Grace Potter & The Nocturnals perform "Stars"

After going all "Where The Wild Things Are" for their dark fairy-tale like video for "Never Go Back," Grace Potter & The Nocturnals take a much more low-key approach for their new starkly stunning video on VH1 Storytellers for a deeply personal tune, "Stars," the new single from the Vermont quintet's fourth studio album, "The Lion The Beast The Beat," which promises to be their most eclectic project yet, drawing on influences that range from 60's R&B to 70's rock to contemporary country.
The lead vocalist Grace Potter's signature wail left the crowd breathless as she roared through a set of soul-filled rock-n-roll while performing before an intimate crowd at NYC's legendary Metropolis Studios. She has one of the strongest female voices in rock music, and Potter is also quickly becoming a favorite in country circles. Along with her band, the Nocturnals, they're winning over fans with their high-energy set and infectious tunes.
On her motivation for writing "Stars," Potter recalled it as being about a recently passed childhood idol, who was "really wild and really wonderful," but who "always did take it a little bit too far. It's kind of like when you are a kid and you have a balloon that just sort of slips off your wrist," she said, choked up and with tears in her eyes. "And I wrote this song, because I don't like looking up when I think about this person. I don't like anywhere that I used to know her, used to see her."
In Philip Andelman-directed performance clip, though, Potter does look up. Wearing a sequined evening gown, she plays with her Nocturnals under a dark, starry sky, and surrounded by thousands of stars, her eyes fixed on Heaven's Boulevard above as she sings about how she cannot even stand to look up in the sky since her love left her. It's a contemplative affair, all black-and-white and quiet, Potter at once large against the stars and small underneath the sky. "It's a form of grieving, really, writing songs like this," Potter says.