interview

This time, lots of gear talk. Specifically, Bryan tells the story of his hand to hand battle with Derek Trucks. Sort of.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals Gear Talk from K Cortez on Vimeo.

Heather, from Fuel Friends, interviews Grace Potter
at Outside Lands.

Grace Potter can electrify a stage with her fearless and excoriating guitar solos, light up a room with her thousand-megawatt smile, and shoot an arcade-game basket from fifteen feet away. In heels.

We missed this one a few days ago, from the Burlington Free Press

Don’t tell Scott Tournet that Blues & Lasers is a side project to his main band, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. He sees Blues & Lasers as a legitimate group, similar to the way one of his heroes, Warren Haynes, leads Gov’t Mule and also plays lead guitar for The Allman Brothers Band.

The interview continues in Brent’s Notebook. Highly recommended reading - Scott is nothing if not honest about his feelings.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania

“We created it together and that’s really pretty special for me, to have those guys by my side the whole time because when I wrote the songs I was thinking about them,” she said. “I was thinking about the way they play, what they’re going to add to it, the ideas they contribute that help make the song even better. That stuff wouldn’t be there if I was just hiring a band.”

Potter said she wrote “Ah Mary” while sitting underneath a flag pole at a swimming pool. She said the sound of the flag banging against the pole annoyed her.

“It was just making a lot of noise,” she said. “It wasn’t waving beautifully or anything. It was just sort of flopping. I took it down and picked up my guitar and just started strumming.”

She said she wrote “Big White Gate” after the death of her grandmother. Potter said she initially thought the song had been written before and she had somehow stolen it. She want as far as to run the song though a computerized chord-change program to see if it did already exist. The search, however, came up empty.

All Points West

“I didn’t know what ‘next level’ meant but I knew that we wanted it,” she says. “It’s exciting and scary but also rewarding. It’s an interesting experience you should have if you get the opportunity. So, why the hell not?”

Looking forward, Potter hopes the band gets a chance to tour Europe soon. However, for now that takes a back seat to Potter’s All Points West appearance this weekend.

“I love festivals like this,” Potter says. “It’s your one chance to see some of the bands you admire.”

Joe Koch, pens an excellent interview with Grace for Hoopla Magazine.

Excellent photos from Adrien Broom accompany the article.

As another year comes to a close, Grace mentions that maybe the band will head out west for a little while. “We haven’t been out there in a while. I think it would be nice to get out to the west coast. Besides, I’m in desperate need of a beach,” says Grace.

As the music world falls subject to a depleted scene that once thrived with an abundance of talented musicians. The timing couldn’t have been more impeccable for Grace Potter. She has arrived just in time to save us from the regurgitated drivel that consumes our airwaves.
Amen.

News on recording a new record and songwriting. Read the article here.

With all the touring the band has been doing over the past several years, Potter has completed a large number of songs that haven’t made it onto an album yet. “I am always writing. I like writing without thinking about where it’s going to go. We probably have 30 or more songs that are in various states and aren’t on one of our albums. Some are done, some are in pieces, and some are just plain bad,” she chuckled. “They are my little orphan songs.”

Those “orphan songs” may be on their own for now but they were born by a good mother who counts among her primary influences The Godfather of Grunge. “Neil Young has been a huge influence on me. Even back when I was doing solo gigs on my tinkery little piano in a coffee house I was playing ‘Old Man’ and songs from Harvest. As the band grew, I got way more into the Crazy Horse stuff and got very excited about the idea that there is a way to be dynamic and tasteful and still really hard edged. I love the line that Neil walks between nervous breakdown and total consciousness. That’s been my mantra in writing songs. I try to keep that balance at all times.”

from an article by Timothy Dwenger.

Read the whole article here.

From the Bangor Daily News.

“I don’t know as there even is really a jam scene. I think it’s just a brotherhood of bands that are road warriors. That are willing to stay out on the road all year long,” said Potter, 24. “You make appearances at festivals, and the tie-dyes are gonna show up. But unlike other scenes, the jam scene has embraced all kinds of people. Older fans that are in their 60s now, with record collections that kick the ass of any intern at Rolling Stone, are totally digging on it.”

Our Maine friends can speak out but, having lived there for eight years myself I’ll chime in. Mainers really appreciate their entertainment. Here’s to a great show in Skowhegan.

We’ve finally got a bit of video from Q&A session that the band participated in back in Lebanon, NH.

The band was asked about touring and life on the road - how are they handling the strain. Grace quoted Robbie Robertson by saying “It’s a goddamn impossible way of life” (from “The Last Waltz”) then followed it up with this . . .

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - Lebanon, NH Q&A - Touring from K Cortez on Vimeo.

If you remember, the “This is Episode 3″ brought up the looming specter of a vocal problem for Grace. Here’s the hilarious response to that one.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - Lebanon, NH Q&A - Voice Worries from K Cortez on Vimeo.

Robbie Robertson quote from the Last Waltz after the jump
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