Laura Jane Grace: At Home With the Misfits and Outcasts

At SXSW 2019, Laura Jane Grace and the Devouring Mothers will kick off a spring U.S. and Canadian tour that will stretch through the end of April. In addition, Grace will be a Featured Speaker at the SXSW Conference in the Music Industry & Culture track.

Prior to her return to SXSW, which she first attended in 2003, she generously answered a few questions:

In reading your reminiscences about your teen years in Naples and Gainesville in Tranny, how do you think Florida’s culture (or lack thereof) both influenced and motivated you?

Laura Jane Grace: I started going to punk shows in the early/mid-'90s. No bands toured through Naples. None. There was no punk scene at all. When we wanted to see bands play, we went to St. Pete/Tampa. The scene there seemed so huge and intimidating. It seemed so diverse and active, too: punk bands, ska bands, hardcore bands, SXE bands, people making zines, people doing record distros. It all felt so united, too; it was a real scene.

It's funny, though, 'cause once I wrapped my head around what was happening in the Tampa Bay area, Gainesville felt like the next step forward ... that much more intimidating. By comparison it felt like Gainesville was where the true artists were; the bands that were making serious work that was unique and respected outside of Florida. Maybe that's because it was a college town.

I'm thankful to have come up in Florida, though. What was going on there back then was unique. Florida had to invent its own version of punk rock, and I'm proud to have been a part of that. Isolation does great things for art.

As a follow-up on the Florida-theme, in light of its well-earned reputation for consumerism and conformity, why has it also produced such unique and visionary artists (like say, Tom Petty)?

LJG: To me, it always seemed like Tom Petty didn't want much to do with his Gainesville past. He always wanted the Heartbreakers to be considered an L.A. band, which was intriguing to me but also I kind of got it after I had lived in Gainesville for a while. The scene there always felt like it wanted you to succeed but only to a certain point, then it wanted to pull you down and keep you in your place.

Maybe that's Florida in general, and maybe that's why it produced such unique and visionary artists: The desperation of thinking "I've got to get the fuck out of this place!" makes you work that much harder on your art if that's your only shot at escaping.

It has been over 40 years since the Sex Pistols and the Ramones and their contemporaries emerged, do you view punk still as a viable social and musical movement linked to its original form?

LJG: Yes, 100%. The most important lesson I ever learned from punk was "question everything" and that will never stop being relevant and important. I think it's punk's ability to continually evolve into something completely different that keeps it viable. It's not about a particular style of music or sound; it's a mentality, an ethos, an approach to making art, or destroying it.Why do you think Against Me! was such a lightning rod for “sellout” backlash (which you describe in your book)?

LJG: Because we were an anarchist band singing songs about anti-capitalism, and we started making money off of our music. I get it.

As I said, punk rock should be about questioning everything. On the flip of that though, punk rock should also be about thinking for yourself, being true to yourself, and I knew what I was doing. I knew that music was what I wanted to do with my life well before I discovered punk rock or anarchist politics, and money has never been my motivation.

I knew that I was caught in the capitalist trap too: we live in a capitalist society, and if I couldn't support myself playing music, I would have to make money selling my time working a shit job that I hated. Being a high school dropout with a couple of felonies on my record, my job options felt pretty limited. Working a shit job instead of pursuing music seemed like way more of a sellout move to me.

In what way do you still adhere to the DIY ethos of your youth? What are the core values that you see as still being relevant in this interconnected/digital world?

LJG: I think DIY in punk is a phrase that has been perverted somewhat. Saying something is DIY has become more descriptive of a sound than it is an accurate description of the ethic.

But even taking the term Do-It-Yourself at face value is a little misleading. No one can do it all by themselves ... but you should absolutely be willing to do whatever it takes if needed. No part of the machine is more important than another part, and it takes the whole to make it work. At its best, DIY is about community building and working together with other people.

When I was starting out, no one would put out my music, so I put it out myself, dubbing cassette tapes and handing them out to friends. The interconnected/digital world has made that even easier - anyone can self-record music and put it online: instant distribution that's accessible worldwide. There used to be a lot more gatekeepers involved in getting your music out into the world.

But saying you're a DIY band and that you do it all yourself leaves out and steals credit from all the other people that it takes to make a good scene. Not everyone has musical ability but that shouldn't mean that they aren't allowed to be involved in music if they want to be … You can't do it all yourself, and if anyone thinks they can they're a megalomaniac, which is gross.

Laura Jane Grace was a Featured Speaker in the Music Industry & Culture Track at the 2019 SXSW Conference. Laura Jane Grace and the Devouring Mothers performed at the 2019 SXSW Music Festival.