When you think of someone like Laura Jane Grace, you generally do not associate her with someone who dwells too much on the past. As the singer-songwriter and creative focal point to the long-running punk band Against Me!, Grace has written songs about being restless with the mind-numbing mediocrity of both business-as-usual rock and roll and political agendas, the complacency of those not willing to make a meaningful difference. In a more concrete and finite way, she was one of the first well-known musicians to come out as transgender in 2012.
Grace has always looked for reinvention through song, giving fans a candid peek inside what is going on internally for her at that moment. That’s why it was an interesting decision to hear that Against Me! would be performing the albums, “Searching for a Former Clarity,” “New Wave,” “White Crosses” and “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” at a number of special two-night runs in different cities around the country this fall, playing two albums each night. I caught up with Grace over the phone to discuss the decision to play these albums in sequence on the road and their places within the history of the band.
“It’s maybe kind of a self-indulgent thing to do, but also kind of at the same time it’s sort of necessary since we’re about to do our eighth album. You can allow yourself a little bit of room for introspection and to reflect on where you’ve been and what it took you to get where you are in order to start to move forward,” – Laura Jane Grace
“I have this habit — well, it’s not a habit because it’s kind of subconscious — where I’ll usually ruminate on ideas and themes and it will take me two records to get them right,” says Grace. “For me, the ideas that I was starting out with on ‘Searching for a Former Clarity,’ I really came to my conclusion on them with ‘New Wave.’ I feel like lyrically, those records are very tied together. A lot of that has to do with the reasoning to want to do those albums back to back. Then also the following night with ‘White Crosses’ and ‘Transgender Dysphoria Blues,’ they kind of feel the same way. But also between the four records, I feel there was a narrative running in like a, not to say a f—king rock opera, but I’m saying a rock opera (laughs). There’s a plot running through them that I feel is interesting to look at them as a whole. ‘White Crosses’ and ‘Transgender’ feel tied together in the same way that ‘Searching’ and ‘New Wave’ did. Even in the way where you can look at the last songs on ‘Searching’ and ‘New Wave’ [‘Searching for a Former Clarity’ and ‘The Ocean,’ respectively]. Both of those songs, for me, were confessions for me with where I was at. Even if they were subconscious confessions of what I was going through internally and dealing with. I feel like I got it more right with ‘New Wave’ than I did with ‘Searching.’”
This isn’t the first time the band has taken a stab at playing albums front-to-back, but none of their previous attempts were quite as ambitious as this tour. They played their classic debut “Reinventing Axl Rose” front-to-back at their hometown punk festival, The Fest, back in 2017 and did the same at Riot Fest this year with a performance of “Transgender Dysphoria Blues.” But as Grace tells me, she and the band needed to take a look at this stretch of albums to see what ground they can cover on their next record. It is also worth noting that bassist Andrew Seward is back performing with the band after leaving in 2013.
“On a bigger scale, right now we’re going through this period where we’re working on a new album as a band,” she says. “So before we move forward, let’s go back through and see where we’ve been. It’s maybe kind of a self-indulgent thing to do, but also kind of at the same time it’s sort of necessary since we’re about to do our eighth album. You can allow yourself a little bit of room for introspection and to reflect on where you’ve been and what it took you to get where you are in order to start to move forward.”
Last year, Laura Jane Grace spent time on the road with her other band, The Devouring Mothers, behind her solo record, “Bought to Rot,” a record that felt as vital and important as any of her releases. So, given that Against Me! is performing these shows after over 20 years as a band, this hardly seems like a move to take advantage of their legacy, but rather to become reacquainted with the larger story.
“Stuff like that is all about perspective and all the way that you look at it,” says Grace on the subject of resting on your laurels. “I spent a little bit of time in Amsterdam this past year and I went to the Van Gogh Museum a couple of times. I love the Van Gogh Museum. I love Van Gogh. But, looking at Van Gogh’s body of work I was overcome with this realization, holy sh-t, Van Gogh was just painting self-portraits! How many days of this person’s life did they wake up and say, ‘Well, I’m just going to paint another picture of myself today!’ You can look at that really damningly and say ‘what a vain motherf—ker this is the original Instagrammer. All he was doing was taking selfies all day long’. Or you can give him the benefit of the doubt or look at it a different way and think maybe it wasn’t about the subject matter at all. Maybe it was about the act of painting and being in the practice of painting. And that’s what the work was about at that moment and not just ‘look at another f—king picture of me’ (laughs). I kind of like to try and think about it like that with reapproaching old albums and doing these album shows. It’s about being a musician and playing the songs while not rehashing.”
If you have been following Against Me! for the duration of their career, then you probably know that they have some of the most divisive fans out there. Many take a hardline stance on only accepting their older scrappier material and have shunned all of the ambitious strides in the studio that the band has made over the years. One record in particular, “White Crosses,” is a hot button issue with fans and one that Grace hopes will gain more appreciation when heard within the context of the records that came before and after.
“Most of all of our records, that’s the record where I definitely recognized at first that people were down on it. But it’s had this underdog mentality where people have come around and say, ‘Actually, that’s my favorite Against Me! record.’ Every time I see that I’m like, ‘Yeah, motherf—ker. That’s right!’”
“That’s a kind of unique example with the motivations behind wanting to do that record. That record, when it was made it was a case where we were reaching beyond where we were really at as musicians and as a band….For anyone who thinks that record is too overproduced…this is just us playing it. We won’t have a piano player with us that night. So the songs with piano on them will just be more raw and a four-piece punk band.”
