The pop punk queen returns to do what she does best: becoming Avril.

It was 2004, and 19-year-old Avril Lavigne walked into her first NYLON cover shoot in a style that has become a pop culture cannon: Doc Martens, her clothes were covered with "a lot of Rivets and zippers", the article continues to describe; her hairpin is straight and unbleached, with a dark layer underneath. 17 years later, she participated in her latest NYLON cover shoot-this is her fifth shoot-as if dozens of style trends have never come since. Her hair is lighter, turned to one side, but still straight; her shoes are platform sandals with blade-like zipper pulls; her jeans are loose and have holes in the knees, as if she was a day skateboarding in a back alley . In 2004, critics criticized this look as a punk made by girls, but Lavigne disagreed; in a studio in downtown Los Angeles, she curled up on a leather sofa, recalling early photos taken, she was the one The person who gives the orders. "I will show up and they are like,'Can she wear this pink shirt?' I will say, "I didn't wear that. "I will take out my schoolbag and all ties. That's my business."

When Avril Lavigne took her single "Complicated" on MTV for the first time, wearing those ties, it was easy to see her as a one-shot miracle: this is how you treat Britney and Christie The antidote to the roar of bubblegum pop music, a temporary balm for those who like pop music with guitar improvisation. Global sales of more than 40 million records, eight Grammy nominations, one Guinness World Record is not the case. Today, she is 37 years old and is about to release her seventh studio album. She is older, smarter, and has valuable career experience. And she still does things her way. "I don't want what I did is different," she said, just a few hours after the lead single of her upcoming album was released. Although she was busy in the morning, she started to do business from the beginning, and began to accept interviews as soon as she arrived, only pausing to ask her assistant for tea and bananas, neither of which would be touched. "I do look back and find some things very interesting," she said. "I don’t have a stylist. I took my clothes out of my suitcase and wore them for a year, over and over again. I don’t have makeup and hair. I’m like, dirty, straight rock and roll hair. But that’s what made me. The reason, me."

The backyard of Avril Lavigne's home in Malibu is the regular decoration of a beautiful celebrity residence, and there is something unique: the mini halfpipe.

Its origin story is worth telling. Like many Hollywood stories, it started in Diplo's home. "He has a huge half pipe, and one night there was a party, Brody [Jenner, Lavigne's boyfriend from 2010 to 2012] and Maud [Sun, pop punk singer and current partner of Lavigne] I was singing'Sk8er Boy. I thought,'This is so funny. I have to get one.'" She did it, and it became a hot topic at parties. Celebrities are like rented inflatable bounce houses for the rich and celebrities. Use it when you happen to visit. "When we first got it, my boyfriend was using it. He was a very good skateboarder. Then MGK [Machine Gun Kelly] and Megan [Fox] ended the Memorial Day barbecue, so We did some skateboarding in the backyard."

Then Avril had an idea. For years, her team has been urging her to join TikTok. But what, is Avril Lavigne going to dance out of the Doja Cat song or grill some feta pasta? (For the record, she does like cooking.) "They wanted me to start with trends and all these things. I thought,'Uh, no, I wouldn't do that,'" she said. "Then I thought,'Listen, I want to post something; why don't we just post "Sk8er Boi" and let Tony Hawk join it? So I sent him a private message, and he hit me back completely." "Sk8er Boi" The lead singer must have had an intersection with a generation of professional skaters, right? "Oh, no, we haven't met before," she clarified. "I just thought,'Hey, I'm a super fan, you're a fucking idol. I'm going to start my TikTok, and I'm honored that you can shoot a video with me, and I will play "Sk8er Boi" in it. He was like, "Of course. "He's here. He brought his goddaughter. She is his fan. We had some barbecue together."

"It wasn't cool to skateboard when I was a kid. Avril changed this narrative with a song, and I am grateful for her help," Hawke wrote in an email. "I agree to be TikTok because I can't count the number of times people have quoted the song'Sk8er Boi' online and in front of me. She is a catalyst to introduce skateboarding to a generation of young girls and inspire many of them to try it out on their own. For this reason, Lizzie Armanto (the professional skateboarder who recently represented Finland in the Olympic Games) and my goddaughter Olivia are very happy to meet her."

The final product shows Lavigne, the tie and everyone, lip-syncing the hit song of 2002, and then panning to Hawk, who also wears his own tie, falling into the halfpipe. It's simple, but genius-it has 34 million views, and it's still increasing. Avril Lavigne did not post for another three months. "Everyone said,'Wow, you have to keep posting,'" she said. "I thought,'No, I'm not just going to post.' I have done this without doing it; I think I will be fine."

Avril Lavigne takes the matter of becoming Avril Lavigne very seriously. On the morning of our interview, she spent nearly an hour commuting to film her new single released on Instagram. Avril Lavigne handles all social media herself. "I can't let other people do this for me because they said some tacky things or they came up with very bad ideas," she said. "I am really hands-on and have to come up with all of this. I have been planning all the posts and content for today." She will monitor it throughout the day and occasionally check the numbers, but mainly spend time interacting with fans and "comment, talk" , Chat with people".

This has been true throughout her career, simply because she didn't know other ways. "In the beginning, I would fly, buy a car, put my suitcase in the car, and drive where I want to go," she said. "I looked back at the shit, and I thought,'Why didn't the label at the time or my manager like it,' maybe she should find a hairdresser and makeup staff on the road to help her blow the hair dryer or give her a hanger for her to choose? This It was when I looked back, I thought,'I could have gotten more help.'"

Although she strives to be the truest self, she is not opposed to new things. She will consider the idea of ​​finally launching a beauty product line or further expanding her business, "if this is all hers." But in this era when many pop stars will sign their names in the first brand transaction, Avril has learned to refuse strength. "It's just a battle. Struggling to make the music I want to make. Try to look what I want. Try to make things what I need," she said. "But yes, uh, this is work. Everything I do is not an easy task. I can't even tell you what I went through. Things that I can't even get into, I thought, "Why do I Want to do this? "But then it was like,'Well, I did this because I wanted to do it.'"

"Bite Me" is the lead single from Lavigne's upcoming album. It was released in February and is exactly what you want from Avril Lavigne's songs. "Uh oh, you should know better, it’s best to have sex with someone like me/ oh, forever, you will want me to be your wife/should insist and be right to me/ I gave you a chance, you don’t Will get it twice/Uh oh, we will never be together, so baby, you can bite me, "She sang to Travis Barker's urgent drums.

This is the perfect introduction to the album, and Lavigne calls it her most unusual record. She said: "This is the first rock all the way." "In the music industry, there is a label like,'Radio doesn't want to listen to guitar anymore.' The live drums are gone. No live electric guitar is played. All the time. , I will create music according to my own feelings, but there is also a company that supports you, and they will affect what you are doing." It took several steps to get Lavigne to where she was preparing to write the album. On the one hand, she was a free agent: "I didn't have an agent or record company at the time," she said. Her last album, Head Above Water in 2019, was released on BMG Records; the deal was record-breaking, and then a pandemic hit. At home alone, she started writing music, not because she had a contract to fulfill, but simply because she wanted to do it. "No one in business tells me what I can and can't do. I'm like, at this stage of my career, I don't have to be here. I don't have to make music. I'm fucking here because I want to be. "

Her old friend Barker, who worked with The Best Damn Thing in 2007, also played an important role. She has been watching his pop punk succeed in regaining its dominance, thanks in large part to the best-selling collaboration with the machine gun Kelly on the first album "Tickets to My Downfall" with the rapper in 2020. She met him again through mutual friends and he invited her to his studio for a meeting. She immediately said yes. "I have witnessed him go from a fucking band to one of the best drummers in the world, now a writer and producer, to owning a record company, I just signed," she said. "When their album ranked number one, I was very excited for him and Kels. I thought,'Fuck, yes, pop punk music is back and people are enjoying it.'"

Avril Lavigne worked almost exclusively with her friends (Kelly also appeared in a track he co-wrote), which made the recording process of this album so active. "This is the most interesting record I have ever recorded," she said. "It feels like hanging out with friends, like someone who went to high school with me."

The creation of the album started during the period when Avril Lavigne "a lot of changes". Heartbroken (her words) and just ending a relationship, she moved to Malibu for a clean start. "To be honest, I really believe in love. Then I used it to browse the ringtones," she said. "Then I finally got up again and established a relationship just to be fucked again. I was like,'I can't believe I have been hurt or abused by so many people. I need to take a break from my relationship. I feel like I I’ve been blown down time and time again. I’m so fucking tired of it. I need to take care of me now. So I bought a house, I’m not waiting for someone to start the future. I thought, “I’m doing it for me now This matter. I am the only person, I am the only person I can rely on.'"

She brought this energy to the studio and collaborated with producers John Feldman and Mod Sun and Barker, and uttered something like "Don’t hold your breath, because you still say to you/the words you have said may be my last I heard it." But here comes the point: She also fell in love. "It's funny," she said blankly. She described her relationship with the free-spirited pop punk rocker Sun as almost inevitable, which annoyed her very much. "I tried to resist it, it was hard," she said. "The most I have ever tried." Establishing new relationships while relived the pain of the past resulted in the most vulnerable track on the album, which is the closest thing you can find to folklore on the rock music track list. "I wrote that myself," she said. "It's like,'Well, unless you're serious, don't tell me you love me. Because I don't want to be messed up again.

"This album is relaxed and happy, despite the songs about heartbreak and breakups," she continued. "But it is also a hymn. It is very powerful. It sends a positive message to people, allowing people to stand up for themselves and have self-worth." She said, this is an album, "I want to contribute to my entire career. I made this album during my career."

In 2022, Avril Lavigne will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This is an honor and coincides with an important anniversary; this summer is the 20th anniversary of the release of Avril Lavigne's first album "Let Go".

The singer promised to celebrate this milestone for a year, while at the same time conducting a world tour for the new album. "I have been thinking about my first album," she said. "This is my first tour, and the first time I hear myself on the radio. This is just such an important part of my life. My life is my profession." She has existed for long enough. , Is now considered to have had an impact on today’s biggest pop stars, including Billie Eilish, Willow Smith and Olivia Rodrigo. Avril Lavigne has only words of support and encouragement for her new contemporaries. "It's great to see other female artists join in and create music like this in a male-dominated world," she said.

Avril Lavigne still remembers what it was like in that era. Recently, she participated in her first music video award in more than ten years, and memories flashed by. "Oh, I don't remember winning the first moon man at all," she said-and then began to tell the story of a red carpet photo opp released 1,000 memes, as if she had just had a memory. "Then on the second record, Kelly Osbourne said to me,'Let's go together.' We decided to date each other, and then we stayed in the same hotel and went out to play together." These photos are legendary: Avril and Oss himself wore a full set of Gothic shopping mall costumes, which surprised the photographers. It looked like they had just changed classes from Hot Topic. After 18 years, they appeared on Twitter almost every day. This is news to Avril Lavigne. "Really?" she said. "Wow. She's just around a lot. We had some good times."

She may not know it, but that picture is iconic because there is no way to get around it: Avril Lavigne is an idol. Now, she can recognize the power: "Maybe I should dress up as myself the next Halloween.

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Popular image source: Ann Demeulemeester dress, hairstylist's own headwear