Vermont's Rising Star - Backstage with Grace Potter

By Margaret Michniewicz

"You're hitting us at a really wild time!" Grace Potter exclaims to me, eyes big and sparkling with enthusiasm. The 24-year old Waitsfield native and her band, the Nocturnals, are catapulting into national fame, and it's clear that Potter is having a ball. In late July they played in Japan, in August they released their first CD on a major recording label, they've rocked the late night TV show circuit, and on October 3 they set out on another tour through December, in their first bona fide tour bus - compliments of Willie Nelson.

It's several hours before Grace Potter and the Nocturnals (GPTN) will take the stage as the headlining performers of the First Annual Burke Mountain Music Festival in East Burke and we're in the performers' lounge sipping instant coffee out of Styrofoam cups. Potter and the boys - drummer Matt Burr, bassist Bryan Dondero, and guitarist Scott Tournet - had just flown into Burlington from Los Angeles the day before. "I did my first 'red carpet' ever, two days ago," Potter beams with girlish delight, talking away as she hands me a makeshift coffee stirrer she has unearthed from a counter strewn with bags of snacks and bottles of assorted beverages. "It was so much fun… I was a cartoon character for a moment!" If she's jet-lagged, it doesn't show in either her fresh face or animated conversation. I barely get the words of a question out and she's off around the track, her language peppered with plenty of salty rock n' roll flair.

Potter's liveliness is all the more surprising given what has occurred in the last 12 hours. The Nocturnals' tour coordinator, Jennifer Crowell, just entering the room, picks up the story that Potter is starting to tell. "Yeh," she says ruefully, "I wake up this morning to a message on my BlackBerry from Matt telling me that he's with Grace in the ER!" It turned out that Potter was suffering from a severe sinus infection, and had spent the early hours of the day undergoing a CAT scan and other tests, followed by a comedy of errors trip to the pharmacy to fill a prescription, and then the long drive over to the Northeast Kingdom. I marvel at how Potter can be so upbeat, and can't imagine how she could possibly feel like going out onstage to perform after these last grueling 24 hours.

The band formed in 2002 when Burr and Potter began playing music together (literally as well as in the romantic sense) while in school at St. Lawrence University, the alma mater of her parents, Peggy and Sparky Potter of Waitsfield. By 2004, GPTN included Tournet and the band, now based in Vermont, released their first CD, Original Soul. Within a year, Dondero had joined the band and they released Nothing but the Water. Both CDs were self-released, but they built up enough name recognition and word of mouth buzz through tireless touring so that when they finally decided to sign with a major label this year, they had some leverage to choose who it would be and on what terms. There are murmurings that Potter was enjoined by record execs to ditch the guys and sign a deal on her own, but she is fiercely vocal that she is part of a band, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. They signed with Hollywood Records and in August released This is Somewhere, a title that intentionally alludes to Everyone Knows This is Nowhere, Neil Young's first record with Crazy Horse, one of a number of early '70's bands GPTN admire and emulate.

Potter is the band's songwriter, with the other three Nocturnals contributing to the musical arrangements. Vocally, she has frequently been compared to Janis Joplin, Lucinda Williams, and Norah Jones; her voice is becoming ever more bluesy. As a dedicated Northeast Kingdom fan noted after the Burke show, Potter seems to be singing ever deeper from the diaphragm, thereby releasing a powerful new soulfulness. They are a band that is best appreciated in concert, and they have a devoted following as evidenced by the enthusiastic postings to their Web site's fan message board.

Breaking on Through

On September 16 GPTN played at the Austin City Limits Music Festival, a grand three-day affair with Bob Dylan and Iceland's post-punk diva Björk headlining, indicating the vast range of diversity among the 130 performers in this event. Potter, taking what seems like a rare deep breath, says of the Austin festival, "Magical. It was magical." She sighs, and adds, "It was like a movie, the whole thing.

"It felt like it was a real arrival," she explains, for not only did she find herself playing among many other musicians whom she admires, such as Lucinda Williams, but, "all these musicians we love actually knew who we were!"

Potter comically describes an unexpected encounter as she negotiated her way through the backstage labyrinth of tour buses and trailers. "All of a sudden, a door kind of creaks open and I hear [she affects an expansive drawling voice] 'Yew tell him ah don' wan anymora those people comin' back aroun here…!' and it's Lucinda Williams, with her cranky Lucinda voice!" Potter pauses dramatically. "So I'm trying to walk past and she's there on this rant, but I'm like two feet away from her and can't walk by her without her actually having to move, and I can't walk into her and then not introduce myself!" And so, Potter explained that her band the Nocturnals had finished on an adjacent stage just as Williams began her set. "And she said, 'Oh, ah've hearda yew, [one of the guys in my band] has your CD!'

"I [had] wanted to meet Lucinda but I hate 'stalking' people. There's a few people I'll stalk though," Potter laughs. "I'll stalk Iggy Pop," and she had just that opportunity in July when the Nocturnals played in Japan at the Fuji Rock Festival, with none other than Iggy Pop and the Stooges headlining.

"Getting back to the Austin show: it was wonderful, it was so much fun - and it ended with all the drama and rock n' roll flair that you could ask for," leaving Potter apparently too wide awake to go home after the GPTN's played their late night set. "I was wandering the streets of Austin till nine in the morning," she says. "I picked up one of those 'please give me food' cardboard signs and acted crazy so no one would try and rape me."

Potter possesses a bold self-assurance, and though her band mates have been quoted as saying they look out for Potter, they wryly add that they probably don't need to. She is very comfortable in her own skin, as Jay Leno apparently discovered. As the story goes Leno, who pays a visit to each guest prior to show time, arrived at the Nocturnals' dressing room while Potter was still, in fact, getting dressed. He went to leave, saying he'd come back later but Potter was worried he wouldn't and that she'd miss her turn so - she went ahead and had her introductory visit with the Tonight Show host while in her underwear. Upon emerging, Leno quipped, "Well that worked for me."

For the longer-term fans of GPTN, it may well have been a shock to see Potter transformed from the jeans-and-flannel shirt-look from one of their earliest promo photos, to the glittery sequined patch of fabric in which Potter hit the Tonight Show stage. Evidently she's encountered consternation over that outfit, much to her annoyance. "People were upset that I wore high heels and I wore a sparkly dress but I'm just like 'f-you, man, what would you have done - if you had looked as hot as I did in that dress, you would have worn it too!'"

Beyond looking hot, and far from bothered, Potter let it rip without bursting at the seams, perilously close as it seemed - proving in one song that beyond charisma, she is musically multi-talented. She belted out the lead vocals while playing electric guitar, then jumped over to the B3 Hammond organ to bring the song to a rousing, rocking finale. The Nocturnals performed Ah Mary from their latest CD, which is, according to Potter, her first "political" song (in the final line, we learn that it's 'Ah-Mary-Ca' about which Potter is lamenting throughout).

"I [have] stood strong in my beliefs, but I didn't feel it was important to make that a part of my music, right away," Potter tells me. "I was really very political, before the war happened I was down in Washington - way too much, I was missing a lot of my classes… I was detained a few times, for several hours, and once I got stuck there for nearly eight hours! They had police trailers, they'd stick you in the trailer, print you, question you about who the leader of your group is, all that stuff. It wasn't for doing anything bad, nothing violent - I was just doing what I believed in!" And, she adds, "at least my parents were proud of me!"

"I [had] decided that until I [knew] how to write a really good [one], I'm going to keep my politics over here and music over here (gesturing). And I finally broke out of that for this new record because I figured out what kind of songs that I wanted to write - how to approach it without being like Michael Franti - 'we're gonna save the world…' It's important to have a message but not have the music be overshadowed by the message. I think you can have them work cohesively together and still have a great song, that's gonna last forever. The Doors' Break on Through (to the Other Side), that wasn't a political song but it was a thoughtful song and it brings you to another place. You can do that with music, you can open people's minds with it. Don't force it, don't push it. So I waited till I was ready - and I felt ready with Ah, Mary."

Though she may have been reticent about writing a so-called political song, Potter has not been one to shy away from speaking her mind, no matter the venue. The Nocturnals are on a Disney-owned recording label and were invited to attend the "Spirit of Life Award Dinner" in Hollywood because Disney Music Group's Bob Cavallo was being honored. "The Disney Channel people were there asking me (she affects a mock Entertainment Tonight-esque voice) 'So, what have you got to say to your 13-year-old fans?!'

"Freakin' kids - stop watching me!" she laughs, impishly pretending that's what she said. "Seriously, though, I really said everything wrong. I said the most heartbreaking thing you could ever say to a 12-, 13-year-old kid. Stop watching all the pretty girls who are too gussied up and too done-up for their age and find your own role model, be your own role model! I tried to say it in as 'Go Team!' a voice as I could. I'm the wrong person to be shoving a microphone in the face of 'cause you don't know what you're going to get out of me!"

Indeed. While I prepare to ask my next question, I first off-handedly ask Potter if while playing the Austin festival she had seen any of Björk's wild costumes which have been causing a stir. In so doing, I seem to strike a nerve inadvertently.

"No. I did not." Pause. "My whole thing is, in terms of female musicians - I'm not so keen on them!" she says, laughing somewhat apologetically. "It's not from a catty, competitive standpoint. It's more from a quality standpoint. You're a man, you're a woman - or you're a musician. You don't have to have this characteristic of being a 'chick-rocker' or a 'cock-rocker' - and it just bothers me that people have to categorize." (Case in point, apparently, is this description of Potter in Glamour magazine: "A chick who knows how to rock.")

"Everyone, everyone was like, oh my god, how was Regina Spektor?! I was like, I don't give a f***. I don't - just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I go to see the other girls," Potter says, concluding, "I respect certain people who hold themselves to a certain quality, such as Lucinda Williams."

Note to self: next time ask about Bob Dylan's outfit instead!

Family Dedication

As we talk groups of people affiliated with the band stroll in and out. "That's our lawyer," Potter gestures to her band mates in conversation across the room, "he's up here with his wife from New York, they've never come up to a Vermont show before." She's handed a sheet of paper, urging me to continue with questions as she reviews the set list - "it's so automatic" she assures me, and indeed, she proves that she can good-naturedly multi-task even amidst the din of rock n' rollers and a few kids running about. "You're all good there!" Potter says, handing the list back.

"How do you gear up to go out onstage and perform, especially like today with the sinus thing, and all?"

"I had no idea I was sick because… my body just shuts down all illnesses or at least makes my body think I'm not sick, so I can just plow through," she explains, recalling that immediately following the band's big homecoming show on the Burlington Waterfront in August, which came on the heels of an intensive summer of touring, she "crashed", falling ill with the flu - calling it the worst sickness she ever had.

"We were staying at the Hilton because it was our big homecoming show, we never stay[ed] at anything so fancy! - and I couldn't leave the room for three days. I was so incapacitated the room service people had to let themselves in to leave food and medicine because I couldn't get out of bed, that was how intense it was. All summer [it must have been] building up and then my body just shut down. The Waterfront show was so spectacularly perfect, everything about it - my health was up and I felt great, I had energy and then I crashed at about three in the morning. I was totally secluded in the hotel and totally Edie Sedgewicked it - minus the drugs, of course! No speed, no heroin for me, thank you very much."

No speed, indeed - Potter generates more than enough of her own natural energy and soon I get a clue as to where it may stem from. "Sparky!" the room erupts into a unified greeting as the door opens. Having discussed her father earlier in relation to the latest GPTN CD cover image, Potter had assured me "He'll be here - Sparky - you can't miss him. You will not miss the gnome, the leaping, bespectacled, gray-haired gnome with the big white teeth - he will be everywhere!" and I will indeed find this to be true as the evening sails on. Potter dashes to greet her father, who has brought along a longtime friend and his son to the show. Potter graciously welcomes them in, then slips conspiratorially aside with her father and gives him an update on her early morning trip to the ER, sounding uneager to have him tell her mother for fear that she'll get too worried.

Sparky then tells Potter that two of her uncles, whose birthday week it is, will be arriving soon, too. Soon after, Peggy Potter arrives, apparently alert to the fact that by the time the band goes onstage this late September evening in the Kingdom that it's going to be downright chilly. She's brought along a fur stole and hat, and laughs abound as Potter cajoles bassist Bryan to try the hat on. He earnestly inspects his reflection in the mirror, but soon discards it, carefully patting his hair back into place. Not so Potter, who happily vogues for my camera with a flair worthy of Brigitte Bardot.

The Potter family, which also includes Grace's brother, is tight-knit. When not on tour, Potter and Burr live on her parents' property in Waitsfield, so-called "Potterville" among the locals.

The closing track on the Nocturnals' latest CD, Big White Gate is dedicated to Potter's late grandmother. "She said 'I'm really proud of you Gracie,'" recalls Potter of one of their last visits. "'I think if you were still 13 I would tell you not to [pursue a rock n roll career], but since you didn't ask and you did it [anyway] I'm really proud of you. Because my life wasn't like that. I did everything 'right.' I didn't do as much as I wished I had done.'

"So I started writing a song; I realized she deserved a story - even if it wasn't her story," says Potter, explaining that the song is written from the perspective of a poor New Orleans soul singer. "I tried to take my grandmother's soul and character and give it a shot of life, something that might happen with her. It starts with her in the hospital and tells the story of her reflecting on her life, finding religion for the first time in the last few moments of her life."

Not long after the song was completed, the band played in Santa Fe and though her health was failing, Potter's grandmother was able to attend the concert. "There was no handicapped access, so they had to bring her through the backstage and she saw the whole dirty seedy scene which was good!" Potter smiles. "I'm glad she got to hear [the song], but I don't think she knew it was for her. I dedicated it to her but [it's not literally] about her - because if you listen to the lyrics, it's not the most complimentary song! 'I was a no-good mother, a no-good wife'… I knew it was the last time I was going to see her."

Twenty-Four, and There's So Much More

It's nearing show time; and after a few hours of festivity with friends and family buzzing in and out, everyone has cleared out and Potter excuses herself to the ladies' room for last minute primping and, apparently, voice warm-ups. At first I'm startled by the sound, fearing that a wounded or love-sick wild animal has infiltrated the Burke Mountain Lodge. By the time Potter belts out her first song on stage, however, all memories of wounded animals, sinus infections, and wide-eyed girlishness are swept away over the course of the next two hours and 12 songs. It's as though she has channeled in that old woman of Big White Gate and her "84 years of a sinning life."

The place to be at a show - according to messages posted among the dedicated followers of the Nocturnals on the band's Web site - is "in front of the B-3." This is Potter's Hammond organ, which she taught herself to play three years ago when the guys in the band pooled money together and gave it to her for her 21st birthday. "They said to me, 'you've got to stop playing that dinky-ass keyboard' I had, 'because it doesn't sound like you. You sing as loud as shit, so you should play something louder!'"

Potter cites Billy Preston, Garth Hudson of The Band, and Aretha Franklin as inspiration on the organ. "Inspiration comes from different places… I listen to the way Aretha played the piano, and it's almost like I never try to play like anybody but [rather] I try to play as if I was on stage playing with them."

The Nocturnals rock through their long set and encore at Burke to a wildly enthusiastic and appreciative audience, the band clearly loving it too. The Hollywood red carpets and the talk show green rooms are a world away tonight, but there's no doubt there'll be many more in Potter's future. Reflecting on their Tonight Show appearance and rise in fame, Potter had told me how important it was to the band that they have fun with it and not lose their "Vermont-ness."

What keeps it "Vermont"? "The spirit and joy; don't take it too serious," Potter smiles. "Be yourself and [show] that you're proud to be there, showing it with the joy in your face!" With Grace.

Margaret Michniewicz is editor of Vermont Woman newspaper.