As Alaskan rockers Portugal. The Man (yes, that’s a full stop in their name not a typo) wrapped up their UK tour MM caught up with lead singer John Gourley and bassist Zac Carothers who gave us the low down on their ‘fucking good album’.
The band also revealed that Manchester was the best place to play in the UK and that, while they love Oasis, they hope that a Gallagher-esque relationship doesn’t ruin their group dynamics.
Have you enjoyed your time in the UK?
ZAC CAROTHERS: We’ve had an awesome time at all our UK gigs and tonight in Manchester has been the best yet. It’s the first night we haven’t blown all the stage power, I don’t know why it has happened elsewhere. It’s strange but something always goes wrong when we’re performing but that’s the nature of live gigs and we just have to get on with it.
JOHN GOURLEY: I always enjoy visiting and it’s an important place for us because the band have a lot of family and friends here. It’s sad that we only have flying visits but that’s the reality of touring with a band.
Has the Manchester music scene influenced any of your music?
JOHN GOURLEY: When I recorded American Ghetto with Anthony Saffery from Cornershop he introduced me properly to Britpop and also the Manchester music scene. You know bands like Oasis, Stone Roses, The Smiths — I loved it straight away. Oasis stand out, you know they write what they want, performed how they want and are just true to themselves, you get no bullshit with them. I’m still hoping they get back together, luckily for us we don’t have anything in our band like the Gallagher relationship. I guess sometimes we have things going on but it’s always resolved pretty quick.
Has the introduction of two new members changed the dynamic of the band?
JOHN GOURLEY: It’s different of course but the band is really fucking good right now, we are in a good place musically. Playing in a band is about collaboration and Kane (drummer) and Kyle (keyboardist) have come in and given everything.
Are you happy with how the new album Evil Friends has turned out?
JOHN GOURLEY: I think the album is fucking good, all the records are very different but I feel that this is the most consistent album we’ve produced. Some critics are saying its mainstream, but what the fuck does that mean? With this album writing songs has made more sense and we’ve produced better records so I don’t like it when they just label it. We’ve put out a hell of a lot of music, and by the time we moved to Atlantic records we’d already played a thousand shows and everything has been leading up to the sound you hear on the new album.
Lots of people are saying there’s a political agenda to the track Waves off the new album. Is there any truth in this?
JOHN GOURLEY: Waves will always be special because it’s the first track we finished in the studio with Dangermouse. I know some people may listen to it and hear a political message but the lyrics just kind of came out. We are obviously anti-war like a lot of musicians and artists, but we didn’t sit down and say “right let’s write a political record”. I could have done because where I’m from in Alaska is very conservative. And many friends of mine signed up to the army, so they’ve had to deal with some pretty fucked up shit, which I don’t agree at all with. It’s up to the people who listen to the record to make their own mind up.
Why do you think you haven’t been able to break into the British music scene?
JOHN GOURLEY: Man, England is just the hardest place to make it. As a band we have put out so much music and it’s all very different, so some people just don’t get us here. The rest of Europe has totally embraced our music, I mean take France for instance, I heard that would be the place where we wouldn’t make it but our shows sell out every time. But you know I still love coming here- the best bands in the fucking history of rock music have come from England.
ZAC CAROTHERS: It’s definitely harder with the audiences here – especially in London. We’ve played at places and people just stand with their arms crossed or sit down. But I couldn’t give a fuck about those people, they’re just so caught up with themselves and can’t let go. As a band we just produce the sound we want and if England wants to embrace that then great. If they don’t, well we’re still going to come play here and we know that we already have awesome fans in the UK.
You might have heard a minority of people in the crowd tonight expressing their distaste at your new sound and collaboration with Dangermouse. Did that bother you?
ZAC CAROTHERS: We actually respect that because they love our earlier records. I totally get it, I mean if I went to a Metallica show and they played their last two albums I’d be fucking pissed. That guy thinks we are being fake for playing this latest album but you have to understand the first album we did was seven years ago and we’ve changed. We wrote the whole album with Dangermouse who is easily the producer of the decade and a very close friend of mine, so at the end of the day it doesn’t bother us if some people shout comments in the crowd. They may think we are just doing it for the money, or because our label told us to. But this isn’t true we have known Dangermouse for a long time and have wanted to work with him.
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