?
Ryan: For me it’s playing basketball. I go hard in the paint. I’ve dunked about four times, it takes a really good day.
Zach: I guess other than smoking, I like taking pictures. I’m big into photography.
What’s your favorite food?
Burgers and Shrimp.
What’s your favorite color?
Zach: Death. Jet Black.
Ryan: I think I like navy blue, and obviously brown.
If you guys were sent to a deserted island or the most remote part of Alaska and could only bring three albums with you, what three albums would you bring?
Zach: This probably changes every day but today it would be The White Album, Dark Side of the Moon, and something new that I haven’t heard before? Just something that I don’t listen to because maybe I’ll feel like listening.
Ryan: I’d bring Kid A by Radiohead, The Airplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel and then I’d make a mix of all Weird Al’s polkas.
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Tell us something that most people don’t know about you.
Zach: I’m really funny most of the time, I tell really funny jokes.
Ryan: I can juggle.
What’s been the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you guys at a show?
Zach: Falling on stage. I was pretty drunk one night, we were in Spokane, Washington. Our load in was supposed to be at 3 and no body showed up until 6 and there was a bar right across the street. I wasn’t drunk drunk but I had 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 more beers than I normally would before going on stage. Somebody in the front row had baked us a cake or something, so I went down to grab it. I stepped back and while I was leaning John had set up his pedal board right behind my feet and I didn’t know that. And I went back and tripped on his pedal board and tried to grab a microphone stand to hold me up and just ended up falling over. Not even while we were playing. All the lights were on.
Ryan: I fell too. We were playing a club in Germany and all of the cables were just out in front of the crowd and John’s vocals stopped working so I was like I’m going to figure this out. I figured it out, I plugged it in, I was a hero. And when I walked back up on stage I was like yeah, and fell right on my face.
If you guys could collaborate with any hip-hop artist who would it be?
Zach: RZA from Wu-Tang Clan for sure. He’s awesome. The stuff that he’s done with Quentin Tarantino for his movies and shit, oh my god. His soundtracks are awesome, his movies are amazing, we’re big fans of him but just his soundtracks. I buy all his soundtracks.
Do you guys have any celebrity crushes?
Ryan: Tons of them. Liv Tyler, I kind of got a thing for her. She’s got that girl next door beauty going on and I’m a boy next door myself. My last name is Neighbors so I have the real next door vibe. After seeing Armageddon I’d blow up an asteroid for her any day.
