If you can’t be in Paris, then you should at least be at The Blue Note. On Wednesday, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals will take the stage. After coming off successful shows at Coachella, MOVE caught up with guitarist Scott Tournet to talk about college towns, the upcoming album and the band’s surprising summer stadium tour with country stars Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney.
**[MOVE]** We have to know, How was playing Coachella?
**[SCOTT TOURNET]** Playing Coachella was great, it was epic. It was really beautiful. It actually wasn’t really that hot, so we didn’t have to wear shorts and sandals on stage. We got to see a lot of shows like Radiohead, Bon Iver and Florence and the Machine.
**[MOVE]** Is there anything you especially like about playing in a college town?
**[SCOTT]** The kids. The crowd. I love college. I went to college three times. I love the atmosphere of college. It’s so open-minded. Even today, I think there is a carryover of ’60s mentality in college towns. Usually they are at the forefront of civil rights and progressive kind of thinking. They are the first to accept something new and something different.
**[MOVE]** What is a typical day on tour like?
**[SCOTT]** Well first off, there is nothing typical about it. If you are on tour for an extended amount of time, you have somewhat of a routine. You wake up around noon and cruise the town for vintage shops or more locally owed shops that you wouldn’t find everywhere else. Me and Benny, the other guitarist, like to hit up pawn shops a lot to try and find weird stories or weird instruments. After that, we go to sound check, play a few songs. Then we go eat some dinner and chill, maybe call your family or your girlfriend or boyfriend. Then usually we play some acoustic guitars and work things out or watch whoever’s opening. After the show we used to drink a lot of whiskey and go crazy, but these days we’ve mellowed out.
**[MOVE]** Your new album comes out June 12, is there anything new fans can expect sound-wise, or is there anything you are particularly excited about?
**[SCOTT]** Yeah I’m really excited about our album, like for real. I think it’s our most mature album. We really believe in it. It comes across really well conceptually, and also I think the fans will be excited that it is really fun to play live. Some of the songs were written for a big stage to play live. So that’s always cool when music is really exciting and really lends itself to a live performance. By the time we get to The Blue Note, we’ll be a couple weeks into the tour, so expect to hear about half of the new album. We’re ready to play again. We took an almost six month break for touring, so we’re all gung-ho to just let it rip again.
**[MOVE]** From your style of music, we wouldn’t necessarily stick you with a country artist. How did your tour with Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney come about?
**[SCOTT]** Kenny Chesney discovered us and just fell in love with Grace’s song “Apologies”, which has a singer/songwriter feel. So he had this song called “You and Tequila,” which has been out and been nominated for a Grammy and stuff, and he asked her to sing on it. At first when we heard the request, Grace mentioned it to me and we were like, well that’s kind of out of left field, that’s not what we really expect or are used to. She decided to say ‘what the fuck,’ so she did it. That was kind of like the first area that we broke down in a way as to like who we are. A few years ago, we were very ‘We’re this kind of a thing, or we’re this genre.’ But nowadays, it’s kind of cool to let go of those things and not stress if you are country or hip-hop or rock, just kind of like float to the wind. We’re just getting a kick out of the extreme from playing Coachella to a massive country tour in the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. But why not? We don’t want to be too cool for anybody.