Saturday, May 4th
Scott Tournet & The Spark
Scott Tournet & The Spark
Scott moved to upstate New York in the vicinity of St. Lawrence University. He started playing bass in a hip hop band and met Matt Burr who introduced him to Grace Potter. Together, the 3 of them formed Grace Potter & The Nocturnals. Grace was performing solo sets at little coffee shops and Burr and Tournet started accompanying her by playing quietly.
For the next decade Grace, Matt, and Scott rode the wave of success. They started selling out shows regionally and soon signed with a booking agency and record label. They soon found themselves touring nationally and internationally with acts like Robert Plant, Mavis Staples, The Black Crowes, The Allman Brothers, Gov’t Mule, and many others. They played Leno, Letterman, Fallon, Conan, Ellen, Good Morning America, etc. Their songs showed up on TV shows, movies, and commercials. They started their own festival, Grand Point North that hosted acts like The Flaming Lips, The War On Drugs, Lake St. Dive, Warren Haynes, etc. They made records with T-Bone Burnett, Jim Scott (Tom Petty, Johnny Cash), Dan Auerbach, Mark Batson, Michael Brauer, Rich Costa, etc. They performed for and met President Obama, Bernie Sanders, and two governors of Vermont.
Scott made the difficult decision to leave the band he helped build and abandon financial security and career certainty for the hope of rediscovering the joy of music and creativity. He took a few much needed months off from the road in his sunny home studio in San Diego and started delving into the music he left behind when he left Goddard. Afrobeat, experimental and psychedelic music, latin music, jazz, and more started showing up in his compositions. Soon he had uncovered songs like he had never heard before. He called it World Beat Rock & Roll. Elektric Voodoo was formed shortly thereafter and continues to this day.