Against Me! leader Laura Jane Grace dropped her debut solo album, Bought To Rot, in 2018, and now, out of nowhere, its follow-up as arrived. Grace release a new solo record, Stay Alive, today, without any advance warning.
Grace told Rolling Stone of the album, “I just wanted to make a record and I wanted to make a record that was the antithesis of a Zoom call. I wanted to record all analog. I didn’t want to make any edits. I wanted to make something that matters from this period of time because all that sh*t like livestreams … I don’t mean to bash them, but they don’t create anything lasting, you know? […] It’s just about the act of staying alive. I know I’m alive if I’m playing songs. If I’m recording the songs. If I’m making a record. I don’t want the music industry to die. I don’t want to see bands disappearing. And the only way I know how to fight against that is to play music. Is to record music. Is to keep trying.”
She also noted that although some of the songs sound like they were written in response to the pandemic, a lot of them were first written years ago.
Stream Stay Alive below.
Stay Alive is out now via Polyvinyl. Get it here.