Avril Lavigne Interview

"Hey hey you you, I don't like your girlfriend, no way no way I think you need a new one," chants Avril in her latest smash hit single "Girlfriend," reminiscing on Toni Basil's everpopular "Hey Mickey." The bratty in-your-face chanteuse indulged her life without a flinch. Starting with her newest LP The Best Damn Thing. "Going into this record I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I didn't have any help from the label, I had no A&R guy. I A&R-ed my album. No management." Avril recorded songs and no one heard anything from the record until she turned it in for approval.

"The six months of recording, writing, and producing this album has been a creativeThe Best Damn Thing (in stores now). Avril's first album Let Go, released in 2002 when she was only 17, sold 16 million copies worldwide. It spawned such hits as "Complicated" and "Sk8r Boy." Her follow-up Under My Skin would prove to be cohesive and dark, but would not sell as much as her previous work. "I sort of explored a more vulnerable side in that record." When asked about label mate Kelly Clarkson's struggle, Lavigne says "She sold millions of records.

Kelly Clarkson is the only Idol I think has truely made it. She deserves to have her own hand at the creative process." Written by Avril herself, "Breakaway" was a successful single. "Her contract is different than others, she's supposed to be this puppet - and she buckled down and stood her ground. She's a great songwriter. Her sound changes and people change with it." The Best Damn Thing is about "being a sh--head and being a princess, and not taking crap from guys. 'Girlfriend' was different for me because it's kind of rappy." experience," she says of
I worked with Dr Luke on a lot of the tracks. I evolved to the next level. The fans want newrunning around the studio, being crazy, skateboarding, doing this and that. We wrote about drinking Limoncello. How random is that. I'm pretty random." No doubt about that, Avril. "Butch Walker worked with me too. He's such an amazing songwriter and singer and producer. He has his own album," Avril says with giddy excitement, in which she cowrote "When You're Gone."

This record is a more jumping around record, contrast to the gothic downtempos of Under My Skin. Lavigne says, her next album had to be "energetic. I like singing the fast songs. They're fun to sing live. This is exactly what I want to do." But even so, she still seems to let people hear how she feels intimately. "'When You're Gone' I wrote about Deryck," says Lavigne of her husband Deryck Whibley of Sum41.

Recording the album, she drank Limoncello and bottles of Jager. However she says "I don't drink that much anymore. I've matured." as she claims to be sipping champagne. Contradicting what she just said "I love champagne during the day." Whibley doesn't get too weirded out when she pukes in both bathrooms.

"Working with Deryck, was.. I like his music and I think he is really good at what he does. The songs I gave him were kind of along the lines of pop-punk pop-rock songs." She then credits how amazing he is as a guitarist. Her hubby was already recording an album with Sum41 so he had everything set up already. "Stevo from Sum41 did drums on the tracks I worked with Deryck on."

As Avril matures and grows into being a woman she is having a load of fun along the way. "Who's producer lets you pepper spray them? Tazer them? Luke was washing his face for like twenty minutes. It was burning for forty-five minutes or so." the "Girlfriend" superstar says about Dr Luke. "With men, I can get away with whatever I want." stuff," she says about her newest record. "'I Can DoBetter' is one of my favorites. Luke and I were just

It's not everyday an artist of her calliber can sing, write, and play. She took part in her song "I Can Do Better" playing a sleek guitar riff. "I don't want to play on the record because I want it to be amazing. Except 'I Can Do Better' where the guitar was just so laid back. Whatever." grunts Lavigne. "Innocence is such a beautiful song. It's about capturing a moment of perfection." It's a ballad which was originally visioned to be a rocking song. Avril was allowed to carry out her vision with former bandmate/ best friend Evan Taubenfeld. "I'm glad I changed it. It's more laid back. I'm happy with it. The strings almost made me cry, it was that moving." It was so moving, she only did two vocal takes and it was captured as heard on the LP. All while she was "hammered" as she screamed from the studio.