Grace Potter Goes Solo.It was bound to happen. Sooner or later it was bound to happen. We just didn't want to think so. Grace Potter announces a solo album release and solo dates to tour. As humble as Grace appears to be, she just outgrew the band that has backed her since the beginning. It was bound to happen. Potter fans are abuzz with the recent news and not everybody is happy. But what about that band? At this writing, nobody really knows. We do know that the Nocturnals' lead guitarist, Scott Tournet, has posted on his social pages that he will not be joining Grace for her solo dates. My understanding is the rest of the band is staying on, but still the touring dates are listed as just Grace Potter. Grace's new recording titled "Midnight", is due to be released mid-August and the first track of that album, "Alive Tonight" is currently out and it differs from anything Grace and the band had previously released before. Grace has recently mentioned that it started out as a GPN record but kinda morphed into a solo project.
So is this the end of the Noc's? Is this the beginning of a new style for Grace? Sadly, yes to both, I think it is. Conversely, it may lead to be a great thing. For her. I mentioned earlier that Grace has outgrown the band. well. I think she has. After years of incessant touring, sometimes more than 150 dates a year, the benefits of doing so are coming to fruition and she seems to be everywhere. She's become too popular for the rest of the band. She's at the point where its evident that the band is just that. A band, and she would succeed with or without the Noc crew. Personally, I wouldn't want to see that because I really think the entire group as an ensemble is fantastic. I love the fact that they're not a manufactured band just out to make noise but a true indie band who self produced their earlier stuff and worked their tails off to get noticed.
I haven't heard any of the album yet, but if the new song is any indication of what to expect, I would be led to believe that Grace has stepped into, or wants to step into, Diva-Dom. The fact is, she probably couldn't stop it from happening if she wanted to. It was bound to happen. But Grace does have to tread carefully. The industry is chock full of beautiful women with powerful marketable appeal. Legs-up-to-your-neck can only take you so far. Beyonce is gorgeous. Katy Perry is beautiful. J- Lo is just is absolutely stunning. But I don't have even one of their songs in my library. And If the rest of Grace's new album is akin to "Alive Tonight", I wont have any more of Graces songs either. All of the GPN previous recordings are favorites of mine and I handed out dozens and dozens of homemade CD's to friends and strangers alike to turn people on to what I thought was the freshest new talent in a long time. And I include the Nocturnals.
Bands break up all the time and members are always leaving for various reasons and such. It's not fair to speculate on what happened with Scott Tournet, but one can only assume he wasn't on board with the change. In years past, the biggest obstacle for GPN to overcome, in my opinion, was the fact that they didn't fit into any one genre. I know, I know. No artist should have to be labeled or defined into any one category or genre and it upsets Grace when people say that. Talent is talent and music is music. I get it. And Grace has talent. The previous GPN recordings have touched on a few different styles of music and tended to weave different styles both from album to album, and from songs within album. Choral, blues, soul, rock, ballads, country. Whenever I handed out those aforementioned CD's, the people I was giving them to would ask me "What kind of music do they play?" It got to the point where I would say, " who cares, shut up and listen". But as us fans know, whatever she does, she shines. As do the Nocturnals. But this 106 beats per minute style is just another example of what I'm talking about. Its also exactly the reason we loved Grace so much, because she DIDN"T play or write that style of music. So if this is indeed the case, she may gain more notoriety with a new breed of fans, but she may also alienate the truest of GPN fans that believe in what she does now. It's almost like she doesn't know where she wants to go professionally. That scares me as a GPN fan.
So let's be fair here. Every other Noc's member has had solo projects or still has solo projects going on and Grace certainly deserves to have one also. Nobody's holding her back here. Just about every successful artist or superstar any of us can think of has started with a band previously in their career. Grace has an incredible stage presence and is extremely charismatic and her vocals have warmed our souls and rocked our world and she will still do well whether with the Nocturnals or not. It was bound to happen.