You listened so many times "Feel It Still” on the radio and you’ve been wondering who is Portugal. The Man! The band released their eight studio album, ‚"Woodstock”, last year, and the single "Feel It Still" was a succes in Romania. We interviewed Zach Carothers from Portugal.The Man, and he told us more about their story and how it feels having a Grammy!
Hi! What colour are you wearing today? Purple, Yellow, Red or Blue?
I’m all black today . We are matching many colors on tour! I love all these colors from our song, but my favorite is blue!
It’s still Valentine’s Day and I was thinking that we should make a romantic interview. What do you think?
Absolutely! It’s a fantastic idea!
If I want to impress a guy, what song should I send him from Portugal the Man?
If the guy knows our band, I’ll chose one of the heaviest, a deep cut, maybe „All Your Light”. It’s one of my favorite songs!
Well, my favorite is "Feel It Still", and I’ve always been wondering, why did you choose for the lyrics the years 1966 and 1986?
First of all they rhyme! That was the major part of it! There are a few specific reasons, but in general the idea was going back and shouting out about the generation that changed everything; 1966 was a huge year for civil right movements in America, and abroad there were a lot of discovering things going on, that are still going on now in the world.
But we are also shouting at the 1986, because that’s the moment when the hip hop became popular in New York, specifically the Beastie Boys, who released „Fight For Your Right To Party” in 1986. We wrote the lyric „A rebel just for kicks”, when we were working with Mike D himself, so it’s kind of a tribute for The Beastie Boys.
This song brought you in the charts next to Justin Bieber! What was your reaction when you saw your name there?
Hahaha! That was crazy! We knew we had a good song in our hands, we added some special things to it, but nobody could assume that song would do so good like it did. I’m 36 and I’m from Alaska and I’m in the charts next to Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber and that’s crazy! It’s really wild! We won a Grammy! It’s still unreal!
Where do you keep the trophy?
We don’t have it yet! If you get a Grammy, you’ll have to wait for the trophy, because everybody is using the same one for the pictures, which is very heavy and blank, without a name written on it.
After that, you’ll have to wait for almost two months, because they handmake every statue and they send it to you. I don’t know where I will put it, but I’ll probably give the Grammy to my mom. Or maybe I’ll keep it for a while, but I’m not sure.
But you’ll have to promise me you will share a picture with the original Grammy!
Of course! I can’t wait!
On the album „Woodstock” there’s another great song, called „Live In The Moment”, which is on the soundtrack of FIFA 2018! Is anyone from the band interested in video games?
Absolutely! John is very very into video-games, but we’re not playing a lot of sport video games. I know a lot of people who love this kind of games, so for us is something huge to have a song used for FIFA! When I was a kid, living in Alaska, I didn’t have internet, so I discovered all the great songs from movies, snowboard videos or videogames.
We started with Super-Mario here!
Oh, it was really popular in Alaska! How is Romania, by the way? I have watched every single version of Dracula, the creation of Bram Stoker. So Romania looks like a really fascinating place!
If you’re looking for vampires, I’m sure you’ll find some attractive creatures here! Do you have Romania on your touring list?
We don’t have anything booked yet, but Romania is a place I’ve wanted to visit my entire life, so we should come there as soon as we can! I would make a call in a few minutes and I will ask my guys to keep their ears open, because it’s an amazing country and I really wanna go there!
You like Romania, but you named your band Portugal.The Man! Have you ever been to Portugal or is anyone from the band with latin roots?
Not really, we have been to Portugal, but not before we named our band Portugal.The Man.
The idea was to create a fictional character, just like David Bowie did with Ziggy Stardust. We will always be a band, we will never be one person, so we decided to name our band after a country.
A country is one name, one group of people, one voice in the world, and we tought that Portugal will be a cool name for our „guy”. We have been to Portugal a few times, is an amazing country, with very nice people!
In an interview you described your band as „the old freshmen”. Why do you feel like that?
Haha! I remember that interview, it was for the Grammys! You gotta remember we are very good at being self aware, we know our place, but there are a lot of people who pay attention at what you wear or what you say. Nobody cares about us! Even if we won a big category, we had to remember this party was for Bruno Mars, Beyonce, Jay-Z and we were kind of the awkward fashioned at the senior prom! We were like a small fish in a big pond that night, so I’ve tried to tell my guys there’s no reason to worry.
Mike D from The Beastie gave us the same advice, because we called him and ask him what to do at the Grammys and he said : „you don’t have to do anything, just be yourself!”, so that’s what we did!
I need a cool hashtag for this interview! Can you help me with a suggestion?
Wow! Let’s go with #Romania.TheMan!
