By GARRET K. WOODWARD
Contributing Writer
---- — When the cat's away, the mice will play.
At a recent performance in the Brooklyn Bowl, budding rock group Blues and Lasers took the stage in celebration of their latest independent release -- "After All We're Only Human."
Forgetting to take off their musical boots at the door, the quintet nonchalantly muddied the floors of the trendy venue. Their appearance is a haze of freak flag lion manes, aviator sunglasses, and shaggy mustaches. The sound is menacing although embracing, refreshing yet obviously aged in whiskey barrels and scratched rock records. The clarity, precision and steal-your-girlfriend nature of the band puts you in a manic, at times psychotic, trance.
It also is a far cry from their day jobs.
Three-fifths of Grace Potter and The Nocturnals (Scott Tournet -- guitar, Benny Yurco -- guitar, Matt Burr -- drums) trade in the girls (Potter, Catherine Popper) for another drummer (Steve Sharon) and bassist (John Rogone). The intention is pure, one of rebellion and revulsion amid the current music industry -- a revolt ironic in contrast to the recent endeavors of Ms. Potter heading to Hollywood.
Regardless, the band has the tenacious grit of Neil Young & Crazy Horse, three-part harmonies in the spirit of Crosby Stills and Nash, and a passion for preserving the past akin to Jack White.
At the center of this is Tournet. Since the dissolving of his original solo act a few years ago, he took the reigns once again and formed an ensemble chalked full of legitimate blues-rock melodies.
Since then, Tournet has proved not only his self-sufficiency, but also that of Yurco and Burr, outside the realm of the whirlwind media circus that is Grace Potter.
Garret K. Woodward: What is Blues and Lasers?
Scott Tournet: An idea that turned into a band. It came from an all-day jam session I had while I was in college. A couple of my musician friends came into town after we hadn't seen each other for about a year. We had all been deeply immersed in different types of music. One friend was only playing slide guitar in open tunings, while another was deeply into effects pedals and weird sonic textures. I was kind of the middleman, as I had been in more of a straight-ahead rock and roll group. We also had two drummers going that day. I don't think we stopped playing for six or seven hours. That day was pure bliss, and that's what Blues and Lasers is about, for me at least, trying to recapture that moment of freedom and contrasting musical styles.
GKW: Do you have to live through the blues to sing them?
ST: That's a tricky one. Sometimes you have these young kids that can emulate the sound perfectly like the dude from Back Yard Tire Fire or Johnny Lang and Kenny Wayne Shepherd, etcetera, that come along and sound exactly like the real thing. But when you listen closer there's an authenticity that's missing, in my opinion. When I listen to Buddy Guy or Roy Buchanan or Albert King there is a certain pain I hear in some of the special notes that's like a human cry. It literally makes me feel that emotion. I feel like you can only really hit that note if you've felt that pain or loss in real life. It's technically possible to imitate that same note, but it's like a blues note you can buy from Tijuana.
GKW: What influence does Junior Kimbrough have on you?
ST: For a while I was obsessed with him and R.L. Burnside. That style of blues was like a breath of fresh air after all the blues festivals we'd play with white dudes in Hawaiian shirts trying to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan. I feel like so many people today won't even give blues a chance because it's been ruined by people who think it's about technique and volume. My parents, for example, couldn't stand the blues until I showed them all the different things it could be. They just thought it was music for drunken people in a bar that was too loud. To be honest, these days we're moving further and further away from the blues when it comes to musical form. I'm interested in the feeling and emotion of the blues, but I feel like it's my obligation to extract those things and inject them into new musical forms and landscapes. That's really what Blues and Lasers is about.
GKW: What does the word "rockstar" mean to you? How do feel when someone puts that moniker on you?
ST: I'm confused by it. I genuinely got into all of this because I had a burning desire to make music everyday. I never got into it to be a "rockstar." People started laying that on me from time to time about five years ago, and it always made me feel weird. I think it was because we were playing jam festivals where a lot of the musicians stand still when they play, and we jumped around a lot. I just naturally move to the music when I'm playing. It's not pre-conceived. Do "rockstars" still owe college loans?
GKW: B&L has this "Man-Cave" emotion to it. You have your work with Grace Potter, your life, your other priorities, but with this, is it your true escape from society? Playing music with your chums in a hidden pocket of the world, rocking out on a Saturday night? I feel that even if the band, and its recordings, never saw the light of day, it wouldn't matter, cause you at least got to hangout with your buddies and jam.
ST: You nailed it. That was the original philosophy behind the band. Get together and play all day. What comes from it will come. Let it be natural. I've been writing and recording and jamming since I first picked up a guitar. It's my release. I need to do it. I've always done it and probably always will. Just recently I've been pushing a little harder for other people to hear it. I hope they like it, but if they don't it's not going to stop me.
