If you haven’t heard the feel-good grooves of Portugal. The Man then your iPod is suffering a great deal.
The psychedelic rock band has been steadily moving up the ranks in awesome band land, and after collaborating with Danger Mouse on their new album, Evil Friends, we had to hear how the magic came about.
Less than a day after Portugal. The Man put on a crazy show at New York City’s Governor’s Ball, GlobalGrind caught up with John Gourley of Portugal. The Man to chat about the band’s new album, Evil Friends, collaborating with Danger Mouse, working with RZA, and maintaining honest art.
Check out our exclusive interview down under.
GlobalGrind: I’ve heard whispers about how Portugal. The Man ended up working with Danger Mouse. How did a Portugal. The Man and Danger Mouse collaboration begin?
John Gourley: It was actually a funny thing how it came about. We had gone to El Paso, Texas to Sonic Ranch. It’s a really amazing studio in Texas. Everybody trusted us. They trusted us so much with our music that they were going to let us self-produce our album. Well two weeks in, I get a call from
Craig Kallman
– head of Atlantic Records – I fucking love Craig. He says, “Hey man, do you think you could come out to New York tomorrow? Danger Mouse wants to meet you.” Right away, I was so fucking frustrated. I was pissed. ‘Motherfucker, are you kidding me? You’re calling other producers? While we’re in the studio, while everybody trusts us. And you had to call Danger Mouse.’ That’s the one fucking producer that you can’t fucking say “no” to. You have to take that opportunity when it comes. I was kind of bothered by it, but at the same time, I was like I’m meeting Danger Mouse. So I fly out to New York, and I meet Brian [Danger Mouse] for the first time. It seemed almost immediate. When I walked in, immediately he says: “Hey man just so you know, I really don’t want to work with another band. I work with the Black Keys. I got my rock band. Not my thing.” It says a lot about his loyalty. I respected that right away. Alrite cool, so ‘what the fuck am I doing here? What are we going to talk about?’ He said, “I just want to see what you were into; what you listen to. He told me he was a fan of the band, and we ended up listening to music the whole day. It’s just such a funny experience. I don’t think it was planned at all. Brian is a very intelligent person. He basically asked me what kind of record I wanted to make. I kind of shrugged, ‘I don’t know, the best.’
It’s like one of those questions.
I’m not gonna make fucking “Thriller.” But you know what, we’re gonna fucking try. That’s the point of this band. We worked for six years, before we signed to Atlantic. That was my rehearsal period. That was my practice. That was our education in music. Signing to Atlantic records, we’re like let’s go for it! Let’s try and make that happen. We [Danger Mouse] both kind of laughed at that. Because it sounds pretentious, but it’s not. That’s why you make music. You just want to make the best record you can. Eventually, it worked out. It kind of came together. I’m really glad it did. He’s a really funny dude, a really great producer.
So how have things changed for you guys now that you’re signed to a major label?
It hasn’t changed us that much. It’s actually been really cool for the band. We’re on the same label as Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin, and The Rolling Stones. That shit’s cool! It definitely makes you want to live up to something. But it’s more because of their diversity. I want to contribute to Atlantic Records. I don’t just want to be on the label expecting shit from them. I want to write the best songs we can
Last time, I spoke to Zach and I asked him who his dream collaboration would be, and he told me that he’d probably want to work with Thom Yorke and he told me that he thought you’d probably want to work with RZA for your dream collaboration.
It was probably Ryan.
Right. It’s coming back to me now. Zach wanted to work with Thom Yorke, and Ryan suggested you wanted to work with RZA. Does that still hold true? Or is that something that’s ever changing?
Well, technically we did work with Thom Yorke, but it was mainly me taking his photo out of Esquire, and drawing all over it. And then having people call me, and tell me I can’t do that. And me coming back with: “He can fucking work with us if he wants to. He can call us to take it down. But he’s not going to. He’s an artist.” That was kind of my first promotional thing I did for the record. And I decided I was just gonna take photos from Esquire and different magazines, and draw them. I guess I should mention I do all of the artwork for the band. So few bands have access to interesting new artwork like all the fucking time, so my whole promotion was: Jimmy Page, A$AP Rocky, Kendrick Lamar, Thom Yorke. Just putting up pictures of them with huge signs, and getting yelled at for it. They’re the people that I respect as artist. RZA remixed a song on our last record. I haven’t met him in person, but I’ve talked with him on the phone. I gotta say he’s a smart dude. He was a huge influence on me growing up. “Roof Hangers,” that’s as good as it gets. There’s something so familiar about what they were doing on so many levels. I’ll the reason why I think “Roof Hangers” connected with so many people across the board. It really blurred the lines between what hip-hop is. All their samples are like 50’s and 60’s guitar samples. So you’re hearing Motown without realizing that’s what you’re hearing. It doesn’t even have to be Motown. You’re hearing a 1964 super reverb with a nice J35 run through it. He had done something; I’m guessing was somewhat unintentional, which was paying homage to the music that he grew up with. That’s what it was at the time. And they come out, and jump on it talking about Spider-Man. Come through with the nerdiest shit, and still come off as being the hardest motherfuckers. I thought it was amazing to hear. I’ve always thought the best project he could ever make is Wu-Tang meets The Beatles. I want to do a project where I write an album of two and a half, three-minute Motown songs, and I have RZA chop it up, and re-write a record for that. That’s what I want to do.
That’s a really dope concept. It’s an amazing idea.
It’d be so rad. You put a double-disc. Here’s a specific era, and let him take it and flip it, and almost right a new record on top of that. I think it’d be cool. He did the Grey album, so it’s like aww fuck..that’s a pretty classic album right there.
What’s your favorite track on Evil Friends?
Two of my favorite tracks were ones that we didn’t do with Brian – in the best possible way – it’s because of the way they were written. “Hip-Hop Kids” to me. That was the first song I wrote for this record, and that was on tour with the Black Keys I started putting it together. I just had my baby daughter. She was like six months old at the time. We flew out to Paris a week early for tour. And hanging out in Paris, we go out to our first show, the Black Keys. I’ve never done a stadium tour. I don’t know what that shit’s about. You’ve got that the buffet. It wasn’t necessarily the Black Keys that influenced that song as much as it was the situation, because it’s just amazing to be in. You gotta have that stuff because you have these huge crews working on tour. It’s just a different ballgame…you know what I did today? I took a walk with my daughter in Paris. That’s it. That’s as real as the record gets to me. With that being said, there are better songs on the album. “Modern Jesus” is a cool track. The way that chorus came about. It was Brian and I working forever on that song. So many attempts at writing that song. And when I went in the last time, I’m really surprised it was okay. We all loved it but…I didn’t want to write another fucking chorus. I think there were some cool, really honest moments on the album.
I think it’s good that you guys tried to maintain honesty. I feel like there’s a disconnect between the artist and the listener, the fan. And I think when the artist is honest that’s when the connect kind of happens, and everybody reconnects. Everybody is happy. When artist don’t speak their truth, it really makes this weird disconnect where music doesn’t give you the same feeling anymore. You guys strived to be as honest as possible on Evil Friends. I don’t know if artists realize it, but fans really appreciate that.
I stay up on it. And I follow a lot of art. Actually at Governor’s Ball, I was hanging out with some friends, and I said something jokingly about tweeting at Paul McCartney. They said, “It’s the fucking “Fireman! You think he actually checks his Twitter? You think anybody checks their Twitter?” I was like “very funny” because I’m talking about it. Obviously, I do it. Artists I follow are like Earl Sweatshirt, Frank Ocean, the Odd Future Kids. I think it’s really funny how they tweet. It’s like an attention-grab, but at the same time it doesn’t mean anything…there’s something very real about that to me. But I think that’s the difference between the retired artists and the younger artists and the progressive artists. It’s easy to get lost…you have to keep what you’re about. I don’t think you can try to write a hit song. Some people can. Some people can’t. It’s just really hard to do that, without being that type of person. The reason pop artists work is because they’re that type of person…the only way to write hits is you have to be honest.
PHOTO CREDIT: Hayley Young
