Scott Tournet – 5/9

Scott Tournet is a producer, mixing engineer, solo artist, the frontman for Elektric Voodoo, and a founding member of Grace Potter & The Nocturnals (2003-2015).  With The Nocturnals he was a co-writer on 3 Top 40 albums and scored a gold record for the song “Paris”. In addition to his work with the Nocturnals, Scott has written and recorded with Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys), Willie Nelson, T Bone Burnett, Kenny Chesney, Alison Krauss, Mark Batson (Dr. Dre, Alicia Keys, Eminem) and others.  He has performed with The Allman Brothers, members of The Grateful Dead and Phish, Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) and many others. Scott was born in the Berkshires of Massachusetts and moved to rural Vermont at a young age.  His family lived out of town on a dirt road with no electricity and no neighbors for miles.  It was here that he learned to entertain himself and use creativity to his advantage.  “I spent hours and hours wandering the woods and making up stories and creating a fantasy world.  I also had a little monophonic casio keyboard that I would play and play until the batteries died.”  He always knew music was something he was drawn to but his attempts at joining the school band just didn’t work out.  “I wanted to play the drum set but instead got a little pad where I had to read waltz and polka rhythms off of a page…it just didn’t resonate or seem fun.  This began my struggle with traditional musical education.” After graduating high school, Scott attended a traditional state college with no clear focus in mind.  It was here that he discovered the guitar through friends.  “It seemed like all of my neighbors had an acoustic or electric guitar.  One friend taught me some basic chords, another taught me a scale or two and I was off and running.  One day I couldn’t find any quarters for the laundry machines so I sat in the hallway playing 3 chords over and over begging for laundry money.  I ended up with like $20.  It seemed like my best option at the time.”  Soon after this Scott tried majoring in music but struggled again with the traditional approach.  “I wanted to study Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin…music that moved me, but we were playing recorders and learning music from centuries ago that didn’t connect with me at all.  I stopped going to class and started playing my own music 8 hours a day.  I lived in a house where there was a P.A. system, drum set, bass guitar, keyboards, and my guitar.  I also had a 4 track recorder.  I would play everything and make little instrumental tracks.  I was too shy to sing still.” About a year after dropping out and playing in college bands, Scott transferred to Goddard College in central Vermont.  Goddard is a progressive education-inspired school where the student gets to direct their own curriculum.  At the time Goddard had a recording studio, a jazz program, private lessons, and classes focusing on songwriting and current music.  After struggling through much of his scholastic career, Scott found his inner student...