Exclusive Premiere: Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, 'Never Go Back'

Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach stepped in to produce one track and co-write three songs on Grace Potter and the Nocturnals' upcoming album The Lion the Beast the Beat, set for a June 12th release on Hollywood Records.

The disc's lead single is the bluesy and upbeat "Never Go Back," which Auerbach co-wrote.

When Grace Potter and Auerbach wrote the song, they really intended just to play around with the equipment in the studio. "Dan's studio is a sex shop for gear pervs," says Potter. "I found a tiny old Casio that reminded me of my first-ever keyboard and started playing. He jumped on and started ****ing around with the rhythm track, and we wrote 'Never Go Back' within the first hour of being in his place," she explains. "We weren't thinking, 'Let's write a big hit single.' It was more like, 'Let's geek out with some weird gear and see what happens.' I'm very glad we did."

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals' The Lion the Beast the Beat won't be released until June 12th, but you can exclusively stream "Never Go Back" on RollingStone.com.

GPN’s Fourth Studio Album, “The Lion The Beast The Beat,” features collaboration with Dan Auerbach

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals are nearing completion of their fourth studio album for Hollywood Records, which will bear the title The Lion The Beast The Beat. The envelope-pushing new LP plays with reoccurring themes and big ideas. “I think there’s a Lion and a Beast within all of us – as humans. There’s also true goodness, and the appearance of goodness…” says Grace. “Maybe I’ve watched too much Mad Men, but I’m in love with the idea of a story with no heroes and no villains. I’ve never really even dipped my toes in the whole ‘concept album’ thing, but these themes just kept creeping into all the new songs and I didn’t fight it. I decided to embrace it.”

Among the song titles are “Stars,” “The Divide,” “Steady,” “Parachute Heart,” “Never Go Back,” and “Loneliest Soul,” both co-written with Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, and the title track “The Lion The Beast The Beat.”

“Each song stands upright on its own, but these songs really belong to this album. The way we’ve always made records is to put together a list of 30 or so songs, pick the best ones, throw them together and hope it congeals. I didn’t wanna do that this time. I came up with the track order before we recorded so we could really bring you in and out of these songs like scenes in a movie. I want to bring the listener into our weird fantasy and keep them there.”

The Lion The Beast The Beat has the scale of rock, the intimacy of blues, the wistfulness of country, and the imagination of psychedelia all tied together by an indelible voice. Grace can take you to church or the roadhouse, Nashville or Los Angeles, the penthouse or the pavement (or the barn) all in one phrase, and the band has the power and finesse to compliment her at every turn.

Potter co-produced the album with renowned studio artist Jim Scott. The band tracked the album live at PLYRZ, Scott’s studio in Santa Clarita, CA, far from the distractions of Hollywood. “When I first met Jim, I knew I wanted to make this record with him. He totally gets us,” says Grace. “He brought the perfect balance of sonic integrity and laid-back finesse. He clearly knows the ‘Zen Dance’ from many years with Rick Rubin and the countless records that he’s been a part of. His knowledge of working with bands runs so deep, from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to Wilco to Tedeschi-Trucks…Then we get to his studio, which is an F.A.O. Schwartz of vintage gear. I mean, the dude has enough drum sets for every single band member to play their own kit together, which we did—we’d go caveman apes**t every night before we left the studio.”

The Lion The Beast The Beat also contains the fruits of GPN’s collaboration with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. Auerbach co-wrote and recorded with the band in his Nashville studio in the midst of the pre-production, resulting in the songs “Never Go Back” and “Loneliest Soul.” Firing up his plethora of vintage amps, analog drum loops and “crazy kaleidoscope percussion,” as Grace puts it. “Dan has really hit his stride as a musician and a producer, making epic music the whole world is loving,” she says. “It was great to jump on his train for a few days and just let-a-rip.”

In April, the band will make their first-ever appearance at Coachella. “It’s great that we got invited. I love that it’s the first year they’re doing two identical weekends! I mean, who doesn’t want more of something great? It’s so right-on that they’re letting the party continue on. Most of the people who are gonna be there have no idea who we are. We’re fearless onstage, and I think Coachella is will be the perfect setting for us to be just that. And we’ll definitely unveil enough of the new stuff. I’m so looking forward to giving these songs life onstage.”

Following Coachella, GPN will embark on a summer stadium tour with co-headliners Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw, a pairing inspired by Grace’s duet with Chesney on their CMA Award-winning single and video “You and Tequila,” which is also up for multiple Grammy and ACM awards and was recently certified platinum for sales of over one million downloads. Grace is fully aware of the fact that a good number of those in attendance will think she’s a country artist, and she fully intends to disabuse them of that notion.

“I’m sure there will be some people who come to the show thinking they’ll see that blonde from the Kenny Chesney video and they get me,” she says with a laugh. “But I love taking people by surprise, and as much as we take things out into deep space onstage, elements of country and roots music have been in my songwriting since the very beginning. Besides, I think today’s country fans like to rock, and we’re gonna find a way to fulfill our dream of tastefully straddling rock ’n’ roll and country.

As if Potter didn’t already have enough good things happening in her career, Gibson is working with her on the Grace Potter Signature Flying V, which she designed herself in partnership with the guitar maker’s luthiers. “A rep from Gibson brought it to the studio last week and it was way better than any Christmas morning I’ve ever had. He told me that Gibson has only issued one other Signature electric guitar for a woman, and that was Joan Jett. I didn’t realize just how big a deal it was until I opened up the case and looked at it. It’s beautiful to look at – but more importantly, it sounds badass.”

All signs suggest that 2012 will be the year Grace Potter & the Nocturnals take it to the next level, validating years of nonstop roadwork and fulfilling their immense promise, commercially and artistically. And The Beat goes on…

Wow If there ever a record that was a example of trying to cash on any marketing plan...it was their last one...I know fans claim to be okay with the stylish dresses. And the guys looked like skinny walruses in their suits....to me it says as much about the shallow audience as the clueless company guys or whoever made those decisions....I just hope this one sounds rooster and rocks more...but it's hard to trust GPN for that at this point!
Gary/NY

I would have to concur. I became an instant Grace fan after seeing her w/ Gov't Mule a few years back. I bought everything and collected the boots and marveled at this sexy hippie chick creating these marvelously catchy songs. Then came to the move to Hollywood and it's been "product" ever since.

GRACE POTTER AND THE NOCTURNALS
“The Lion the Beast the Beat”
(Hollywood)
By JON CARAMANICA

Maybe it was Kenny Chesney who found the darkness inside Grace Potter. A couple of years ago the breezy country beach bum took a turn to the self-lacerating on “You and Tequila,” one of the most devastating songs of his career. It was a duet about love and addiction, shared with Ms. Potter, and it carried both of them to desperate, shadowy places they’d not previously been.

For years before that Ms. Potter and her band, the Nocturnals, had been pushing conservative, fundamentally polite, un-self-consciously retro 1960s rock and soul, with a touch of jam-band ooze. Hers was the sort of band that sprinkled live albums in between studio albums, and that started a rootsy annual festival in its home state, Vermont.

That version of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals was a band with a lot of muscle but no wit or savvy. There were glimmers of purpose on their self-titled third album from 2010, which had smears of grease on its rock but still felt overly concerned with decorum, despite Ms. Potter’s increasingly evident range.

“The Lion the Beast the Beat” is the fourth, and by far best, studio album by this band, which has finally allowed itself to try new poses and found give where previously there’d been only stiffness. By turns it’s eerie, skittish, bruising and panting. And it touches on plenty of new sounds. On “Never Go Back” the band’s chilly strut recalls Blondie; “One Heart Missing” recalls Kim Carnes; and the title track even suggests a hint of the art-rock churn of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (until it shifts directions halfway and begins to sound like a Bad Company cover band, one of a handful of egregious missteps on this album).

Ms. Potter, always a strong singer, is now a dangerous one too, finding a tone that’s ragged and loose on “Keepsake” and “Runaway.” On “Loneliest Soul” she peels off the vocals slowly and alluringly, letting each line settle in before starting the next.

That is one of three songs here written with and produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, who adds in a bit too much vintage-organ filigree, but who also encourages the band to use its guitars as weapons and nudges Ms. Potter into more tousled territory.

At her best on this album she calls to mind Stevie Nicks in her least drowsy phase. “I lit a fire with the love you left behind/It burned wild and crept up the mountainside,” she sings on “Stars.” On “Parachute Heart,” which, like “You and Tequila,” captures love’s uncontrollable urges, she sounds like a woman getting lost, and finally taking flight:

There’s trouble in the friendly skies tonight

Love can never last when you’re flying up this high

You took the leap but I’m not ready to come down

So long baby

I’ll see you someday

When we’re both on the ground.

Grace Potter pulls from her roots, but she isn't afraid to get rowdy
By Chris Richards / The Washington Post

She's opening for Nashville nice guys Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw on tour this summer, but Grace Potter hasn't been minding her manners. She howls. She thrashes. She stomps across the stage with a fury that will make you wonder if the stage said something nasty about her mother.

"I don't know if it's coming across properly," the 29-year-old admits. "People might think I'm coked up because I've been everywhere on that stage. I run, like, 21/2 miles every night."

After clocking thousands of miles on the road with her band, the Nocturnals, the effusive rock singer has earned a reputation for her fiery live show. But this is Ms. Potter's first stadium tour -- and the stadiums are filled with thousands of finicky country music fans, no less. The stakes are high, and the stage is sprawling. There's even a catwalk, allowing Ms. Potter to stomp a little closer to 50,000-ish ticket holders as they search for their seats, wondering who let this blond hurricane into the building.

"I think there's a real ferocious approach to what we do as a band, and I don't like the idea of phoning it in, even though it's a stadium of people who are there to hear country music, not rock-and-roll," she says. "It's really fun for me. "

It's also the latest break for a singer who has been heralded as an overnight success every night for the past seven years.

Potter first made ripples outside of her native Vermont in 2005 by adopting the business tactics of countless jam bands: incessant touring and lots of fan interaction. But that second part got trickier after she signed with Hollywood Records, a label owned by Disney. Her popularity swelled as she continued to plug away on the jam-band circuit, but she managed to retain the scrappy image of an artist who was on the verge of something bigger.

The fourth Grace Potter and the Nocturnals studio album, "The Lion the Beast the Beat," arrived in June. And after recording a duet called "You and Tequila" with Mr. Chesney in 2010, Ms. Potter's on the road with him through the end of the month.

Potter says there's a purpose to her party-crashing. "Think about what makes a band burn out," she says over the phone from a recent tour stop in Portland, Ore. "They get too successful too fast. And then they take it for granted. And they get entitled. And they get picky. We don't ever allow ourselves that possibility."

Which means she's constantly sniffing out new turf in hopes of converting new hearts. And it's working. Her brand of rootsy rock-and-roll is familiar enough to gain entry with an array of audiences, and her stage presence is rowdy in a way that's tough to forget.

"She's actually brilliant," said global business magnate Richard Branson backstage at the Virgin Mobile FreeFest at Merriweather Post Pavilion last September. "It's very nice to have Grace as a friend."

And everyone seems to want to have Grace as a friend. While Mr. Branson was swooning, Ms. Potter was strutting across a Merriweather stage, windmilling away at her Gibson Flying V. Less than a year later, she has her own signature model of the guitar. She also has her own brand of Lake Champlain chocolate bar. Cabot Cheese paid for her first tour bus. And she's hosting a music festival in Burlington, Vt., next month that's sponsored by Green Mountain Coffee.

Sure, corporate sponsorships have become commonplace in pop music, but Ms. Potter talks about these brands like they're her pals, fellow Vermonters (save for Gibson) who are trying to run businesses that do good. Her alliances have reinforced a warm-fuzzy sense of community pride while helping her band thrive in an industry where record sales continue to slump toward oblivion.

She still calls Vermont home. She recently renovated an old structure on the artist compound where her parents raised her, a plot of land in rural Vermont they've jokingly dubbed "Potterville."

It was a great place to grow up, despite being a bit of a musical no-place. Ms. Potter says Vermont's lack of musical output made her ravenously curious about other pages in the American songbook, blues and gospel especially.

As a kid, when she had the chance to see live music, she soaked up every detail, sometimes through teary eyes. She remembers being 9 years old at a James Brown concert in Boston with her family, bawling because she wanted to be onstage so badly.

Twenty years later, she's onstage most nights of the year but has no plans to change her permanent address. "For all the flack that we get for becoming successful, you get people who really respect how firmly planted our feet have been in Vermont," she says.

She's talking about the despair that she heard from her hardest die-hards once she signed with Hollywood. On top of having to share their favorite singer with the rest of the world, fans also noticed that Ms. Potter's hair was a few shades lighter. Her boot-cut jeans shrunk to Daisy Dukes. Her sneakers turned into stilettos.

She was changing her image, but Ms. Potter says some fans read it the wrong way.

"The misconception about the record company is that they were the ones who got me wearing short skirts, or got me to do my hair blond, or got me to dance around on stage and start doing different things with my clothes," she says. "No, that was actually all me."

She embraces a look that matches her ambition but still finds herself battling the T-shirt-and-corduroys image she forged during her earliest days on the tour circuit. "I hear it all the time," she says. " 'What happened to the Grace Potter who didn't used to wear makeup?' "

Superficial as that gripe might be, it's the reality of slowly, steadily growing toward fame. Gaining new fans can mean losing old ones.

"But they're not really lost," Ms. Potter insists. "They're just waiting for you to come back to that thing that they like that you do."

Beneath the mascara and the sparkly dresses, she thinks she's been doing it all along. She only gets 35 minutes on stage opening for Mr. Chesney and Mr. McGraw, but she taps into the sweaty spirit of the tiny club dates of yesteryear, stomping around the space between her dues-paying past and her potentially starry future.

"I love living in the gray area," Ms. Potter says. "I think it's a really inspiring place to be."