Interview mit Scott Tournet

Don't tell Scott Tournet that Blues & Lasers is a side project to his main band, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. He sees Blues & Lasers as a legitimate group, similar to the way one of his heroes, Warren Haynes, leads Gov't Mule and also plays lead guitar for The Allman Brothers Band.
"I don't like to be pigeonholed. That's always kind of offended me," Tournet said by phone last week from suburban Washington, D.C., where the Nocturnals had just played on their tour opening for The Black Crowes. "I write music, I do a lot of different things. I think it's been frustrating sometimes to be Grace Potter's guitar player.
"Tournet hastened to add that he knows the Waitsfield-based Nocturnals provide a great steady job on a national scale. But he's looking for a chance to stretch out creatively, and Blues & Lasers lets him do that.




The Ludlow native and Goddard College graduate is pulling double-duty Aug. 16 at Waterfront Park, a short walk from his Burlington home. Grace Potter and the Nocturnals will play as part of the Lake Champlain Maritime Festival, after Blues & Lasers opens the show. It'll also be a doubleheader for Nocturnals drummer Matt Burr and bass player Bryan Dondero, who are in Blues & Lasers with Tournet, guitarist Benny Yurco (known for his work with Turkey Bouillon Mafia) and percussionist Steve Sharon.
Blues & Lasers fits broadly into the blues-rock category inhabited by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, but less from a classic-rock perspective and more from a modern angle like that taken by the North Mississippi Allstars or Jon Spencer. The band's new self-titled album, recorded in November at Club Metronome in Burlington, reveals that Blues & Lasers uses more effects pedals (especially on the explosive "Whole New Way of Going Down"), and two drummers makes Blues & Lasers "more experimental, more edgy," according to Tournet.
"I also wanted to get rid of the classic-rock stigma a little bit," said Tournet, 31, whose previous eponymous solo band delved into classic rock. "We love it but I'm kind of ready to move on from it a little bit. I have a ton of other influences I wasn't really tapping into. I was trying to do something a little different than Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.




Nocturnals fans needn't fear, however; Tournet said that band has tentative plans to record its second album for Hollywood Records this winter with a possible release next summer. The foursome continues to tour heavily, though Tournet envisions a day when Grace Potter and the Nocturnals let up on the accelerator.
"I don't think it's going to happen this winter or in the next year, but in the next five years I can see us chilling out a little bit," Tournet said. "That might be healthier, too, unlike a band like Phish that goes and goes and goes until it implodes. I think we're aware of the implosion factor."