Grace Potter’s Lightning Striking Twice With Concert, Club Sets

By John Voket

Imagine what it must have been like to see a future superstar like Aretha Franklin in a smoking theater show back in the early 1960s, or to check out a young Sheryl Crow hammering away in the corner of a Sunset Strip nightclub back in the early ‘90s. The opportunity to see a band or a particular talent as their shooting star is starting its trajectory does not happen every day.

But next week, Connecticut music fans will have a chance to see that kind of stellar lightning strike twice, as Vermonter Grace Potter and the Nocturnals head into the state for what the sultry songstress promises to will two distinctly different shows. Potter and guitarist Scott Tournet, drummer Matt Burr and bassist Bryan Dondero will play The Ridgefield Playhouse on February 20, and then Toad’s Place in New Haven on February 22.

According to her website bio, the Nocturnals — now based in Waitsfield on some acreage owned by Potter’s parents that the locals affectionately refer to as “Potterville”— was formed in 2002 by Potter and Burr while attending St Lawrence University in upstate New York. After Tournet joined them, the nascent unit recorded its homemade debut album, Original Soul, in 2004. Dondero came on board completing the lineup just weeks before the Nocturnals banged out their second album, the self-produced Nothing but the Water, in a 19th Century haybarn-turned-theater on the campus of Goddard College in Plainfield, Vt.

Following that release and two years of virtually nonstop roadwork sharing the stages with legends like Taj Mahal and Mavis Staples, and turning in a bravura performance at the Bonnaroo Music Festival, the band returned to the studio producing the aptly titled This Is Somewhere, which was released last August.

The sessions were conducted in Los Angeles with producer Mike Daly, who has forged a booming career for himself as the band Whiskeytown’s resident multi-instrumentalist; A-list engineer Joe Chicarelli, who joined the project between his co-production of the Shins’ Wincing the Night Away and setting up a Nashville studio for a White Stripes album project; and mixmaster Michael Brauer, whose credits span from Coldplay’s Parachutes to My Morning Jacket’s Acoustic Citousca.

After a stint opening for Warren Haynes and Gov’t Mule, and an overseas gig at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan, Potter and the Nocturnals returned to the US performing their first single from the new album, “Ah, Mary” on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, ABC’s Good Morning America and on CBS’ The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

With their current tour stretching through June 1, Potter and the band will take a much deserved break after closing the Mountain Jam Festival in Hunter, NY with Haynes and Gov’t Mule, and The Band’s Levon Helm among others.

In an exclusive interview with The Newtown Bee by phone from “the bus” somewhere near Davenport, Iowa, Potter said she was psyched to be delving into their more introspective material for the upcoming sold-out Ridgefield appearance, before ripping up the joint at Toad’s where she promises to rock the house.

Newtown Bee: I had a chance to see you just a few months after The Nocturnals in the current lineup came together in 2006. In fact, you nearly stole that Newport Folk Festival second stage show away from Odetta. You did so well you were asked back to open the main stage at Newport last summer. Was that like a big promotion for you guys?

Grace Potter: That first Newport show was probably one of the most fun days of my summer that year. Last year was a real humbling experience, too. It’s really incredible looking out at an audience of excited people who actually came to see you. I mean, festivals are hard for fans because the people in front of you are usually dragged there by their friends, and all they want to do is go find a burrito, or their new boyfriend or whatever. A lot happens at festivals, but Newport is special because everyone who was there chose to be there. And I felt last summer brought us a lot of return customers from the year before – that’s what we do, we put on shows to make people come back again.

NB: Before we talk music, let’s get some of the tabloid stuff out of the way. Did you really go all the way to Japan’s Fuji Festival to lick Iggy Pop?

GP: (Laughing) Well we went there to play, and I never dreamed of meeting the guy. But he happened to be there right in front of me staring me in the face, and I couldn’t let the moment pass. So what happened was, I licked him …but it was by accident. Somebody pushed me into him, and I couldn’t help myself. Then we had this great conversation – he thought I was a groupie. He didn’t believe I was playing there, so later I found him talking to Juliette Lewis, and I walked up to him with my record and said, ‘…see, I’m not a groupie, I’m actually playing here!’

NB: Up to that point, Fuji was the farthest you ever traveled to play a show, right?

GP: Yes, that’s true. Before that the farthest we had gone was to Ireland. We owe it all to our amazing booking agent who put that show together to coincide while we were on the West Coast playing Jay Leno. The reaction in Japan was incredible – they are incredible people. What they do as fans, they don’t care what you’re wearing, they don’t care about your hair, they don’t care if you’re a boy or a girl. They just want to know what you were thinking when you wrote their favorite song. They’re very analytical listeners, they listen with their ears, their hearts and their brains. It’s almost startling the amount of attention our Japanese fans put into getting to know your material.

NB: When I saw you in 2006 at Newport, you played mostly keys and sang. I think you only picked up a guitar for one or two numbers. But last summer here in Niantic at a show, you played half the set on guitar. Are you at the point now where you can write up a set list based on whether you want to play more guitar, or more keyboards, based on whatever mood strikes you?

GP: A lot of stages, depending on the location and if we’re opening or headlining, may not fit my two keyboards. So I’ll write a guitar-heavy set list so there’s not to much transitioning back and forth which is a pain for me and a pain for the audience to have to watch. I always try and craft a set being out front playing guitar for a few songs, and then a few songs behind my keyboards. It keeps people interested, and gives me a chance to catch my breath. You better watch out though because I’m learning accordion and Keytar [a synthesizer held like a guitar], which is going to make things really interesting.

NB: You’ve talked a lot about how the band has been rapidly evolving musically, while the personalities have pretty much remained the same. Does this mean there’s a change in the way you’re approaching songwriting or recording?

GP: I think we’re putting more time and energy into the songs, instead of trying so hard keeping it in the groove. We have so much versatility in each instrumentalist in this band. The show is not about me getting my thing on and having people watch me. Having interesting melody lines is more interesting for the audience, not just grooves that go on and on for two-and-a-half hours. On our latest album, we made time to sort through the songs. We spent two months, six, seven, eight hours a day making the songs more musical. There was a greater crafting process.

NB: And how much of that crafting are we going to hear in the form of brand new material during your Connecticut shows February 20 and 22?

GP: We’ve got a lot of new stuff, but we’re trying to temper the amount of new songs even though we’d like to do them all because they’re so exciting and so much fun. We also turned the corner a little bit on some of the earlier material. There are a few and they rock a lot more with the full band. Definitely an upgrade to a few broader epic arrangements. Since the Ridgefield show is supposed to be a songwriter show, and it caps a run of theater shows, I think we’ll turn it down a bit to focus on the songwriting. At Toad’s we just pull it all out, we will definitely get a little head banging in there.

For more information about Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, visit GracePotter.com.