_Matthew Shelter_

Guitarist Scott Tournet, who parted ways with Grace Potter & The Nocturnals in the spring of last year before Potter’s solo tour, recently talked with JamBase about his new project, Elektric Voodoo, and the circumstances surrounding his departure from The Nocturnals after 12 years with the band.

Tournet says that Elektric Voodoo is very influenced by Afrobeat music, and Fela Kuti in particular. “It was something that I had studied and was into from the time I was in college but I’ve never really had a band where I could explore it,” he says. “I’m excited about this because I feel like I’ve created something new, as opposed to something that’s a re-creation of something else. We all start out imitating but at a certain point I no longer wanted to try to recreate The Rolling Stones from 1973 or Neil Young.”

The guitarist took some time off music after announcing he wouldn’t continue with Potter, but he is obviously fulfilled by and committed to the new project. “I wanted to make an album that people want to listen to and I want to play on Saturday night instead of Sunday morning,” Tournet explains. “What happened with my solo album Ver La Luz is I enjoyed writing and recording it, but then I didn’t want to go out and play those songs at 10:00 p.m. on a Saturday night, it just didn’t feel right. So with Elektric Voodoo, if anyone asked me ‘what music do you want to play with a band and in front of an audience?’ The answer is ‘this.’” He also says that Elektric Voodoo is his main band now and will be for the foreseeable future.

On the topic of The Nocturnals, Tournet wants to make it definite that his involvement with the band of which he was a major part for over a decade is completely over. “What’s been a little disappointing, I guess, is that a huge percentage of our fan base don’t really understand that clearly,” he says. “I guess it hasn’t really been clearly said until now.”

Tournet says that the main reason for his departure from the band was “time,” and that he wasn’t onboard to go down the road the group was headed, noting that he and drummer Matt Burr helped to guide Potter toward more bluesy rock in their first years as musical collaborators.

“Also, in the early days of GPN, we had a really tight fan base who really understood that we were a true band,” Tournet says. “As we got bigger I think that most of the fans we picked up along the way were only focused on Grace and really missed the point that there was a band and a family thing happening. In general, there’s always a quarterback/lead singer thing that happens in our culture but if you add in gender and sexuality that can become incredibly pronounced. More and more the rest of us were treated and looked at as a hired backing band and to be honest, that sucked after putting in years of work building the band from the ground up and being such a big part of the sound and vision.”

When asked if the parting of ways was “amicable,” Tournet simply replies, “Separations are rarely easy. It was a 12-year relationship.”

Read the full interview here.