Against Me!'s Laura Jane Grace Surprise Releases Solo Album 'Stay Alive'
Thursday, 01 October 2020
Written by Laura Johnson
Photo: Alexa Viscius
Laura Jane Grace has surprise released a new solo album.
'Stay Alive' was recorded by the Against Me! vocalist and guitarist between July 6-9 this year with Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago. She used just an acoustic guitar and drum machine. The 14-track record is available now digitally, with a physical release set to follow on December 11 via Big Scary Monsters. Grace said:
“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. 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. 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.
“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. 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.
“I just want to put this out because it makes me feel alive and it’s giving me something better than sitting here losing my mind while the world falls apart,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about what you do. Just stay alive.”
Head below to stream the album in full, and check out its artwork and tracklist. It follows Grace's 'Bought To Rot' LP with the Devouring Mothers, while Against Me!'s last record was 2016's 'Shape Shift With Me'.
'Stay Alive' tracklist:
The Swimming Pool Song
The Calendar Song
Shelter In Place
Return To Oz
The Mountain Song SuperNatural Possession
Hanging Tree
Please Leave
Why Kant I Be You?
Ice Cream Song
The Magic Point
Blood & Thunder
So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Fuck Off
Old Friend (Stay Alive)
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