Zach Carothers doesn’t remember when exactly everything went off the rails, but somewhere in the haze of fancy studios, half-finished songs, and an expensive bro deal involving Kanye’s bed, Portugal. The Man decided they’d gone soft.
“We got too comfortable,” he says, which is polite code for “we recorded an entire album and threw it in the trash.” The band’s comeback? A reset that ended up giving birth to Woodstock, a record inspired by—you guessed it—an actual Woodstock ticket. “Our singer found it in this old toolbox someone gave him,” Carothers recalls. “I don’t know why it hit so hard, but it did.”
That ratty little stub of counterculture memorabilia was enough to kick the band’s asses back into gear. “We were just four dudes in a basement trying to say something that mattered,” Carothers says. “We’d lost our emotional connection to what we were doing. We had to feel it again.”
Cue “Feel It Still,” the song that became an unavoidable hit, a school cafeteria anthem, and yes, the subject of a Twitter feud with InfoWars. “That escalated quickly,” he admits. “Some people took it way too far. But as artists, you want to make people feel something—even if it’s anger. The worst reaction you can get is indifference.”
It’s a hell of a tightrope: making a socially conscious pop song without sounding like you’re trying to sell protest T-shirts at Urban Outfitters. But Portugal. The Man walked it. “We’re not trying to tell people what to think,” Carothers insists. “We’re trying to get them to think, period.”
The band’s approach isn’t exactly subtle. “We wanted to put together a little kit in the video—like, if you’re wondering where to start, here are a few ideas,” he says, referencing the “Fight the Apathy” message embedded in the interactive “Feel It Still” video. It worked. The band went viral in every direction, gaining both praise and conspiracy theory-level rage.
Carothers isn’t interested in correcting the record anymore. “There’s no way to keep the facts straight,” he sighs. “I’ve done interviews where I say something clear, then read it later and go, ‘That’s not even close to what I meant.’ So now I just try to stay transparent. Do the best I can. Eat from as many sources as possible, and hope at least some of it’s true.”
One early single, “Noise Pollution,” made the final cut for Woodstock, while “Louder Than a Bomb”—a track with other collaborators—didn’t survive the purge. “That was kind of a teaser,” he says. “We dropped it without sending it to radio or doing all the usual crap. It was just, ‘Hey, here’s what we’ve been up to while you’ve been wondering if we broke up.’”
The album’s shape-shifting production credits include a surprising appearance from Mike D of Beastie Boys fame. “I was a kid again,” Carothers admits. “I met one of my heroes and tried not to totally fanboy. But we ended up writing a song that included the lyric ‘feel it still’ that very day. It didn’t become the hit—it was a different track—but that line stuck around.”
Now, Portugal. The Man find themselves in the awkward position of being punk-spirited underdogs who just happen to be Grammy winners with a pop smash. “We’re in the pop world now, whether we want to be or not,” Carothers says. “But we’re not going to stop writing songs with meaning. Catchy is fine. But if you’re not saying anything? What’s the point?”
And don’t worry—they’re not about to go full Sugar Ray. “We still do weird stuff. We’ll party in dive bars after the Grammys. We’ll play Metallica to open for kids who only know us from ‘Feel It Still.’ We keep ourselves in check.”
Just don’t ask them to explain exactly what’s going on in the world. “I read everything. I try to understand it. But mostly? I just want people to care.”
