Grace Potter on Women in Music: "We're in This Weird Separate Category, Doesn't Make Sense"

"It's not to say that I [was] afraid of success," she says, "but there's a point where you don't want to over-saturate your ability to have freedom and not have to walk around with security guards everywhere. I don't want that level of stardom.

"If we do succeed and get accolades and find ourselves in the mix of some grand, overwhelming success, I want it to be for the songs that we love and for the songs that we're going to want to play night after night."

Think Tom Petty.

"That's the kind of success I'm looking for," she says. "He is still able to enjoy quite a lot of privacy and is still considered a great songwriter and person of influence. He is my God!"

To some, Potter is a god in her own right. And the 29-year-old singer understands her job as an empowering role model.

"It's a heavy weight to bear to be called somebody's idol or to have people say, 'I look up to you so much.' Or, 'You're an inspiration to me,' " she admits. "More than anything, it's just flattering and inspiring to me. It makes me want to be a better person."

She also strives to be a better performer, day in and day out. So when Grace Potter and the Nocturnals swing through the Fillmore Miami Beach this Saturday, the feisty frontwoman promises to give it her all.

"Miami is one of those places I dream about moving to," she says. "I feel like you already have the party going. I just want to be the band that wanders into the middle of it and makes the party better. There's not much we could do to make you guys happier than you already seem to be, but we're going to do our darnedest."

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