Portugal The Man
Posted May 8, 2007, by Big Hoss.
www.portugaltheman.net
www.myspace.com/portugaltheman
Big Hoss: What are your names and positions in the band?
John: I sing and play guitar.
Zack: I play the bass.
Jason: I play drums.
Big Hoss: How did you guys come up with your band name?
John: Well… the band some what started as a project where I was just going to write a bunch of songs and release them but I always knew it was going to be a band and Zack and I pretty much started it together so it was always going to be a band and needed a group of people, so we wanted to kind of give it that solo cost feel like almost creating a person for us like David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust and all that.
Zack: So we uhh wanted to create a character, but we wanted his name to represent the whole band.
John: So yeah we picked a country, Portugal was just a random choice it just sounded good, it just really had to be a country in the world haha.
Big Hoss: What genre is your music?
John: Uhh I wouldn’t know how to classify it what would you say Jason?
Jason: I would just call it rock and roll with twist of this and that.
Big Hoss: Do you guys have any previous band names?
Zack: No this has always been Portugal.
Big Hoss: How many members in the band are original members?
John: I guess you can say us three are original members.
Zack: Yeah
Jason: But there’s been some coming and going with 4 or 5 people in the past couple of years.
John: We pretty much play with anybody who wants to play with the band can come on tour and play, for the most part you don’t even have to know the parts you would just play what you feel for the song, and that’s been going really well for the most part since we did the first record its been us three.
Big Hoss: What’s the most famous venue you would want to play?
Zack: That we want to play?
Jason: I would like to play the Greek Theater.
Zack: Red Rocks.
Big Hoss: What was your best and worst venue to play at?
John: WOW…. Haha.
Zack: There has been so many worst.
John: I don’t know worst for this band, I know Victorville was the worst, we played this venue and the promoter was like yelling at us the whole time I mean we didn’t even play like the dude was shouting at us it was pretty bad and best I don’t know.
Zack: There’s been a lot of best like the glasshouse, the troubadour was awesome the guy who runs SOMA is like super cool.
John: And just about everywhere in Germany.
Big Hoss: What is one band you guys would one day want to open up for?
John: Id say Flaming Lips would be awesome! And Rage Against the Machine.
Big Hoss: Why do you guys play music in general?
Jason: Well for me it just became the only thing I could pay attention to so I figured id go with it for the next nine million years.
John: I think there’s so many bands playing now that music feels like its completely over run with the same sound and I personally wanted to play in a band that I wanted to hear.
Big Hoss: What inspires most of your lyrics?
John: A lot of politics and religious stuff.
Big Hoss: Where do you want your band to be in 5 years?
Zack: At the bottom hahaha.
John: No at the top and just five records deep not even five, seven records deep in five years.
Zack: We just want to keep putting out as many records as we can and keep going.
Big Hoss: where have you been playing and how has your response been?
Zack: Lately its been mid-west and uhh and the response is always a little bit iffy, the last few shows have been down here in California and the response has been really good actually for us.
Big Hoss: What instruments can each of the members play besides the ones they play in the band?
John: Like confidently? Hahaha I can pretty much pick up any thing any play it but I just play guitar and bass.
Zack: I play a couple of horns, but I can barley play a lot of stuff.
Big Hoss: Any funny or interesting stories wile on tour?
Zack: Ummm Nope nothing ever happens to us.
Big Hoss: What do you guys do for work besides the band?
Zack: John does some design stuff and lay out stuff every now and then but besides that we don’t do any thing.
Jason: Im a professional party animal hahah.
Big Hoss: What were some of your favorite bands growing up?
Zack: The Beatles, Zeppelin, we all listen to a lot of classic rock growing up I listened to a lot of pop to like Michael Jackson I love that stuff.
Big Hoss: How old were you guys when you started playing your instruments?
Zack: Bass, I only started like 4 years ago, I started playing saxophone when I was like ten but I got more in to rock and roll in high school.
John: I seriously started playing guitar when we started our first record hahaha.
Big Hoss: How many times have you been on tour?
John: We have been touring nonstop since January.
Zack: About a year and a half nonstop, its got sometimes good sometimes bad, or our vans breaking down a lot but we always have a good time, we make the best of things.
Big Hoss: What do you guys do to keep your self’s busy on the road?
John: I watch movies.
Jason: I have my headphones on all day for like four hours.
Zack: Movies, music, and books, I do a lot of looking out the window to.
Big Hoss: Do you have any advice for bands about to go on tour for there first time?
Zack: Uhhhhhh yeah……… maintain your van because if you don’t you will hate it and it will keep you from doing things and be ready to be driving a lot and no sleep.
Big Hoss: What’s your latest cd?
Zack: The latest one we recorded we just finished it and it’s called "church mouth" and it will be out on july 24th and we are all really excited about this one.
Big Hoss: How did you guys come up with the title?
John: It comes along with all the lyrics.
Big Hoss: How was recording for you guys did it feel long or short?
John: They did it pretty quick but it was long in the beginning but then it got faster.
Big hoss: Do you like how it came out?
Zack: Oh yea we are real proud of it.
Big Hoss: Where can you get the cd?
Zack: Probly most mom and pop stores and best buy, borders and stuff like that, you can get it almost everywhere.
