- Wed, 2010-06-09 12:06
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals are Vermont based rock ‘n’ rollers whose relentless touring and intense work-ethic has turned many a head over the seven years that they’ve been together. Their second album, This Is Somewhere, thrust them onto the national scene, and their forthcoming self-titled follow-up looks set to take them to greater heights still.
I Like Music spoke with lead singer Grace about a youthful dabble with acting, how the Nocturnals fell in love as a band, playing jazz clubs and brunches, and the genius of Bob Dylan.
“I Like Music because…when music gets played, no matter who hears it, it does something to you that life can’t do by itself. You can’t not hear it, it filters in and out. It’s the thing that we live by.” Grace Potter
ILM: Is this your first time in the UK?
Grace: I wanted to come to school here! I came one summer and spent it auditioning for RADA. I wanted to be in theatre, and thought that was going to be my calling. So I thought I’d do it the right way and come and study drama the traditional way working from the bottom up, but that summer really changed me. I realised I wanted to be a musician. Acting is so cut-throat. It’s not my comfort zone. I always just avoided being a musician because it’s so easy for me that it almost felt…
ILM: Like an excuse?
Grace: Yeah! It was like “I can’t just make music for a living, that’s ridiculous; it’s way too easy!”
ILM: A lot of people in the UK won’t know much about you, despite the fact that you’ve done some huge things in the US…
Grace: Yeah, we’ve been a band for seven years!
ILM: Tell us a bit about how you came together and what those seven years have involved…
Grace: We all fell in love with each other as a band. Very Fleetwood Mac of us! We met at college and founded our relationship on vinyl records. There was this great record store in Otowa that we would always go to. We would go up over the Canadian border, which we were right close to, and buy records for cheap. Our relationship started with Iggy Pop, George Harrison, Lowell George and all the guys from Little Feet. That’s how we concocted the approach of our band. The idea of our music on vinyl and the community of the record store was important to us.
ILM: How has that affected how you are now?
Grace: We are very much a live band. People can buy our records and say that they know us, but nobody knows us until they watch us on stage! It’s a very separate experience. It’s very sexual and visceral and dynamic, and kind of insane. We try and span the experience from a Joni Mitchell acoustic show to a Radiohead show, and everything in between. But we’re very much rooted in the blues. I started off as a songwriter and have always been a singer. Songwriting was a big focus of mine, so I became devoted to the song first, and everything else second.
ILM: What’s it like being part of Hollywood Records?
Grace: It’s been five years with them. The thing that’s made our experience at the record company is that there’s no-one else on the label like us. We are so ‘do-it-yourself’, and they know that, so they’re like “okay, do what you do.” It’s great. We didn’t sign on and say “please make us who you want us to be!” We knew who we were. We’d already been a band for years, and we’d put out independent records on our own and spent a lot of time developing what kind of band we wanted to be in the long term. When the labels first started calling we didn’t have our identity yet. We did a lot of quiet jazz clubs and brunches…
ILM: Brunches?
Grace: Yeah! We would play brunches! We played a senior citizens home, arts and crafts fares, farmers’ markets…we would play anything! We just took every gig we could get until we knew what kind of band we wanted to be.
ILM: How would you describe your process of putting together songs?
Grace: It can be really random. I find lately that songs come to me when I’m listening to a new band that I really like. I was listening to LCD Soundsystem the other day and I got really jealous cos I love their new record! Whenever I hear a new record that’s really good I’m like “aw fuck, I gotta beat that! I gotta beat that right now!” I’m very devoted to modern music, even though a lot of people pin us as a throwback band.
ILM: Really?
Grace: We are a throwback band. Certainly people come and see our shows and think they’re in the ‘60s or whatever.
ILM: I suppose that must be the blues heritage.
Grace: Exactly. But we’re not afraid of new music. I embrace it and I love it. You would be surprised how much new music went into my mind before we put out this new record!
ILM: What have been some of the biggest things that have shaped you as a musician?
Grace: I think a lot of the Dylan-lore has really astounded me and made me want to be that one-man poet, even though it’s not really my lot in life. I’m much more of a performer and a show-girl. I love the show. Bob Dylan does not love the show! But I do love the lore of his life. And Woodstock, and The Band. They put out that movie called The Last Waltz. When Matt, my drummer, was first trying to be in a band with me he showed me that movie and said “that’s the kind of band I want to be.” I remember watching it. It had Neil Young on it, Van Morrison came out and sang Caravan and blew the roof off the place… Muddy Waters was there, and Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan was obviously there. There’s sort of this drive, or mission, for us to somehow bring back the sense of community that was in that movie, even though it’ll never happen again. We feel like it’s our responsibility to at least try and create something like what they had. That’s what rock and roll is, and I’d love to create a new version of that.
ILM: There’s such a big sense of freedom in all of that, how do you balance that out with the concern of commercialism and reaching a big audience?
Grace: I’m pretty shamelessly open to that! Saying no is what indie bands are good at. When we were an indie band we said no to everything. Every opportunity. “We have to tour with who? No way, they’re sell-outs.” It’s so easy to say “no, we’re going to stay on our little pedestal and be an independent band and not sell out.” But I’m finding now that it’s such a cut-throat industry, and it’s so hard to get by, that there’s no reason to put a cork in your own magic by saying no to everything. So I’m starting to learn how to say yes, and I’m pretty unabashed about that. But at the same time I’m not Lady GaGa. I love the success that she’s found in the edginess of what she’s doing, but I’m not aiming for that kind of success. It’s a different kind of music, a different kind of mission, so it’s probably going to hit a smaller audience, but who knows?
ILM: What do you think makes a good performer?
Grace: I think that you have to have the stomach for it. You have to get up there and not only be like “I’m great and fearless,” and have an ego, but you also owe it to every single person in the audience to be as good as you can possibly be. Ever since I was six years old, whenever I’ve gone on stage I’ve treated it like there are 50,000 people there. That’s always been my thing, and it’s a great way to go about a performance because every single one matters. Whether there are five people, whether they’re cheering or being quiet, whether they’re throwing beer or flowers at you, they deserve for you to give them a good show. That’s my biggest thing.
ILM: What music have you been listening to recently?
Grace: I was raised on music from the UK, so I listen to Pentangle and Steel Eye Span, John Renbourn, not so much Fairport Convention stuff, that was later… But I was raised on this traditional English and Irish music, and it gets under my skin and makes me so happy! It’s one of my favourite types of music. Gryphon were another band, and Boys of the Lough. I just remember hearing that music as a child and it puts me into this little cocoon of my childhood and reminds me of all that stuff. So someday I want to come to the UK and put out something like that. Fleet Foxes are actually bringing back a lot of that ethereal, choral, almost sacred music, but with this secular, traditional approach.
