Jambands.com - Need We Say More?

Published: 2011/08/04
by Randy Ray

RR: Is there some new music to be expected from the Nocturnals sometime soon?

GP: Oh, yeah. I was actually up until 8:30 in the morning. I lost $300 at the casino last night at the roulette table, so I got back to the bus, and I had this terrible guilt. It was a soul-crushing, conscious decision that for every hundred dollars I lost, I needed to write a song. So I wrote three songs last night. (laughs) Partly, that was because every time I tried to record it, it didn’t sound good. And then that one didn’t sound good, so I wrote another one. Who knows what will come of those three songs. I felt a little guilty, so that was my penance. (laughs)

RR: And the night before the roulette table tragedy…how did Minnesota treat you?

GP: Oh, phenomenal. The zoo was insane, dude. The people were bonkers, and we had so much fun. We walked the whole zoo. It was such a hot day that I actually went under this shower that I didn’t realize was just supposed to be for the animals. (laughter) It was a little sprinkler system that I thought was for the people, but it was for the animals. Yeah. It had some kind of a bug spray in it and it tasted weird. Yeah. It was great. We saw the grizzly bears fighting in the water and it was amazing. I Tweeted a video of it. I was standing five feet from these grizzly bears who were having the time of their lives, wallowing in this unbelievable golden day, and they’ve got this cool water. For everything I bitch about zoos and animals, but those bears looked pretty fuckin’ happy.

So we took that happiness and all that energy that the bears gave us and we took it and brought it with us on stage, and we wallowed in it all night long. It was really wonderful.

RR: One of the last stops on this campaign for the Nocturnals is in Central Park in September—a pretty cool marquee gig. Is the rest of year going to feature some writing? Some time off? Other shows? Your annual New Year’s Eve run?

GP: Right. Good question. There is definitely a lot on the horizon. I was trying to find a little pocket of time to take a trip somewhere to do something, but it is looking like it is not going to happen. We’re really definitely going to roll straight from the Central Park show—which is going to top off our summer in such a great way; I’m really excited about that show, by the way; not to be too ADD, but I think that is going to be a really killer night, and we’ve got Floating Action, who are awesome—to finding a place to make a record. I’m not sure what city we would do it in, or if we bring it back to Vermont, or what we’d do, but teach the band new songs, write some more songs, and definitely wrap our heads around a new record. It’s just feeling like the momentum is leading up to something even more exciting, and as we go, there’s just really no stopping this train. (laughs) It’s like I want to make the record as fast as possible, and I want to throw it out to the world because it is just so much fun to watch people learn your music, and get to know your music, and see what it does to them, and what your lyrics mean to someone else in their life. That’s definitely going to happen.

I’m sure the New Year’s experience is going to come back around again. I’ve got an idea already. It’s a little early. I usually never cook up an idea as quickly as I did this year, but I think it’s going to be one for the books.

RR: Coming full circle, it has to be a huge kick in the ass to be headlining your own festival in Burlington in mid-August.

GP: It’s so true. That’s obviously the thing that I’m most focused on right now—making this experience as good as it can be. We’re in the bus figuring out what time everyone is going to go on, and what order. It’s just like planning a wedding with no bride and groom. Everybody at the festival is the bride and groom. (laughter) We are all going to be getting our festival cherries popped that weekend, but it’s going to be really, really special and I’m just so looking forward to it. I hope the weather will hold up. Obviously, that is a big, big piece of it. (laughs)