Indie rockers Portugal. The Man were ensconced in a Tallahassee studio working on their eighth album Evil Friends when they received a call from Danger Mouse, AKA Brian Burton, which made them drop everything, relocate to California, and start over.
It's pretty drastic action for a band that was nine songs in but as co-founder Zach Carothers explains, it's not every day that you get the chance to work with one of the best producers in the world.
"He was always on our list of producers to work with but realistically we never thought we'd be able to do it," he says of Burton, whose catalogue of work includes Jay-Z's The Black Album, Gorillaz' Demon Days and The Black Keys' El Camino. Carothers says the seed was sown when Portugal. The Man was touring with The Black Keys and drummer Patrick Carney suggested they ask Burton.
"We were like 'Oh f*** yeah, of course we'd love to do that, but he's untouchable. And he's very choosy about what he does."