You can never guess what they’d experiment with on the next record - these guys are really unpredictable and don’t even know what to expect from themselves! Portugal. The Man promises not to disappoint you with their new record and the support tour!
UG caught vocalist and guitarist John Gourley while he was walking down the park one nice morning and talked to him about jamming on stage, pessimistic forecasts for the future of music and the new album “Church Mouth,” which hit the stores 24th July!
UG: You’re about to start your summer tour. What are you up to meanwhile?
John: It’s pretty much just preparing for that. We are going up to Alaska in about a week. We’ll be hanging out there, 'cause we’re planning on doing a video for Shade, which should be cool. But I’m not quite sure which song we choose, everything is always up in the air in our band. I really like the idea of doing a music video up in Alaska as you can actually see how nice and open everything is. It should be fun! And we also start a tour up there.
I’ve read that your shows are never the same and something very different from the usual concerts.
For the most part it’s just an improvisation. The biggest thing that changes every night is the fact that we bring different people out on tour with us. We just ask whoever comes out on tour if they can come out and play. We don’t really show anybody how the song goes, we just ask them to do whatever they like, what they think sounds good. Much the same way as you would want anybody to play on your album - you just say “do what you do because we like what you do.”
So who are gonna improvise with you on the upcoming tour?
People coming with us on this tour are the band called Tera Melos. It’s a four-piece - a guitar, bass, heckles player and a percussion player. We’ll probably mess with them throughout the whole tour and play different things. We’re really up to watch each other all the time, so we know what’s going on. For the most part we’d try to show each other off, so that would be fun for the Tera Melos to jump in.
Your new album "Church Mouth" is described as “schizophrenic-sounding.” What was that you were inspired by that led to such sound?
It was just jamming. We hadn’t played with a live drummer in three years. The first album was really high and constructive because of the drums machines. We had a lot of those on the record as well as sequencing and programming. So it really didn’t have that free feel at that point and eventually we said let’s take an advantage of having a live drummer and a really great rhythm section. Zach, our bass player, and Jason, our drummer, play so well together, it is really unnecessary to use drum machine anymore. It’s just the obvious evolution of us playing together and jamming with each other. Everything that happens came together the way it should.
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| "Everything is always up in the air in our band." |
You’re a three-piece. Have you ever wished you had another band member, like the second guitar player?
I think eventually we’ll add somebody, but it’s about finding the right person. We have so much fun jamming with people, it’s really unnecessary to add somebody. That would tighten us up to the point not being able to take different musicians all the time.
During your previous tour one of the bands you played with quit the tour because it turned out that your audience didn’t match. Do you think it’d work out this time?
I’m not sure. I’ve heard the Photo Atlas that are doing a tour with us. They sound like pretty cool stuff. I think they’ll come up and jam with us a little bit and we’ll see how that goes. All the bands on the tour are different. I think PlayRadioPlay! are possibly doing the main support for us. We always just easier the things and see how it goes. We played with the Photo Atlas one time and that’s about it. I wouldn’t say we know anybody on this tour.
You’ve created the artwork for “Church Mouth” yourself. What’s the idea behind it?
It was done by myself and my friend Austin, who has laid out most everything we’ve done on the record. The cover for the “Church Mouth” came out pretty much the same time I found the title for the album, which was about a year and a half ago. We still didn’t finish up the previous record at that time and I wanted to do something totally different for the next record - something with putting the faces on the cover. It is a very ethic cover which I really like - you can say “I know” that album just by looking at it. Austin did a really good job laying that out and making it stand out that much.
You’ve got very interesting works. Have you ever considered a career of a painter?
Oh yeah, definitely! I’ve been doing all of that with the band and I can really feel how hand in hand all art is. Like you can watch a Quentin Tarantino movie and realize that without that music the movie wouldn’t be the same. And without these visuals the story wouldn’t be the same. Without any of the elements there wouldn’t be the final picture. So just having the option of doing everything I want with one project is huge. It gives me an opportunity to do everything I want with art without combining myself to one style. I can paint the illustrations for the artwork or anything else and it’s so much fun for me! But as soon as people ask me and tell me I need to do things, I completely freeze up. If painting was my job, I probably wouldn’t like it that much.
I know that you’re also a writer. What are you working on now?
I really hand up on writing. I decided that I need to stop before doing something stupid!
You’ve got very interesting sounding songs. What is the songwriting process like?
It’s a very spontaneous process. When we make albums, we tend to go to the studio with very little at the stage when the songs are just verse and chords. This is like carrying a tape record with me saying “hey, this is how this song sounds.” The lyrics are being written after the songs are recorded, so I just sing and see how it comes out.
You were recording your previous album in an interesting way - first you recorded guitars and keyboard by yourself and only then Jason recorded drums. How did it work out on “Church Mouth?”
Zach and I laid down pretty basic tracks and Jason just wrote beats - that’s how it was done, really spontaneous. We didn’t want to use drum machine too often and so we asked Jason to work with us. He is in another band called Konami Defense System, but they didn’t really want to tour while he wanted to. We asked him to play on the album and it worked out really well - he’s a really cool guy and a great drummer. After jamming and playing live it was unnecessary for us to go back to drum machines.
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| "There is such a lack of long-term bands now." |
What was it like recording wit the producer Casey Bates? I’ve heard that he has a big drinking problem…
Hahaha he really doesn’t! I mess with that sometimes while doing interviews. He’s a really good guy and he did a lot with our first record, we became really good friends. I hang out at his place most of the time when I’m in Portland, Oregon. This time around he was really bored with everything and he really made me push the vocals, which is one of the biggest changes on this record besides the programming and drum machines. I had a real lack of confidence in my voice and my vocals 'cause I’ve never been to do school or trained. But Casey pushed me and kicked everybody out of the studio, hid me in the back room and he made me sing as loud as I could. He also gave us advises on other things like lyrics, equipment - things that most producers don’t do.
What is your equipment?
Zach and I both play Fender guitars and amps, but for the most stuff we don’t care about what we play so much. Everything that we own was very cheap - we just buy what works! I’m pretty lucky I play Fender bass and cab, it sounds great, but I got it for $125! That is insane, normally that stuff is $800! Zach likes vintage equipment - he’s got a crazy Fender Precision bass that is 80’s Peavey. It’s a very cool-looking bass - cream color with bright white - I’ve never seen a bass like that one and it sounds very good!
I read in one interview you did about a year ago that you slept in a van outside the house…
No, I’m not doing this anymore! We’re still touring constantly, but Zach’s brother lives in town now - he goes in school in Portland, so I can stay at his place. It’s all because of the amount of touring that we do - it just doesn’t make any sense to pay $500 a month for an apartment.
Something else you would want to talk about?
I don’t know! We just had such a good time doing this album together and playing shows has just been really great. Just to know that there is still a big music community out there. There is such a lack of long-term bands now. I think it’s funny to listen to 100 best songs of all times. Half of the list is always the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young. There’s really a handful of artists now, but who can you choose out of this year’s musicians? There are not a lot of long-term bands! But maybe 10 yeas ago people were whining about the same things! Maybe in five or ten years I would think how great it was back in 2007! It’s just funny to watch music changes year to year.
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