After completing work on their T Bone Burnett-produced third album for Ragged Company / Hollywood Records, which is now in its final stages, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals will hit the road this summer in a new configuration. Catherine Popper (Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Hem) is the band’s new bass player, replacing Bryan Dondero, while their friend and fellow Vermonter Benny Yurco, who also plays Blues & Lasers, guitarist Scott Tournet’s experimental rock project, will be added as rhythm guitarist on all tour dates.
Writer/singer/keyboard player Potter, guitarist Scott Tournet and drummer Matt Burr had planned on holding extensive auditions for the vacant bass slot in New York and L.A., but they first checked out Popper on a recommendation. “She came in, plugged in and played with us,” Grace recalls, “and by the end of the first song we knew she was absolutely, positively the perfect person for us. She completely understood the direction we wanted to go in.”
After Yurco sat in with the band, including Popper, during their performance for a special VH1”School of Rock” 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival (they played “White Rabbit,” “Woodstock,” Janis Joplin’s “Try” and one original, “Nothing But The Water”), “We all had that new-band buzz,” Grace recalls. “We thought that if were making a lineup change, why not make it a whole new experience? Because we couldn’t really replace Bryan—he’d been with us too long for that. So having five members has made it a positive transition for all of us.”
Grace laughingly describes the as yet untitled new album, which is slated for a fall release, as “a soul record at its core, like the Velvet Underground backing Aretha Franklin.” Clarifying this improbable set of reference points, she says, “There’s a spirituality—a soulfulness—that’s tapping into the Al Green vibe, but with a youth, a darkness and an edge to it that I wasn’t expecting.”
Potter put her complete trust in Burnett, a studio visionary who was awarded the 2009 Producer of the Year Grammy for Robert Plant & Alison Krauss’ modern-day classic Raising Sand. For the sessions, the producer called on three of his go-to guys—drummer Jim Keltner, bassist Dennis Crouch and guitarist Marc Ribot—who formed the core studio band with Potter, Tournet and Burr.”
“We did the full-on Dylan experience, where these guys pulled the song together within 15 minutes,” Grace points out. “Each time, they’d listen to the song, write up their charts and then go in and start exploring. So a lot of the songs changed in unexpected ways from the demos. I was so lucky to have been prepared for that openness, because we were implementing something more significant than what the songs might’ve been otherwise.”
A key example of what Grace refers to as “the T Bone treatment” occurred early in the tracking, while they were working on the song “That Phone.” “Initially, it was a clean, sassy little pop song with a gospel base to it,” she says, “but when we took it into the studio, the band clicked into this trance-like pattern that took it to a completely new place; it was like a fire was lit under the song. And that turned out to be the launch pad for the record. I was sitting with T Bone the next day, and he said, ‘Now I know what kind of record we’re making.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, man, me too. This is a journey I need to take as an artist. This is the bridge.’ And everything we did from that moment on sounded great.”
This is Somewhere, the band’s preceding album, generated glowing reviews. Rolling Stone’s David Fricke raved, “Potter…is poised for bigger things… And she’s no pushover as lyricist.” The Austin Chronicle praised her “breakout, star-making” performance, while Paste asserted that Grace “has the potential for greatness.”
In between recording and mixing the new album, Grace Potter and The Nocturnals will be on the road playing a handful of dates previewing songs from their upcoming album.
-http://www.gracepotter.com/
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