Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

This story was originally covered by PRI’s Here and Now. For more, listen to the audio above.

It’s a busy summer for Grace Potter and the Nocturnals — the band is booked at seven festivals this summer, including Chicago’s Lollapalooza, and Vermont’s Grand Point North Festival, for which they are headlining.

The 28-year-old singer and musician who fronts the band, Grace Potter, lives with her parents, and counts them as a major artistic influence. She describes a creative, hardworking childhood in which, “if we wanted to watch a movie, we were required to be painting something, doing something at all times, even when sitting in front of, you know, ‘Ghostbusters’ or ‘Willow.'”

While she has access to the glamorous life of a rock star, continuing to live with her parents keeps Potter grounded. She explains, “No amount of fancy hanging out on the Sunset strip and partying until 5 am is going to change who I am, because I always come back to my family.”

A do-it-yourself philosophy, which the musician sees as intrinsic to her home state of Vermont, has also influenced her music. She says Vermont is in every one of the band’s songs, and cites “Things I Never Needed” as an example of its presence in the music.  She says the song “brings about that kind of sense of not actually needing the things that surround you that you think define you — if you strip that all away, you’re still you at the core.”

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