Portugal. The Man: anti-Palin and proud

“We’re not a political band,” explains John Baldwin Gourley, lead singer of psych-rockers Portugal. The Man. “It’s just—that’s our hometown. Just the whole thing makes me sick to my stomach.”

Gourley is explaining why, as a former resident of Wasilla, Alaska, he felt compelled to post a long blog entry on his band’s Web site in September, criticizing his fellow Wasilla native, Sarah Palin. In the post, the usually laid-back singer-guitarist delivers a long and impassioned critique of his town’s former mayor, insisting that her stances on issues ranging from abortion to sport hunting to library censorship do not represent “the Alaska I know.”

Despite its title, “Censored Colors,” the new album from Portugal. The Man (yes, there is a period after “Portugal”), is a lot less political than Gourley’s recent blog. Instead, P.TM’s third album finds the group—Gourley, fellow Wasilla native Zachary Scott Carothers, and a rotating cast of supporting musicians—broadening their bluesy, proggy palette to include everything from Beatlesque pop to solemn folk-rock.

Between tour stops in Europe, Gourley phoned us to discuss his band’s tireless work ethic, his new “Star Trek” tattoo, and his family’s really random Palin connection.

I think it was almost exactly a year ago that I was interviewing you about your previous album, “Church Mouth,” and you’re already putting out another one. Your turnaround time is putting other bands to shame.
You know what’s mind-blowing to me? The fact that every interview we’ve done, they’ve been like, “A record a year? Really?” It makes sense to me. A fucking year is a long time. It’s actually really frustrating to see that it is such an odd thing today. Over here in Germany, we’d gotten a bunch of press for “Church Mouth,” but we actually got turned down for a lot of interviews and features, because “Church Mouth” just came out in their eyes.

When you were working on “Censored Colors,” were you trying to do anything that you had never done before?
Yeah, that’s kind of become the point of this band. This time around, the main thing we wanted to do was really focus on the songwriting, just because we’re all pop kids when it comes down to it. So I went out and got a Beatles songbook, just for the sake of learning chords. It was so much fun. I have to say, this was probably the most fun we’ve had in the studio.

You guys have kind of a unique stage set-up: you turn your mike stand sideways so you’re looking across the stage, at the rest of the band. How did that come about?
I think the first time we did that was on the tour with Circa Survive, and it was just because we had people coming up and jamming with us…[who] didn’t know the songs, exactly. It was more for the sake of that. And I’ve always had really weird social anxiety, and it just became so much easier for me. Because I have be honest—if I just look out [at the audience] and it’s the wrong night or the wrong combination of things, I’ll just have crazy panic attacks. It really helped me get into it and just have a good time.

For a guy who sometimes has panic attacks in front of audiences, you sure spend a lot of time in front of them. You guys tour all the time.
Well, just the families that Zach and I come from are really hard-working families. The main thought with it for all of us is just, if we’re going to be in a band, we should be working like you would normally work.

You and Zach are both from a little town in Alaska that’s been getting a lot of attention.
[Laughs] Yeah.

I gather that, as a former resident of Wasilla, Alaska, you are not a Sarah Palin fan?
Yeah, that’s a safe bet.

What is it about her that you don’t like?
Just everything that she represents. When she came into office, they made this big deal out of her firing all the corrupt people. So who gets the jobs that were just all opened up? It ends up, it’s all people from her church. They get the jobs at the hospital and they get abortion out of the hospital; [they] pretty much enforced their own rules. I’ll always be the first to say: we’re not a political band. We’re not into voicing opinions on things like this. It’s just—that’s our hometown.

I wonder what she would think of Portugal. The Man’s music?
I’m sure she would not like it. [Laughs] It was so funny: when that all came out about her daughter being pregnant? The father of the baby, his name is Levi, and my brother’s name is Levi—and my family just started getting calls like crazy. “Oh, is he the dad?” It was so hilarious.

I understand you have a new tattoo of a “Star Trek” insignia. I take it you’re a big fan?
I would say so.

So are there any hidden “Star Trek” references in your songs?
I don’t even know if I could go about doing that. We just haven’t written a “space” record yet. “Waiter: You Vultures!” [P.TM's first album] was a little bit more political and “Church Mouth” was religion and this was record was respect and understanding of the people we live with. And yeah, the next record should just be “space.” A whole record about space.

I’m sure a lot of your fans would love that.
You know, all the links on our old Web site were all the cast of the original “Star Trek.” It was just all their names—there were eight links, so it ended up being perfect.

So you’d click on “Spock” and it would go to your tour dates?
No, no—that was Scotty.