Project Description

Interview with

ERIC HOWK

from

PORTUGAL. THE MAN

30/04/18

Interviewer – Karen Lowe

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Portugal. The Man are in Australia for Groovin The Moo for the first time since 2014 with their new album Woodstock and Eric Howk took the time to discuss the video for Feel It Still, the highs and lows of touring and dreams of being the first band on the moon with our Interviewer, Karen Lowe.

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You guys are in Australia for Groovin’ The Moo. How have the first shows gone so far?

I have to say, this is my favourite kind of touring. For the next week or so, we are staying in Sydney but every morning, we drive out to the site and set up shop and set up the stage.

When you do that, we are taking these charter buses but in the States; the way touring normally works is, we play shows super late at night and then drive at like two or three in the morning in a bus with no windows up to the next city. You don’t get to experience any of that countryside.

Last night, pulling out of Canberra, I saw the most beautiful sunset that I have ever seen in my life. Just being able to wake up in the morning; get your coffee and just being able to drive through the countryside and see kangaroos in fields; it’s just such a beautiful geography. It’s rad!

Not to mention but just the crowds at Groovin’ The Moo so far have been super, super enthusiastic – like killer, killer crowds. Like, knowing every word to the songs and partying and having a good time. It’s a blast. These have been some of my favourite crowds to look at. It’s killer. I love it. I love the festival. I’m sold on it!

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You guys would have seen so much while being on tour. What are some of the stranger things that you have seen? And have there been any special moments that stand out in your mind?

Oh man, that’s one of those things people always throw out the question “what’s the craziest thing you’ve done or seen on tour” and when you’re kinda asked that point blank you’re like “ahhhh…gosh I don’t know.” It all kind of blends in together but then I’ll just be telling a story where I’m just casually mentioning the way things work and they’re like wait! So every single night you guys drink like, four whiskey bottles a night; you party until super late at night and you meet all these crazy people and then you pack it all up and you go to the next city?

I’m like yeah but that’s just work! (laughs) I don’t know man, there’s like a crazy, two-way high and low to where we are at right now. That’s always been the nature of being a touring performer but I was thinking back to this situation earlier this year where I got this hot celebrity’s phone number one night and ate at a Michelin star restaurant and had this crazy time in LA. The very next day of tour, after sleeping in this incredibly awesome hotel bed; the very next day I had Pringles potato chips for dinner and slept on a bench.

The difference between the highs and lows just seem really sweeping and become a little bit bigger than before we had this little measure of success that we are going through. It’s all crazy and we all have the traveller’s spirit. We all do this for a reason and I think part of that is just to travel, check out different cultures and seeing crazy stuff. That’s what it’s all about for us.

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Have you taken risks in your career that could have potentially destroyed the band?

Wow! That’s a heavy duty question! (laughs) Yes. Every, single night. Someone takes some kind of risk that could ruin everything and end up in jail and derail the entire thing. We’re all idiots but hopefully, we can all keep an eye on each other and no one individual derails the hard work of a dozen people.

Move that notion of taking it to the artistic, I think any time you put your time and energy into a single song or a single idea and you float it out there, that’s somewhat of a risk but the thing is about this band that is a little bit different than a lot of people that operate in this same sphere is, we’ve just been doing it for so long and there’s kind of a safety cushion where you put out a record – like, if we had put out Feel It Still and it bombed, we would have still toured for 50 days, 300 days this year because the band’s been doing that for a decade.

It doesn’t really matter how big that stage is or how bright the lights are the job description is always going to remain the same. That being said, what a crazy year we’ve had! The number of doors that Feel It Still has opened is incredible. We are definitely not blind to it and I am incredibly grateful to that song for taking me around the world and opening the doors and showing me the big stage is there. It’s just incredible.

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If you guys had a choice in venues, would you rather play over several nights in smaller, more intimate venues or play the big arena shows and why?

We always love the challenge of taking our arena sized production – like, all the lights; all the lasers; all the system; all the sound and all the glitz and hacking all that into as compact and intimate a place as we can. I think that’s the mood. You can have a stadium sized show in a 500 person club – that’s going to melt so many more faces than Section 324, Row Z in a 20,000 person whatever.

It also bears to mention that it’s so much more fun saying that you sold out four nights in a row at this place than playing a 20,000 person arena with 6,000 people in it. That is a lonely, empty feeling having a giant stadium that is a third full.

It’s crazy because that’s the population of a city in there. That’s still 6,000 people but when you look around and you see all the empty sections; you feel the emptiness more than you feel the energy of that. We would go with a smaller room, jam-packed to the gills any day of the week. No question.

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It’s so much more fun anyway – getting up close and personal with everyone.

Yeah exactly. We still do that. We try and do nothing but over-sell tours in the States where it’s one thing to say you’ve sold out a room but if you can say that you’ve sold out an entire tour – that’s the move. We always try and stick with the places that we know and we love to make it more of an event. If it’s sold out and bursting at the seams, we’ll add a second night. That’s cool.

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You have toured many places now and many different countries. What’s the one place that you haven’t toured that you would really love to get to one day?

Antarctica. (laughs) No actually, we are able to go a lot of those places this year. We are playing Russia for the first time. We are playing Moscow and Warsaw and the Czech Republic for the first time and Norway and Sweden and Japan too.

We are playing in some really fun spots. I think Russia has always been on my list as I just remember those old Scorpion videos from the 80s and Gorky Park. I think that’s rad. Weirdly too, Russia was, early on in the release of this record was one of the first countries to super, super jump on it and we got our first Gold record in Russia. They’ve been rooting for us hard and no one has ever stepped foot there. It’s going to be a fun year.

I would still love to be the first band on the moon. That’s something that everyone should work towards. Every working band should be working to be the first band on the moon.

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