Grace Potter returned to Byron Bay triumphant, bringing her new album Midnight to Bluesfest crowds and bringing it hard. Rocking out on stage throughout the Easter Weekend, the American musician came out swinging with this new material, showcasing more development within her musicianship and a brilliant new live show.
Potter caught up with Larry backstage during the festival to talk us through Midnight and the development of her sound.
“I always write parts very specifically, thinking about the players that I play with, but I didn’t do that on this record.” she says. “It was really interesting to watch Benny [Yurco] take on an entirely new form of guitar playing; he went back and took lessons and took on this role very seriously. He was like, ‘This is an expansion of my musicianship; I can learn new things now too,’ – we’re all experiencing a bit of a David Bowie [thing], when he did Young Americans… it’s suddenly like, it’s a very different sound but intrinsically, it’s me. I think that my voice, tying it together and my songwriting tying it together, has really fed my own musicianship and the musicality of all the folks on tour with me right now.”
Addressing the notable ‘pop’ sound Midnight encompasses, Potter says that it was a direct move in studio to incorporate a perhaps more radio friendly sound into the new music.
“The pop element in the studio was an important thing, because I want to get played on radio.” she says. “I don’t know if I will ever achieve that goal. Radio really still runs things there [in the States]. I’m just an artist; I’m never, ever going to follow the rules. I’m never going to do what people expect of me and the second somebody says, ‘You should go and make such and such album like Adele or Amy Winehouse…’ or, ‘Make a country album,’ or whatever, I’m going to go do the exact opposite of that thing.”
Listen to the full interview below!
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