Portugal. The Man, which will perform at Rams Head Live tonight, started out life as a side project of an earlier band. According to bassist Zach Carothers, that earlier band – Anatomy of a Ghost, which included Portugal. The Man vocalist John Gourley – was more of a straight collaboration.
“Every single person in that band brought a little piece of what they want to play,” Carothers said. “One kid brought metal, another guy brought classic rock, another guy brought hardcore. John and I were a bit more artsy pop kids.”
The competing group of interests and influences, however, never really hit it off.
“Towards the end of that band, everyone realized that they wanted to do their own separate things,” he said. “We all just decided to call it quits, and make music we really wanted to make instead of collaborating and making kind of a mess of it.”
Gourley had another project brewing by that point. He and Carothers left Anatomy of a Ghost to form Portugal. The Man, so named after the band’s alter ego.
“We loved how people like David Bowie portrayed a fictional character like Ziggy Stardust,” Carothers said. “We worked as one person, though. So, we figured that a country is one name for one group of people with one voice in the world.”
The years since have seen a rise in the band’s popularity and numerous changes, both to the lineup and to the organization of the band.
“We’re just still kind of figuring it out,” he said. “There’s a constant learning curve to what we’re doing. We like to think that we’re getting better at writing songs and finding our niche, finding exactly what we want to do.”
The band is constantly finding new sources of inspiration – Carothers cited a mix of music listened to in his and Gourley’s childhoods and the band’s experiences on tour across the world.
“We’re lucky enough to have this job, experiencing different things and different cultures, talking to different people about different subjects,” he said. “We like a whole lot of different music, and we try to incorporate all of those.”
Portugal. The Man has started working on its eighth, currently unnamed, album. The band, according to Carothers, is considering playing some of the new material in Baltimore, although the album is far from complete.
“We’re definitely taking our time with this one. I don’t know if we’ll have an album out by the end of the year,” Carothers said. “The stuff we’re writing is a little more punk rock, a little more aggressive.”
Portugal. The Man will play at Rams Head Live tonight at 8 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20.
chzhang@umdbk.com
