Anti-pop crowd shakes to Lavigne beat

By David Segal
Washington Post

Singer Avril Lavigne arrives at the premiere of the film "8 Mile," starring rapper Eminem, in Los Angeles. The diminutive 18-year-old Canadian is leading a counteroffensive against factory-made teen pop. Associated Press library photo • November 2002

The only topic that interests her in this interview is how little she enjoys interviews.

"No offense or anything, it's just, like, weird when someone's, like, 'So how does it feel?' " she murmurs. "You just shake someone's hand, sit down and spill your guts. And they just want to know so much and you're just, like, 'Why do you care?' "

Why do we care? Well, girlfriend, let's start with your debut album, "Let Go," which has sold more than 4 million copies and is hovering at No. 3 on the charts 31 weeks after its release. Let's move on to the five Grammy nominations, including nods for best song of the year ("Complicated") and best new artist.

No offense or anything, but that sort of cannonball grabs the attention of everyone in the pool. According to fans, this 5-foot-1, 18-year-old Canadian is leading a counteroffensive against factory-made teen pop. Avril Lavigne co-writes the songs, plays an instrument and doesn't dance. She dresses in baggy pants and T-shirts, like any sophomore skipping third-period French. She's tomboyish but cute, feisty but somehow indifferent, naughty enough to swear and flip the occasional bird.

She certainly seems real enough during the interview, if only because there's no point in faking so much apathy. It's charming, paradoxically. Lavigne has been perfectly packaged, right down to the punky type font on her album, but she and the character she's playing onstage are the same person, and after all the beauty-pageant blankness of the midriff crowd, a kid so unprogrammed that she won't perk up for a chat is refreshing.

By show time at 7 p.m., Lavigne seems energized — a little. Her audience, by contrast, is frenzied. Girls are so crammed at the front of the stage that some are collapsing from heat exhaustion. Most are simply leaping up and down and waving their hands.

She opens with "Sk8er Boi," a rock tale about status and romance. She barely moves, planting herself behind the mike, hip cocked a little, a few strands of hair blowing about.

A few songs later, she slips a guitar over her head and lets it hang to her knees. Everyone sings every line of "Complicated," her breakout single, and by the end of the show she's leaping up and down, spinning. When she leaves after 45 minutes, her audience doesn't seem to realize that it's supposed to clap for an encore. Chants of "AV-ril, AV-ril" finally ring out, which brings Lavigne back.

Lavigne comes from a town in Ontario called Napanee, population 5,000. Aside from a couple of cassettes — the Beach Boys, Dixie Chicks — she rarely heard any pop music. Not too long ago, she bought her first Ramones album.

"There was always music at the church," she says. "That's where I got my start."

At the age of 14 she won a talent contest and the right to share the stage for one song with Shania Twain. At age 16, she'd stirred up enough interest for an audition with an Arista talent scout, Ken Krongrad. Arista label head L.A. Reid signed Lavigne shortly after a 15-minute tryout in New York. The deal is reportedly worth $1.25 million for two albums.

Lavigne tried collaborating with nearly a dozen professional songwriter, but all of them were pushing her back toward Faith Hill. Nothing worked until she met with a three-person songwriting and production team called the Matrix: Scott Spock and husband and wife Graham Edwards and Lauren Christy. The trio's long list of previous credits includes Christina Aguilera and the Backstreet Boys.

"Graham sat down with the guitar and was, like, 'Listen to this little idea I have,' and I was like, 'Oh, cool,' and then me and Lauren started singing to it. And we just recorded the guitar part and then went and laid on a blanket in the sun and wrote lyrics to it, Lauren and I."

Lavigne came back the next day and nailed the song in a single take.