Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Grace Potter, who has a new
Speaker 1: album entitled Mother Road. Grace. One of the lyrics on
Speaker 1: the album mentions In and Out Burger. Are you a
Speaker 1: fan of In and Out Burger?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Ever since I saw The Big Lebowski and there's
Speaker 2: no In and Out Burgers in Vermont. So I saw
Speaker 2: the movie and was like, my American dream was to
Speaker 2: go to find it In and Out Burger at some
Speaker 2: point in my life, and I did.
Speaker 1: So does it live up to the legend?
Speaker 2: It does, especially when you breastfeed somebody in an In
Speaker 2: and Out Burger, which did happen.
Speaker 1: What happened there?
Speaker 2: I had been drinking and I was out with some
Speaker 2: friends I had been I was also a nursing new
Speaker 2: mother who was given a night out on the town
Speaker 2: with the girls, and I had way too much alcohol
Speaker 2: to go home, and just like pump and there was
Speaker 2: a guy there who was like, I'll drink the milk.
Speaker 2: So I was like, awesome. So I got a dude
Speaker 2: drunk off of my booby milk at an In and
Speaker 2: Out Burger at two in the morning in Hollywood. That's
Speaker 2: a real story.
Speaker 1: That's quite a story. So when you go to in
Speaker 1: and Out, what do you order?
Speaker 2: So I don't. I'm I don't do what everybody does.
Speaker 2: I like. I have a very specific thing. I like
Speaker 2: the I like a cheeseburger, but I don't if it's
Speaker 2: American cheese, I don't want it. So I was. I
Speaker 2: usually just say I want a cheeseburger, like just clean, simple,
Speaker 2: no toppings, like no ketchup, no mustard, no mayo, no,
Speaker 2: none of that. Just like I want to know on
Speaker 2: a fundamental level what the burger and the bread feel
Speaker 2: about each other. That's the best way I feel I
Speaker 2: can deduce whether it's worth going deeper in on an
Speaker 2: ex laoratory level. And it was. So I just did
Speaker 2: a plane burger. But because they were doing they had
Speaker 2: cheddar as an option. I did it with cheddar, which
Speaker 2: was just delicious.
Speaker 1: Okay, the big thing in and Out is double double.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, But you didn't do that.
Speaker 2: I didn't, I was. I was really just looking for
Speaker 2: and this is I'm talking about first order. Ever that
Speaker 2: that was way after the breastfeeding incident. Was was much later.
Speaker 2: But what I did the first time I got there
Speaker 2: was just the plain plain Jane with cheddar cheese. And
Speaker 2: then later, uh yeah, I tried the fries. I tried
Speaker 2: the I did do this thing they say, if you
Speaker 2: take a bite of the what's the one that has
Speaker 2: the like the relish and the animal style? Animal style?
Speaker 2: Thank you? So you do the animal style with a
Speaker 2: doctor pepper and a fry, and there's like this flavor
Speaker 2: that it creates in your mouth that apparently is very
Speaker 2: similar to like butterscotch. It gives you like a weird
Speaker 2: you know after it's like a flavored you know, somalie
Speaker 2: a type thing. Anyways, I tried that. It did not
Speaker 2: taste like butter scotch in my mouth, but it was delicious.
Speaker 1: And if I snapped my fingers and you could have
Speaker 1: any burger, what would that burger be?
Speaker 2: Whoppers? Yeah, after all that, it's just because I grew
Speaker 2: up in a place where there was no fast food,
Speaker 2: so the closest one was a Burger King, and it
Speaker 2: was I mean, it's still an hour and a half
Speaker 2: drive to the Burger King. But it's sad to me
Speaker 2: to think that that's the reality of my life. But
Speaker 2: fast food is really rare for me. It's just something
Speaker 2: that comes. It comes with the territory. If I guess
Speaker 2: touring all the time, but it doesn't change the fact
Speaker 2: that I like meat grown on a farm and fed
Speaker 2: to me by the person who slaughtered the cow. So
Speaker 2: it's a little different where I come from and Vermont.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're from Waitsfield.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I went to college in Middlebury over the Hill No way.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, my college roommate lives in Waitsfield.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: Do you know the Klars?
Speaker 2: I know the name. And when I was I served
Speaker 2: at a restaurant and there was a Verklar table that
Speaker 2: they would have that they loved. It was like the
Speaker 2: quarter table that they always had whenever they came in.
Speaker 2: But I don't think I ever served them myself. I
Speaker 2: just know of the Verklar table.
Speaker 1: Okay, So were your parents Did they grow up in Waysfield?
Speaker 2: My dad is from Connecticut, my mom is from New Jersey.
Speaker 2: They had that baby boomer back to the land moment
Speaker 2: in the seventies where they had gone to Saint Lawrence University,
Speaker 2: and my dad graduated a little bit before my mom.
Speaker 2: But he just didn't want to stop skiing, so he
Speaker 2: decided that he wanted to figure out a job, a
Speaker 2: career path that would provide him the ability to ski
Speaker 2: forever and have a reason. So he became a sign
Speaker 2: maker and he does all the signs or for instance,
Speaker 2: the American Ski Company, but also many other privately owned
Speaker 2: mountains and ski areas. So that's that was his passion.
Speaker 2: He followed it, and my mom was an editor, a
Speaker 2: photographer and artists. It just lived lived the dream artist,
Speaker 2: you know, hippie life here in Vermont and and really
Speaker 2: brought a huge amount of the hippie glory that you
Speaker 2: would imagine like the hill people in Vermont had they
Speaker 2: were living that that exact dream.
Speaker 1: Okay, so are you a skier?
Speaker 2: I was, but I have mixed feelings about skiing now.
Speaker 2: I just think it's a really really expensive, silly pastime
Speaker 2: and very dangerous. And everybody gets hurt all the time
Speaker 2: that I know, And so the more people that I
Speaker 2: know that have gotten hurt or just can't play music
Speaker 2: because they broke their wrist or whatever, it is, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: it's not worth it. So for purposes of like my
Speaker 2: greater purpose in the world is music, I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: I don't want to be that guy that has to
Speaker 2: tell the story about how I crashed skiing and that's
Speaker 2: why I can't play guitar anymore. You know, it's not
Speaker 2: worth it.
Speaker 1: So one was the last time you got on the hill?
Speaker 2: I was in Jackson, Wyoming after playing Downtown. It was, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was twenty twenty nineteen. No, twenty twenty, it was
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. Yeah, well it's not that long ago. It
Speaker 2: was because we were in Jackson and I had to
Speaker 2: show that I knew what I was talking about because
Speaker 2: I was a competitive downhill ski racer and was raised
Speaker 2: on that in that culture, and I thought nothing of
Speaker 2: it until I went out into the world and saw
Speaker 2: that not everybody gets to grow up like that. And
Speaker 2: the second that I realized that my passion and my
Speaker 2: purpose was something else other than winning, Because the only
Speaker 2: reason I really wanted to be a GS skier was
Speaker 2: because the grand slalom suits are really tight and they
Speaker 2: reminded me of Ziggy star Dust and I'm not even
Speaker 2: kidding that. I was like, if I get to dress
Speaker 2: like Zaggy start Us and go super fast down a mountain,
Speaker 2: then count me in. But beyond that, beyond the fancy
Speaker 2: outfits and the going fast, I think I've managed to
Speaker 2: figure out a career where I can do both of
Speaker 2: those things.
Speaker 1: Anyways, you know, okay, if your father was a sign painter,
Speaker 1: it sounds like your mother was freelance. Doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: there was a ton of money growing up. What was
Speaker 1: the economic status?
Speaker 2: It was a legit problem. We did end up renting
Speaker 2: our house out a few winters and that's where I
Speaker 2: ended up going to Albuquerque to visit my grandparents and
Speaker 2: they lived out there, and we did have to do
Speaker 2: the like the cross Country Walk of Shame, you know,
Speaker 2: where my parents were limping along financially and needed to go,
Speaker 2: you know, move back in with the parents, and we
Speaker 2: homeschooled and had a really amazing cultural experience, which at
Speaker 2: the time I was too young to understand that there
Speaker 2: was financial reasons for that. I thought it was just
Speaker 2: because we were going to go on a nice family
Speaker 2: road trip, but actually we genuinely needed to, you know,
Speaker 2: to step away from the expensive ski culture for a
Speaker 2: hot minute there. And I think it was good. It
Speaker 2: was character building.
Speaker 1: So how many kids in the family.
Speaker 2: There's three. I'm the middle child. I've got an older
Speaker 2: sister and a younger brother.
Speaker 1: And what's the difference in age two.
Speaker 2: Years between us. It's like that perfect.
Speaker 1: I have the exact same situation. I'm the middle child too.
Speaker 2: You are. And you know what, here's another interesting thing.
Speaker 2: I happened to have an honorary doctorate of the Arts
Speaker 2: from Middlebury Really, doctor Lefsetz, doctor Potter, nice to.
Speaker 1: See, PhD. How did you get How did you get that?
Speaker 2: I think they just wanted me to play the graduation
Speaker 2: and they couldn't figure out how to. They'd been doling
Speaker 2: out honorary degrees to me. I got one from Champlain College.
Speaker 2: I got an honorary doctorate of the Arts at Champlain College,
Speaker 2: an honorary graduate's degree at Saint Lawrence, where I had
Speaker 2: left to college. But you know, I think I just
Speaker 2: put it out there into the world. I manifested it
Speaker 2: into happening. I just said like, hey, listen, I'll play
Speaker 2: your graduation. Just give me a fake degree. I'll hang
Speaker 2: them on the wall, and you got to call me
Speaker 2: doctor from now on.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what are your older and younger siblings up to?
Speaker 2: So my sister is a glass blower and is now
Speaker 2: this is such a wild story, but in through the
Speaker 2: world of glass she became the curator of a Doll
Speaker 2: Museum because they needed glass eyeballs to replace these like
Speaker 2: Victorian dolls, and she was just helping them source the eyeballs,
Speaker 2: I believe. But ultimately, through some pretty wonderful just happenstance,
Speaker 2: ended up in Virginia Beach at curating this museum. And
Speaker 2: my brother Lee is he has epilepsy and nonverbal learning
Speaker 2: disorder and also has gone through the mental health program
Speaker 2: here in Vermont in every capacity he's been through the Ringer,
Speaker 2: but has found that therapeutic expressive arts like poetry and
Speaker 2: drawing has been kind of the main resource in his life.
Speaker 2: Just like all of us artists that grew up in Potterville,
Speaker 2: we all kind of got fed the potion at an
Speaker 2: early age. And it's it's super inspiring to be around
Speaker 2: him because the thing that I do that comes so
Speaker 2: naturally doesn't come naturally necessarily to him, but it heals
Speaker 2: him from the inside in such an amazing way. And
Speaker 2: I'm happy because I'm home and I get to actually
Speaker 2: see it because it's been kind of at a distance
Speaker 2: for the last ten years. So we have our Hemingway
Speaker 2: and Fitzgerald moments on the porch where we smoke cigarettes
Speaker 2: and he reads me poetry, and it's been a new
Speaker 2: realm of connection with me and him. But my sister
Speaker 2: and I were always thick as thieves, you know, getting
Speaker 2: into all kinds of trouble in the early days.
Speaker 1: So your brother lives with your parents.
Speaker 2: Right now, he's living at home. Uh, he also has
Speaker 2: a community based care program. So we actually just finished
Speaker 2: along delving into what the future holds for him, because ultimately,
Speaker 2: I think it's gonna it's gonna land on me and
Speaker 2: my sister in a in a very real way pretty soon,
Speaker 2: because it's just, you know, it's really challenging to have
Speaker 2: the mental health world and try to work with it
Speaker 2: and also have a crazy family like ours. Like we
Speaker 2: change our minds all the time. We're very spontaneous, lightning
Speaker 2: bolt type people. But when you're working with community based
Speaker 2: care where these people need to like know where the
Speaker 2: person is at all times and or have a driver
Speaker 2: for him or take him to work, we are like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but there's a bonfire over in the field and we're
Speaker 2: gonna go jam. You should totally calmly and like, you know,
Speaker 2: it just it's impossible. We are impossible. We are very
Speaker 2: difficult people to work with.
Speaker 1: Okay, if you're you're the middle child who's yea tends
Speaker 1: to be overlooked. The hopes and dreams were in the
Speaker 1: first one. They feel a little pressure, more than a little,
Speaker 1: and there's all this attention on your brother. Where does
Speaker 1: that leave you? Growing up?
Speaker 2: I was. You know, it's interesting where I grew up.
Speaker 2: Everybody calls me Trudy, and people who don't know me
Speaker 2: I don't understand, or who think they know me don't
Speaker 2: get that. But apparently for the first four years of
Speaker 2: my life, I was almost completely mute, and I just
Speaker 2: sat and sucked my thumb and sort of watched the world,
Speaker 2: and they called me Gertrude Stein. I guess I apparently
Speaker 2: just sat and sort of Whether it was judgmental critical
Speaker 2: thinking going on or just flatlining, I'm not exactly sure,
Speaker 2: but whatever was happening in my brain developmentally, I think
Speaker 2: I felt it was safer to sort of be in
Speaker 2: word with myself and just turn inward and hold on
Speaker 2: tight to my own self soothing, And yeah, I was
Speaker 2: a thumbsucker till I was like twelve. It got weird.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know you're in the mountains, although las you're
Speaker 1: growing up, I mean I went. I lived in Vermont
Speaker 1: in the dark ages. Not only was there no internet,
Speaker 1: there was no cable TV. There were no DVDs. Cable
Speaker 1: TV and DVDs came in certainly while you were growing up.
Speaker 1: But you were going to regular school, right.
Speaker 2: I did go to regular school. I also, I'm legally blind,
Speaker 2: so I did. There was a learning resource program that
Speaker 2: Vermont had where it subsidized people with visual impairment and
Speaker 2: hearing impairment. So I ended up in that room a
Speaker 2: lot at face in elementary school. But I did, you know,
Speaker 2: pretty early on feel that pull toward culture. And oddly enough,
Speaker 2: in our tiny little town of Waitsfield in nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 2: they opened a movie theater at the bottom of my hill.
Speaker 2: I mean, what are the chances? And it wasn't just
Speaker 2: any movie theater. This guy had this opulent vision. I
Speaker 2: think he was sort of a Gordon Gecko mountain man
Speaker 2: guy who wanted to bring a little bit of New
Speaker 2: York City to Vermont. And he built this place and
Speaker 2: he called it Edison Studios. And it looked like an
Speaker 2: Art Deco kind of Hollywood bowl looking place, A beautiful right, right,
Speaker 2: I fall down the hill and land there so that
Speaker 2: was my first job. I also worked at the video store.
Speaker 2: If there had been a record store in town, you know,
Speaker 2: I would have worked there. But I grew up hoping
Speaker 2: that my parents would let me watch TV and movies
Speaker 2: a little more than they did. But once it became
Speaker 2: my job, it was easier to convince them to let
Speaker 2: me be absorbed in that world. A bit.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit more about being legally blind.
Speaker 2: So you can kind of see as we get in
Speaker 2: on that. I mean, this is not this is not
Speaker 2: helpful for listeners at home that can't see what Bob
Speaker 2: is looking at here. But I was born leely blind
Speaker 2: and it's not degenerative. It's just the way that I see.
Speaker 2: And I kind of made a specific choice to not
Speaker 2: get corrective surgery. I did try wearing contact lenses for
Speaker 2: a while. I also spent a lot of time as
Speaker 2: a child taking my glasses off and making up new
Speaker 2: names for myself and just hoping that people wouldn't know
Speaker 2: it was still me. So I think I played around
Speaker 2: with disguise because in my mind, I mean, I saw
Speaker 2: something completely different when I took my glasses off, and
Speaker 2: the world was kind of bright and sparkly, and unfamiliar,
Speaker 2: like there was confetti falling, you know, in the color
Speaker 2: of the general objects that I was seeing, but that
Speaker 2: it wasn't It didn't matter what it was, as long
Speaker 2: as I knew there was something in front of me.
Speaker 2: So I've always had really good depth perception, but I
Speaker 2: just cannot cannot really sustain any level of focus on anything.
Speaker 2: I cannot read far away or close up words. I
Speaker 2: could probably tell you the color of somebody's eyes if
Speaker 2: they got close enough to me, but I am far
Speaker 2: sighted in a way that makes it extremely dangerous for
Speaker 2: me to drive without my glasses on.
Speaker 1: But if you're wearing your glasses, how's your vision perfect?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm able to see. I mean, the legal blindness
Speaker 2: is actually only in the state of Vermont because I
Speaker 2: did my vision test in California when I lived out there,
Speaker 2: and I passed. Is that not creepy? Super creepy.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm going to stay off the highway
Speaker 1: when you're there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned Ziggy Stardust and you mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: skiing one of the outfits. Ziggy Stardust came out in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, So how did you get exposed did
Speaker 1: your parents play those albums? Had to learn that music.
Speaker 2: My parents have a killer record collection because they had
Speaker 2: a production company. Again with the skiing, trying to figure
Speaker 2: out how to party in all the ski towns. They
Speaker 2: started a company called dream On Productions, where they would
Speaker 2: take photographs of the day's events, whether it was a
Speaker 2: ski race or hockey or if they did the nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one Olympics and cruises and all kinds of crazy stuff,
Speaker 2: and they would photograph everything that happened develop it that day.
Speaker 2: My mom would make the soundtrack and splice it all
Speaker 2: together and do the edits while my dad was, you know,
Speaker 2: manically trying to get this thing done, and they would
Speaker 2: put it together into a slideshow and project it onto
Speaker 2: the streets around these sporting events, almost like the precursor
Speaker 2: to MTV. They would play music along to it and
Speaker 2: create kind of a narrative of the day, and they
Speaker 2: would pick sort of stars and local faces and characters
Speaker 2: that they thought the townsfolk would enjoy and be like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's crazy Randy again, all the naked ski guy, you did,
Speaker 2: the polar Bear plunge, whatever it was. So they we
Speaker 2: created a culture around the bar, you know, the bar
Speaker 2: and the party and the after party life. The app
Speaker 2: pray Ski and brought this kind of multimedia mixed media
Speaker 2: adventure to it. So their record collection, and of course
Speaker 2: this is I don't really know whether they were paying.
Speaker 2: I don't think they were paying for any of the
Speaker 2: song usages. But there was a lot of really great
Speaker 2: music that they were applying to these very specific visuals
Speaker 2: from an early time. I believe seventy They started that
Speaker 2: whole thing in about seventy two, and through from seventy
Speaker 2: two to eighty four they were doing dreamount productions. So
Speaker 2: the record collection was thick. It was a sturdy and
Speaker 2: interestingly organized and categorized record collection. And then of course
Speaker 2: the kids were born and we kind of got our
Speaker 2: grubby myths on it and changed changed our worlds in
Speaker 2: a good way. But I think it changed their record
Speaker 2: collection in a pretty bad way.
Speaker 1: So what did you listen to everything?
Speaker 2: I loved albums because the artwork was like a book.
Speaker 2: It was similar size to like a kid's book. So
Speaker 2: for me, as a blind kid, a big piece of
Speaker 2: art in my hand felt amazing. And then there's this
Speaker 2: thing inside it that makes music come out that's wild.
Speaker 2: So Jethro Tull, the Band I Love Maggie Bell. I
Speaker 2: loved the Beatles, but I didn't love them the way
Speaker 2: everybody learns about the Beatles. I had a really roundabout
Speaker 2: way of discovering them. It was on some weird compilation
Speaker 2: that my mom had put together on a tape about
Speaker 2: having kids, and it was all the songs that the
Speaker 2: Beatles had written about children, but also a bunch of
Speaker 2: other people and John Prine and you know, Bruce Coburn
Speaker 2: lived in the lived and dated a woman in the
Speaker 2: Madver Valley for a brief time. So there was a
Speaker 2: lot of that, which I call dad rock. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of dad rock, Rod Stewart, Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits,
Speaker 2: The Who. Loved Loved the Who because it felt like
Speaker 2: it was very modern to me, and it sounded just
Speaker 2: like any cool kid rock that I might hear on
Speaker 2: the radio. Then I got really into like the Pointer
Speaker 2: sisters and Patti LaBelle and Oh the Staples singers. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's the record that changed my life. That song on
Speaker 2: My Way to Heaven was the first. It was the
Speaker 2: first time I heard music where I knew it wasn't
Speaker 2: from where I was from and I needed to go
Speaker 2: to where that music was being made because it just
Speaker 2: cut me open wide and I was never the same again.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you go to larry Town because your parents
Speaker 1: went there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'm a sad tale of the American the
Speaker 2: American system gone wrong. I'm one of those legacy kids
Speaker 2: that got in because my parents went there, you know,
Speaker 2: because I had terrible grades and I didn't get into
Speaker 2: any of the colleges I wanted to go to. I
Speaker 2: really wanted to go to Wheaton College. I had a
Speaker 2: vision of Wesley and didn't even bother for any Vermont
Speaker 2: schools because I wanted to get out of town. I
Speaker 2: did want to get out into the world. Randice. I
Speaker 2: tried the Vanah School of Art and Design. I applied
Speaker 2: to like thirteen schools, and the fact that I got
Speaker 2: into Saint Lawrence is a bit It's not too mythical, actually,
Speaker 2: it's just it's just, you know, the appropriation of my parents'
Speaker 2: you know, amazing illustrious careers and lives there. Not to
Speaker 2: say that they were giving a huge amount of money,
Speaker 2: but I think they had big personalities and they were
Speaker 2: remembered and loved and appreciated up up on campus, and
Speaker 2: they had a great love story. My uncles and aunts
Speaker 2: all went there, my cousins had gone there, So it
Speaker 2: felt like the natural course of the salmon going back upstream.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, let's go back at chapter. You're listening
Speaker 1: to all this music. At what point do you start
Speaker 1: to play and sing?
Speaker 2: I must have been four. I mean, I've got pictures
Speaker 2: of me at four, tinkering around on the piano with
Speaker 2: this look on my face like I am, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: master this thing. I don't remember when I started singing.
Speaker 2: I was just always singing. It was always in me.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just that I was singing. I was harmonizing,
Speaker 2: like right away to music that felt close to my heart.
Speaker 2: It felt like I remembered it from being in my
Speaker 2: mom's belly almost. You know, there's like a familiarity with
Speaker 2: music that never made me feel shy. I was never shy.
Speaker 2: And then, of course, going through adolescence, I remember, like
Speaker 2: the notebook, the first notebook full of songs, so probably eleven, twelve, thirteen,
Speaker 2: somewhere in there where all those big feelings go, they
Speaker 2: go into the notebook, and a lot of those notes
Speaker 2: were actually songs. So it must have been really early
Speaker 2: on that I was writing do You Take Piano Lessons?
Speaker 2: My mom, among the many, the Jacqueline of all trades
Speaker 2: that she is, was also a piano teacher. And so
Speaker 2: I would get off the school of bus, and so
Speaker 2: would eleven other kids, and we'd all walk up the
Speaker 2: mile long driveway to our house on the hill, past
Speaker 2: the Crazy Movie Theater and Alan Lumber and the Valley rental,
Speaker 2: and everybody would eat my snacks, eat me out of
Speaker 2: house and home they would. But I would listen to
Speaker 2: the kids taking lessons and my mom patiently teaching them
Speaker 2: how to read music and try for these more complicated pieces.
Speaker 2: She was always encouraging people to try something a little
Speaker 2: bit more complicated than what they think they can handle.
Speaker 2: And then at the end of the day, I'd be like,
Speaker 2: all right, I want to learn that song. So whatever
Speaker 2: the song was that hit me the most, that felt
Speaker 2: the most intriguing, But I never learned how to read music.
Speaker 2: She just would sit with me and I'd watch her
Speaker 2: fingers and I'd listen, and she just had an elegance
Speaker 2: to her and the way that she played that I
Speaker 2: never quite could conjure. I had to sort of create
Speaker 2: my own style. So by ear, I would block out
Speaker 2: the chords and try and recreate them as best I could.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's jump all the way forward. Right now, you're
Speaker 1: in Waitesfield.
Speaker 2: I'm in Faston, which is the very school that I
Speaker 2: went to elementary school. Yeah, there's no zip.
Speaker 1: Code right face, which was Glenn Allen now sugar Burst.
Speaker 2: North, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: But you lived into Panga for a.
Speaker 2: While, right, yes, and I still do actually, so we
Speaker 2: split time. I'm by Coastal. I'm polyamorous with my hometown.
Speaker 2: I really can't let go of California. I just I
Speaker 2: have this. It's what Mother Road is really about. I mean,
Speaker 2: if we're really going to jump forward, that's what the
Speaker 2: whole album is about, is this feeling of like, wait
Speaker 2: a second, I'm really going to go home now, Like
Speaker 2: after all this hard work, going to go home. That's
Speaker 2: not it. That wasn't the plan. Not now anyways, And
Speaker 2: to Panga is a place. I mean, it's where I
Speaker 2: gave birth to my son, you know, I had him
Speaker 2: at home in the bathtub and really set up a
Speaker 2: life that I believed was my anchor point. It was
Speaker 2: going to be the roots I planted for myself in
Speaker 2: the same way that my parents were like, sorry Connecticut,
Speaker 2: Sorry New Jersey, sorry parents, sorry American dream, We're going
Speaker 2: to go back to the land and build our life.
Speaker 2: I was. I was sort of in the midst of
Speaker 2: that process when COVID hit, and I think fear crept in,
Speaker 2: you know, and I've really was worried about my parents
Speaker 2: and my brother. I wanted to be where the people
Speaker 2: were that I loved the most, and I wanted to
Speaker 2: just see them and hold them and know that, like
Speaker 2: it wasn't a robot on the computer screen pretending to
Speaker 2: be my mom and dad. I had to touch them
Speaker 2: in the flesh. And you know, I'm sure we all
Speaker 2: remember that that was a complicated thing to do in
Speaker 2: the midst of lock down and post lockdown, the uh
Speaker 2: you know, the two weeks of sitting alone wherever you
Speaker 2: traveled and just you know, uh, the quarantining and went
Speaker 2: through all of that, and it just felt like the
Speaker 2: process of revisiting and being a part of my parents'
Speaker 2: life and my childhood. It definitely triggered something very big
Speaker 2: in me on a on a songwriting level, but also
Speaker 2: on a personal level. It was just a something akin
Speaker 2: to a slow car crash.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a slow car crash, and what were.
Speaker 2: Crashing back into reality after living my like Joni Mitchell,
Speaker 2: End of the Rainbow life out in California, which is
Speaker 2: exactly where I pictured myself being for at least another
Speaker 2: ten years. I was really just getting into my groove
Speaker 2: of balancing motherhood and work and the flow of life
Speaker 2: out there. Is there's an ease of my I'm not
Speaker 2: sure what it is. It's just my demeanor. I've always
Speaker 2: wanted to go somewhere where there's a city nearby and
Speaker 2: an ocean nearby, but I always wanted to be sort
Speaker 2: of causeted by the mountains and to Panga is that
Speaker 2: I mean to Panga Canyon. I cannot over express just
Speaker 2: exactly how much it is like the mad River Valley
Speaker 2: where I grew up, with the exception of the ocean,
Speaker 2: which is beautiful, you know, and I think being in
Speaker 2: that world and experiencing that blissed out feeling that I got,
Speaker 2: which I think you can hear on the album Daylight,
Speaker 2: this feeling of just like this is my happily ever
Speaker 2: after this is the end of the Rainbow, we're here.
Speaker 2: I really did feel like there was like a rip
Speaker 2: in my reality and a transition and a transformation in
Speaker 2: my brain that forced me to get real and be
Speaker 2: honest with myself and with my family, with the love
Speaker 2: of my life and the kid that we made together,
Speaker 2: and come to see why. There were things about coming
Speaker 2: back to Vermont that just made a whole lot of sense.
Speaker 2: But once I got here, it was it was a hard,
Speaker 2: hard winter. It was a really uncomfortable thing for me
Speaker 2: to come back here, and it was pulling up all
Speaker 2: these old feelings where when I was visiting it was
Speaker 2: just like, oh my god, just crazy blowing through town
Speaker 2: and wow, my life is just on this rock and
Speaker 2: roller coaster and here we go again. I love you all,
Speaker 2: I'll see you later. And it was always on my terms,
Speaker 2: you know, but coming back this time was a not
Speaker 2: on my terms. It was, you know, based around this
Speaker 2: circumstance of COVID. It was also based out of fear,
Speaker 2: which I never liked. I don't like doing anything out
Speaker 2: of fear. But I also felt like logic was starting
Speaker 2: to take over, and I don't like logic. I'm not spuck,
Speaker 2: I'm Kirk, you know. So it was hard for me
Speaker 2: to wrap my head around the reality of being home.
Speaker 2: But it was also amazing to reconnect and remember the
Speaker 2: life that I had here before before all of the madness.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, if COVID hadn't happened, would you have
Speaker 1: gone back to Waydesfield eventually?
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't think we would have bought the farm
Speaker 2: that we're in. I don't think that it would have
Speaker 2: happened as soon. I always planned on coming back when
Speaker 2: when my parents needed me, you know, and really being
Speaker 2: there for them and being able to provide for them
Speaker 2: and have the extremities of my life being tour buses
Speaker 2: and crazy all nighters and TV in the morning and
Speaker 2: flying from Japan and you know, borrowing borrowing Bob Weir's
Speaker 2: plane to go fly from one place, you know, like
Speaker 2: all these stories that you hear that are like the
Speaker 2: crazy rock star life. I absolutely had that, and I
Speaker 2: knew that that didn't That was not a sustainable way
Speaker 2: to live. But I wanted to ease out of it.
Speaker 2: And this was not easing out of it. This was
Speaker 2: the opposite of that. And in buying a property and
Speaker 2: making that sort of staking that claim, it definitely sealed
Speaker 2: my fate in a way that I think I was
Speaker 2: not at peace with and that's why I went on
Speaker 2: all those road trips looking for where I really belong.
Speaker 1: Okay, before we get to the road trips. So you
Speaker 1: own property into paying and your own property.
Speaker 2: In Wadesfield, that's right, yep.
Speaker 1: And how do you decide where you are and when
Speaker 1: you are? Oh?
Speaker 2: God, such a good question, Bob. I don't know. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of it that has to do with
Speaker 2: school and the kiddo, but it's also about what serves
Speaker 2: the moment. And I'm also a bit of a migratory
Speaker 2: beast myself. I'm really I think certain people really are
Speaker 2: in that vagabond lifestyle, which chase the weather where it goes.
Speaker 2: And so in the winter time we tend to go
Speaker 2: back to California. So we've been up until recently and
Speaker 2: this year being the exception because I'm going to be
Speaker 2: on tour. We've been doing primary pieces of winter in California,
Speaker 2: coming back in the spring and spending spring, summer and
Speaker 2: fall in Vermont. Where's your husband from Palo Alto California?
Speaker 1: So how does he like living in Vermont?
Speaker 2: He loves it. It's so annoying, He's like, so, I mean,
Speaker 2: he comes out. He wakes up at six in the
Speaker 2: morning with those rosy cheeks having just been on like
Speaker 2: a snowshoe, you know, and he's got his snow pants on,
Speaker 2: and he doesn't mind having staticky hairs sticking up everywhere.
Speaker 2: But like, the winter is a place. I think it's
Speaker 2: like a wonderland for him. He's like a five year old,
Speaker 2: you know, out in the snow, like catching snowflakes on
Speaker 2: his tongue. I'm not actually kidding that that happened many
Speaker 2: a time this last winter and watching him in joy
Speaker 2: Vermont has also been one of those processes of falling
Speaker 2: back in love with Vermont through the eyes of the
Speaker 2: person that I love. And he's definitely been my cheerleader
Speaker 2: and the biggest believer in in this process of moving
Speaker 2: back and forth and bouncing back and forth between the
Speaker 2: two places.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have fires into Panga and you have
Speaker 1: floods in wade Field.
Speaker 2: I was just thinking about this. I think we can apply.
Speaker 2: I think we are we can apply for FEMA in
Speaker 2: both places, and I'm yeah, that's that's the scariest reality check.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to because luckily both of our properties
Speaker 2: have not been affected but we are actually qualified to
Speaker 2: apply for FEMA in both places. And that's that's the
Speaker 2: terrifying reality of where we are now. And I also
Speaker 2: think that the move to Vermont was based a bit
Speaker 2: on that, because we underwent a pretty traumatic fire, the
Speaker 2: Woolsey Fire a few years back, where a huge amount
Speaker 2: of our friend's houses were one day there were there,
Speaker 2: next day they were just gone. And some of some
Speaker 2: of those friends actually lived with us through some of that.
Speaker 2: So we evacuated to Panga with a group of people
Speaker 2: and all of their dogs and goats and snakes and wolves,
Speaker 2: because that's so to Panga.
Speaker 1: Okay, Vermont is different now. You grew up, and maybe
Speaker 1: during this transition you experienced it. But not only is
Speaker 1: there internet everywhere, a cable television everywhere, there's fat acts everywhere.
Speaker 1: On some level, you can live anywhere today. So how's
Speaker 1: it different from when you grew up?
Speaker 2: I'm noticing now that there is a culture and a
Speaker 2: brand to Vermont that probably existed all along, but that
Speaker 2: for me I wasn't aware of because I was in
Speaker 2: the service industry, so I was I was on the
Speaker 2: serving side of the table, you know, as a waitress,
Speaker 2: as a house painter and a contractor and as somebody
Speaker 2: who kind of saw my life moving in that direction.
Speaker 2: If I hadn't become a musician, I could have I
Speaker 2: could have done any number of odd jobs and been
Speaker 2: a jacqueline of all trades myself. But I see it
Speaker 2: differently now because I'm in a different I'm in a
Speaker 2: different financial state than I was. I am now kind
Speaker 2: of one of those hoity toity people that I used
Speaker 2: to make fun of when I was a waitress, you know.
Speaker 2: And that might be the weirdest offset for me about
Speaker 2: coming back to Vermont is that there's a perception of
Speaker 2: who I am, and I am a real Vermonter, and
Speaker 2: I'm native and born and raised and you know, grew
Speaker 2: up in the mud, you know, bail and hay at
Speaker 2: a dairy farm and try in every every single corner
Speaker 2: of the world. And having traveled to every single corner
Speaker 2: of the world, I can tell you that that that
Speaker 2: idyllic life that I had is still totally happening here.
Speaker 2: I mean, there are really kids, my son age still
Speaker 2: doing exactly that. And it does feel like that foothold
Speaker 2: isn't going to go away anytime soon, because it's something
Speaker 2: that is treasured. It's a lifestyle, and it's a an
Speaker 2: ethos of hard work and humility and being aware of
Speaker 2: your surroundings and being conscious of what you're bringing into
Speaker 2: the world and feeling your way through your purpose with
Speaker 2: a very practical outlook on life. And that to me
Speaker 2: is fundamentally still a real thing. But who I am
Speaker 2: in that setting is very different. And I mean something
Speaker 2: as simple as the fact that I still have my
Speaker 2: LA phone number and when I call places, they won't
Speaker 2: pick up unless it's an eight to two number. So
Speaker 2: I'm like the stranger, danger rich lady with an LA
Speaker 2: phone number calling in asking about concrete molds and can
Speaker 2: I get you know, this tint for my concrete floor
Speaker 2: polish for my barn that we're refurbishing. You know, it
Speaker 2: just sounds like I want to punch me in the face.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's the me that has a bit of the old
Speaker 2: you know, just hard work in salt of the earth
Speaker 2: girl that just doesn't want to hear it from some
Speaker 2: pony lady. But now I am the pony lady.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how has it worked out financially? Because one
Speaker 1: might say you're rich now, I mean everything's relative today.
Speaker 1: You have billionaires, you have people who are homeless. So
Speaker 1: the music business has changed. It used to be more
Speaker 1: of a threshold either you made or you didn't make it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so how's it working for you?
Speaker 2: It worked out because, and for me, what I think
Speaker 2: of as worked out is I don't have to I'm
Speaker 2: not going paycheck to paycheck anymore. And I was able to.
Speaker 2: I'm able to own, you know, a house. I bought
Speaker 2: a house before I was married to Eric. I was
Speaker 2: able to buy a house. And for myself, I'll fund
Speaker 2: the prospects of my dreams and the things that I wanted.
Speaker 2: I was able to sort of nurture into being, maybe
Speaker 2: not by having an endless well of money available to me,
Speaker 2: but more by the trust and the I think the
Speaker 2: constitution of who I was becoming, and the potential within
Speaker 2: my musical career and the hard work that I had shown,
Speaker 2: and the enduring kind of like I'm not going anywhere people.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 2: That feeling was a pretty leveling force for me financially.
Speaker 2: I also have a great business manager who's always made
Speaker 2: sure that that I'm not overdrafting, overdrawing, overdrafting. That's the
Speaker 2: way it could be both either way. I don't do
Speaker 2: that anymore. I used to do it all the time,
Speaker 2: and paycheck to paycheck has has moved into a place
Speaker 2: of much more security. But it was, you know, it
Speaker 2: was stretching it very thin to buy this farm and
Speaker 2: to make it all come together. It's one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty acre farm, and that's a lot of land. And
Speaker 2: there's a lot of other costs that you have to
Speaker 2: consider when you're buying a farm, one of which is
Speaker 2: also just the social responsibility of it. You know, do
Speaker 2: you want to be a gentleman farmer general lady farmer
Speaker 2: and have nothing happened here? Or do we want to
Speaker 2: have an ecosystem that we're reintroducing with dairy cows or
Speaker 2: goats or you know, hops or weed or whatever it
Speaker 2: could be. And every single one of those endeavors comes
Speaker 2: with a cost, and so there's a reality check to it.
Speaker 2: But then there's a paycheck when I play my gigs,
Speaker 2: and so I think I've subsidized as best I could
Speaker 2: the passion projects that I've had with the reality that
Speaker 2: I think music really is if I put the work
Speaker 2: in and if I pound in the pavement, and I'm
Speaker 2: out there on tour in a sustainable way with keeping
Speaker 2: my overheads as low as I can, I can do
Speaker 2: pretty well every year, you know, so.
Speaker 1: Tell me about these drives cross country.
Speaker 2: So again, everything that a Vermantra does has to be practical,
Speaker 2: and the practicality of me starting this whole endeavor was
Speaker 2: that during COVID you couldn't rent a car. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you experienced that, but for anybody
Speaker 2: who was trying to rent a vehicle at a certain
Speaker 2: point in the summer of I think twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: you could like make a reservation and pay a bunch
Speaker 2: of money for that reservation, and then you'd get to
Speaker 2: the front counter and they'd just be like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, thanks for your money, but we're out of cars.
Speaker 2: Don't know what to tell you. So after that happened
Speaker 2: literally four times in a row, I started to kind
Speaker 2: of panic because I do feel like I need a
Speaker 2: fire escape for my life and for the feelings of
Speaker 2: being trapped and the feelings of sort of strangulation, including
Speaker 2: the financial stuff. Was starting to come into a place
Speaker 2: of like, I don't want to have to pay for
Speaker 2: a rental car. We have a perfectly good, brand new
Speaker 2: car that we bought at twenty twenty Volkswagen Atlas, sitting
Speaker 2: there in California, just waiting, just toasting in the sun.
Speaker 2: So I got on a plane and masked up and
Speaker 2: you know, armed myself with some notepads and went out
Speaker 2: and picked up the car and drove it back. That
Speaker 2: was the first trip.
Speaker 1: Okay, A couple of questions, Yes, have you gotten COVID,
Speaker 1: and if so, how many times?
Speaker 2: Yes? I have two times, And the first one was
Speaker 2: like a yep, this is definitely one million, one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand percent COVID. Oh my god, that that, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: sandbag in the head COVID. And I was in Texas
Speaker 2: playing a private gig, which was a bummer because my
Speaker 2: kid was with me. I had him. I just happened
Speaker 2: to be like, let's do a mother's son adventure because
Speaker 2: I was excited to drive with him and take him
Speaker 2: on a little mother road trip. Oh boy, did it
Speaker 2: go a whole ski whiffy, whole kind of ski whiffy.
Speaker 2: And then the second time, I actually didn't know that
Speaker 2: I had it, except that when I patted my head,
Speaker 2: my scalp hurt in the exact same way that I
Speaker 2: remembered it hurting when I had COVID the first time.
Speaker 2: That like pain to the touch, almost like you can't
Speaker 2: bear to have the weight of your hair touching your
Speaker 2: head kind of feeling.
Speaker 1: And any long term effects.
Speaker 2: I'm so lucky to say that I have not had
Speaker 2: any long term effects. I know so many people who
Speaker 2: have and it's just devastating. So for me, I think
Speaker 2: the fear was that my voice or my hearing, because
Speaker 2: a lot of people, I think the hearing was one
Speaker 2: of the big scary things that happened to two of
Speaker 2: my musician friends who just can't actually function as musicians
Speaker 2: the way that they did before because they've lost their hearing.
Speaker 1: How old is your son.
Speaker 2: He's five and a half going on six in January,
Speaker 2: and he was actually here helping me sound check. He
Speaker 2: put the microphone right here for me today. So he's
Speaker 2: taking after his papa and getting into getting into sound engineering.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you fly out to California to get the car.
Speaker 1: Who's taking care of your son?
Speaker 2: That would be my husband, Eric Valentine, that fine young
Speaker 2: man himself.
Speaker 1: So he's good alone with the kid.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean that was the agreement from the
Speaker 2: beginning when we had Sagan, it was you're going to
Speaker 2: be mister mom. He declared to the world he was
Speaker 2: going to retire from record producing, which I knew wasn't true.
Speaker 2: I mean, everybody knew wasn't true, but at least I
Speaker 2: hoped it wasn't true. But he really he's lived a
Speaker 2: life of not needing to prove himself. I think because
Speaker 2: he had such success at such a young age, I
Speaker 2: think he really was ready to pump the brakes and
Speaker 2: just be at home and be the dad that was
Speaker 2: always there for his kid. And I think it really
Speaker 2: does show through and shine through in Sagan and his personality,
Speaker 2: because you know, we have a different dynamic than a
Speaker 2: lot of families and homes American or otherwise. Yet that
Speaker 2: I am out there on the road continuing my work
Speaker 2: and finding ways through that battle between the sort of
Speaker 2: mom shame and missing my family, but also knowing that
Speaker 2: there is something worth chasing there that actually will It
Speaker 2: is not an impermeable membrane of inspiration. It is something
Speaker 2: that is ready to be harvested, and then I can
Speaker 2: bring that harvest back to my family and be a
Speaker 2: happier person for it.
Speaker 1: So how'd you meet Eric?
Speaker 2: We were making a record together. I was my record
Speaker 2: company back in the day when I was at Hollywood Records.
Speaker 2: Disney Music Group had been trying to get me collaborating
Speaker 2: with this producer forever. But you know, when I heard
Speaker 2: about his records and his track record of like Well
Speaker 2: smash Mouth and Third Eye Blind and and you know,
Speaker 2: Queens of the Stone Age, and I listened to those records.
Speaker 2: I loved Queens. I loved Nickel Creek's record that he did.
Speaker 2: But I was specifically aware of a type of music
Speaker 2: that I knew growing up in Vermont as malrock because
Speaker 2: it was only ever played in the malls in the
Speaker 2: movies with malls in them, because there are no malls
Speaker 2: in Vermont, so there's one. It's a very sad story. Anyways,
Speaker 2: there's probably nothing less attractive to me than being told
Speaker 2: what producer I should work with, and I hate it.
Speaker 2: I really don't like it. So of course I avoided
Speaker 2: Eric and meeting with Eric for a long time, but
Speaker 2: he just kept coming up over and over again for
Speaker 2: ten years. His name would come up, and finally we
Speaker 2: met and it was like instant I didn't know it
Speaker 2: was love. I actually just was like, what took me
Speaker 2: so long? I'm gonna make music babies with this guy forever.
Speaker 2: In fact, I use that exact sentence with my bandmates
Speaker 2: after meeting with him, I said, music babies forever. This
Speaker 2: is a lifer, this guy is. He's just he ticks
Speaker 2: all the boxes of nerdiness and caring about audio in
Speaker 2: a way that makes it fun for someone like me,
Speaker 2: who who kind of I defy anyone to keep me
Speaker 2: in a recording studio for any more minutes than I
Speaker 2: absolutely have to be there. It makes my skin crawl.
Speaker 2: If it's like brain surgery, I have completely changed my
Speaker 2: tune because there's this person who is this well spring
Speaker 2: of knowledge, and not just knowledge, but the way he
Speaker 2: untethers himself from his ego when explaining it and describing
Speaker 2: what he's doing. And never in a condescending way did
Speaker 2: he ever share an opinion. It was always with this
Speaker 2: thread of what can make this better? What are the
Speaker 2: opportunities we've missed? This curiosity within him that just felt
Speaker 2: like the thing that was missing in my music, you know,
Speaker 2: all long, because I feel like that old soul in me,
Speaker 2: that precocious songwriter. As a young person coming up in
Speaker 2: the music industry, I always kind of had this like
Speaker 2: old hat approach of like it's got to be old school,
Speaker 2: it's got to be this, it's got to be that.
Speaker 2: I know what's best, I know what music is tasteful.
Speaker 2: I know what tasteful is. I had made all these
Speaker 2: rules and I finally get to be in a studio
Speaker 2: with somebody who made it fun to play by the
Speaker 2: rules and also even more delicious when you break them.
Speaker 1: So you met them? How long and how did it
Speaker 1: become a romance?
Speaker 2: So after the record Midnight was finished, I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people experience this when they're in like a
Speaker 2: deep intense production schedule with big deadline. Is that it's
Speaker 2: like a being in a production of any kind of
Speaker 2: film production or summer camp or whatever. There's all that
Speaker 2: like days and days and days and weeks and months,
Speaker 2: and that ultimately a year making Midnight because the turnals
Speaker 2: were sort of coming unglued at the time as well.
Speaker 2: The album was finished, mixed, mastered, and I was working
Speaker 2: on the album packaging, and I just felt this emptiness
Speaker 2: in my heart that was like throbbing, longing drive by
Speaker 2: the exit for the studio and just feel my whole
Speaker 2: body want to jump out of the car and go
Speaker 2: down off the exit ramp. And I didn't understand what
Speaker 2: that was for for a few months after the production
Speaker 2: of it was done, and it was when I got
Speaker 2: I got tapped to do the theme song for Grace
Speaker 2: and Frankie. You know that show of course. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: that show and its creator had a budget and an
Speaker 2: idea for what they wanted to do, and they just
Speaker 2: they had figured like, it's Grace Potter's voice. We just
Speaker 2: we know it's this song, this Steeler's Wheel song and
Speaker 2: Grace Potter, and I was like, this is perfect. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, I get to go back to the studio
Speaker 2: and lo and behold, the studio wasn't available so yet
Speaker 2: again just just like, oh, I don't have a reason
Speaker 2: to be there anymore, and I kept finding myself making
Speaker 2: up reasons to want to go back into the studio,
Speaker 2: and it was obviously to see Eric and just be
Speaker 2: around that energy. But ultimately we recorded right down the
Speaker 2: road from it, and because I was the producer, I
Speaker 2: knew where I wanted to have it mixed. If I
Speaker 2: couldn't record it at Barefoot, we recorded at Vox Studios
Speaker 2: in Larchmont and then ultimately went back to Barefoot to
Speaker 2: mix it and do a few overdubs. So I got
Speaker 2: to go back in the studio and that's where it
Speaker 2: started to click in for me, and this is yeah,
Speaker 2: this is May June twenty fifteen. Realizing like, okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, you had been married before. Two questions. One had
Speaker 1: Eric been married before? And two was there any reluctance
Speaker 1: to get into another marriage since you'd had a previous marriage? Oh?
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean there was not just reluctance. It was
Speaker 2: a it was a nasty overlap, that was a that
Speaker 2: was some real deal, like what are we going to
Speaker 2: do about these feelings we're having because he'd been with
Speaker 2: he was not married to his former partner, but he'd
Speaker 2: been with her for for many years as well as
Speaker 2: me and Matt. And Matt was you know, in my
Speaker 2: band still and was not going to leave or take
Speaker 2: a back seat any any day. I mean, even with
Speaker 2: the Nocturnals uh dissolving. He was he was really supportive
Speaker 2: of my choice to to dissolve the Nocturnals and was
Speaker 2: ultimately like, whatever you're doing, I'm sticking on the tour.
Speaker 2: You know you're not going to play radio City Music
Speaker 2: Hall without me, girl. It was. It was definitely a
Speaker 2: really difficult time and a really uncomfortable set of reluctant
Speaker 2: people on all sides, and it got kind of interests.
Speaker 2: Actually it was pretty scary and violent, like I had
Speaker 2: to get a restraining order and don't get into the
Speaker 2: details of it. But I'm fine and they're fine. Everybody's fine.
Speaker 2: But we weren't fine. It could have been really bad.
Speaker 2: It could people could have died. Love love does crazy
Speaker 2: things to people, and it was by far the most
Speaker 2: dramatic experience of my life, and one in which if
Speaker 2: I if I had any minuscule doubt about who and
Speaker 2: what was going on and who I loved and what
Speaker 2: exactly love felt like, I would have run away and
Speaker 2: never looked back. But it was too late. I was
Speaker 2: so in love and there was absolutely nothing I could do.
Speaker 2: So sharing that feeling with Eric was also really confusing
Speaker 2: for him. In fact, I think he said something like,
Speaker 2: this is really confusing. You should go and escorted me
Speaker 2: out of the studio when I first told him what
Speaker 2: I was feeling. And it was because you know, these
Speaker 2: these relationships that we were in that had been long unraveling,
Speaker 2: where also the thing that defined us. They were the
Speaker 2: stories we had been telling ourselves for a very long time.
Speaker 2: And it's always extremely uncomfortable to tear yourself out of
Speaker 2: one reality and imagine a new reality until it's happening
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the road trip. So you're
Speaker 1: going to go to Topenga to pick up your brand
Speaker 1: new Volkswagon.
Speaker 2: Okay, fancy doesn't it.
Speaker 1: You're going to go to the airport. You're going to
Speaker 1: pick up the car. What was your plan after you
Speaker 1: turned the key and the ignition or push the button?
Speaker 2: I had met a guy on the Santa Monica peer
Speaker 2: who runs the kiosk that says Santa Monica Pier end
Speaker 2: of the trail Route sixty six. And actually, even though
Speaker 2: I'd seen the movie Forrest Gump, I did not actually
Speaker 2: register that that's where Forrest Gump was running when he
Speaker 2: was doing his like back and forth running road trip.
Speaker 2: But it really was that it was this like movie moment,
Speaker 2: this aha, because I wasn't sure what I was going
Speaker 2: to do, and I love There's a taco place down
Speaker 2: there that I love, so I wanted to get one
Speaker 2: more taco in California on my way out of town.
Speaker 1: Where do you go for a taco?
Speaker 2: Oh, the taco place in town. It's just a taco truck,
Speaker 2: that's right, I like parked on the side of it. I
Speaker 2: don't even know what the name of it is. It's
Speaker 2: just this guy, Hernando. His name is Hernando. He makes
Speaker 2: the best tacos ever. He puts habenaro on everything, and
Speaker 2: he puts a pink thing on every taco. But it's
Speaker 2: not Pink's tacos. It's a different place. He likes to
Speaker 2: do like pickled pink everything. It's fucking perfect anyways. So
Speaker 2: I wanted one of those, and I wandered down the
Speaker 2: pier just to catch the sunset and be a romantic
Speaker 2: fool feeling all that big, confused, welling up feelings of
Speaker 2: I don't want to leave California. I don't really know
Speaker 2: why I'm driving east now, you know, back to a
Speaker 2: place that was creating some conflicting sensations in my soul.
Speaker 2: So I was there and that's where I picked up
Speaker 2: this guide. It was easy sixty six. It was a
Speaker 2: ringbinder book that was done and edited and re edited,
Speaker 2: and many many renditions of this book exist out in
Speaker 2: the world, but I think his name is Jim McLoughlin,
Speaker 2: and he's sort of a proper connoisseur of the road
Speaker 2: to flight, the mother roads. So I took that book
Speaker 2: with me, and armed with that book, I laid out
Speaker 2: a course of action, starting in Panoramic City at the
Speaker 2: super racist inappropriately titled and inappropriately branded Wigwa Hotel and Motel.
Speaker 2: I just I had to see it for myself to
Speaker 2: understand what the hell anyone was thinking. And I kind
Speaker 2: of got it. It's like being in It's like being
Speaker 2: in the Yogi Bear Jellystone Park cartoon. It's bizarre. But
Speaker 2: I stayed there the first night and then just rode
Speaker 2: the trail all the way. I highlighted all the pages
Speaker 2: of sort of the maybe I'll go here, maybe I'll
Speaker 2: go there, lots of little side roots and notes about
Speaker 2: like don't go this way. The bridge is washed out,
Speaker 2: there is no road there where there used to be
Speaker 2: a road. I just so sexy to me. That is
Speaker 2: like the beckoning, yes, get me down that road with
Speaker 2: the bridge that's broken. I want that, and I did.
Speaker 2: I went and found it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how long did it on that initial trip
Speaker 1: how long did it take you to go from California
Speaker 1: to Vermont?
Speaker 2: It was only like a week. It wasn't that crazy.
Speaker 2: I took my time out. I was obviously kind of
Speaker 2: dragging my heels to get east. So it was four
Speaker 2: days in Uh, it was to two nights in California,
Speaker 2: two nights in Arizona, one night in New Mexico, and
Speaker 2: then a straight shot to Saint Louis. So no, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm wrong. Not two nights in California, one night in California,
Speaker 2: two nights in Arizona, one night in New Mexico. Uh,
Speaker 2: Inducum Carrie, which was one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: To Carrie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've driven every kind of rig that's up a
Speaker 2: bit anyways, So yeah, Will and Yeah. Those songs though
Speaker 2: as well, like Winslow Arizona, you know, I mean, take
Speaker 2: it easy, all these songs. There was a trail of
Speaker 2: music that goes along with the trail you know itself.
Speaker 2: And I thought, instead of trying to write any songs,
Speaker 2: I was just gonna listen to not just music, but
Speaker 2: like nothing listen to. I did listen to some John
Speaker 2: Steinbeck audio books, Travels with Charlie and Grapes of wrath obviously,
Speaker 2: but I also I really just needed some quiet too.
Speaker 2: And I love the sound of the wind. And one
Speaker 2: of the things that that Atlas does it has this
Speaker 2: lovely moon roof that opens into this sort of amazing
Speaker 2: gauge where you can control how much wind do you
Speaker 2: want to hear, how much sunlight you want to have
Speaker 2: come in, you can have the shade going with the wind.
Speaker 2: Guests just very cool. It's a cool sound. So so yeah,
Speaker 2: that road trip was just maybe a little over a week.
Speaker 1: Do you like to drive?
Speaker 2: Oh, I love to drive. I think I was a
Speaker 2: trucker in another life for sure, or a race car driver.
Speaker 2: I think probably a race car. I did have a bell.
Speaker 2: I hung a cow bell off of my rearview mirror
Speaker 2: that would ring when I would like you could tell
Speaker 2: because the car would start to vibrate in this certain
Speaker 2: way when I hit like one hundred and ten mile
Speaker 2: an hour and it would be like, okay, bitch, you
Speaker 2: better slow down now. So I had my okay, bitch
Speaker 2: cow bell go off way too many times, way too
Speaker 2: many times.
Speaker 1: So you land back in Vermont, then what's going through
Speaker 1: your mind?
Speaker 2: I wanted to write a song about the journey I
Speaker 2: wanted to tell a story more than write a song, though,
Speaker 2: and I think that's really what started. The more enticing
Speaker 2: piece of the album became what's the story, not what
Speaker 2: is this album I'm making? It felt kind of high
Speaker 2: time to make a record, but not like urgent. It
Speaker 2: was sort of like, Okay, I'll get to it. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a pandemic on and everybody's gonna have their stupid
Speaker 2: pandemic record likes. Let's wait for a few of them
Speaker 2: to come out and then I'll do my thing. And
Speaker 2: you know, I wrote, Yeah, I wasn't writing songs as
Speaker 2: much as I was writing a story about regret and
Speaker 2: redemption and trying to wrap my head around the choices
Speaker 2: I had made and whether any of it was, whether
Speaker 2: I was ever going to be able to square it
Speaker 2: all with the person I thought I would be and
Speaker 2: the person that I was seeing in the mirror every day.
Speaker 1: You know, tell me a little bit more about that.
Speaker 1: The regret and the dichotomy between those.
Speaker 2: Two, well, I think it's mostly to do with the
Speaker 2: choices that you don't know you're making, so choices like
Speaker 2: being a musician as opposed to being a filmmaker or
Speaker 2: a theater mom or a figure skater, or maybe I
Speaker 2: should have stuck to downhill skiing, you know, like really
Speaker 2: fundamental questions about place and belonging and understanding identity also,
Speaker 2: I mean, I think we all kind of got stewed
Speaker 2: up into that identity politics conversation and the doom scrolling
Speaker 2: of I was in. I was in lockdown with a
Speaker 2: couple of gen Z younger younger gen Z people who
Speaker 2: had a very specific propensity toward doom scrolling and deeply
Speaker 2: political conversations. So I was having a lot of big
Speaker 2: thoughts and big more big questions than conclusions than I've
Speaker 2: ever had before. I think a proper midlife crisis was underfoot,
Speaker 2: and I didn't really know that obviously, but like you know,
Speaker 2: a man will go out and buy a top down
Speaker 2: sexy car or motorcycle, and for me, it was like,
Speaker 2: go get that mom car and open up the moon roof.
Speaker 2: That's all I need, you know. But the transformation and
Speaker 2: the storytelling that can come with transformation needed to be
Speaker 2: outside of my body because my body was also pretty
Speaker 2: shut down at that point. I had a miscarriage and
Speaker 2: it was really serious. It was it was life threatening
Speaker 2: situation where I hadn't miscarried completely, I guess, and it
Speaker 2: had continued to grow. And there was sort of a
Speaker 2: collection of internal bleeding over the course of a really
Speaker 2: long and dangerous amount of time that I didn't know
Speaker 2: why I was in so much pain, but it was
Speaker 2: just getting worse and worse. And so those hormonal things
Speaker 2: are going on, and things that I just couldn't quantify
Speaker 2: where and how my soul and my purpose and all
Speaker 2: of these things that were happening that felt like they
Speaker 2: were happening to me, sort of that victim feeling that
Speaker 2: I had never had before where that was coming from.
Speaker 2: So I needed to get out of my own story
Speaker 2: and start telling a story, any story, anything, And I
Speaker 2: took a visit back to my childhood self, like my
Speaker 2: bravest version of me at the age of nine, and
Speaker 2: decided to start there where I had run away from
Speaker 2: home and this is real life now. I ran away
Speaker 2: from home when I was nine to my neighbor's house,
Speaker 2: Caitlin Welter, and her parents answered the door, and of
Speaker 2: course I took off my glasses, you know, and said, Hi,
Speaker 2: my name is Lelana Mata Vesquez and I'm from Ecuador.
Speaker 2: I'm an orphan and the orphanage next door. They're very
Speaker 2: mean there. I hate it. Can you please let me
Speaker 2: stay with you? And can I please have a pop tart?
Speaker 2: And they played along with me? And what was really
Speaker 2: interesting about it was I think I lost track of
Speaker 2: if I was lying, or if I was using my imagination,
Speaker 2: if I was creating something like a new life for myself,
Speaker 2: or if I was dooming myself to a new life
Speaker 2: with a new name and a very sad backstory. But
Speaker 2: it didn't matter. It was too late. I had already
Speaker 2: made this choice, and it kind of became the seed
Speaker 2: pod for understanding my own redemption and my own choices
Speaker 2: and how much I didn't actually choose. I was lying,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't lying. I was nine. I didn't even
Speaker 2: know what lying was. I just kind of wanted to
Speaker 2: be out of myself and into a story. And that
Speaker 2: deep dive at the age of nine led me to
Speaker 2: invent this character, Lady Vagabond, who was sort of my
Speaker 2: superhero chaperone, where I already had a plan where if
Speaker 2: anybody asked me why I was alone on the side
Speaker 2: of the road, I'd say, oh, I'm not. Lady Vagabond
Speaker 2: is making a fire right there in the woods. I'm
Speaker 2: just waiting here by the side of the road because
Speaker 2: we have a man bringing us water soon, so I'm
Speaker 2: going to pick up the water and then bring it
Speaker 2: back down to our camp. You know, I had like
Speaker 2: I never had to use the excuse, of course, but
Speaker 2: I had this vision of who I could be as
Speaker 2: a strong, independent nine year old kid out on the
Speaker 2: road in a bathing suit and Red Sockny's in March.
Speaker 2: So long story short, I revisited that story and all
Speaker 2: the characters I had sort of created and imagined myself
Speaker 2: meeting in some kind of a Nancy Drew novel version
Speaker 2: of my life. And that's where the songs started coming from.
Speaker 1: Okay, so do you work on inspiration? Do you write
Speaker 1: the lyrics before the music? Do you say, okay, I
Speaker 1: write from ten to one. How do you do it?
Speaker 2: Oh? God, I wish I had that. Nick Cave has
Speaker 2: that kind of order in his I believe he actually
Speaker 2: goes like with a briefcase to a cubicle. I'm so
Speaker 2: jealous of that work ethic. I wait and wait and
Speaker 2: procrastinate and watch a movie and make a dinner and
Speaker 2: paint a wall and then paint a house and then redecorate,
Speaker 2: and then redecorate again, and then have a baby, and
Speaker 2: then do some laundry, and then pick out clothes for
Speaker 2: the baby haven't had yet, And then I start writing
Speaker 2: the song that's been screaming at me in my ear
Speaker 2: the whole time. That's nice, Okay.
Speaker 1: So when you ultimately do sit down decide it, is
Speaker 1: it as easy process or is it like eking it out?
Speaker 2: No, it's easy. It's really easy. In fact, this was
Speaker 2: the easiest one yet because I had made a lot
Speaker 2: of room and space in my life for writing. And
Speaker 2: I can't say I've allowed myself that luxury ever before.
Speaker 2: But I mean, we did move to Vermont to build
Speaker 2: a barn and create this, you know, fortress of you know,
Speaker 2: profound creativity. But it wasn't done being built yet. So
Speaker 2: we carved out some time while Eric was doing pre
Speaker 2: production with Nickel Creek for their record that they put
Speaker 2: out this past March, and they were going to be
Speaker 2: doing pre production, so I figured I'll do some pre
Speaker 2: production too. I'll go down to Nashville, check in with
Speaker 2: my songwriter buddies and and and just sit in a room.
Speaker 2: I'll rent a place with a so my only sort
Speaker 2: of caveat in my searching for a house was that
Speaker 2: it had to have a piano, and it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: if it was tuned. I could get somebody to fix
Speaker 2: it up and make it sound good, or tune it myself.
Speaker 2: So I sat down and it just fucking fell out,
Speaker 2: all of it, and it was fast, like ten days
Speaker 2: of writing. Some of it was collaborative. I had some
Speaker 2: really really wonderful and luscious reconnections with people who I'd
Speaker 2: written with, like Hillary Lindsay, who'd had co writing sessions
Speaker 2: with a decade or more before, which had never amounted
Speaker 2: to any recordings, and so it was amazing to tap
Speaker 2: back into her her valve and the way she opens
Speaker 2: her valve up. But she also had this brilliant idea
Speaker 2: to bring in a young young woman, Meg McCree, and
Speaker 2: that was really interesting because it sort of spanned you know,
Speaker 2: Meg is in her twenties, I'm in my thirties. Hillary
Speaker 2: is at her forties, and it felt like it was
Speaker 2: some kind of a time and dimension hopping space to
Speaker 2: be in. So two of the songs that we wrote
Speaker 2: together are on Mother Road, Rose Colored Rear View, and
Speaker 2: All My Ghosts. But also the mut I didn't need
Speaker 2: to co write. I just kind of wanted to. I
Speaker 2: wanted to. I had a lot there, like there was
Speaker 2: a propensity to overshare and talk and ask questions and
Speaker 2: listen and hear their ideas and then cross hatch things together.
Speaker 2: But I had already kind of formed the vision of
Speaker 2: the Memory Castle and Lola, you know, this little girl
Speaker 2: from the dust Bowl that I claimed to be and
Speaker 2: what her life pans out to be. And that album
Speaker 2: was already cooking in the furnace of my soul. So
Speaker 2: anybody that was writing with me kind of either had
Speaker 2: to jump on that bandwagon or just those songs that
Speaker 2: we wrote we're going to have to be put to
Speaker 2: the side for now. So yeah, I think I had
Speaker 2: twenty songs in ten days. It was so fast and
Speaker 2: so furious. And then we had eight days in the
Speaker 2: studio at Dave Cobb's place studio. A.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's hold for the second. Yeah, you only
Speaker 1: made one road trip or you made multiple road trips.
Speaker 1: I made four roadwall tell me about the other three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the retrieval of the car was one. The
Speaker 2: adventures that I took beyond that were usually again, it
Speaker 2: felt like I needed a purpose, someone to visit, somebody
Speaker 2: who's sick. Oh, my friend's having a baby. My friend
Speaker 2: lost her baby. You know. I had just had this miscarriage.
Speaker 2: So I was doing a lot of outreach to the
Speaker 2: women in my life that I cared about, but also
Speaker 2: to people who I just felt like I had had
Speaker 2: not had a chance to connect with in a long time.
Speaker 2: So there was two more solo trips across the country,
Speaker 2: one all the way back with myself and our trailer
Speaker 2: which was empty and was there to be packed up
Speaker 2: and loaded and moved. So we were gonna move essentially
Speaker 2: all of Eric's studio gear to Vermont, as well as
Speaker 2: a few of our sort of key pieces of furniture
Speaker 2: and all of Sagan's like his baby.
Speaker 1: You drove across country with a trailer.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, I am a trucker at heart. Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: not scared of shit, man, I am really like I
Speaker 2: love I love the road, I love grease and the wheels,
Speaker 2: and I love checking on the I mean the tire
Speaker 2: pressure turned into a thing, which was interesting because it's
Speaker 2: different than a tour bus or even a transport van
Speaker 2: for example, which as any road warrior knows, you know,
Speaker 2: you start in the van and then and every band
Speaker 2: names their van Vana White. It's like we thought of
Speaker 2: this crazy name that nobody else would ever think of.
Speaker 2: Everybody thinks of it. Everybody's van was called Van of White.
Speaker 2: I had a Van of White myself. But then you go,
Speaker 2: you know, up, and you get maybe a sprinter van,
Speaker 2: and then you get the Tour of Us. And so
Speaker 2: through all that process, I've always been watching and paying
Speaker 2: attention to the engine and the tires and the traction
Speaker 2: and the brakes and what exactly goes into making a
Speaker 2: vehicle operate at its optimum efficiency. And yeah, so I've
Speaker 2: always been obsessed with that shit. And I'm not exactly
Speaker 2: mechanically minded, but I'm also not afraid to like just
Speaker 2: try and learn, just get into it.
Speaker 1: So, Okay, it's one thing that furniture. It's another thing
Speaker 1: to have recording equipment. The stories or legion of people's
Speaker 1: trailers being broken into. So when you were driving back
Speaker 1: with your trailer full, yeah, how much did you think
Speaker 1: about that? And was there any way to prevent theft?
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, we were camping on top of the damn trailer.
Speaker 2: The trailer is actually called it's called No Boundaries, which
Speaker 2: is perfect name for my trailer. And it's a like
Speaker 2: half toy hauler, half like hipster climbing mountain person tent vehicle.
Speaker 2: It's it's not so much like an RV as it
Speaker 2: is a little bit of everything. It has a fridge
Speaker 2: and a kitchen and a pop out sort of bat
Speaker 2: wing wrap around porch type situation, and a ladder that
Speaker 2: takes you up to the roof so you can camp.
Speaker 2: And then there's this tent that pops up on the
Speaker 2: roof so we could just sleep on our stuff, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, just so I know you're talking we, But I
Speaker 1: thought these trips were solow. That.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So one the trip out there with the trailer,
Speaker 2: I was solow, and then the trip back was the
Speaker 2: wei with the family. But I also say we for
Speaker 2: another reason, which is that I'm not gonna sound very
Speaker 2: sane when I tell you that Lady Vagabond was there.
Speaker 2: She was she and the little version of me, and
Speaker 2: like the Alanis Morris Morriset music video, like the you know,
Speaker 2: you know, the Alantis Morriset ironic where she's in the
Speaker 2: car with herself, that was really going on and not
Speaker 2: on a visual level. I wasn't like seeing myself, but
Speaker 2: I was talking to my imaginary friends and probably going
Speaker 2: a little mad. But I was lonely, and I was
Speaker 2: working through things that I think no therapist could have contextualized,
Speaker 2: as well as my my other people, my higher self,
Speaker 2: my lower self, my evil self, my good self, my
Speaker 2: little self, you know, my elder sage self. And so
Speaker 2: it gave me the privacy to have some pretty potent
Speaker 2: conversations with the Royal.
Speaker 1: We Man and have you been in therapy?
Speaker 2: Yes? I have. You know, it's interesting. It started out
Speaker 2: during COVID after the miscarriage, because there was a poster
Speaker 2: on the wall of the doctor's office I was in,
Speaker 2: and it was that thing of like what are you feel?
Speaker 2: You know, are you feeling any of these things? And
Speaker 2: there was a list of things and every single one
Speaker 2: of those things had gone through my head, every single one,
Speaker 2: and they said free help, you know, come and quire
Speaker 2: at the desk. And I just tore that poster off
Speaker 2: the wall and I brought it up to the checkout
Speaker 2: desk and was like, who, how, what do I do?
Speaker 2: What do I call? And which is also a really
Speaker 2: difficult thing being Grace Potter in the state of Vermont.
Speaker 2: That was also kind of uncomfortable, and it put me
Speaker 2: in a vulnerable place of asking for help kind of
Speaker 2: not publicly, because doctor's offices are a wonderfully private place,
Speaker 2: but something really terrifying had happened to me, and I
Speaker 2: just was a person. I was just a broken body
Speaker 2: needing help, and my mind was trying to catch up
Speaker 2: with the things that my body had already decided for me.
Speaker 2: So that's really what brought me into the entire process
Speaker 2: of making this record. And you know, my therapist is
Speaker 2: still I talk to her once every two weeks to
Speaker 2: this day.
Speaker 1: And what about medication.
Speaker 2: No medication for me. I can't do that, Unfortunately I have.
Speaker 2: I mean, my brother being somebody who's been through that
Speaker 2: mental health struggle and has been guinea pigged through medications,
Speaker 2: I've seen what I believe are pretty terrifying side effects
Speaker 2: to changing the chemistry within us to a degree that
Speaker 2: felt like if I could go back in time and
Speaker 2: stop some of those tests and some of those trials
Speaker 2: that my brothers so helpfully helped the rest of the
Speaker 2: world figure out were not the thing. I think physiologically,
Speaker 2: he'd be a much different person. But also just mentally,
Speaker 2: I think it did some real damage. So I've always
Speaker 2: been extremely sensitive about pills and powders on the road.
Speaker 2: And you know, medications are wonderful. Some people really do
Speaker 2: benefit from them. But I think the journey for me,
Speaker 2: with the exception of some psychedelics every once in a while,
Speaker 2: was about trying to be okay, not being okay. You know,
Speaker 2: I've heard so many people say that now it's kind
Speaker 2: of mundane, but there was so much to be worried
Speaker 2: about and be afraid of that I think if I
Speaker 2: had medicated it away, it wouldn't have made the problem
Speaker 2: go way. It would have prolonged the fear. And I'm
Speaker 2: not afraid anymore, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go. So you decide to make the album.
Speaker 1: You made a number of albums with a group, there's
Speaker 1: a group dynamic. Now you're making the album and you're
Speaker 1: the act. You have to find the musicians and you're
Speaker 1: the boss.
Speaker 2: It is different, oh man, It's it's day and night.
Speaker 2: It's a really different process. And it started with daylight
Speaker 2: and also I mean a little bit in midnight. Although
Speaker 2: the Nocturnals were still in that process, they really hated
Speaker 2: it and like I said about how making albums was
Speaker 2: like brain surgery for me, getting into the studio in
Speaker 2: general just always felt like pulling teeth with the band
Speaker 2: because I think we all had a sense of what
Speaker 2: a producer should be doing with us. I think we all,
Speaker 2: in our own rights, were producers of our own lives,
Speaker 2: and there's sort of I'm leading the way, I'm leading
Speaker 2: the charge that that feeling never went away, and especially
Speaker 2: was magnified and made even more keenly uncomfortable in the
Speaker 2: studio because there was somebody at the end of the
Speaker 2: day who was dropping their foot down and saying, this
Speaker 2: is how it's going to be, which was a lot
Speaker 2: of fun with some producers like Mark who just was
Speaker 2: just delightful, delicious process of making a record with him
Speaker 2: and the Nocturnals, because he was such an unabridged, selfless
Speaker 2: musician who was really truly not there to dominate anyone
Speaker 2: in the same way that I found Eric to be.
Speaker 2: But in making these records, uh Daylight and now Mother
Speaker 2: Road and having the bandwidth to understand that I really
Speaker 2: I am somebody who could just kind of call anybody
Speaker 2: and ask them to play with me. And there's maybe
Speaker 2: a fifty to fifty chance they'll say yes or that
Speaker 2: they won't be available, but that I can do that.
Speaker 2: I can a people know who I am enough to
Speaker 2: take my call, but be that I could like pay
Speaker 2: somebody to play with me. And it touches on the
Speaker 2: way I write songs, because I always wrote songs for
Speaker 2: the Nocturnals with them in mind. You know, I write
Speaker 2: for the player, just like some people writing a script
Speaker 2: for a film will write for a particular actor that
Speaker 2: they have in mind for that part. And that changed,
Speaker 2: and it broke down in the writing of Daylight, and
Speaker 2: broke down further in the production and writing of Mother Road.
Speaker 2: And it was so fun because I really did just
Speaker 2: get to sort of throw the names of all the
Speaker 2: people I've ever wanted to work with out on the floor,
Speaker 2: just spread them out and go like, okay, what goes together?
Speaker 2: And my first instinct was to tap people who I
Speaker 2: knew probably wouldn't be able to tour with, but that I've
Speaker 2: been wanting to play with forever so and people who
Speaker 2: I missed, so Matt Musty, my drummer from the Midnight Tour,
Speaker 2: also the godfather to my child. I wanted Tim Doe,
Speaker 2: the bass player from the Midnight Tour, and he had
Speaker 2: gone on to play with the Kings of Leon and
Speaker 2: is still touring with them to this day. Matt Musty
Speaker 2: took a gig with Train, so he's been out with
Speaker 2: them consistently. And then Nick Bockrath with Cage the Elephant,
Speaker 2: who I had never played with, but he was opening
Speaker 2: with Raylan Baxter who's playing with Rayland just on some
Speaker 2: time when Cage the Elephant was off and just playing
Speaker 2: in the band, and I just liked him as a
Speaker 2: fucking human being. I was like, that's the vibe, that's
Speaker 2: the guy I want. Just I don't even know. I
Speaker 2: know I love Cage the Elephant. I know that the
Speaker 2: guitar is a prominent presence and that there is a
Speaker 2: real craft and some really wonderful voodoo going on in there.
Speaker 2: Wasn't sure if it was gonna be a definitive yes
Speaker 2: or no, but felt like, let's do this, and that's
Speaker 2: really it was. It was that simple. But Ben Mont
Speaker 2: obviously Ben mont Tench had played on Daylight and is
Speaker 2: obviously someone who has always brought me a huge amount
Speaker 2: of joy his organ playing is he's the only organ
Speaker 2: player other than me that I'll let play my records.
Speaker 1: Okay, you talked about writing with the the Nocturnals in mind.
Speaker 1: Just one stop. Are you a night person since it's
Speaker 1: Grace Potter and the Noctournals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And to this day it's a problem because my
Speaker 2: annoyingly fresh and wonderfully youthful husband is a super duper
Speaker 2: morning person with his getting out and going snowshoeing in
Speaker 2: the morning at six. I watched the sunrise today and
Speaker 2: I saw an eagle fly over the field. I'm like,
Speaker 2: shut up, I'm just like sawing off the sawing off
Speaker 2: another tree in my dark vampire room. I am very
Speaker 2: much a night person. I don't know how much of
Speaker 2: that is nature and how much of that is nurture,
Speaker 2: but yes, it's.
Speaker 1: Sot in a perfect world. What time would you go
Speaker 1: to bed? What time would you wake up?
Speaker 2: Bedtime is three am? Wake up time as nine am.
Speaker 1: Okay, you talked about making the records previously with the
Speaker 1: Nocturnals in mind and not having to do that as
Speaker 1: a solo artist. To what degree when you make these records,
Speaker 1: do you have the audience in mind?
Speaker 2: In this case, not a bit, because I wasn't sure
Speaker 2: if this was a record, yet same with Daylight, those
Speaker 2: two records were private. It wasn't that my Mother Road
Speaker 2: was therapeutic. I knew I was going to make a
Speaker 2: record called Mother Road, but I didn't know if these
Speaker 2: were the songs, because, like I said, I was creating
Speaker 2: a story that was out of body and yet very
Speaker 2: much intrinsic to what my process is with Daylight. I
Speaker 2: just I didn't know that Eric was sort of recording
Speaker 2: half the time, like I was just going through it,
Speaker 2: and I was going through the emotions and the waves
Speaker 2: of feelings, you know, making a baby, having a baby,
Speaker 2: buying a house, building a life, falling in love. All
Speaker 2: those things were happening. But it was hard and it
Speaker 2: was a danger Like I said, it was some dangerous
Speaker 2: times involved, stressful times involved. Last thing I wanted was
Speaker 2: for the world to hear that record. To this day,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of like, I can't fucking believe I put
Speaker 2: that record out. It's just very it's like showing everybody
Speaker 2: you're dirty undies. But but Mother Road I really did.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that I had the audience out of my mind.
Speaker 2: It was that I was in a cultivating time in
Speaker 2: the studio where I was experimenting, I was like, maybe
Speaker 2: I do country. Maybe Oh my god, what if I
Speaker 2: chicken fry the whole record? Or you know what if
Speaker 2: this is a this is an original motion picture soundtrack
Speaker 2: and so then oh but shit, then I would have
Speaker 2: to make a movie. Oh fuck, Okay, Well what if
Speaker 2: I just do both? And that's really what set me
Speaker 2: in mind. I was thinking about my audience for the film,
Speaker 2: and the film is the album, but the album it's
Speaker 2: I call it the original motion picture soundtrack to an
Speaker 2: invisible movie.
Speaker 1: You talk about, yeah, talk about the miscarriage and being
Speaker 1: depressed generally speaking? Are you an optimist? Pessimists? Half full?
Speaker 1: Glass empty?
Speaker 2: I had always been a glass half full person, like
Speaker 2: to a sickening degree where I think my therapist introduced
Speaker 2: me to an amazing term toxic positivity. I just thought
Speaker 2: that was delicious, and I yeah, up until the miscarriage
Speaker 2: and just the midlife journey of being someone who's been
Speaker 2: out on the road. And I know what jaded sounds like,
Speaker 2: and I really hate that, I really do. So I
Speaker 2: really needed this record to both be glass half full
Speaker 2: but also acknowledge the empty cup I was walking around with,
Speaker 2: and that feeling is I think intrinsically part of what
Speaker 2: drove me to make this sounds at RCA instead of
Speaker 2: in my home, which felt way too close. It's like
Speaker 2: I got to be a character, imagine myself as Dolly
Speaker 2: Parton or Waylon Jennings. In fact, the ghost of Waylen
Speaker 2: Jennings is one hundred percent all. He was all up
Speaker 2: on my business at the studio. He was he was
Speaker 2: whisper and lyrics in my ear. I feel like, you
Speaker 2: know that, in the same kind kind of cosmic way
Speaker 2: that I feel my way through the audience and the
Speaker 2: stage experience. This was the first time in the studio
Speaker 2: where I really felt like I was conjuring some some
Speaker 2: energy and some narratives that were actually beyond myself in
Speaker 2: an incredibly comforting way. It wasn't spooky, it wasn't scary.
Speaker 2: It was just surreal and really it was transformative for
Speaker 2: me in the studio and yeah, okay, kind of crass.
Speaker 1: The landscape is very different. I'm talking about the business
Speaker 1: career landscape that it was in the last century, which
Speaker 1: is not when you've had most of any of your career,
Speaker 1: and in the twenty first century, there's been an evolution
Speaker 1: such that like in the last ten or twelve years,
Speaker 1: the old paradigm of your world, dominant, etc. Is not
Speaker 1: the case. So you finish a record, you're very in
Speaker 1: this intense experience in the studio. Now it comes time
Speaker 1: people can't see my air quotes to sell the record.
Speaker 1: Now to what degree? I'm sure when you make something
Speaker 1: you want everybody to hear it, which is a near
Speaker 1: impossibility in today's world, irrelevant of what the record is.
Speaker 1: So the question become let me put it a different way.
Speaker 1: There are all these articles about the Taylor Swift tour,
Speaker 1: and she and Morganwall one of the biggest acts in
Speaker 1: the United States today. If we went and talked to
Speaker 1: people and said name to Taylor Swift records, we went
Speaker 1: through Waitsfield, many people would not even be able to
Speaker 1: do it, never mind seeing them. And that's Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1: So you have less ubiquity than she has. To what
Speaker 1: degree is this challenging? To what degree does this affect
Speaker 1: your outlook?
Speaker 2: Okay, this is just such a good question. And it's
Speaker 2: the thing about me that fundamentally has never changed. I
Speaker 2: always think I'm kicking ass, and it's a really specific
Speaker 2: feeling of It's not that no one else can. It's
Speaker 2: an inclusive, ass kicking sensation that I think is probably
Speaker 2: based on the dopamine that is created when you're out
Speaker 2: on stage and you get this sort of adrenaline and
Speaker 2: this flow that is beyond me. I really believe Tina
Speaker 2: Turner had it, and I believe that I have it.
Speaker 2: Whatever that is, it's a bug. It's something that gets
Speaker 2: in you as a cosmic bug that just like crawls
Speaker 2: up your ass and never goes away. That it's not
Speaker 2: wagging the dog. It's not confidence coming from within necessarily,
Speaker 2: it's confidence coming through and that I just don't give
Speaker 2: a damn how many people are in the audience or
Speaker 2: how many reds I sell, and I don't care if
Speaker 2: I'm not killing it. I don't like seeing a sad,
Speaker 2: empty room. But if the three people in there are elated,
Speaker 2: that is the same key. That's the golden ticket. That's it.
Speaker 2: That's all I've ever wanted. And I think on a
Speaker 2: realistic level, obviously, there are things to cultivate within that
Speaker 2: thought process. For example, it's good to know that your
Speaker 2: ticket sales are either growing or declining, that your record
Speaker 2: sales are doing well, or that your streams or this
Speaker 2: or that I just take that hat and I hand
Speaker 2: it to somebody else who's really good at that. Because
Speaker 2: the second that I start thinking about it is where
Speaker 2: I lose my honesty. It's where I lose my connection
Speaker 2: to the purpose that exists inside me, which is specifically
Speaker 2: to make the music as pure as possible. I can't
Speaker 2: be thinking, I can't be watching the hearts and the
Speaker 2: likes coming up through the screen. You know. One of
Speaker 2: my least favorite things to do is those like live
Speaker 2: things where there's a Q and A and I have
Speaker 2: to like watch people's comments go by, because they're just
Speaker 2: feelings and thoughts. They're just exactly like balloons floating through
Speaker 2: the air. Or when if you meditate, it's you know,
Speaker 2: your thoughts are, you know, unhelpful little leaves on the river,
Speaker 2: but if you just sit by the river long enough.
Speaker 2: So my creative process is to tap into the river
Speaker 2: as much as I can, to know that it's flowing
Speaker 2: through me, that it doesn't belong to me, that my
Speaker 2: ego is a complete construct, that the stories that I
Speaker 2: tell myself are both important for the reasons that they
Speaker 2: lead to songwriting, but also completely meaningless, and that the
Speaker 2: sooner I'm able to break those down, the less attached,
Speaker 2: I will get to this white knuckling through life sensation
Speaker 2: that I had had for all that time. And so
Speaker 2: to answer your question, I wanted world domination and I'm
Speaker 2: going for it.
Speaker 1: And I think I can show.
Speaker 2: From the design my record cover that that's what I'm
Speaker 2: that's I designed that record cover myself with the very
Speaker 2: specific intention that if it's on a shelf and you're
Speaker 2: at Walmart, or if you're at a gas station, or
Speaker 2: if you're at Target, or if you're I hate that
Speaker 2: I haven't listened a single record store yet, but that's
Speaker 2: just reality. It is a billboard from the most obnoxious
Speaker 2: commercial time in the nineteen nineties, when everybody was in
Speaker 2: competition with the most shocking, you know images, and I thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'll just put my cameltoe on my record cover. That
Speaker 2: can skip all the apologetic bullshit and get right to
Speaker 2: the point so that people really know that they need
Speaker 2: to be strapped in for this one.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, you have the process, You write, the songs,
Speaker 1: you record, and they come out. You got to sell
Speaker 1: them to what degree do you ultimately, you know, once
Speaker 1: your home off the road, say okay, look at the
Speaker 1: record company, look at the grosses, look at the Is
Speaker 1: this going in the right or wrong direction?
Speaker 2: No? I literally don't check those emails, and sometimes they'll
Speaker 2: get through and it's it's been really good news lately,
Speaker 2: which is really lovely.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: It's not that I'm afraid of bad news. I'm not
Speaker 2: interested in either news. I really can't. I can't. I'm
Speaker 2: very lucky to say that. I know I sound like
Speaker 2: laissez faire and maybe potentially ignorant and ungrateful for the
Speaker 2: people that work really hard for me, which I'm not.
Speaker 2: I am so so not ignorant of what they do.
Speaker 2: But I cannot. I cannot make space in my in
Speaker 2: my head for the worrying, because if I do, this
Speaker 2: is what happens. I just want to rip the band
Speaker 2: aid off and go pick a new career. If it's
Speaker 2: not fun for me, If this feels like the blister
Speaker 2: on my heel because I picked cowboy boots instead of
Speaker 2: beach sandals, then fuck, I'm going to the beach. You know.
Speaker 2: I really don't think and I was lucky to fall
Speaker 2: into that moment in the music industry where I have
Speaker 2: this name that is somehow like there it's not there
Speaker 2: like Taylor Swift, and it's not there in the way
Speaker 2: that it used to be, but it's it's there the
Speaker 2: way that the artists that I love were there for
Speaker 2: me when I was growing up, And to be a
Speaker 2: presence in that way already feels like I've accomplished so much.
Speaker 2: You know, after singing Get Me Shelter on stage with
Speaker 2: the Rolling Stones, I could have just dropped the mic
Speaker 2: and said, bye, I'm going to go make a million
Speaker 2: babies and live in Switzerland and bury my money and bye,
Speaker 2: you know, And there's times where I kind of want to.
Speaker 2: But in the meantime, I think it's so fun that
Speaker 2: we get to do this for a living, and I
Speaker 2: think that it's so hilarious that I'm still getting away
Speaker 2: with it and that people are actually willing to be
Speaker 2: there help me do it, and you.
Speaker 1: Know, okay, for me, let's just say most people have
Speaker 1: not seen both sides of the fence. You talk about
Speaker 1: singing with the Stones, Yeah, and live is more important
Speaker 1: than ever. But talking about recordings, you made a record
Speaker 1: with Kenny Chesney, who's a country superstar, you and Tequila
Speaker 1: that was a huge hit. Yeah, what was that experience
Speaker 1: like for you it.
Speaker 2: Was awesome, and I think it was. I was blindsided
Speaker 2: by what it would do for my career and also
Speaker 2: what it would change about my fan base, and how
Speaker 2: it propelled me into a limelight that continues to this day.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was just on an email about this
Speaker 2: about him and today and everywhere I go. It is
Speaker 2: one of the great gifts that the music cosmos handed me,
Speaker 2: in the same way that they handed me Mayvis Staples
Speaker 2: in the Fair Godmother that she is to me with
Speaker 2: advice and love and respect and joy and inspiration. Kenny
Speaker 2: is such a true gift because it really was this
Speaker 2: like it felt like a joke when I got the
Speaker 2: phone call and was invited to sing on that song.
Speaker 2: It's turned into the catalyst for a lot of the
Speaker 2: other successes I've had, and the reason why probably a
Speaker 2: lot of the things I can do to this day
Speaker 2: are so so possible. But yet I think the hunger
Speaker 2: that I see in him, and the work ethic and
Speaker 2: the drive and the Nashville approach to things that machine
Speaker 2: terrifies me. I think it's something that I wouldn't want
Speaker 2: in my life. I can't believe the strength that is
Speaker 2: required to maintain that agenda and those expectations, and so
Speaker 2: in a way, I think when I when you mentioned Taylor,
Speaker 2: you know, touring with Tim McGraw and meeting Faith Hill
Speaker 2: and her amazing daughters, and the families that come along
Speaker 2: for this ride, Derek and Susan, you know, Warren Haynes,
Speaker 2: and these characters that have come into my life over
Speaker 2: and over again, from a Kenny Chesney to a a
Speaker 2: Wayne Coyn. I have found that it is the not
Speaker 2: belonging that keeps me in the balance and in the
Speaker 2: presence of people's minds, as the like what the fuck character,
Speaker 2: you know, And I love being the what the fuck character?
Speaker 2: You know. I'm like Francis mcdormant. I just show up
Speaker 2: in all the cool movies and you're like, oh man,
Speaker 2: it's her again. Yeah, I love her, but you're like,
Speaker 2: what the fuck is she? Okay? Now, this is good.
Speaker 2: This is good.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I'll be Francis mcdormandt of rock and roll for the
Speaker 2: rest of my life if you want.
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's say you're in Vermont, you go to
Speaker 1: Saint Johnsbury, you go to Londonderry, you're filling up with gas.
Speaker 1: You go in the convenience store. Are you recognized?
Speaker 2: Not as much as you'd think, But when I am,
Speaker 2: it's like a thing. Yeah, I'm recognized more often in
Speaker 2: Nashville than in New York City than anywhere else, which
Speaker 2: is very interesting. Specifically at airports, yeah, airports Denver, Chicago,
Speaker 2: and then on the street in Nashville, in Philadelphia, and
Speaker 2: an in Florida. Lot of Florida recognition. I don't know how.
Speaker 2: I don't know how. It's very interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, do you ever think twice, maybe you're into panga
Speaker 1: wherever you are, say oh, I just want to go
Speaker 1: to the grocery store and pick some shit up. You say,
Speaker 1: oh god, I got to fix my hairs. I'm going
Speaker 1: to be recognized.
Speaker 2: It's it's so weird. It's kind of the opposite because
Speaker 2: in California, everybody's famous or thinks they are, and so
Speaker 2: everybody wanders around like, yeah, I know, it's me, you know.
Speaker 2: But being that Vermont is such a small state, it's
Speaker 2: actually a little more stressful for me. I put way
Speaker 2: more thought into walking out the door and how I'm
Speaker 2: presenting in Vermont. And I think it's because I have
Speaker 2: this slightly political bent to my presence here. There's always
Speaker 2: something to do. There's a fundraiser, or there's you know,
Speaker 2: just on Saturday, it was with Bernie Sanders all day
Speaker 2: raising awareness for the arts and trying to create culture,
Speaker 2: bring back the bread and circus, so that we have
Speaker 2: something to defend here, something bigger than ourselves. And art
Speaker 2: and music is that bigger thing that conscious humans are
Speaker 2: capable of creating. And it's getting cut. The budgets are
Speaker 2: getting cut. And so I'm sitting here in this situation
Speaker 2: of again being the weird person that's kind of flowing
Speaker 2: through my life with what I believe is my purpose.
Speaker 2: Vanity rarely plays to it as much as optics of
Speaker 2: like where this might go someday, what my kid might see,
Speaker 2: you know, like me breastfeeding the stranger at the In
Speaker 2: and Out Burger that we discussed at the beginning of
Speaker 2: the interview, Like I'm glad there was no video of that.
Speaker 2: But I looked so good that night, Okay I did.
Speaker 2: I looked fucking hot and my tit's were leaking milk
Speaker 2: and it was the kind of milk that gets you drunk.
Speaker 2: So anyways, back to what you were asking, the answer
Speaker 2: is no, I really don't. I mean I don't get
Speaker 2: noticed that much. I'm not that kind of famous, okay
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 1: And then what about being an attractive woman in a
Speaker 1: music business that is really male dominated. For every ten
Speaker 1: guys who are reasonable and respectful, there's one or two
Speaker 1: complete assholes. So what's it? What's it like for you?
Speaker 2: That's that's the eternal question for a lot of women
Speaker 2: who have observed my process. I don't ask that question
Speaker 2: as much as I enjoy the body I got this
Speaker 2: time around, because I was definitely a dude in every
Speaker 2: other life. This is the first time I've ever had tits,
Speaker 2: so it's been fun to be on this particular journey.
Speaker 2: And I think that the identity politics of is she
Speaker 2: a hot girl? You know, the sort of rock and
Speaker 2: roll barbie stuff, has finally settled, like that dust has
Speaker 2: finally settled. I've discussed it to a point where I'm
Speaker 2: also just I've aged out of that being such a
Speaker 2: hot pressure point for people. And now it's just like
Speaker 2: it goes without saying that when you signed with Disney,
Speaker 2: your image changed, and now everybody knows that that was
Speaker 2: me doing that, because suddenly somebody wanted to play dress
Speaker 2: up with me, like for the first time ever in
Speaker 2: my life, people were paying attention and helping me to play,
Speaker 2: you know, to play dress up and explore the visual
Speaker 2: stimulation that is a woman in a male dominated business.
Speaker 2: I think it served me in a few different ways.
Speaker 2: Where it failed me, it was character building because I
Speaker 2: don't have victim energy, you know, I don't come into
Speaker 2: a situation with a huge amount of fear that I'm
Speaker 2: going to be dominated. I'm surprisingly shy, but I do
Speaker 2: kind of clock the room, read the room first, and
Speaker 2: figure out what feels on multiple levels, like the right
Speaker 2: approach visually. And so when I'm dressing for a show
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking about that, when there's a context for everything.
Speaker 2: And I love fashion, it's just like I love storytelling.
Speaker 2: It's just like I love filmmaking, and it's how I
Speaker 2: love painting. There is a different tone to every situation
Speaker 2: you find yourself in, and I have definitely leaned on
Speaker 2: my legs and my physical appearance because it's a medium,
Speaker 2: just like the guitar or a tambourine or a ham
Speaker 2: and be three organ or fucking bagpipes. Every single texture
Speaker 2: and tone that is called for in any one room,
Speaker 2: there is a medium for that, and Oftentimes in my
Speaker 2: life with the music business, or at an award show
Speaker 2: or at a radio convention, people have thrown me those
Speaker 2: curveballs and those unexpectedly inappropriate Just what the fuck are
Speaker 2: you talking about? Questions or just propositions or inappropriate statements.
Speaker 2: But no motherfucker has ever tried to touch me, because
Speaker 2: I just come at them with I think an energy
Speaker 2: that already is a little bit creepier than they are.
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, that's really what it is. I
Speaker 2: an aggressor.
Speaker 1: You just mentioned being shy one of the things you
Speaker 1: said earlier. This stuff out my brain. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to make a record. I have my fantasy
Speaker 1: lists I made contact. Are you the type of person
Speaker 1: who has no problem, no fear, or you're saying, you know,
Speaker 1: let me have somebody else call or I'll wait till
Speaker 1: the phone rings. What do you really like?
Speaker 2: I like being alone. I like being left alone, and
Speaker 2: I like to feel like I'm being given a chance
Speaker 2: to make a choice. When I'm not, I feel extremely
Speaker 2: cloistered and not suffocated, but angry. I get very bitter
Speaker 2: when I feel like choices are being made for me
Speaker 2: and the outcomes are beyond my knowledge and someone is like,
Speaker 2: this will be best for you, you know, which is
Speaker 2: again that's why I avoided Eric Valentine for almost ten
Speaker 2: whole years, because everybody kept telling me to meet with
Speaker 2: Eric Valentine. I think the solitude that I seek is
Speaker 2: usually because I have a roundabout way of getting to
Speaker 2: my gut feelings. There's always the initial gut of like,
Speaker 2: hey you, you know, there's two offers have come in.
Speaker 2: One is would get you to Red Rocks, So you
Speaker 2: could do two nights at Red Rocks. Looks like we're
Speaker 2: probably gonna be able to headline this year, but you'd
Speaker 2: have to have a strong support and it would be
Speaker 2: a double bill versus one night at Red Rocks with
Speaker 2: just you, gut instinct, just me, smart me, two days totally,
Speaker 2: let's do the double bill with a strong support or
Speaker 2: whatever you want to call it. Like I know that
Speaker 2: that time required is really just my own ritual of
Speaker 2: coming to terms with reality because the fantasy that I
Speaker 2: live inside, like I said, it's this lightning bolt way
Speaker 2: of approaching life is and can be extremely chaotic. But
Speaker 2: if there's stillness in the midst of that, if I
Speaker 2: can find those places to center myself and find the
Speaker 2: places where I can understand that the thoughts I'm having
Speaker 2: are just thoughts. Then I don't need to be defined
Speaker 2: by my former impressions of myself and just make a
Speaker 2: choice that I think is going to bring as much
Speaker 2: of what I really want to share with the world
Speaker 2: out into the world in the best way possible. That
Speaker 2: goes for being a mom and a family member. And
Speaker 2: it's why we moved to Vermont. It's all the things
Speaker 2: that we've been talking about today, but more than anything,
Speaker 2: because we are talking about the music industry. I think
Speaker 2: I need more time sometimes by myself than most people,
Speaker 2: which is why I rent a car a lot, because
Speaker 2: I don't like driving in the car with passengers. I've
Speaker 2: got enough of them right here.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's just leave out practicality, childcare, etc. I call
Speaker 1: you up to and say literally today and say come
Speaker 1: to dinner. You're going to say yes, so, And then
Speaker 1: I say, well, come to dinner tonight. And there's a
Speaker 1: party tomorrow night, and there's a picnic for families on Sunday.
Speaker 1: You Andry go, Wow, that's way too much stuff.
Speaker 2: That's too much. Yeah, So the big long plan, and
Speaker 2: that's what just happened to us actually yesterday in Vermont,
Speaker 2: I got invited last minute to a dinner which was
Speaker 2: a really cool fundraiser and brought in all the farms,
Speaker 2: family farms, and chefs and foodies from all around Vermont
Speaker 2: and brought them together onto this gorgeous tasting menu. And
Speaker 2: it was sort of a wonderful, elbow rubbing opportunity for
Speaker 2: me to go meet a bunch of local farmers and
Speaker 2: reintegrate into the world of Vermont in a way that
Speaker 2: I think is important for the development that I'm trying
Speaker 2: to do. And it involved a huge amount of logistics
Speaker 2: after we had already figured out that we did and
Speaker 2: have childcare, and Eric was like, but I already bought
Speaker 2: the tickets, and then I found out it's not kid friendly,
Speaker 2: So there was that moment of like, oh shit, but
Speaker 2: the tickets were really expensive and I wanted to, you know, go,
Speaker 2: So we actually called up a friend and orchestrated the
Speaker 2: complicated logistics that you just mentioned. The picnic the next day,
Speaker 2: the childcare, the overnight. Oh in this somebody else's family
Speaker 2: is going to be there, so is there parking for
Speaker 2: the extra car? And we did all of it and
Speaker 2: it actually worked, but I almost missed a couple of
Speaker 2: interviews because of it today, because there's not reception between
Speaker 2: Shelburne Farms and our home here in Waitesfield. So I said,
Speaker 2: as long as I get back for Bob's interview, will
Speaker 2: be good. And that was that.
Speaker 1: You were my.
Speaker 2: Goalpost for the day. But that's the level of chaos
Speaker 2: and spontaneity that exists in the Potter family. It's what
Speaker 2: I grew up with, and it's it's my truth. It's
Speaker 2: just who I am. And Eric's got to deal with it.
Speaker 1: Okay, now you talk about you know, life crisis, etc. Yeah,
Speaker 1: was turning forty difficult?
Speaker 2: No, it was delicious. This was a new high for
Speaker 2: me because I think I needed a bumper sticker number
Speaker 2: for just I think passing the kidney stone that has
Speaker 2: been this last four years of bullshit. You know, I
Speaker 2: think we all have had our own versions of it,
Speaker 2: but for me, forty just feels like an affirmation, a justification,
Speaker 2: an emancipation from all former promises to self, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, now you mentioned Bernie Sanders, whose unique character.
Speaker 1: When I went to college in Vermont, it was red.
Speaker 1: Now it's more blue than red. Yeah, Okay, we live
Speaker 1: in a very divided country. Is this something you think about?
Speaker 1: You say, well, I better not say this or do this,
Speaker 1: because it might have been some of my audience members.
Speaker 2: I do. Actually, the problem is that I have such
Speaker 2: a diarrhea mouth, and I'm so poorly educated on what
Speaker 2: is blue or or green or red anymore in the
Speaker 2: statements that I'm making, because I don't live in the
Speaker 2: cadence of linguistic times of now. I'm from elsewhere. So
Speaker 2: when I'm communicating and I say something that's taken out
Speaker 2: of context or that I'm just truly just talking shit
Speaker 2: and don't know what I'm saying, I usually try to
Speaker 2: stop myself and go I think I'm just talking shit
Speaker 2: and I don't really know what I'm talking about. But
Speaker 2: and so I rarely go into politics to the point
Speaker 2: where like me and Bernie, this is the first time
Speaker 2: we've done this collaboration, and it's because it's touching on
Speaker 2: a point that is extremely important to me. Separate of
Speaker 2: supporting any one person and siding with or saddling up
Speaker 2: to anybody. I'm friends with many politicians on both sides
Speaker 2: of the fence, both in Vermont and everywhere in the States.
Speaker 2: But I also feel like it's more and more dangerous
Speaker 2: to tread in those waters. The cancel culture has gone
Speaker 2: in one direction, and the woke culture has also pulled
Speaker 2: me into many things that I think, Yeah, the spiral
Speaker 2: goes both ways, and there's been fear, and there's been vindication,
Speaker 2: and there's been sea I'm right, and the justification the
Speaker 2: conversation that goes on within myself because I'm a Gemini
Speaker 2: battles with all of the same content that we all
Speaker 2: are battling with, and nobody wants to get canceled. But
Speaker 2: because that would that would be devastating. I genuinely would
Speaker 2: hate to have let the world down by not being
Speaker 2: able to have my music be taken with love and
Speaker 2: feel like suddenly, not only did I say one thing
Speaker 2: that changes, or did I side with the wrong side
Speaker 2: or be on the wrong side of history or whatever.
Speaker 2: It would be so sad to lose an opportunity to
Speaker 2: continue creating in a way that I feel is intrinsically
Speaker 2: there for people just showing up and being there. So
Speaker 2: I do try to tread really lightly in the way
Speaker 2: that many Nashville folks do. I think I was trained
Speaker 2: under the feet of many brilliant performers who have sided
Speaker 2: with the things they're really really passionate about and spoken
Speaker 2: out when it's time to and paid the price for it.
Speaker 2: And also I've seen that respect and that flow. I've
Speaker 2: been around long enough to see where maybe it was
Speaker 2: a scary thing to talk about ten years ago, but
Speaker 2: now it's a little bit more in the collective consciousness.
Speaker 2: So when I don't know what I'm talking about, I
Speaker 2: think is the place where I need the I need
Speaker 2: the bottleneck. I need that like handle or that person
Speaker 2: who wears that hat we were talking about before, somebody
Speaker 2: else with the hat to come and uh and and
Speaker 2: put a lid on me. Because if I don't feel
Speaker 2: passionate about it, I'm probably just pontificating and maybe even
Speaker 2: forming a song in my head something that starts to
Speaker 2: feel like I can make sense of it. You know,
Speaker 2: Metaphors are a very dangerous tool, and language is powerful,
Speaker 2: and it's a it's a process to follow down the
Speaker 2: yellow brick road of exactly where we're going with all
Speaker 2: this stuff. I'm very uncomfortable with it, to be totally honest.
Speaker 1: Jason Alden has a song about a small town saying
Speaker 1: essentially what you do in the city wouldn't work in
Speaker 1: a small town. He grew up in Macon, Georgia, which
Speaker 1: is not a small town. R you grew up in
Speaker 1: a small town. What's it really like in a small town.
Speaker 2: Well, it really is. I think the most important thing
Speaker 2: is accountability. Like everybody knows everybody, and if my kid
Speaker 2: spit in the eye of another kid at school, it
Speaker 2: would be a big problem, and it would it would
Speaker 2: be something that was discussed by everybody, whether they were
Speaker 2: involved or not, and whether they're they were in the
Speaker 2: room and saw what happened or not. And it's not
Speaker 2: just a gossip mill. It's about the accountability being the
Speaker 2: positive side of it as well, not just the sad, bad,
Speaker 2: puritanical judgment that you get from people, but also the
Speaker 2: like do they need help? Does this family? Is this
Speaker 2: family struggling because usually a kid is acting out in
Speaker 2: school because X, Y or Z must be going wrong
Speaker 2: and they're trying to convey their their problems in school
Speaker 2: or whatever it is that's never happened. I really hope
Speaker 2: my kid doesn't ever spit in someone's eye. But but
Speaker 2: there have been so many moments back home where that
Speaker 2: accountability is both a relief and like a very nurturing,
Speaker 2: like almost a hug from a mother feeling, but also
Speaker 2: can be kind of crushing and isolating if you feel
Speaker 2: like your belief system or the things that you want
Speaker 2: for your family, or the culture that you're hungry for
Speaker 2: that doesn't exist in a small town is not only
Speaker 2: inappropriate but actually just kind of rude and uppity and crass.
Speaker 2: And you know. So it's been hard for me talking
Speaker 2: about this record in Vermont because I have this duality
Speaker 2: of the feeling of coming home being such a beautiful
Speaker 2: place and somewhere that I want to foster good things
Speaker 2: for and help elevate and escalate into a place of
Speaker 2: exactly what I remember about loving it, but also even
Speaker 2: more but also pining for that society and that culture
Speaker 2: and that sunshine and that you know, California dream and
Speaker 2: Joni Mitchell happy ending that I that I always thought
Speaker 2: I was going to live out. So it's been a
Speaker 2: really interesting thing, the small town conversation, and that you
Speaker 2: bring it up exactly now, because I, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: proud to be from a small town. I'm proud to
Speaker 2: know all the ins and outs. I kind of like
Speaker 2: the gossip by dirt and just the other day Kevin Streeter,
Speaker 2: who poured the foundation for our concrete here at the
Speaker 2: barn one at thunder Road, and he's like kicking ass
Speaker 2: race car driving guide. I'm like, whoa see now, that's
Speaker 2: like some magical small town stuff that made me proud
Speaker 2: to be from my town, Little Kevin Streeter from Waitsfield, Vermont.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, you know, it's just it's cool
Speaker 2: when when you can exist in both worlds and have
Speaker 2: seen things from both sides, it does change the way
Speaker 2: that you look at things.
Speaker 1: That's for sure. I Mean I spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time in small towns, which most people who pontificate have not,
Speaker 1: and I find, you know, you're branded very early window
Speaker 1: and then you're that person, you know. I was watching
Speaker 1: this show English show on streaming the other day on
Speaker 1: Amazon called Pure and the woman comes from Scotland and
Speaker 1: she's all uptight about who she is, and the person says,
Speaker 1: you're in London now, no one gives a shit. That's
Speaker 1: what I love about Lay. Everybody's so into their own trip.
Speaker 1: You could be whoever you want to be because they
Speaker 1: don't care. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's the part about it that I think
Speaker 2: maybe it's the Benjamin Button approach to life, where I'm
Speaker 2: getting younger and more inappropriate in my old age. But
Speaker 2: there's not as much room for that here as there
Speaker 2: is in La But and I don't know the show
Speaker 2: pure but thank you for telling me about that, because
Speaker 2: I'm looking for a new show to watch right now
Speaker 2: for the tour bus. So I'm excited to get it.
Speaker 1: Well, well, just I was going to end it, but
Speaker 1: just before there. I wouldn't put that at the top
Speaker 1: of your list, but it's very interesting. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: what have you watched that was good?
Speaker 2: Oh my god? I mean Nine Perfect Strangers was one
Speaker 2: that kind of blew my fucking head off last year. Obviously,
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of anything that's based in the seventies.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's obvious to people who don't
Speaker 2: know my music or what I'm into, but I really, really,
Speaker 2: really love seventies rock, funk, soul, gospel, disco. Just take
Speaker 2: me there, Just take me the fuck there. So The
Speaker 2: Serpent was the show that I really enjoyed. I love
Speaker 2: the comedic series. I think you should leave. I think
Speaker 2: it's some of the most soulful comedy in the world.
Speaker 2: And the performances, they're wonderful, Umbrella Academy, love God, there's
Speaker 2: so many I've really dived deep. I just finished The
Speaker 2: Righteous Gemstones. And of course Danny McBride is someone I
Speaker 2: got the lovely chance to bump into many many times,
Speaker 2: but most prominently when I was opening for the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 2: So I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm a cool guy.
Speaker 2: I can't remember exactly what I said to him, but
Speaker 2: it could have been dorky. It didn't matter. I was
Speaker 2: in like a silver flapper dress and I was singing
Speaker 2: on stage with mc jagger, so it really didn't matter.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's take that off. Let's take big Jagger off
Speaker 1: the table. It's a thing after itself. What's your number
Speaker 1: two or other than mc jagger, your number one?
Speaker 2: Pinch me moment singing I mean singing with Robert Plant,
Speaker 2: Patty Griffin, Emmy Lou Harris and Bonnie Rait on stage
Speaker 2: at the Love Rocks event. And New York goes right
Speaker 2: up there singing with Roger Waters and Mavis Staples and
Speaker 2: Lucinda Williams and John Mayer and Jim James at the
Speaker 2: levon Helm event. And you know there's I mean, I
Speaker 2: think that I do believe the strength and numbers pinch
Speaker 2: me thing is kind of harder to quantify because there's
Speaker 2: so many names and each one will tick a box
Speaker 2: for other people, so they have this associative thing. But
Speaker 2: the pinch me moment that I think means the most
Speaker 2: to me is my music festival. You know, like being
Speaker 2: up on stage watching other bands and knowing that I
Speaker 2: created something that not only has an enduring spirit beyond
Speaker 2: just that day, but that these bands that are here
Speaker 2: playing wouldn't have come to Vermont or come to the waterfront.
Speaker 2: Grandpoint North is the festival I'm talking about the festival
Speaker 2: that I developed with Matt Burr, my partner in Crime
Speaker 2: on the Road and Beyond, and my first husband and
Speaker 2: Alex Cruthers from Higher Ground. That whole experience of really
Speaker 2: dreaming up and envisioning what it could be and then
Speaker 2: watching it come to life was Yeah, the best feeling
Speaker 2: I've ever had, other than giving birth to my son,
Speaker 2: you know, just knowing that I was able to force
Speaker 2: something that seemed completely impossible into being and that it
Speaker 2: was going to be celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.
Speaker 1: Well, well was it coming back?
Speaker 2: I hope so, babe, I mean, listen, this is this
Speaker 2: is the long journey of the music festival business, which
Speaker 2: is I think a whole other that might take a
Speaker 2: whole other.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll leave it at that grace. You've been very
Speaker 1: open and honest. I want to thank you so much
Speaker 1: for taking the time with my audience.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I love the show. I listened to it all
Speaker 2: the time. I tried so hard not to geek out
Speaker 2: and reference a bunch of episodes because you're asking me
Speaker 2: what shows I watch? I'm like, well, what about what
Speaker 2: shows I listened to? Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2: I was so delighted to be able to be here
Speaker 2: and have this conversation with you.
Speaker 1: As I say, you were great, no holds barred. It
Speaker 1: was the real you. I really want to thank you
Speaker 1: untill next time. This is Bob left set
Speaker 2: S