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[CLASSIC ROCK] As he glanced around the office where his band had just signed its contract with Atlantic Records, looking at the framed photos of his new labelmates hanging on the wall, Portugal. The Man singer-guitarist John Gourley began to sweat. Four years earlier, he'd moved from tiny Wasilla, Alaska, to Portland, trying to figure out how to make a living as a musician. Now, he and his little psych-pop group were sharing roster space with some of the biggest artists in the history of popular music. No shock, then, that the pressure to produce an album worthy of that lineage nearly destroyed the band. In-fighting, too much partying and 4 am shouting matches with producer John Hill dragged a scheduled six-week recording process out to eight months.
Ironically, things
started to change once Gourley had a talk with Atlantic chairman Craig
Kallman. At the end of the meeting, Kallman told Gourley to just go make
the album he wanted to make. And that's what he did. In the Mountain in the Cloud,
Portugal's major-label debut, is a soaring, swaggering record, fusing
modern pop hooks with the kick of '70s glam rock. Here, Gourley shares
the albums that shaped not only its creation but the band as a whole.
Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon: Gourley admires Pink Floyd's ability to scoop up elements from across the musical spectrum and place them beneath its sprawling psychedelic umbrella. "Eventually, we'll be confident enough to step out and try and do something that actually spans all those things," he says.
Everything by David Bowie: Portugal's chameleonic growth—from art-rock hodgepodge to widescreen psychedelia to chamber pop—is a direct result of its love for the ever-shape-shifting Bowie. "He's part of the reason we started the band," says Gourley, who explains that the group's odd name is partially a tribute to Ziggy Stardust and the idea of a fictitious alter ego that transcends the artist himself.
The Beatles, "The White Album": When In the Mountain engineer Andy Wallace (Nevermind) received the album, he was tasked with making sense of literally hundreds of layered instruments and melodies. "We talked about 'The White Album' because it has these great moments of focus, where it's almost like you're at a concert looking around the room: You're looking at the bassist, now at the guitarist," Gourley says. "We wanted to see this stuff happen, and that's how Andy took on the album."
Wu-Tang Clan, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers): Growing up, Gourley listened mostly to old soul and watched a lot of kung fu movies. So it's obvious why Wu-Tang would strike a chord with him. But what he finds really inspiring about the visionary rap crew is their ability to draw in people who aren't traditional hip-hop fans by just being themselves—a universality he strives to achieve with Portugal. "As tough as they are, I would never say this to their faces," he says, "but they're really a bunch of nerds."
WWeek 2015