Vienna again, nice to have you here one more time. Put off your shoes and feel like home, especially when you don´t have one. Zachary Scott Carothers, basser in Portugal.The Man, talking about touring, money, silhouette art, loops, Hip Hop and why it would be absolutely awesome to work with the RZA.How did you know each other? I red that some of you played in a group called Anatomy of the Ghost as well?
ZACH:We know each other were we started from Alaska. Yeah,John and I were in a band called Anatomy of a Ghost. We know each other from the highschool, while he played a while my in my shity highshool band too. I had no idea that he can sing so we brought him down from organ to sing for that band and we toured for probably a year and a half or so.
When that band broke up, pretty much right after it was done, he had been talking about doing kind of a solo side project thing called Portugal.The Man and I liked to do that thing with him. So we got a couple of guys in Alaska, we moved back and started it. Over the years we lost a few people so we got Jason on drums and Ryan for organ. Actually one of the guys who starte P.TM with us is playing in The Builders & The Butchers tonight. It´s kind of a cool tour right know because they are really good friends of us.
P.TM means also live improvisation. For me a very important point to see the truth qualitys of a band. Do you know some bands which are doing that kind of show live aswell? I was thinking about another band but, equal that I go to a lot of concerts, I don´t remember not even one group.
ZACH:Yeah, we do a lot of that.
Puh, a band?.....no, not totally. We got a few friends that do like little jams but we´ve got kind of a weird thing. Half of it is improved and there´s a lot of jams but some of them are structured. Well, we have like signals and stuff like that when to go into another part or when to get heavier, slower, things like that. There are some structured jams but a lot of them is just improved and it´s fun, you know. It keeps us on the dose of musicans and it´s more interesting. When u play every day a show with nearly the same set, it´s boring for us and boring for the people. So we keep the fun alive with jaming around.
Your new album is called The Satanic Satanist.
You said once, that the title of an album is always the first thing you have. Church Mouth for example seemed to be a album with religious topics, but it wasn´t. How is it with The Satanic Satanist, what´s the signification of it. I know that blues is the work of the devil…
ZACH:I mean, Church Mouth had some undertones. But Johns lyrics are also pretty vague, but actually not if you really know the guy. They are really matter effect but he thinks of everything in a very weird way. It´s the same thing with The Satanic Satanist. We knew that we wanna to do more of a pop orientated record, more straight forward songs and we wanted to be generaly happy and colourful. We thought of a lot, you know , black metal fans who actually not by our album and pretty got bombed out but we haven´t heard pretty much about that so far.
I was listening to the new album a lot of times, got myself also deeper into the lyrics. My result: It´s a record about mother earth. About the truth things that always were and will be and how we fail to respect them. Am I right?
ZACH:Yeah. Pretty much. It´s got a lot of that. A lot of things that John learned growing up between a certain period of time when he was moving around Alaska and this things he learned from his family and such and then kind of puting that into like what´s going on today and stuff, for sure.
What do you think about the popularity of P.TM in europe, especially in Austria and Germany. Why happened the breakthrough here and not in the USA. Is the peoples view of music so different there?
ZACH:This year it´s kind of the same size in both places now, but at first there was Germany with the Visions magazine where they gave us album of the month right away and also Defiance Records, a small recordlabel who liked to release our albums in europe. So they want us to come over and play a tour and we were like „Holy shit, we just put one record out and get to go to europe, that´s so crazy“.
So we came over here to europe and I feel like, especially in Germany and Austria, yeah and Switzerland too, they were very open against our music.
What about the crowd?
ZACH:There aren´t a lot of clicks, there´s not a lot of separation, it´s just, you know, people like what they like. In the states a lot of times when you get to our shows people dresses certain way and there´s certain age group. You know there´s 18 to 28 in almost every show. And it´s different here. We have really young people and we have like 65 or 70 year old couples in our shows.
For sure because your music is not for a special group of ages. It´s for everyone and fullpacked with various styles.
ZACH:Yeah, we all like a lot of different kinds of music, and we never wanna stick to one thing, so growing all the time is a great topic.
You recorded the last album with very vintage equipment. Was this warmer sound intentet or were there suddenly tons of vintage stuff in the studio?
ZACH:No, we knew that. It was awesome. That was on of the reasons that we went there. We never done that before. On all the other records it was all....you know, the equipment that we brought in was a lot of vintage gear, because we use it, and that´s why it was there. But everything they had was Marshall, Mesa Boogie, like brand new stuff, all on Pro Tools and everything and we were like „Ähhhhh, I don´t totally dig that“ and so, we finally forked up enough money to go into a real studio. They just had rooms full of amps. We just got to go in and choose which one we wanted. And I think John played probably fifteen ot twenty amps on the record. And the guys they were working there, they worked in the same spot for like seventeen years. So they know every amp how it´s gonna sound in this room or in this room.
Where was the studio?
ZACH:They are called Camp Street Studios, in Boston. And Paul Q. Kolderie the guy we worked with, also worked on the first Radiohead Record, with the Pixies, he did a lot of stuff in the 90´s. He is so knowledgeable about music and it was a really fun experience. I think we will continue to do that for sure, to go into studios like that.
We just couldn´t ever afforded before, but now since we´re doing a little better we just say that. None of us make any money. We just take all the money we do from touring and we spend it on recording the next album, so that´s just a cycle. So every time we are touring we like to put out a better record, so it´s just fun. Slowly but surely.
I red that u would like to produce an album with the RZA. You said, „That would be the shit“. Why? Is this style of music important for P.TM? What would be your expectations when working with him? I never recognized that Hip Hop or Rap influenced your musik.
ZACH:Oh yeah, that would be awesome. Well, we like Hip Hop a lot but it´s more the production side of Hip Hop, we like doing a lot of beats. We have a new record that is done, that wont be coming out some next year and we´re going in january to do another one. So before the next one even comes out we´ll already have two for the next year, that´s pretty ridiculous. Yeah, and that one is a litte more Hip Hop, it´s far as like the beats go, we used a lot of loops and a lot of samples and stuff like that. But the reason why we like the RZA is meanly when he uses his old 60ties and 70ties soul loops instead of a lot of Hip Hop that uses, you know, really new loops. We´ll like useing the old stuff. You know when he did this work on soundtracks for Tarantino movies, like Kill Bill. Yeah, that´s more the reason why we want work with him. For that just old soul kind of aspect, we think thats really cool. Yeah, we´re big in the soul.
But don´t you think that, when producing the album with RZA, it could sound more like these typically american mainstream thing?
ZACH:Yeah, I dont know if he would. I mean we dont really know. We like to see what he do with it. You know half of it it´s kind of joke, because we don´t know if RZA would ever actually would work with us. You know, he´s not my favourite out of the Wu Tang Clan or anything like that, but I think we could do some cool stuff together. But it might be fun if we could start with an EP or having him do a remix of a couple of songs or something like that. That would be absolutely awesome.
The new artwork is awesome. A silhouette Art. When I look at it, I know, that it wasn´t that easy to realise for sure, because everybody is talking about crises and so on. How had you managed this guys?
ZACH:Oh, it was very expensive. But the thing is that we pay for our own records. We pay for the recording and for the cd packaging. So we have a licencing deal with our label and they chip in a little bit of money but whatever they say, our budget is not that we can do this, but well, we will pay for the rest we can. And we also saved money on a lot of spots, because it is just one piece of cardboard with technically one die - cut. So, if you have an album with on a lot of different things and a lots of cuts on a lot of different pieces of cardboards it´s more expensive. So, they really only charge us for only one die - cut. And there´s no plastic used on at all so we saved money there.
You know, for me this is a very important fact of buying a record. I dont buy that much cd´s, normaly only vinyl, but you´ve done it there as well. How do you prefer listening to music?
ZACH:Yeah, for sure, me too. What sucks is, that I buy them and we´re always on tour, I don´t have a home or anything like that. My record player is in storage since three years and I haven´t touched it. Yeah, and that sucks, because when I am travelling all I got is my mp3 player, but I am excited that I actually get a place. We´re thinking about that we actually getting an apartment this winter. I am pretty excited.
So, you don´t have an apartment or anything in Portland right now?
ZACH:No, I don´t own a bed, I don´t own a tv. We live on tour, yeah pretty much.
So that´s the reason for going on tour aswell?
ZACH:Well, we love it. But it´s always busy, you know and if we´re not on tour, we are recording. And when we do have time off, I stay with friends. It does never really made sense having a home, you know. I could maybe afford it, maybe (laughing), but you know when I am gone ten month of the year and I am paying for a whole year, it´s kind of weird.
It kind of sucks, when we pull back into town and like, ähhmm, we´re coming back home on 9th of december and it´s kind of weird because it´s like „Wow, home, finally I haven´t been here for month, I am gonna go to get a hotel room actually“ That sucks!
And an austrian hotel for a couple of days we´ll not need to find. We´ll organize a couch to sleep on or something like that.
What about experiences with drugs. How are they!? I ask this, because when I look to your artwork, the music, the relases every year, the colours, this question cames automatically to me. Austria and Germany are defenitelly to much conservative in these things. Had you ever problems with drugs over here?
ZACH:Last time we played here, we pulled over outside of Munich, and they found like the tiniest little bit of weed in the bag from our drummer and he went to jail. We like almost missed a show, he had to take a train over here, it was pretty terrible. We don´t do that many drugs. I mean I have when I was a kid, but basicly I don´t function on it very well and we don´t want to carry, espescially after the last time, so – no pot in the band. I dont accomplish anything really, I used to. When I was younger I could do whatever drug and I could like go to work, could do things. If I get stoned now, I don´t wanna do anything, and I always got so much shit to do, you know. We are always recording, always touring, I always have to talk to people or play a show. And I can´t do any of that stuff when I am high. I´d like to a little bit in the future, but also it kind of feels weird, I feel I can getting at this point, I don´t know, where I am to old for it. But it´s kind of weird because I am from Alaska and live in Portland and a lot of people do drugs in both those places, but never any bad drugs. Usually it´s just like weed or very lite illusitions that we did in the past.
So, drugs are not the reason for your colour explosions on the albums?
ZACH:Drugs had nothing to do with that. Honestly, I think what probably is, we´re influenced by art that was influenced by drugs. Or sometimes you never been know. I just red an interview about Pink Floyd. And apparently Pink Floyd didn´t do any drugs. I was like „ What the fuck!“ – That´s what got me into drugs when I was a kid was Pink Floyd. I was kind of disappointed. I got plenty of bad advices, but not drugs.
Last Question: Where will you stay during Christmas
ZACH:Well, we´re going back to Alaska. I will stay in my mum´s house for a while, over the holidays. I always go back and stay with mum, that´s cool. We´re big on family.
Thanks so much for the interview. Here are some sweets called "Tortenecken". You have to try it. Have fun!
ZACH:Wow, you´re crazy. We love sweets. Thanks. See you after the show.
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