Portugal the Man performed at the Troubadour in Hollywood March 21st with a remarkable opening line up of Flobots, Wild Orchid Children and Foxy Shazam. I was lucky enough to catch an interview with the quintet and its "fresh face" Ryan Neighbors, the band's additional member and keyboardist. We gathered around upstairs in a muggy room as we plopped our bodies beside one another. I introduced myself allowing them to shake my clammy palms and began the interview.

Kimberly Haddad: How did the band come together and how did you decide to go in this type of musical direction?

Zach Carothers: Well, we all came together at different points really. John and I have been friends since we were younger.

John Gourley: No, we didn't know each other. We were never friends (laughs).

Zach: Yeah, we weren't friends (laughs), you're such a liar! Um, back in Alaska, we kinda started this project but we wanted to add some live drums and so when we moved down to Portland to get more into the actually playing music because you can't really do anything in Alaska, we met Jason and stole him from his band and a year and a half or so later we found Ryan and stole him from his band too. We steal band members (laughs).

Kimberly: And how did you choose this musical direction?

John: I think we just started playing right?

Zach: Yeah, we didn't really decide which way we wanted to go, it just kinda came out ya know? It came out naturally.

John: Yeah I think that's pretty obvious in the records too.

Kimberly: Is this the first time you guys play here at the Troubadour?

Zach: Uh no we've played here several times, we really like this place a lot.

Kimberly: So how do you think tonight's gonna go?

John: Awesome.

Zach: Yeah it's gonna be really, really, really good.

Ryan: Yeah it's gonna be the first night I play all three keyboards at once.

John: Yea, they'll all be working.

Ryan: Yep.

Kimberly: I read on your online journal that you kids are working on a new album on your own? What made you chose this approach?

John: Ah, it came out a lot different. I guess we finished the music, it's still gonna get mixed and actually Kirk Huffman the singer of Wild Orchid Children and Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground produced it with the cello player and it was just a really good time I think. We just finished our contract with Fearless and it was either sit home for three weeks or make a new record with the little sack of money we had saved over all last year. So we just kinda went for it. I mean we're not necessary against labels, we're just doing it regardless. So, shit.

Zach: We just don't happen to have one at the moment. Yeah we're not against them, we're just in between labels (laughs).

John: Yeah, we have our own label, the best label in the whole wide world! We don't listen to our labels much anyways.

Zach: Yeah, it's just more expensive (laughs).

Kimberly: So do you guys have a release date in mind?

John: Honestly I don't think any of us know exactly how it works. I imagine the record should be coming out the second we finish recording it. Every time we get done recording I imagine that the next week we will release a record. But I guess it takes a lot of time to mix and master and production and all the stuff. So yea it'll be out in like two years or something (laughs).

Kimberly: What is your song writing and recording process? Do you guys write lyrics first and then music or vice versa? Do you guys agree on your decisions or have specific roles for each member to make the process easier?

Zach: First off, we never ever agree on anything. And Uh, I don't know, we pretty much don't write anything before we're in the studio, um, most of the time John will come up with some riffs and the whole skeleton of the song and come up with melodies and guitar lines and then we all just start building off that. Honestly, John probably does lyrics the very last thing. We usually have about a chorus and a verse and that's about it. Then he freestyles.

John: Yeah I don't write my shit down. I don't need to (laughs).

Ryan: Yeah um, I usually learn the lyrics about five months later.

John: I actually had to change my lyrics! Ryan starting touring with us last summer and for about a month I just started singing the words he was singing every night cause I was like fuck, does he really not know the lyrics to this?

Zach: Good job Ryan.

Kimberly: I read that the band name came from David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust?

John: Do we even listen to David Bowie?

Ryan: Did the name even come from the song?

Zach: It didn't come from the song, it came from the whole idea of Ziggy Stardust. We lie all the time. We've gotten pretty good at answering it now.

John: I feel like we've answered it so many times but we never get it better.

Kimberly: Ok answer it for me and let's see what you come up with this time.

Zach: Well, I'll do it.

Ryan: I just say what you say, I don't have my own version. It's an alter ego of Ziggy Stardust.

Zach: We liked the way solo projects looked, like James Brown. It just sounded so bad ass but we didn't like to name it any of our names so we totally did the whole fake character like Ziggy Stardust and um, fuck you guys, like fuck you!

(Rest of band laughing at him)

Zach: I know what you're getting at! Assholes. Um, it takes too long to say.

John: Can we go to the country part, the reason we chose the country?

Zach: No.

John: Portugal was completely chosen at random, it just sounded best as a person's name ya know, it worked the best. But we chose a country as the guy's name because a country is a group of people like my group in some ways. Wait, I don't want to finish this, you could finish this.

Zach: That's about pretty much the end.

Kimberly: What are some of your other influences?

Jason Sechrist: Personal listening tastes? ... I like a lot of sixties and seventies rock music. Um, hip-hop here and there.

Zach: We did some Kool Keith today. Good fun drive. We have a pretty wide selection of shit in the van.

John: I've been loving Van Morrison lately, so good, and the Beatles.

Ryan: I listen to The Band a lot.

Zach: I've been listening to The Decemberists a lot lately.

John: Rage Against the Machine, we just listened to them too.

Kimberly: Aw, I was listening to them on my way out here.

Ryan: Yeah? Getting amped for the interview?

Kimberly: Yeah man, I saw them at Coachella last year.

Zach: I saw that. My mom flew out from Alaska to see it and my little brother came out too, it was fucking awesome.

Kimberly: So, John, tell me a little more about your artwork.

John: I normally do things for friends and I don't charge anybody for anything I've done really. Like random shirts here and there for bands and stuff like that but that's it. I don't know, I've always really liked doing it but it came out kind of out of necessity cause we couldn't afford to get someone else to do the shit anyway. And I feel like I've gotten into it enough where I've gotten really good at it and have a good time with it so I'll probably always do it.

Kimberly: You guys all from Alaska?

Zach: No, just me and John are.

Kimberly: How is it living there?

Zach: It's great, it's awesome.

Kimberly: You guys go back?

Zach: Oh yeah. We go back two or three times a year. I mean there's not a whole lot to do there but there's a lot of outside stuff like fishing and camping, it's a good place.

John: Hunting, shooting.

Kimberly: Did you guys see 30 Days of Night?

Zach: (laughs) yes.

Kimberly: I had to ask.

Zach: I like any vampire movie there is. OK. I don't care what it is.

Kimberly: You guys obviously have a long few months of touring ahead of you. How do you guys deal with that?

Zach: It gets stressful but we've been doing this long enough that we know all that shit. We know when things are gonna get hard and when each one of us are gonna flip out. We all flip out at different times.

John: Yeah Ryan flips out once a month.

Zach: Ryan just cries every night.

Ryan: I don't cry actually, I sweat. My eyes sweat.

John: "Aww my eyes are sweating, I'm nervous!" (laughs)

Kimberly: That's really funny, I'm so gonna use that one day.

Ryan: Yeah, remember who said it first! You have to quote it.

Kimberly: Oh I will... What's your favorite part about being in a band?

Zach: Playing live is pretty rewarding. All the weird experiences and creepy gas stations you go to at two in the morning in the middle of nowhere. The parties you go to, the people you meet. You just get a lot of experience. A lot of it's bad but a lot of it is good.

Jason: The best worst time of your life it's called.

Zach: Yeah.

Ryan: That's the first thing Jason said to me.

Jason: Is that really?

Ryan: No! (laughs) "Hey dude I'm Ryan, it's the best worst time of your life."

Kimberly: Any last words for your fans?

John: We're all thinking of the worst things to say right now (laughs). Anything you wanna say to your fans Ryan?

Ryan: Keep on rockin' in the free world! (laughs)

Zach: The end.

Ryan: Thank you for the support over the years, we really appreciate it, seeing your fresh faces at the show every night, the smiles (pauses) OK.

Kimberly: You guys make me laugh.