Chatting with The Gift

As it happens, some of the most popular bands in are the ones that we’ve missed out on in Canada. The Gift, a Portuguese psych-pop ensemble is one of those bands. They are top-selling artists in their native country, MTV awards recipients, and very talented performers. Famous for their DIY attitude and vibrant presence, The Gift recently returned to Canada and the United States with their new album Explodeem. Produced by Ken Nelson, the same man who works with Coldplay, Ray LaMontagne and many other talented artists, this new album is downright colorful through and through.

QP: Have you been to Toronto before?

TG: Yes, we’ve played Toronto before and we’re going to Montreal tomorrow to play, we like it a lot.

QP: I was very impressed with the whole DIY thing that you do, that gets to be a lot of work, but I imagine at the same time that gives you more freedom to grow as an artist?

TG: Yes! It’s important to have a structure, if you have structure it’s easier to come from our little town to Toronto, or to Vancouver, or Calgary or Montreal. We control the studios, we control the production and marketing all on our own, we control photo shoots, record the albums we want when we want, and it works out well.

QP: Would you recommend it to other bands?

TG: Definitely, I think most of the bands start as self-managed and after a little while they get a managing agent. We have all that too, for example we have a booking agent in America because I cannot book the shows myself but I still do it in Europe, I still do it in some countries, including Brazil.

QP: What got you into music, why The Gift?

TG: Honestly that’s what I wanted to do for my life, so we started as a young, young band in a small town in Portugal and just went for it.

QP: Were you exposed to a lot of American music?

TG: Yes, we were exposed to all of that, but not as much as these days and its not as much of the case in my town. In the 90s it was really hard to get the right albums so we had to wait and import them from outside, share the cassette tapes, it was a big deal!

QP: Your whole new album is very uplifting, it’s very inspiring, happy if you may

TG: Yes and that was very intentional, did you see the pictures that came with the album?

QP: Yes, very colorful

TG: Exactly! We went to India a year ago. Portugal was in huge crisis and we wanted exactly the opposite of what it felt like at home, we wanted to bring happiness, we are all in good moment in our lives and we wanted to share that, hence the explosion of colors, you will see some colors on stage tonight as well.

QP: Definitely looking forward to that! Speaking of that last album, you had actors in the last video you produced, it almost seemed like it was not your song…

TG: Yes, Lucas/Lucas, the idea was to make it look like they were working on a music project, and then three weeks after that first release we announced that the song was from The Gift. During these three weeks, we wanted everyone to think it was Lucas/Lucas, they are actors people would recognize so it was a good lie, we enjoyed that.

QP: What kind of shows do you usually do while touring?

TG: We do theaters, we do clubs, outdoor shows, we do everything. Next we are doing a two month tour in Europe only in theaters, 20 days straight, Sonya is pregnant so we decided to do it fast, we needed to stop in February. On New Years Eve we are playing at Lisbon Casino in front of 2000 people. The Casino throws a huge party and everyone knows who we are. But I do prefer to play in front of 300 people of new audience, it is always exciting to conquer new audiences. We care about our existent fans but we do enjoy playing in new places to new audiences.

QP: So you are not going home for Christmas?

TG: No, not really. Some of us live in Madrid, I live everywhere, Sonia lives in Portugal. In the winter time we do go home, but later. We’re also finishing up a new album, just recorded two weeks ago! Normally you wouldn’t be allowed to produce two albums on a raw like that but because we are self-managed we can do it. Now we are going to mix it and January-February it’s going to be out to the world, at least digitally.

QP: On that note, how do you feel about the digitalization of music, do you sell most of your music online?

TG: I think that Spotify, and things like that, will change the way we listen music. Subscription music will be the future, although the way the money is played now it’s not very good for the industry. But in terms of the future, I think that this is it, you pay very little for a subscription and then you see and listen all the music you want. The live shows are where you prove yourself as a band and have fun.

QP: Is there a band that one person in the band likes and everyone else hates?

TG: No, we are very open, we don’t hate on things. I don’t understand the haters haha! We like the honesty in music and you will see that on stage today as well.

QP: If you weren’t a musician what would you be?

TG: We would be connected with arts for sure, I studied marketing while doing art projects, you can’t help it.