Laura Jane Grace from Against Me! and The Devouring Mothers has surprised fans with the release of her brand new solo album titled Stay Alive.
Laura Jane Grace wasn’t planning on making a solo record this year. In fact, she was planning on making a record with Against Me! , the band she’s fronted for the past 23 years. But clearly, nothing went according to plan this year.
“We came home from the Against Me! tour we were on in March, and right before we left, we had been in the studio working on songs, and I had been working on them for months prior,” Grace said. As she sat at home, all of her tours canceled, and the members of Against Me!—as well as her other band Laura Jane Grace & The Devouring Mothers—spread across the country, she was left with a batch of songs and no band to record them with.
“I sat around for a month-and-a-half at a home just being shell-shocked being like, ‘What the fuck happened and what the fuck is happening with the world?’ As I started to get my bearings, I just came to the realization that waiting was going to kill the record and kill the songs. I spent two years working on all these songs, and the idea of throwing them away didn’t sit well with me,” Grace said. “But then I was like, ‘What am I waiting for?’ All I have to do is adjust my scope. I can sit here on my fucking ass and do nothing, or I can work.”
So, the musician got to work. She picked up the phone and booked four days with the famed Steve Albini and Electrical Audio to document these songs exactly as she’d been playing them in her home, straight to analog tape. The result of the session is Stay Alive.
“By putting the songs out, that puts the label in work, that puts a photographer in work, that puts a graphic designer in work, that puts a merch company in work, that keeps it alive,” says Grace. “You hear on the news every day about people losing their jobs and everything collapsing, and I want to fight against that. The only way I can think to fight against that is to work.”
Track list
1. The Swimming Pool Song, 2. The Calendar Song, 3. Shelter In Place, 4. Return To Oz, 5. The Mountain Song, 6. SuperNatural Possession, 7. Hanging Tree, 8. Please Leave, 9. Why Kant I Be You?, 10. Ice Cream Song, 11. The Magic Point, 12. Blood & Thunder, 13. So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Fuck Off, 14. Old Friend (Stay Alive).
Stay Alive is available now. Listen to the record below.
Image: Alexa Viscius
Love OUTinPerth Campaign
Help support the publication of OUTinPerth by contributing to our
GoFundMe campaign.
