This Is Somewhere:
Under Pressure, Grace and the Nocturnals Deliver!

Find out more at the GPN web site.

THE INTERVIEW:

This past month, I conducted an “e-sit down” with all four members of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals to get their thoughts on music, life on the road, their new CD, and breaking into the big time.

Rob: Tell us about making the new CD “This Is Somewhere” – how did the process compare to making "Nothing But The Water" at the barn in Goddard a few years back?

Grace: I'd have to say that the making of NBTW and this record were about as different as any two records have ever been in terms of the process. With “Nothing But the Water,” we tracked at Goddard, in a barn in 5 days. We tracked “This Is Somewhere” in a studio next door to Alicia Keyes and it took 4 months...pretty different."

Scott: Having so many opinions – the producer, the engineer, A&R, the mixer, people at the label - to listen to was kind of a mixed blessing. On one hand, it pushed us to step it up "professionally", but it also took a lot of the fun out of it.

Rob: Too much advice, maybe?

Scott: I liken it to the difference between little league baseball and the minor leagues...Little league is just for fun, but with the minors you get players with families to feed and legacies to create...”Nothing But the Water” was way more fun to record, but “This is Somewhere” is a way better album...weird.

Bryan: As Scott said above, the new record was of a completely different caliber. We spent over two months working on it, versus the 4 and 1/2 days in which we made NBTW. There was a lot more deliberation on “Somewhere” - maybe even too much - you be the judge.

Rob: I don't think too much, but listening to the new CD, there is way more going on.

Bryan: It was great really honing in on the sounds of the instruments and working hard on making the tones match the essence of the tune, but I think we learned that you can definitely take that process too far. You can get lost in it if you're not careful. NBTW, on the other hand, was sort of our "Big Pink." We banged the tunes out as they were without much deconstruction. In other words, we were broke - every minute counted.

Matt: “This Is Somewhere” was a pain in the ass to make, but the end result was definitely worth the ass pain. One crazy thing for me was I had my first ever string of drum lessons a week prior to making the
record.

Rob: You're kidding.

Matt: It was one of the best things I've ever agreed to do.

Rob: The fabulous opening tune - "Ah Mary" - is a cleverly disguised critique of US foreign policy – where did that song come from?

Grace: I didn't want to write some preachy song about how the country is going down in flames. I don't think that's how to unify people. (Not to mention the fact that I'm not Dylan.) But if you tell a story about a seemingly outrageous woman with a lot of elements that people can relate
to...then it kinda sinks in.

Rob: What about "Apologies" - an older song - and a beautiful ballad. How did it come to be on the new CD?

Grace: I just felt the time was right. Songs go through cycles and can disappear if you're not careful. That one had been dormant for long enough for me to tap back into that time in my life without getting completely depressed. Now the message is more hopeful than it was when I used to play it.

Rob: Where did "Mr. Columbus" come from? Such a hooky tune…

Grace: That's just a really fun song to play. I wrote it after we did a show in Philly with the New York Dolls. It was originally intended to be kind of a punk song...it didn't really end up that way instrumentally, but it still has that attitude.

Rob: OK, I gotta ask - "Mastermind" is getting plenty of radio air time in advance of the CD release – what is that song about, anyway?

Grace: I love SNL (Saturday Night Live) because there are so many brains involved in putting it together. A group of people can often come up with something better than what just one person could. Mastermind is about taking a lot of small ideas and making something epic with them.

Rob: What about the touring - what were the highs and lows of this past year?

Grace: There have been no lows. I'm always flying high. Ha.

Rob: Safe answer. Anyone else?

Scott: Because I've been described as "cantankerous," I'll start with the lows, which included driving and flying.

Rob (laughing): Can you be more specific?

Scott: Opening two shows by trying to pound out a Pete Townsend style chord only to realize that my amp wasn't working and no sound was coming out!!!...This was a tough moment.

Bryan: Blowing up 2 guitar amps during one show, having an airline lose our gear right before SXSX, and reading music reviews that compare us to Sheryl Crow.

Matt: Traveling in our van – we call her "Vanna White” - when it is hellishly hot and our butts, backs, and legs are sticking to the black leather seats.

Rob: Nice image. Thanks.

Matt: And being in LA for way too long!

Rob: What about the highs?

Scott: Going to Alaska and taking a helicopter out to a glacier. We went ice-climbing and drank the glacier water. I've never seen a blue like that before. Beautiful. Then there was the All-Good festival - playing "Cortez the Killer" at 4:00 in the morning in front of thousands of people while on psychedelics...beautiful also. I also remember trading slide solos with the Campbell Brothers, these amazing sacred steel gospel musicians, during the taping of NPR's Mountain Stage – also beautiful.

Bryan: Alaska, for sure, and playing our first vinyl on my record player. Overall, this has been some of the best touring for us to date.

Matt: For me, stand out moments included playing with, watching, meeting and hanging with the guys from My Morning Jacket, and playing our first ever New Years Eve show at Higher Ground. Having Rolling Stone legend David Fricke give a thumbs up to our music was also very cool, as was Meeting Little Feat and hearing them say they loved what we were doing.

Rob: You are playing Burlington in August - where to after that?

Matt: We're going to take two weeks off to regain a bit of sanity so we can head back out to the road for a 3-4 month tour supporting the new record. We're also going to secretly read every review written about the new record and leave rude voice mails on the all the critics message
machines.

Rob: That'll teach ‘em. What about the band's dynamic – has it changed in any way in making the new CD and touring nationally?

Matt: I think the band's dynamic has changed for the better. The more time we spend together, the more we get to know each other and figure out better ways to gel personally and musically. Sure, shit goes wrong and triggers plenty of tension, but the fights most often make us stronger. The
studio and the road historically rips bands apart, but so far so good for us. We genuinely love what we're doing and believe we can do contribute to pulling this country out of the bush.

Rob: The burning bush, indeed. Any last thoughts?

Matt: Yes…why does LA have no damn seasons? Being in that town for a few months reminds you why Vermont is by far one of the best places in the world. However…we did have the pleasure of recording right next door to “Dimples,” the place where Karaoke began! Now that's something to remember.

Rob: I'll say – I'll have to make my own pilgrimage there.

Matt: Grace also walked in on Drew Barrymore peeing and Cameron Diaz fixing her hair in the bathroom...only in L.A.

THE REVIEW:

True confessions.

After my ears fell in love with “Nothing But The Water,” Grace Potter and the Nocturnals' second CD, I went to hear them perform at the Shelburne Museum last summer.

Expectant, I left a bit disappointed.

Maybe it was the muddiness of the sound – always acoustically dicey in an outdoor venue. Or perhaps it had something to do with what might best be termed “musical indecision” – sitting under the stars at Lake Champlain, I got the feeling that Grace and the boys couldn't decide if they wanted to go with a Phish-like jam-band sound (they certainly have the chops for it), or pursue a more blues/soul approach for their live show (my vote). Again, nothing unusual here for a relatively new band working out their mojo, even for a foursome as talented as this group. And there's no reason, I suppose, why they can't have it both ways.

In any case, as a GPN listener, I wished for some “live show” musical clarity from a band I've been cheering for going on several years now. And how could they possibly top “Nothing But The Water,” their second project, anyway?

Well now, with the release of their new project, I've got clarity. In spades.

To say that “This Is Somewhere” is a triumphant new CD for a band with nowhere to go but up is (believe it or not) a bit of an understatement.

To put it in a nutshell, this is the best musical project – rock, soul, blues, you name the genre - I have heard in quite some time. It's as if the band took their very best energy from the Goddard barn where they self-recorded “Nothing But The Water,” handed it to producer Mike Daly, and asked him to enhance the band's best features.

Clearly, Daly has good ears.

On “This Is Somewhere,” it's all here: Grace's gorgeous voice and gifted wordsmithing, honed by months of touring and experimentation on the road; Matt Burr's solid and straight-ahead drumming; guitarist Scott Tournet's remarkable guitar work, and bassist Bryan Dondero's tasty low-end sonic foundation.

All eleven songs on this project sing, each with its own personality, exploring a wide range of topics, both personal and political (and often combining both).

Consider “Ah Mary,” the gutsiest opening tune I've heard on a CD in a long time. At first listen, it sounds like a song about a gal with a wrecking ball of a personality – “she'll bake you cookies and then she'll burn your tongue” – but, if you pay attention, the song is actually a scathing critique of the United States of “AhMaryCa: “Call her a bully and she'll blow up your whole damn playground.” And, as Grace lyrically (and rightly) points out, we're all somewhat responsible for this red, white, and blue bull in the china shop:

“She's the beat of my heart/She's the shot of a gun
She'll be the end of me/and maybe everyone

What the motivation? “Until this point, I'd never written a political song. Although I was an activist all through college – I marched on Washington, got arrested—I never felt the need to put it into a song,” explains Grace at her web site. “I wasn't angry enough…but that changed, obviously. I began to feel that the time was right, and out came ‘Ah Mary'—Mary sure does have her issues.”

Indeed.

And that's just the first tune.

Check out “Stop The Bus,” with its wailing blues harp and Grace's hypnotic vocalizing, backed by Burr's fine percussive work and Tournet's tasty guitar licks, or the oh-so-hooky “Mr. Columbus” – “wake up, wake up, wake up” – to find “the edge of the world,” or the stunning old GPN standard “Apologies,” a beautiful ballad about a love's collapse.

And what's neat about this CD is that it just gathers more steam as it goes. The radio-friendly “Mastermind” (track 8) is a blues-like barnyard stomp that rates high on the “rollicking” scale, “Here's To The Meantime” (track 9) has the single best phrase on a CD full of ‘em – “if the devil made a fire, you'd be the wood” - while “Big White Gate” (track 11) ties together the whole musical project with a philosophical but transcendent “love in” at the edge of heaven itself.

If “This Is Somewhere” doesn't put Grace Potter and the Nocturnals on the musical map globally, then I'll eat my mandolin pick. The world needs more music like this foursome serves up: intelligent, soulful, honest, and, ultimately, hopeful.

Find out more at the GPN web site..