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Grace Potter & The Nocturnals News
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Along her journey to conquest the world, Grace Potter took a few moments to step aside from her band to chat with us during this years first Outside Lands Festival. A growing regular among music festivals, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals continue to find themselves on bigger stages and in front of greater crowds. Still riding off the success from their 2007 album, This Is Somewhere, Grace enthusiastically talked with us about disaster, sea monsters, and even her idea for a new instrument and we had a blast doing it.
Interviewed by Charlie Weingartner
TMC: Have there ever been any life changing moments for you directly influence by music? Maybe a specific concert or the first time you heard an album or song?
Grace: Iggy Pop in Japan in 2007. Unbelievable. He makes eye contact with pretty much everyone in the audience. I don’t know how he does it, but he is a very special performer and I really admire Iggy Pop. I mean, I love him musically, but for me my music is very different. What I’m doing is very different from what Iggy Pop is doing, but as a performer… I feel like someone who doesn’t like Iggy Pop at all could watch an Iggy Pop concert and change their mind very quickly. Because the way he puts himself out there. It’s just astonishing. I really enjoy him. That’s definitely a huge part of where my performance side comes from. Also, I think even Thom Yorke from Radiohead. He really has a way of putting himself across without seemingly like an arrogant prick. I love R.E.M., don’t get me wrong, but Michael Stipe is an arrogant prick. He is! I was at Langerado and he played. He was like, “Children of Langerado! Come to Me!”
TMC: (laughs) Yeah, I was there. He came out with the Obama shirt on for the press.
Grace: Oh my god. It’s like, “Dude, get over yourself.” But at least Thom Yorke is a humble… I think Thom Yorke is like a fidgety, less concise version of Michael Stipe. And I would love to get out on stage and be that. If you can babble for five minutes and have the entire crowd understand you, that’s a pretty cool place to be.
TMC: Totally. That’s a power and influence that very few people hold.
Grace: Even Dave Matthews does it. And I’m not saying Dave Matthews is my idol or anything, but we did tour with him a lot this summer. I realized that when you have really earned your way up, when you’ve worked hard, you can say anything. You can say, “I love Hitler,” and those people will freak out and love you. So, I’d like to walk that line and not quite go that far. But it is a pretty amazing thing to realize that the message that you’re sending is being listened to, and that the people that are hearing you are actually going to act on this. I would like to be at the point someday where I am held responsible for making more conscious comments and sending people in the right direction.
TMC: What is it that you aspire and hope individuals will get from your music?
Grace: Umm, that’s a weird question because everyone has a different answer. I don’t have a better answer than anyone else. My answer is, I’d like people to get their life from it. You know, you listen to music all day long, just listening to that bullshit country station your driving to work with. It is writing your little story. It’s apart of your little story. I like the idea that a little girl could be born, have her mom love some music, and have that little girl grow up to be a women and all the sudden hear that music and have it remind her of a good time in her life. I think that’s a really special thing. I’m not asking to be a part of history, I think we’re going to disappear like every other indie band out there. But it is kind of great to have your music resonate in a multi-generational way. I’ve met a lot of people who… Parents and kids can kind of agree on what we make, on the Nocturnal’s music. I really dig that. It really turns me on to hear people talk about their moms or their dads saying, “Hey you gotta hear this band,” and then the kids actually loving it so much that they’ll come to the concerts, buy tickets, and bring their friends. That’s a good place to be. That’s probably my biggest goal. I don’t care about getting into magazines. I really don’t. People figure out ways to get along and make their way through this crazy world. I want to resonate on people’s lives, and not just one moment. Alanis Morissette has a moment with me, but I’d like to have a little bit longer of a time. I remember that one Alanis Morissette song, but I’d like people to remember six or seven of my songs. That’s my hope.
TMC: How did the name Nocturnals get chosen? And do we want to really know what goes on with the band at night?
Grace: (laughs) Ah ha! We didn’t have any money, so we ended up rehearsing at night. Half the band wasn’t even going to college with us. We had two college kids, and the rest of the band was living up there [Nashville] for cheap rent because we were in a very, very deprived neighborhood. Even as cheap as we were living, we still didn’t have any money to rent a space to rehearse. So when we started rehearsing, we rehearsed in a barn that was on the campus that was kind of a coffee house. A lot of bands rehearsed there, but we couldn’t get a spot until like three in the morning. It wasn’t like a Nashville thing, although it was very Nashville-esque, but it wasn’t like, “Well, this is very top priority. So we really have to get this all done.” It was more like a very relaxed, laid back, “Well, we don’t have any room till three in the morning, you’d better come back then.” So we would come in at three in the morning… I was so shy about my music that we played a lot of cover songs at first, and then I slowly started introducing my music. Because we were rehearsing so late we got a lot of noise complaints. We got a lot of anger from the neighbors. But we became the Nocturnals because of our late, late – in fact even maybe early rehearsals. It gets so late that it might become early, but I don’t know.
TMC: Now, supposedly you’ve found the edge of the world. Care to share the local?
Grace: It’s in the middle of Lake Champlain, in between Canada and Vermont.
TMC: Really??
Grace: Yeah, I found Champ there. It’s a weird place. It’s not the ocean. You’d think it would be the ocean, but it’s not the ocean. The edge of the world is…
TMC: Champ guarded?
Grace: Champ is very protective of his edge. Champ is just like, “Listen. If you’re gonna come over here, you’ve gotta be careful.” He gives you the run-down. But I can’t tell you everything that Champ says because you know, the first rule of Champ-Club is don’t talk about Champ-Club.
TMC: And you certainly don’t want to piss Champ off.
Grace: No, you don’t.
TMC: What’s the worst concert experience you’ve had? Either at a concert in the crowd, or onstage for yourself.
Grace: Well, I felt really bad for my good friend’s Apollo Sunshine. We were at SXSW and they were playing at a club in just some random bar. It wasn’t Maggie Mays, but it was somewhere near there. It was weird because every single guy, in a spontaneous moment… Sam broke a string on his guitar, Jesse broke his string on his bass, and the drummer [Jeremy] smacked right through his snare drum in the same two seconds. Like, I’m telling you it was one of those Grateful Dead, tripping on acid, Jerry’s reading my mind moments, where everyone in Apollo Sunshine broke their instrument. And they didn’t have a sound guy. And the didn’t have a guitar tech there to help them fix it. I watched them flounder through like 5 minutes of non-music, only for them to come back on top and kill it again. Still, it was really scary, because as a musician I can tell you that when your instrument doesn’t work… I mean, I’m a singer, so I could sing my way through it but I don’t want to. If my shits not working, it pisses me off. I had that happen tonight actually. My string broke. It’s scary, because I think I’m a good singer but I also value myself as a musician in general. I’d like to think that I could offer something on the organ, or offer something on the guitar and give an idea or lead a song with a rhythmic quality or whatever. Unfortunately when you lose a string, or if you fuck something up, or if your pedal doesn’t work, or whatever, there’s just silence. You gotta make it artistic silence, and good luck.
TMC: When you’re running around not touring, taking it easy, what’re some of your other hobbies? What do you do on the downtime?
Grace: Baths. I’m a huge bath taker.
TMC: Bubble?
Grace: Bubble. I love finding salts, but good salts. Not Wal-Mart salts. I’m talking like a good salt bath with Lavender calming oils and some weird perfume or whatever. But, I love all salt baths. I also love playing Frisbee. Major, major Frisbee player.
TMC: I agree it’s one of the best outdoor activities. (laughs)
Grace: And I was thinking I might take up tennis soon. Cause I don’t have any formal sports training. I played soccer, but that wasn’t really formal. I was thinking tennis would be a good one for me to pick up.
TMC: Go for it!
Grace: I’d love to be in one of those little skirts. Cause you know me, I love wearing skirts anyways. So I feel like it’d match my full aesthetic. So maybe I’d be a good tennis player.
TMC: I mean, it seems to be a natural fit.
Grace: Plus, the Olympics got me goin.
TMC: Well, in that case who knows, maybe we’ll see you at Bonnaroo next year and Wimbledon.
Grace: With a tennis racket on both occasions.
TMC: You could create some kind of new instrument where you string guitar strings across a tennis racket.
Grace: Ooo! That’d be so badass! It’d be like a harp with chords that cross across it. Ok, there’d be a button that you could push to make the strings go apart, and then you could mute them back together. Because you know how a tennis racket is woven in and out of each other. So, what if one direction was a guitar and one was a harp. If there was a button you could push for them to go together and mute it, and then you push it again they go apart so they ring out.
TMC: Brilliant!
Grace: Brilliant! I’m gonna go take this and run with it.
TMC: It’s all yours! You’ve started to introduce politics into your music. To you, what do you think is the most important policy in the upcoming election?
Grace: The environment and I’m not just saying that because it’s like the typical musician thing. There’s no question about it. If people don’t act soon, we’re gonna be fucked. Straight up. No bands are gonna tour. No festivals are going to happen. No taxes are gonna be paid. No cars are gonna be driven if our world gets to a point where people can’t breath. This has been proven since the 1950’s and 60’s, people have been digging on the green house gas research thing. It’s very clear that we’re heading in a direction that needs attention desperately. So, without having an agenda or a political line to give, I just feel that paying attention to our environment is the most important thing we can do right now. There’s no time like the present to have the nation and the world step up and recognize the fact that if we don’t all act soon, things are going to go terribly wrong.
TMC: Absolutely. The past few years you’ve become a regular at music festivals around the country and world. What’re your thoughts about Outside Lands?
Grace: Well, Russ Bennett, who designed a lot of décor of this festival, in fact he was in charge of all of the artistry of setting up the festival is a good friend of mine. Russ lives about 500 yards from my house in Waitsfield, Vermont. We are very tight, and it’s very endearing and exciting as close to me… When I was a little girl, his sister read me books from the library. Back when I was like two, three, four years old. So, to see Russ here and to see what he’s accomplished is amazing. We’re sitting in this tent with all these beautiful chandeliers, ribbons, and sculptures. That’s all Russ’ doing. I feel that Russ and all the festival creators did a great job of making this a beautiful event.
TMC: They truly did do a fantastic job, but it’s also hard to beat the beauty of Golden Gate Park.
Grace: It’s so beautiful. Big, beautiful, fabulous. We love it.
TMC: You sincerely look like you’re having the time of your life on stage.
Grace: Really? Good! I’m so glad, I really try to. It’s not like I ignore problems that’re occurring. Every musician, whether you know it or not, goes through some technical difficulty on stage. And I hate to break it to you, but as happy as any musician looks there’s always going to be that moment on stage where something has gone terribly wrong. Even at your best show ever, something is fucked up. So, the art of being a performer is discovering how to do that without making the crowd not enjoy it. You don’t want to bring the crowd down with you if you have problems, so we try to find a way to make it look like every mistake that happens is in fact a piece of art. It’s like an obstacle; it’s like running the gauntlet.
TMC: Life can throw shit at you. You just gotta learn how to dodge it.
Grace: Dodge it, or take it head-on and see what happens. Like Richard Gere in that terrible Sean Connery movie, The First Knight. Dude, Richard Gere and Sean Connery. They were enemies, and they were best friends. That’s what it’s like to be in a band. (laughs)
TMC: Well, the insight is appreciated. To close up, I’ll ask our formal last question. Since this is The Milk Carton, are there any artists or bands that you’d like to see become more popular and find a larger audience that we should go check out?
Grace: There’s a few. I really, really love Hoots & Hellmouth. They’re from Philadelphia. They’re friends with Dr. Dog and that whole crew. Dr. Dog, I absolutely love. I absolutely love this band called Hollywood Farm from Burlington, Vermont, my home town. They’re doing a great job. They write beautiful songs, and they put on a show. I love the Asylum Street Spankers. That’s another band, they’re from Austin, Texas. And I really enjoy the occasional good female performer, although there aren’t that many lately. But Nicole Atkins is fabulous. I like to see girls who can actually lay it down. She can drink me under the table, by the way.
TMC: No, no… To be honest she informed me that you all had an epic night together where she woke up crying from the hangover. (laughs)
Grace: We both woke up crying from the hangover. It started with white wine, turned into champagne, and then turned into tequila and whiskey all in one. It was a desperate mess.
TMC: Wow! Well, thanks so much Grace. It was a real pleasure.
Grace: Thank you so much.
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