Interview: Grace Potter, The Anti-Diva
The year 2010 marked a huge milestone in the career of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. The band broke out in virtually every conceivable way: they were featured on VH1 Divas Salute the Troops, Grace sang a duet with Kenny Chesney and the band had songs prominently featured in the feature films, Tangled and Alice in Wonderland. Shortly after the VH1 Divas performance, the band even outsold the Beatles on iTunes as the single top selling artist. Let’s just say the past few months have been nothing short of life-changing in the world of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.
[All photos by Jeremy Gordon]
“It’s always a funny thing when things start happening quickly,“ Grace comments. “You know that these things have been in the works for a long time and all of the sudden they get delivered to the world. Sometimes things hit really big and sometimes they don’t. I was really pleased with how quickly people responded to everything from the Tangled song to the VH1 Divas performance to the duet with Kenny Chesney. All that exposure hit a fever pitch, and I guess people finally had to look us up online. Our website crashed the day of the VH1 performance. It was really rewarding to finally hit that moment where everything really fell into place.”
It’s rather ironic how the VH1 Divas performance breached the tipping point whereby Grace Potter and the Nocturnals catapulted into the limelight, because for years Grace has playfully shunned the diva mentality. Even in performing on the program, she sensed VH1 chose her based on the perception that she was going to show up as the Vermont girl in the flannel and boots, yet got a big surprise when she appeared in one of her emblazoned mini-dresses. Even now that she has embraced her style and performs in much flashier outfits, Grace still gets a good laugh out of the whole idea of herself as any kind of diva. READ ON for more…
