The new album of The Legendary Tigerman has as its title “Zeitgeist” and has an overwhelming list of collaborations. Asia Argento, Anna Prior from Metronomy, Delila Paz, from Last Internationale, Jehnny Beth from Savages, Ray and Sean Riley, Sarah Rebecca and the Portuguese Calcutá and Best Youth.
An extensive list for a work that its author defines as both intimate and expansive. A regular composer of soundtracks, although maintaining a kind of parallel career closer to rock, the Portuguese Paulo Furtado (the man behind the character) answers our questions with exquisite kindness.
The preview song for your new album was “Losers”, with a video clip characterized by the use of artificial intelligence, why?
Well, I think using artificial intelligence was the only way to make this video clip like this, otherwise it would have been impossible to produce it. I wanted something that was visually striking, and strange at the same time, so choosing Edgar Pêra (the director), and it was the right choice. He is an experimental director and is always exploring the latest technology, and artificial intelligence was the only way to tell this story.
“Sometimes music can really heal, or help you heal or heal, whether as a listener or as a composer”
However, we can say that “Zeitgeist” is an intimate album. What do artificial intelligence and introspection have to do with each other?
It’s an intimate album, but “Losers” is a powerful song. It is a cry of rebellion, a call for something to change in this chaotic world. Artificial intelligence was a tool for me, it does not define anything. I like it because it’s not perfect yet, all the transformations that happen in the image and the crazy things that go wrong are really what I find interesting. When artificial intelligence becomes perfect, it will probably no longer be interesting to me. For now it is not. And on the record, I also use old technology, new technology, retro stuff, avant-garde, guitars… If it makes sense to tell the story, I’ll use it.
You say you even needed to be silent to find yourself. How did you feel?
Well, like many of us, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately. The last few years have been chaotic, we have been through a lot and then, from one moment to the next, it is as if nothing had happened and we return to routine. It really can’t be like that. On top of this, I lost my parents in the last year, found love and got married. Many things. I needed to calm down and find a place that made me feel safe. And my music helped me a lot. Sometimes music can really heal, or help you heal or heal, whether as a listener or as a songwriter.
You had to search even in your youth, in your adolescence, is that true?
Well, “Once I Knew No Pain” is a song about my younger years. It’s a song about the times of adolescence described by a grown man, looking back, and it all came to me at once, as all good songs should. I was walking along an old abandoned railway track in the north of Paris and I had an epiphany. He loved railroad tracks as a kid and used to walk along them with my girlfriends, kissing and talking, just relaxing. He calmed me down, and at that point I was a very excited punk teenager.
Why do most artists seem to need those types of changes to move forward?
I guess some do and some don’t… I always feel the need to change and evolve. I think the day I don’t feel that urgency, I’ll stop making records.
There is no doubt that you are an innovator, but do you feel compelled to constantly innovate?
I’m not sure… I just feel like I need to do something new and exciting for myself, you know? Not something new and exciting for the world, that doesn’t worry me at all. I feel more and more excitement when I compose and when I find new ways to compose and I surprise myself with my own music, that is really the BIG moment for me, that spark of creation.
“None of those songs could have reached their full potential without those guests.”
Is this need for change the fault of the world around us? Of the dehumanization of the human being?
The world around us is in a very bad state. It is collapsing in many ways. It no longer works. Nature is dying. How many species have already become extinct? The financial system does not work either, it is collapsing. Big companies own our time, we are slaves. In Lisbon, there are couples who are both working and living in tents with their families because they cannot pay rent. I was always very political, but I think this time I didn’t feel the need to talk about it in my music. But in these times it is impossible to ignore it, it is too much. We really need to start changing, to look at the world and ourselves with more empathy and love. The winners are not the rich, the winners are the lovers, the winners are the ones who care.
Paris has been an important city for the album. Explain to me why.
Well, I wrote all the songs there, I lived in Paris for 5 or 6 months in 2019, when I wrote all the songs, I recorded a lot of Super8 and really lived the city. I was in the north and I had a studio 24 hours a day with a sound system. He composed with a great volume of sound, feeling all the frequencies and really vibrating with everything he did. This album could be called Paris. All the material for the songs really came from there and interestingly the songs started out very intimate and personal and evolved to become more universal. It was like a prophetic writing process.
Let’s talk about collaborations. Asia Argento, Sean Riley, Delila Paz… and several more. There are many collaborations, why?
This time I think the songs called to people… Some songs really needed things that I couldn’t give them, so it was a very spontaneous process. All the people on the record are people I know and could get in touch with with a text or a phone call, sometimes in the middle of the night… I felt like I needed to know if they could contribute to the song. None of those songs could have reached their full potential without those guests.
Did you need to explore other universes with other artists?
No not at all. She needed her art brought to mine, that was it. The songs needed it.
There is a phrase in the press release that I would like you to explain to me. You say that this album is the meeting between your work as a soundtrack composer and as a punk rocker. Explain that to me further.
Well, I’ve been feeling like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde these last few years, because people in the movies only see me as an experimental composer, and Tigerman fans see me as a rocker or a punk rocker, and in In reality they both live inside me. Somehow it seemed to me that this was the right time to merge these two parts of myself. I think Zeitgeist is really a big melting pot with all of this inside of it.
Do you think it’s your most cinematic album?
I’ll have to answer yes. Or at least my most cinematic album that isn’t really a soundtrack.