By Joey Odorisio
Laura Jane Grace
An incredibly prolific artist, it wasn’t entirely surprising when Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace released a ‘surprise’ album at the beginning of October. Stay Alive was recorded entirely alone in Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio in Chicago, where Laura lives. Last month, Laura connected with DMS’ Joey Odorisio to chat about the genesis of Stay Alive, the limitations of the recording process and her connections to Nirvana.
DMS: At what point did you pivot from “I’m writing songs for a new Against Me! album this year” to “I guess I’m doing a solo album”?
LJG: About a month after everything collapsed into the pandemic. I’d started off the year under the impression that I’d be doing an Against Me! record and that’s what we had been working towards. We had been writing for the last couple years and playing shows, doing writing sessions and playing sessions in studios all through 2019, while I was still finishing up touring for the Devouring Mothers record [2018’s Bought to Rot]. When this year started off, we spent a week in January, a week in February and a week together in March, and played the Bernie Sanders rally in Michigan. And then we headed out on tour and three days into the tour, we had to cancel. We had to all go home. None of us live in the same city, none of us live in the same state.
The surrealism of it all dissipated fairly quickly and the reality of “Oh, this is kind of open-ended”… not really knowing when we’re going to get out of this. We were in a place with Against Me! where I’d written 30-some-odd songs and we still didn’t know what the record was. [So I asked myself,] “What, we’re gonna wait two years until we get back together again?” And two years after surviving a pandemic, are we really gonna be, “Hey remember those 30 songs that we were not really that in tune about with each other? You wanna jump right back into those?” That seemed like the worst idea ever. So I really looked at the songs that I had and thought, ”You know, I think there’s just a record here already.” Some of the songs were more full-band songs but some of the songs I was enjoying playing just on my acoustic guitar.
Reading news reports every day about people being out of work, struggling to pay rent… reading about venues closing, restaurants here around town closing, businesses disappearing… Talking to my friends, them being out of work, wondering what they were gonna do… So the idea of, if you could work, not working seemed immoral. It didn’t seem right to do that. So I thought, if I adjust my perspective on this, I can still make a record. It’s not possible to make a band record, even if I want to, but we can’t. I live in Chicago. If I record in Chicago, I can still make a record. So is there a studio I would want to go into? And I immediately thought of Electrical Audio and Steve Albini. I always wanted to make a record with him. So I called and booked time.
DMS: How was it working with him?
LJG: The whole time we were in the studio, he was wearing a face mask, I was wearing a face mask. He had on a beanie and a jumpsuit, so all I could see were glasses. *laughs* That was it, just two eyes and glasses. I took the mask off when I was in the live room recording, but in those moments he just became a voice on the intercom saying, “Rolling” or “How’s that?”
It was a surreal experience where it felt like a movie. Outside in July, when we recorded, the city was really full of action then, because of protests, actions happening around town…lots of police activity. It felt so chaotic outside and you’re in the serenity of a studio. But at the same time, that outside world has broken into the studio in a way that it usually doesn’t. You’re able to usually totally ignore the outside world inside the studio but the face masks made it apparent that there’s a global pandemic happening right now and this affects everyone.
DMS: Now you’ve recorded with Albini, you’ve worked with Butch Vig… when are you going to record with the guy who produced Bleach and hit the Nirvana trifecta?
LJG: Jack Endino is his name, right? Don’t think I didn’t think that already… *laughs* Nirvana changed my life, I love Nirvana. And I’ve been so fortunate to have experiences with people who were either members of Nirvana or worked with Nirvana. And I look at those experiences as ultimate chances to learn from people that changed my life. We toured with Foo Fighters, we played Wembley Stadium with Foo Fighters…did a three-month North American tour with them. Making two records with Butch… I used to be managed by Danny Goldberg, who was Nirvana’s manager. A lot of connections in a way I’m really grateful for and humbly have learned from.
DMS: How did you write a song called “Shelter in Place” before the pandemic started?
LJG: Well, the name was the last part to come together. That was the last writing part of the whole record. The names for songs for me are always kind of an afterthought, for better or worse. “I Was a Teenage Anarchist” is maybe the one time in my whole writing history where I had the title first and [decided to] write a song around this title, this idea.
But other than that, it’s always, “well I finished a song, we recorded it… I guess we gotta name it because there’s going to be a tracklisting on the back of the LP and it has to say something.” Usually, even within a band context, the way you refer to the song is some kind of generic nickname, like “the fast one” or “the drum fill one,” that will sometimes stick more than the name you give it. But the second I heard the term “shelter in place” once it became prevalent, I was like, “that’s it, that’s the title for this song.”
DMS: The production on the album is very clean and sparse. Is that a limitation you placed on yourself going in or was it just what you had to do given your surroundings and situation?
LJG: My modus operandi was simplicity. I just wanted to make everything as simple and easy as possible I didn’t want to battle against anything. It was a specific aesthetic choice of wanting to make an analog recording. I know that Steve’s an analog recording engineer and there’ll be no computers involved in this. It won’t be looking at a computer screen while making this. And also wanting to approach it as a document… It’s not unreal to think right now [that] I could die. There’s a global pandemic. Any one of us could get sick right now. And that can be it. That’s not being reactionary. That’s not being dramatic. That’s being completely real right now if you are taking the pandemic seriously. That’s the reason I’ve been wearing a face mask for the past eight months. It’s the reason I’ve been alone in my apartment, other than making this record, for eight months now.
So I could not record right now because it’s not the traditional way you make a record, set up a record, release a record and go on tour for a year or two, and then you do it all again. And we can’t do that. Or you can record the record as a document. This is what I sounded like in a room in the summer of 2020 alone with a guitar or whatever accompaniment I could manage to produce at the same time. What are my limitations? I can’t make a record with my band – that’s out. I have to make a record in Chicago. That’s what we were doing. I can play guitar. I can sing. I can write songs. I can do some programming on the drum machine but even that I’m a little limited on because I’m not the greatest drum machine programmer.
So it was “accept and realize your limitations.” Work within those confines and do the best you can.
DMS: “Old Friend (Stay Alive)” gives the album its title and really hits like a ton of bricks wrapping the record all up. It’s a blunt, direct reminder – you didn’t need to work with any metaphors – just don’t forget to stay alive everyone.
LJG: Doing press for this record, there have been a couple of moments where people have asked, “What do you mean by the record? What are you trying to say with this record?” And I feel like grabbing people by the shoulders and saying STAY ALIVE. There’s no metaphor involved here. It is as literal as possible. Just stay alive.
