CANDID CONVERSATION
By Tom Lanham
photo by Pamela Neal
I
n the DC Comics universe, Superman
always had his Fortress of Solitude, a
secluded palace on the frozen Arctic
tundra where he could go to muse on his
complex relationships with villains, the
Justice League, and indeed his planetary
protectorate, humankind itself. Not bad, as
exotic getaways go. Vermont-bred folk-
rocker Grace Potter, on the other hand, had
her remote Cabin of Contemplation in
Topanga Canyon, where she retreated
nearly five years ago to consider some
unexpectedly serious existential issues she
was facing. And it only took one week
there to change her life forever, all leading
to Daylight, her remarkably confessional
new solo outing that succinctly — and pas-
sionately — summarizes everything she’s
been through in the interim.
“I had an amazing sense of place in
Topanga, and I didn’t understand why,”
says the singer, now 34, who assembled
her backing band The Nocturnals at only
19. “But I went there because it was the
only place I felt at home. Being out in L.A.,
it can be an all-consuming place. So I went
there to recalibrate. And I had this revela-
tion that being alone shouldn’t be so com-
fortable. Why was I really enjoying being
alone, especially when being surrounded
by other people had been such a huge part
of my life until then?” She felt a sense of
peace and a new self-reliance wash over
her, she recalls. ”But it also meant that a
very tumultuous time was coming my
way. And I had to make some decisions.”
Listen carefully to the Eric Valentine-pro-
duced Daylight — and telltale tracks like
“Release,” “Back to Me,” “On My Way,”
and the soulful tour de force “Shout it
Out” — and you can put together the jig-
saw pieces fairly quickly. And, after every-
thing Potter has been through since 2015’s
initial post-Nocturnals foray, the more
danceable experiment Midnight (as she
outlines below), she emerges almost
Wonder Woman-victorious and relieved to
see the sun again, with a new significant
other (Valentine), a new baby boy named
Sagan (she’s an astrophysics nerd), a new
home (in Topanga, naturally), a new tour-
ing group, a new lone-wolf career (after
nearly giving up music for good), and a
new lease on life. She’s amazed she made it
through.
IE: What conclusions did you come to on
your Thoreau-ish trip?
GRACE POTTER: I realized that Midnight
was a solo record, which it wasn’t sup-
posed to be.
IE: But your marriage to your drummer,
Matt (Burr, whom she married in 2013)
was failing at the time, and you were
gradually falling for your producer, Eric?
GP: Yeah, but I didn’t know that then. I
mean, I missed Eric. We had finished mak-
ing Midnight, and I missed him. But I had-
n’t explained how I felt about him to him,
and he **certainly** wouldn’t have said
that about me, because he isn’t that kind of
guy. He’s just a record producer who’s
always getting ready to go into the next
project, like, “Okay, here we go! Next
thing!” But there was this weird emptiness,
and this feeling that was disconcerting
right after the record was done. I had a lot
22 illinoisentertainer.com january 2020
of feelings for Eric, but I didn’t know what
they meant. So part of being alone out
there was sorting through those feelings,
as well. It’s that feeling you get after sum-
mer camp when you miss summer camp
and all the friends you made, and you miss
that intense, immersive experience. So, I
needed to check-in and see that that wasn’t
what was going on; that I wasn’t just fixat-
ing on something. Before diving in and
telling Eric that I was falling in love with
him, you know?
IE: Because that would flip a pretty big
switch.
GP: Yeah. It flipped a LOT of switches. So,
realizing that? It came slowly, it wasn’t just
this instantaneous movie scene. But
Topanga — and that week that I spent
there — was all about finding out what
wasn’t feeling right, and what was feeling
right. And I came out of it knowing that I
had to step away from my band; that my
relationship with my ex-husband had
changed fundamentally, and that just
maybe there was something going on with
Eric. But it was another couple of months
after that when I finally explained how I
felt to Eric.
IE: Then you eventually lost your sense of
self, even the desire to make music?
GP: Yeah. The Midnight record and the
Midnight tour was actually the most suc-
cessful tour I ever had, which I thought
was really interesting. And why I did it —
and why it became a solo record (after four
with The Nocturnals) felt more like some-
thing I didn’t have any control over than
something I did. My band just didn’t want
to do that; they weren’t as interested as
they were before. So I thought, “Okay —
maybe my actions and my creativity are
speaking louder than my own words and
music.” So I think that tour was really
another revelation, that I can do this
myself. Startup a new band, have an
incredible time AND be successful. But by
the end of it, I think I’d totally milked my
creative juices, and I’d gone into that tour
and that album with a very rocky personal
life. I’d really lost my footing in so many
ways that by the end of that tour, I was
really, really ready to step back from music.
Not even step back, but just remove myself
from the entire conversation.
IE: What was your lowest point?
GP: We called it the downward spiral. And
the downward spiral for me was not being
able to communicate with my ex, to the
point where we weren’t really on speaking
terms, and yet we were still touring togeth-
er. He stayed on board for a part of the
Midnight tour, but there was a moment
after we played Radio City Music Hall that
I knew, and he knew — and everybody in
the band and crew knew — that this was
not a sustainable way to live. And I was
acting out — there was one moment where
I was spray painting my clothing a lot. I
don’t do any drugs — there’s a ‘No pills,
no powders’ rule on my bus, so for me, the
downward spiral wasn’t chemical – it was
all about glitter. You can gauge where my
anxiety [level] was on that tour based on
how much glitter was on me and all over
continues on page 26