The following interview took place at a house party in Vermont at the end of a long day spent with Grace Potter and her boyfriend, Matt Burr who happens to be the drummer in her band, The Nocturnals. We met around noon, had a nice brunch, walked around Burlington, took a trip out to Grace’s childhood home in Waitsfield, had dinner with her parents and finally arrived at a fondue and wine party out in the snowy outskirts of Stowe. Matt was downstairs playing drums in the living room with The Eames Brothers, a local band he performs with from time to time, so Grace and I retreated to a quiet room upstairs for the “formal” part of the interview, although by this point we had already covered a wide range of topics. There was much to talk about with the release of the band’s new album slated for June, Grace’s semi-shelved solo project with legendary producer T-Bone Burnett and The Nocturnals’ recent line-up change.

For much more on Grace Potter and the Nocturnals pick up the current issue of the magazine.

JW: So let’s just start with the elephant in the room. [Nocturnals drummer] Matt [Burr] and you are a couple.

GP: Right, which is something that we’ve not usually shared with the world.

JW: It’s extremely challenging to make the interpersonal dynamic of a band work and very difficult to make the dynamic of a relationship work. When you put the two together it seems like it would be impossible.

GP: It’s not, it’s beautiful. I honestly don’t know how this band would be if we were not a couple. Especially, with a new lineup. With Catherine [Popper] and Benny [Yurco] joining, it did turn it into more of a family. Because before, it was Scott [Tournet] and Brian [Dondero]: two single guys and Grace and Matt, the couple. It certainly made it two and against two. I don’t think that anybody intended for it to be that way but there was a problem with that I think.

JW: What was the problem?

GP: Just that everybody got sectioned off. When we were making This is Somewhere, me and Matt lived in one apartment at the Oakwood Plaza in L.A., which was miserable, and then Brian and Scott lived in another apartment. So no matter what happened throughout the day, they would go back to their apartment and talk about the day, and we would go back to our apartment and talk about the day. I don’t think that that separation did anything good for us. It only fed insecurities and problems that would have come up between band members.

JW: Because they saw it as Team Matt and Grace.

GP: Right, Team Matt and Grace. There’s no way around it, we’re a power couple. I’m sort of the mini art department within GPN and he’s the strategist. I can’t answer a question about our schedule without asking him and he can’t answer a question about which photo we want to use for a press release without asking me. We’re certainly integral in that way. It wasn’t always a problem with the former line-up, but I think it did create problems.

JW: Is it hard to separate the dynamic, because clearly you’re the band leader.

GP: Yeah, definitely. But he’s like the consiglieri.

JW: So are you also the leader in the relationship?

GP: No, he’s totally the leader in the relationship. He’s my boss man. Like I said, I’m a little women. I love cooking, I love cleaning, I love decorating, I love making beds, I love everything that comes with being the women.

JW: That’s such a fascinating dichotomy. Is it hard to separate business from pleasure when you’re making band decisions?

GP: Well we make decisions together. I know in my heart what’s the right or wrong answer lot of the time. That’s something that only the person who wrote the song or has to play it live 500,000 times could answer. Maybe he understands that’s not his place to know that piece of it. And also, it’s a joy to know that there is someone with their head on so straight as him to be my adviser. So yes, my power comes from the music, and my power comes from the decision-making and the leadership that I find in this band, but it also comes from him and certainly his educated decision-making.

JW: You guys must be very confident in your relationship. Whether or not you’d like to admit it, you’re a sex symbol and you’re out there wearing a short skirt while all the guys in the front row gawk at you.

GP: And he’s cool with it.

JW: That says a lot about his character, that he’s able to sit there and watch you get all of that attention, and not get jealous.

GP: We’re not jealous people. We’ve gotten that label because I write songs about jealous people and I write songs about cheating and lying and backstabbing. The treacherous road of love is real, but I’m more capable of dramatizing that and making it more like a movie as opposed to pulling from my own pain. I mean, we’ve been through a lot of stuff. We’ve done horrible things to each other, hurt each other, yelled at each other – all that stuff’s happened. But that isn’t the thing that I feed off of when I’m writing a song because it’s much easier to think how much worse it could be.

JW: You said your last album was 100 % autobiographical. Your new album deals with some intense break-up issues, but you’ve been with Matt since the band formed. Where does the inspiration for all the heartbreak come from?

GP: It’s just like writing a screenplay. I’m not saying that it’s not coming from a genuine place and I haven’t experienced those emotions, but it hasn’t led to the end of the road the way it does with so many musicians. I’m not saying that we don’t have our trials and tribulations and I’m Little Miss Perfect writing a movie all of the time. We go through everything that every other couple goes through. But sometimes it’s amplified versions of all that because of the fame and being crammed in a tour bus with alcohol and everything that comes with being on tour. We’ve had a lot of trial and error. I mean it’s been brutal at times. We’ve actually come to be healthier people because of it. We don’t allow any pills or powders on our bus. None of us use it anyway. I mean, alcohol is my little vice – I used to be the little girl wandering around festivals with a whisky bottle in my hand. Now, if you look at the whisky bottle, it’s probably a whisky bottle full of water.

JW: Oh really, you still want that image?

GP: No, sometimes if you get out on the road and you want to manifest the rock and roll spirit, you can do it without hurting yourself.

*JW: The song, “Lose Some Time,” [off This is Somewhere is that about similar themes of infidelity as “One Short Night?” *

GP: Oh yeah, the cheating thing is actually not only a popular thing to write about, it’s a thing that we have both experienced. Matt and I have both gone through our phases of free love and letting our wings spread. If you really feel like you love somebody, I think you want to be sure. He and I both know that we were very young when we got together. I didn’t want to limit myself and wish I hadn’t later.

JW: “One Short Night” just sounds very revealing.

GP: Oh it’s completely out there. And it’s a true story.
JW: So again, going back to the dynamic – and Fleetwood Mac is a perfect example – isn’t it hard to be on stage or in the studio looking at the guy you’re singing about? Does it trigger those heartbreaking emotions or are you so numb to it by this point that you’re just singing?

GP: I’m not going to lie, there’s an element of show business in it. But more than any showmanship, honesty with the audience is the most important thing. Sometimes I’m overly honest. I’m totally the TMI girl. I’m learning how to do that in a more musical way as opposed to just revealing my life story and making people feel like this is some type of Amy Winehouse situation where I’m just telling everybody everything. But I do vibe on the fact that people need to know what’s really going on and making a real connection with somebody. So at [The] Sundance [Film Festival], I told the story of “One Short Night.”

JW: What was the story you told?

GP: That we were sort of in the free love phase of our relationship. He let me go off one night with a different person. The night ended quickly and I came home, but in the meantime, I didn’t know why Matt was so bummed out. I thought we always kind of had this under control and thought we knew this was sort of what was going to happen. Am I sorry? Of course I am, but I didn’t feel like I needed that guilt and he kept making me feel guilty. Then he told me it was his birthday. So that hit home really hard.

JW: That was just a coincidence?

GP: Coincidence, yeah. I had no idea. Not only was there regret – the great thing about it, it was the most reaffirming night of my life. By the way, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds, I didn’t sleep with anybody, but it was very romantic, and it was a moment of connection with a different person. But it really hit home. Why would I ever be with anybody else? I got so spun out on stupid ideas and stupid romantic thoughts that are so fleeting, only to realize that I was forgetting someone who I care about – on his birthday. Which, by the way, I’m a big birthday person, so missing birthdays is like the most devastating thing I could ever do.

JW: Does it sound intentionally like Fleetwood Mac because of the theme?

GP: There’s a song on the record, “Tiny Light” that I think sounds more like Fleetwood Mac and I love Fleetwood Mac, for the record. But, I always think about Dire Straits when I think about “One Short Night.” But the theme of the song is absolutely Fleetwood Mac. I mean, they were so out there in the open with their situations and their personal stories. And I commend them for it, although I think it destroyed them.

JW: It did and it’s poetic irony that it yielded their greatest work of all time.

GP: I think being too open about your private life is really dangerous. I don’t want to withhold things from people or change who I am. In the situation of “One Short Night,” that story is true, but it plays like a movie and I can’t ignore it. I feel like it needs to be told because it’s a big part of who I became over the last five years.

JW: Did part of your songwriting style come out of your filmmaking background in college?

GP: Absolutely, screenwriting was my thing. That was what I wanted to do. So every time I write a song, I’m visualizing everything. Just like the song “Colors” and how I see images, especially certain frozen moments, like a freeze frame or a treatment for a movie. I’m always envisioning what a music video for that song would look like.

JW: Let’s transition into the T-Bone Burnett Album. At the time, you were really excited to work with him. And then, just as the album was recorded, your new band formed.

GP: Right. That was pivotal. I think T-Bone understands that because he’s got musicians behind him who he loves and cares about. He knew when we agreed to work together that my band was sort of in pieces because Brian had just left. When I agreed to work with T-Bone that was an amazing break and an amazing opportunity. But it was so bittersweet. I mean, it was in the same three days that Brian was leaving and T-Bone had decided to work with us.

JW: Why did Brian leave?

GP: It was more something that I felt needed to happen and i presented him with all the variables that I felt were driving me to say the things that I was saying and I felt like maybe this wasn’t the right band for him. After presenting them to him, he took a day, and agreed [to leave the band]. So, I’d like to think that it was an amicable moment where it was his decision to make – I wasn’t telling him to leave. But I do feel like it was my responsibility to accept the fact that I brought it all up. And I said, “I see these growing issues.”

JW: Musically?

GP: No – lifestyle. Certainly, some music stuff. He didn’t agree with a lot of the things I was doing. I mean, the One Tree Hill thing was not his favorite thing I ever did.

JW: He is more a purist rock and roll guy?

GP: Severely. And I saw our Hollywood experience growing and improving. And not just growing in a say- yes-to-everything, say-yes-to-boob-implants kind of way. But, I think the two of us had a hard time understanding the difference between those two things. But there doesn’t have to be a severity. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. There can be something beautiful that’s in the middle, that’s successful and has integrity.
JW: So you did five songs with T-Bone?

GP: Well, yeah. It was like sessions. I came to him with like fifty songs and some songs were ideas that we didn’t actually finish. He brought in his band, [drummer] Jim Keltner, [guitarist] Marc Ribot, and [bassist] Dennis Crouch. And, just so that you know, that record has not disappeared. It’s not even really considered shelved. It’s not even on the back burner, maybe just the middle burner.

JW: Were The Nocturnals not a band at the time?

GP: Catherine and Benny were not involved.

JW: Did The Nocturnals break up temporarily?

GP: No, but we didn’t know what was going to happen. We certainly were all completely flapping in the wind. The idea was to eventually find a bass player. But I didn’t just want to find a bass player. I wanted a new band. I didn’t want to fire anybody else and feel like everybody was leaving. But this was a very stricken phase. I had all these songs and I knew I wanted to record them and I had to get them out to the world, but things were falling apart from the inside. I felt that I needed to have action because that’s just what Potters do. And that action was to work with T-Bone until my band found its feet again. The fact that T-Bone was even interested, remotely, was such validation. Not one that I was even looking for, it just fell into us. Bob Cavallo, the head of [Hollywood Records], knew T-Bone and called him up about some golf wager that they had from back in the day, and said, “Hey, I’ve got this artist, you may not know who she is, but she’s been out and about in the last few years, and if you like her, let’s go have breakfast with her.” So T-Bone just decided to have the breakfast with us, and after the end of the breakfast, he agreed to do the record. It was a really scary time. I mean, my band was gone. Oddly enough, the T-Bone project, and its inception, happened the same week I co-wrote seven songs with Mark Batson.

JW: Why were you co-writing with Mark? Did you think you were making a different album than the potential one with T-Bone?

GP: I was just writing songs for an open-ended album. I didn’t know who was going to produce it. Nobody knew where it was going to go. I had six of those thirteen songs that are on the record done and I think the label wanted me to write some more. But they also felt, and Justin, my manager, felt like there was this really great opportunity to write with this hip-hop guy Mark. So the T-Bone thing was not in any way confirmed, there was no idea that T-Bone was going to come have breakfast with us. So basically, when I’m in L.A., I know that I’ve got these issues with Brian, but I haven’t dealt with them yet. I’ve got a feeling like the band has been on a break. For like three months at this point, we’ve been off. There was a heaviness to even the idea of us getting on a bus together and going back on the road. So it was just feeling like there were a lot of things coming down on me, but at the same time, I knew exactly what I wanted.

JW: Why was The Nocturnals’ future in question? Were there other problems besides just needing a new bassist?

GP: The thing that was in question was that T-Bone had agreed to work with me, but he hadn’t agreed to work with the whole band. He loved Scott, though. He was into the idea of the band, but he’s T-Bone, and he has his people that he knows how to work with that I’m sure he didn’t want to risk working with an entire band of people and new personalities. Really, the band wasn’t in pieces at all. Scott and Matt were firmly in my spirit, in my heart. But T-Bone was really excited about working with me and the songs that I had written.

JW: And again, this gets to the heart of what I was saying earlier. As your boyfriend, Matt would have to be a hundred percent behind you because you have this is an amazing opportunity to work with T-Bone Burnett. But as your bandmate, it must have hurt that T-Bone wanted to use a different drummer.

GP: But not when it’s Jim Keltner. When Matt heard that Jim Keltner was going to be on the record, he shit his fucking pants. Everyone was happy. Brian was actually really happy too, he was really excited for us. He saw the opportunity in it. He wasn’t happy, but he was level-headed about what an amazing opportunity it was. And he saw clearly that it was the right thing to do. And we’ve all loved T-Bone forever.

JW: I think a lot of people may have been confused because there was word last summer that the Nocturnals were making an album with T-Bone Burnett. Now the album is done and its produced by Mark Batson. There may have been a perception that T-Bone was replaced, but what you’re saying is that they were two completely separate projects.

GP: T-Bone knows this, and that’s why I think there wasn’t a lot of animosity in the project shift because he’s loyal to his musicians, too. There were no Nocturnals on the record except Scott and basically everything that Scott played on was getting mixed out anyway which was really upsetting for me because I heard what he did and I felt that it was so true to where I’ve come from and it was so familiar. But at the same time, I understand why he was getting mixed out. That’s just a sound – T-Bone goes for one thing, the Nocturnals go for another. The T-Bone record was essentially a solo album. And I don’t think that he would disagree because at the time that we all decided to work together, I was a solo artist. I had two members of a band that were waiting for the next step.

JW: “Medicine” is a song that you recorded with both producers. How do the two versions compare?

GP: Well that’s a fascinating study just in general, to listen to T-Bone’s record and then to Mark’s. It’s apples and oranges. They’re so different. Keltner went into this crazy, tribal rhythmic journey and the guitar riff wasn’t so important. And the guitar riff on the “Medicine” that Batson did with us – it was all guitar. It’s the driving force behind it. The drums are certainly there and present, but the guitar line is the hook. The hook was not as much as the focal point on the T-Bone record.

JW: In that one, you make an overt reference to Stevie Nicks in the lyrics.

GP: No, I said in an interview that she is the woman in the song. I like to picture that this woman, the policy woman, is a brunette, gypsy, Spanish version of Stevie Nicks that has come into town.

JW: So that fact that you mention a “gypsy woman” in the lyrics, that’s a coincidence?

GP: That was a connection I made later. Sometimes, it’s amazing how musicians can rewrite what the song was about after the fact and I try not to do that as much as possible. I try to keep it pure and try to remember what I was thinking the night I wrote it. But certainly, there’s this imagery of a young, Spanish Stevie Nicks with long black hair coming into town and just blowing everybody’s mind.

JW: Obviously the state of the record business is not great these days. You have a very sellable album. Ten years ago it could have sold a lot of copies, but things are different now. So what is your goal for this record and moving forward?

GP: I’d like for this to be our breakthrough. I would like to continue growing and I want it to be on a natural arc. I don’t want some crazy spike, but I would embrace anything that happens. I don’t want a flop and I don’t want to go back to making sandwiches in Waitsfield, so anything better than that is fantastic. If this record doesn’t do well, I think it’s just going to be a sign that I need to get married and have babies. But, I really hope that it’s not time for that yet because I have a dream that would be sad not to fulfill. Today at the lake, when we were sitting on the rocks, you were asking us what we used to dream about when Matt and I used to drink wine there all those years ago. And, it’s this. I’m not kidding you. This is exactly where I wanted to be. So, if our record could just get us to the next level a little bit, than that’s exactly where I want to be as well. If there is that crazy, unexpected spike, and the industry has something amazing in the cards for us then, I’m ready for that as well because I think I was born to do this. I really do. But I’m ready for whatever happens. I really am. As long as I don’t have to make sandwiches.

Jefferson Waful is a longtime contributor to Relix Magazine. He is also the lighting designer for Umphrey’s McGee.