By Joseph Mazzola
I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to call Laura Jane Grace a punk rock legend. With almost a dozen albums between her solo projects and her band Against Me!, several EPs, and almost three decades of songwriting and performing under her belt—not to mention her memoir, equal parts biting and bleeding—she more than deserves this title. I got to sit down with Grace and her wife and bandmate Paris Campbell backstage at the 40 Watt where, after introducing ourselves to one another and Grace telling me she liked my Pigeon Pit t-shirt, got to talk about her experiences as a touring musician and her last few years writing, recording, and touring for her solo albums.
Hey, this is Joseph with WUOG Athens. I am here with Laura Jane Grace in the backstage of the 40 Watt. Laura, thank you so much for meeting with me.
Thank you for coming down here.
When was the last time you were in Athens? Because I know you’ve played Atlanta a couple of times the last few years, but I think it’s the first time you’ve been in Athens since, how long?
I don’t know. I’m trying to think. It’s been a couple years—definitely pre-pandemic. So probably, jeez, maybe 2017 or 2018 I want to say. Has it been that long even? I don’t know. We came here one time and we made a music video actually here at the 40 Watt, and then we hung out for a couple days and we were practicing over at The New West space.
What music video was that for?
For “Crash” off of the last Against Me! record. But I feel like we had come back after that and played, but I don’t know. Maybe we didn’t.
You one time called the 40 Watt your favorite venue.
It is.
Why?
I don’t know. Other than like, really good memories of playing shows here, you know? It’s a great sounding stage. It’s a great room, you know? I’ve seen shows here where I’ve been, like, f*cking, that was awesome, when we’re seeing other bands play here. And then it’s a really good vibe backstage and the people are always really nice. And I just have like an eternal fondness for Athens in general. The first time I ever went traveling when I was younger—not touring, just traveling— I came to Athens first. Obviously coming out of Florida, you go through Georgia, right? So I came straight to Athens and, you know, slept in a van right here downtown for like a week. And I left with a tattoo and a dog. And yeah, it was a fun time.
I would have loved to be able to do that.
Yeah. So, I don’t know. I just always have had a fondness for Athens. And it’s always been my dream to sell out the 40 Watt, which will not happen tonight, but maybe sometime down the road.
Fingers crossed. I’ll be here for that.
Cool!
Who are some bands you’ve seen at 40 Watt?
Bands we’ve toured with, mainly. Hot Water Music was the first time we played here. We were on tour with Hot Water Music, Thrice, and Coheed and Cambria. And I vividly remember that show. I remember actually, after the show, sitting backstage in this room, with Chris Wollard, and Barry came in and was congratulating them, and like it was just a real high. Yeah, that’s a good memory.
Sweet! So, first of all, congratulations on releasing Hole In My Head at the beginning of this year, and then an EP just recently, and also going on tour. What’s that been like doing so much stuff in such a short amount of time?
On the one hand, it seems like a lot, but it’s all really broken up. Because we’ll go out on the road for a month and do a bunch of stuff. Then we’ll go back to Chicago, and we’ll just be in Chicago for a month. And then we’ll go out on the road. So, I mean, we were hitting it, doing a lot of stuff in January. Then back for February, but on the road all March, home for April, on the road for May, home for June. We were in Greece—Paris and I—making a record for all of July, then home for August. So, it breaks it up. It’s never just like you’re gone for months and months at a time. It’s like coming up for air.
This is the first record Paris has worked with you on?
The EP that just came out, Give An Inch, yeah.
Nice. I’ve asked bands this before and they’re always like, “You can’t ask this question because it’s like asking which child is your favorite.” But, do you have a favorite song off the new EP?
Off of the new EP? It’d probably be “Karma Too Close.” Probably. But specifically for Matt’s bass lines in it. And his electric sitar part on it. That’s just . . . I have no other song I’ve ever recorded that has an electric sitar on it. It’s a standout track.
It’s really sick! I like it.
So, over the last few years, your solo projects have all followed the naming formula: “Laura Jane Grace and [blank].” I’ve got two questions: 1) do you have in mind different projects or albums when you come up with these names, before you assemble them? And 2) why Mississippi Medicals?
I’ll work backwards on that. So “Mississippi Medicals” came from the fact that we recorded the EP in Mississippi. So, Matt lives in Water Valley, Mississippi and he has a studio there called Dial Back. And, we went down there in December of last year, 2023, and spent a week and recorded the songs. Some of us smoke weed, right? And so, if you want to smoke weed in Mississippi, you need a medical card. But we did not have a medical card. So it was just kind of a joke that it was getting thrown around when we were asking about getting weed or talking about weed. Matt suggested the name and it stuck. So, that was the name, “Mississippi Medicals.” And then, the questions before that. I mean it’s a weird spot to be in. Because on the one hand, for the past couple years since Against Me! went inactive, I’ve been doing a solo thing. But I want to play with bands, right? So, then you start to play with the band and you know, it’s weird when you’re one person and a group of four people asking them to all just stand under your name. It just feels more right to have a band name for it. But then you have the business-people in music being like, “No, no, no, that dilutes it!” Or “No, no, no, like, Spotify won’t list it like that.” And it gets all stupid. And it’s weird how it does confuse people’s attention and people are like, “What? you’re doing this, you’re doing that, there’s another band?”
And it’s like, it’s not going to sound that different.
It shouldn’t be that hard to follow, but it’s just, you know, it’s the same sh*t it has always been. Starting bands, giving them names, and having fun with it.
Sweet! Did you always plan to release an LP and an EP this year, or is that a bit more spontaneous?
Well, I mean, not always, if we’re being honest. Because the way it worked out . . . it sucks now, the wait time in between when you finish something and when it can come out because of vinyl and the pressing times, right? So, like, I recorded Hole in My Head, the full length, in February of 2023. And then it took a full year for it to come out in February 2024. So, when I finished it, I didn’t know that I’d be going into the studio in December to record an EP. But six months later, while I’m still waiting for the record to come out, then I hatched the plan, going to record an EP. But I mean, the plan did kind of come up to go record while making Hole In My Head. I’d never really met Matt before. We were friends over the internet, and I put out a call asking for somebody to come play bass or the drums and Matt was like, “I’ll come.” So he came to Saint Louis and we recorded the record, and I was so grateful that he came to Saint Louis and made the record with me that I was like, “Well, I definitely want to come and check out your studio.” So I had booked the time like months and months in advance, not even knowing what I was going to do with it. This is even before I had met Paris. Then in the interim of all that I meet Paris. And I’m like, “Well, I got to go do this. I don’t want to cancel it. So, you’re coming with me. And what are we going to do while we’re there? I got these six songs. Let’s record these six songs! So, okay, we recorded six songs. It worked. What are we going to do with it now? It’s an EP. Let’s put it out!” So, it’s all kind of like one step informs the next step, right? But yeah, it wasn’t that premeditated.
Rad! So, Transgender Dysphoria Blues came out 10 years ago.
Wild, right?
It is It is kind of wild. It’s funny, because that’s a CD I got when I was fifteen, and it had been out for a while at that point, too, but its been sitting on my shelf for so long. And then, your first Against Me! full length, Reinventing Axl Rose came out 22 years ago, and even your solo stuff has been out for several years now. How have your relationships to these past albums changed, especially in the last couple of year doing more solo stuff.
Well, it’s always kind of surprising. You’ll finish your record, and you’ll think, “Oh, these are the best songs.” And then, flash-forward, 20 years later and maybe you’re not playing those songs you thought were the best songs. You’re playing random other songs from that record. So, some songs will stick with you over the years that you didn’t realize would stick with you. And you’ll be like, “Here I am f*cking 20 years later playing this f*cking song that I didn’t even think was that good when I wrote it.”
Are there any examples?
I’m trying to think. What are we doing on this tour? The song “Don’t Lose Touch,” we brought back and we’ve been doing on past two, three tours or whatever. You know, prior to that, even Against Me! had stopped playing that song for years. We probably hadn’t played that song for ten years or something like that. So back in 2015 or something like that, when we stopped playing that song, I just thought, “Well, I’ll probably never play that song again,” you know? And then, I never imagined that here we’d be, and I wouldn’t even be with Against Me! and I’d be still playing that song. So, it’s funny how it works out like that, you know?
Sweet, yeah!
Oh, you know what’s funny though? When Transgender Dysphoria Blues came out, the first tour we did came here to the 40 Watt. It was in January, I remember, of 2014. And on that tour, we were out with the band The Sidekicks. And so, now, earlier this year also released a single for Red Scare Records’ anniversary comp where we covered a Sidekicks song, “Baby, Baby.” So that’s kind of like an instance of that, where you never know what’s going to happen, right? Where ten years ago, I would have never thought, “Ten years from now I’ll have recorded a cover of one of their songs and then I’ll be here with a totally different group of musicians and married, and singing the song with my wife on stage.” I never f*cking would have thought of that! You know? But here we are and we’re playing the song tonight. So, that’s crazy.
You mentioned my Pigeon Pit shirt earlier—thank you! So, you toured the Pigeon Pit earlier this year for a leg of your tour. I am curious about folk punk as a genre and a music scene still around. How do you feel about it? Do you still feel tied to that scene at all?
I don’t know. Like, yes and no, right? It’s strange, because when we started out that term came into existence, you know? And then it became something weird and detached from us, where the bands that then claimed folk punk hated us and were like, “You’re no longer a part of this!” And we’re like, “Okay.” And then the whole time I’m thinking like, “Well, what does that really mean?” There’s that Louis Armstrong quote that’s like, “All music’s folk music. I never heard no music made by horses.” It’s like, “What is folk punk?” It’s just punk, right? But, you know, folk punk kind of became a parody of itself after a while, but it seems like it’s past that now and kind of become real again in great ways.
It seemed like it was in a bit of a lull. Seeing folk punk get traction again and seeing bands like Pigeon Pit and Apes of the State get a lot of respect and acclaim recently has been really cool, as someone who’s liked folk punk for a long, long time. So yeah, sweet! You’ve been touring for north of 20 years.
I like the way you said that, “North of 20 years.”
“North of 20 years!” Thank you! But, you’re from Florida and Georgia. I am curious, how have you seen both punk and activist spaces—especially in the South—change, especially in the last couple of years?
Speaking specifically to Athens and to Gainesville, it’s such a shame because what made Athens and Gainesville so rad was, you had the affordable student ghetto housing around the downtown area. And it was the old, cool, beat-to-sh*t houses; not the f*cking sh*tty ticky-tacky, f*cking condos that are thrown up everywhere, right? And you also had tons of abandoned storefront buildings. Businesses that weren’t being used that people could get really cheap and create a space like Tight Pockets or something like that. As you’ve seen the downtown areas change—like, driving into town today, I was like, “There’s a f*cking Target down here? Like, what the f*ck is happening?” I mean, I remember the first time I rolled into downtown Athens, and it definitely was not like that. So you’ve kind of seen like the center of the town change in ways. Specifically, I’m forgetting the name of the one street, where it’s center and there’s the diner there and like there was Wuxtry over here.
Was it College Ave?
Yeah. I remember the way it looked when I first went there, where it looked like I had stepped into like . . . I don’t know, an episode of like The Real World MTV or something. Everyone had cool hair, and everyone looked really punk and alternative. It looked like an alternative scene, and it was all really centered down there. And now you go there and it’s more like the college type that’s taken over.
Are you familiar with the phrase “khaki line?”
Okay, the khaki line.
Depending on who you ask or where it is, there’s sorority-frat-college downtown, and then townie-punk-gay downtown.
Right. Well, that khaki line has pushed the townie-punk-gay line further and further out, in both Athens and in Gainesville. And I think that’s happened in any city that used to be like that, you know, and that sucks.
Wrapping up—this is a question I like ending on. What music have you been listening to on tour?
Well, I have these two shows on this run where I’m doing the Operation Ivy record with Catbite. So I’ve been listening to like nothing but f*cking Operation Ivy in my spare time to try to remember the lyrics to 30 songs. But other than that . . . This is like that question where my mind always goes blank. But I do know I listen to music. I have been listening to the new Jack White. I really think that’s a f*cking killer record. I’ve been listening to a lot of the band The Beatsteaks, and . . . [grabs phone] let’s see. I can tell you that the most recent songs I’ve added to my 2024 playlist are: Michigander, Lola Young, Mercury Rev, The House of Love, The Yardbirds, The Cramps, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, and The Smithereens.
Solid. And, lastly, where can folks reading find you or your music?
Well, on all the streaming services and hopefully in your local indie record store, you know, if you’ve still got one.
All right, that wraps it up. Laura, Paris, thank you so much for having me.
Appreciate it!
Laura Jane Grace’s album Hole In My Head and Laura Jane Grace and the Mississippi Medicals’ new EP Give An Inch are out now on Total Treble Music. More information can be found at her website LauraJaneGrace.com.
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