Portugal. The Man: ‘We’ve been working with Jeff Bhasker in LA, who is just an absolute genius’ – Music News

Portugal. The Man’s Zach Carothers and Lucy Dacus join Hanuman Welch on the latest episode of ALT CTRL Radio on Apple Music 1. Zach tells Apple Music about the group’s return with new single “What, Me Worry?”, working with Jeff Bhasker, and looking forward to upcoming live shows. Later in the episode Lucy Dacus calls in to discuss her new single “Kissing Lessons” and the possibility of new music from Boygenius.

Zach From Portugal. The Man Tells Apple Music About Taking Time To Return With A New Body of Work Due To Health Issues In The Band and The Pandemic…
We had been working on a whole record and then suddenly the world changed and you know, the world just changes so fast and it moves so fast. It’s really hard to write music and then wait for times to get vinyl and put it out into the world. And so we kind of realised that we have to somehow tie in very topical current events, but also just do stuff that’s timeless within us, and real, and yeah, we had some issues for a while. John had this issue with his jaw, where he ended up having a bunch of procedures done over the last couple years while we had time, and he was just in a lot of pain and singing was horrible for him. Yeah, it was rough. And we didn’t really notice, because you know, when you just get a little bit every day and you know, at my age, anytime something hurts, I’m just like, “Oh, this is just how life is now.” But turns out it was a lot more and he spent a couple years kind of correcting it. But during that time he started writing more and we started talking more. We really had the space to process things.

Zach From Portugal. The Man Tells Apple Music About Working With Jeff Bhasker and That “What, Me Worry?” Is A Taste Of The Full Forthcoming Album…
So yeah, we’ve been working with Jeff Bhasker in LA, who is just an absolute genius and just incredibly smart and intellectual. We’re still idiots, but it’s nice to hang around really smart people. We get into very deep conversations and just try to find the story in everything. And so we started making some and What? Me Worry is a very important part of the story in the album to come… his musical brain is unbelievable and just so inspiring and so fun, and we had a great time doing it.

Zach From Portugal. The Man Tells Apple Music About Longevity and Looking Forward To Live Shows…
People always ask like, “Oh, what’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you guys? What’s the most wild thing?” And I’m always like, staying together. I can’t believe we stayed together this long because it isn’t always easy. we wrote an album that was intended to be played live, because that’s what we missed at the time we were writing it, and so every song on there, even some can be slower and down, but it all is meant for us to be played live and have a certain energy and tell a piece of a story. Can’t wait.

Lucy Dacus Tells Apple Music About “Kissing Lessons”…
It was the first song that I wrote for ‘Home Video and I feel like all the other songs were kind of informed by it. But then once it was all done, I felt like I reached something more interesting than “Kissing Lessons”. Well, not that “Kissing Lessons” isn’t interesting. It’s just like a story that has … It’s really fun and lighthearted whereas like the other songs felt a little more complex. And so when we tried to fit it in the track listing, there was never a moment that felt like we were supposed to have that much fun. There are fun moments on ‘Home Video, but they’re kind of fun within this lush, atmospheric, nostalgic vibe whereas “Kissing Lessons” is less than two minutes and punky and boppy so I was just like, I’ll just put it out as a single, but yeah, I finished it in 2017, so it’s old for me, but it’s actually nice because I came in and out of not liking it that much, but now that it’s out, I’m like, no, this song is good. It’s fun. It’s a likable little tune. I mean, the song is just true. What I say in it is a real story and it is fictionalised by nature of just becoming a two minute song. I feel like everything you write is fiction, like deciding to tell a story in two minutes, you leave out enough that you’ve curated enough facts that the curation itself is like a fiction writing exercise.

Lucy Dacus Tells Apple Music About The Possibility of More New Music From Boygenius…
It is literally your job to ask. So I will answer. We get asked this all the time. No, that’s what I’m saying is everybody asks and we all say, I don’t know. We are each other’s biggest fans, so of course we want to, but there’s no hard plans and we do like to hang out and we do still love each other’s music. So I hope so, but basically dot, dot, dot.

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