Fresh off of two sold-out shows at the Cloudland Theater in Minneapolis, Laura Jane Grace — together with her newlywed wife, Paris Campbell — visited The Current studio for a conversation with host Ayisha Jaffer.

Playing a couple of back-to-back shows in Minneapolis has special significance for Grace. “I grew up obsessed with the Minneapolis punk scene specifically … I just idolized all the bands coming out of here,” she says. “So I've always revered the music scene in Minneapolis.”

On February 16, Grace will release her next album, Hole In My Head, which was recorded primarily in Grace’s adopted homebase of St. Louis, Mo. Grace talks about the new album, but she also talks about her recent wedding, about moving to St. Louis, and about how she was extended a prestigious honor by her hometown of Gainesville, Fla.

Listen to the interview above and read a transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Edited for time and clarity.

Ayisha Jaffer: Thank you both for being here. I have Laura Jane Grace and Paris here in the studio. And you just got married!

Laura Jane Grace: We did, like two weeks ago and two or three days.

Ayisha Jaffer: Yeah!

Laura Jane Grace: On the 18th of December.

Ayisha Jaffer: Elvis was in the building, right?

Laura Jane Grace: Yes! We did the classic Vegas wedding at the Little White Wedding Chapel and Elvis officiated. And they were a killer Elvis.

Paris Campbell: We got a great Elvis. It was a great Elvis.

Ayisha Jaffer: Were there any, like, words of wisdom?

Laura Jane Grace: "Don't be cruel."

Paris Campbell: "Love me tender."

Laura Jane Grace: Yeah, yeah.

Ayisha Jaffer: I always thought about doing that as well. Maybe that's like a renewal for the future. I also got married last year. So it's it's a fun, I mean, it's a fun time. You already know.

Paris Campbell: Congratulations.

Ayisha Jaffer: Thank you.

Laura Jane Grace: Yes, congrats. If you do do it, I would say maybe skip the photo package.

Ayisha Jaffer: Oh, yeah?

Laura Jane Grace: Otherwise no complaints, but the photo package could have done without.

Ayisha Jaffer: Well, congratulations. I'm so glad you're both here. And last night you played two sold-out shows at the Cloudland Theater in Minneapolis. And I saw that, you, Paris, did one of your first dives — crowd surfs — a few days before that. Not in Minneapolis, but still getting into it.

Paris Campbell: On New Year's Eve in Denver, yeah.

Ayisha Jaffer: That's amazing. So how were the shows? How's it been so far?

Laura Jane Grace: It's been incredible. Played in St. Louis than Lawrence, Kansas, then Denver for New Year's, then Omaha and here, and then on the sixth playing in Madison, Wisconsin, a benefit for Joey's Song, which is epilepsy. And it's been a great little holiday run. Really fun. 

Ayisha Jaffer: Is there any specific — I know you have two sold-out shows, so I have to ask — is there any specific connection to Minnesota that you hold?

Laura Jane Grace: A hundred percent. Yeah, like I grew up obsessed with the Minneapolis punk scene specifically, like everything that was happening around Profane Existence and Havoc Records. It was mythological to me. I like just idolized all the bands coming out of here, and then the first time I got to tour here, it was just like, you know, meeting my heroes continually. And it still feels like that to this day. So I've always revered the music scene in Minneapolis.

Ayisha Jaffer: Well, I'm so glad to hear that. I'm so glad that the tour has been great so far. And you know, there's a lot of things going on. 2023 has been a great year for you. I mean, your scene that helped amplify you, your community in Gainesville [Florida] embraced you, gave you the key to the city and also named a day, October 27, as Laura Jane Grace Day. What did that mean to you?

Laura Jane Grace: Um, you know, it's like, I don't like opening presents in front of people; I get a weird feeling. And it felt like that. But you're still thankful for the present, you know, like, because presents are great. So I felt like super self-aware and like, "I don't deserve this. What are you doing giving me a key to the city?" But then like, it was a really cool and really special day, and like, you can't help but be grateful and humbled by something like that. And I only abused my powers for the one night where they gave me the key and I was like wearing it around on a chain, and I didn't have wristbands to get into any of the festival shows. But I was like, "I got the key, just let me in." But I allowed myself that one night. That was it.

Ayisha Jaffer: See, I was wondering if those keys ever, like really open anything, right? But I guess just access, right?

Laura Jane Grace: They should, like, open up all the parking meters or something like that at least, you know?

Paris Campbell: I think you should take the key back to Gainesville, and we should figure out what all it helps you get away with.

Laura Jane Grace: Yeah! Yeah, you know, like, I was making the joke that the key allowed me to take one bite of food off of anyone's plate in any restaurant downtown.

Paris Campbell: Valid.

Laura Jane Grace: I didn't actually try it, but some kind of privilege like that. That's all I'm looking for, you know?

Ayisha Jaffer: "I want to try that, please." I love that! Oh, I love that. Well, so going back to Gainesville, you've made quite a mark on that scene. Do you feel like you still have tabs on it? What is the scene like now there in Gainesville?

Laura Jane Grace: Well, you know, one of the things that makes Gainesville really unique and special is that it's a college town, right? So there's like always an influx of youth coming in, and a younger generation coming in. So, you know, on the one hand, like, Gainesville has changed a significant amount since I lived there. But on the other hand, like, the spirit still remains behind it. And it's always just been a really special place, especially considering that it's in Florida, which is, as most people know, a complicated state, we'll just say.

Ayisha Jaffer: Absolutely, yeah. Well, I listened to your speech, and one of the things that you said that resonated hugely with me was "DIY does not mean do it yourself, it means it will be better if we do it together." And I love that sentiment so much. Is there a specific example of that being a key in your experience?

Laura Jane Grace: You know, people place the DIY emphasis in punk rock on the band members specifically, right? Because they're the visible people. But I realized, like coming up in a band, that it's like, there's other people that maybe they don't have musical talent, you know? Like, maybe it's the stage tech or the front-of-house person, or like the booking agent, or the merch person or whoever, like, those people might not be onstage, but they're just as valid and important to the experience and to making it all happen. Right? So it is a group effort, you know? And like, starting out as a solo musician, just me and an acoustic guitar, and that's kind of what I'm doing right now, you know, like, I love it, but also, it's not as fun when you're not playing music with other people, you know, like and extending that to people who aren't necessarily onstage and making that all the team is like, in my head, the way it should be.

Ayisha Jaffer: It's really important to remember that too, because sometimes when we think DIY, right, we just think, "Yeah, it's just me. It's all on me," in that sense. And yeah, but I think it's true, this collective spirit, this thing, that's how you kind of move forward and have this, I don't know, more amplified experience. 

Laura Jane Grace: Right. If you have a friend who like won't accept help, right, you know, like, that's a drag. You know, like, you should be able to be like, "I need help." That's pretty punk rock to say like, "I need help. I need the help of my friends to make this work."

Ayisha Jaffer: Absolutely. So you have a new...

Laura Jane Grace: I need your help, Paris.

Ayisha Jaffer: Yeah, Paris.

Paris Campbell: What do you need help with?

Laura Jane Grace: I just need, I need your help and your support, your partnership.

Paris Campbell: You got it.

Ayisha Jaffer: Paris, have you found that you've been doing a lot of help on the tour?

Paris Campbell: So I am doing merch for the tour right now, which has been incredible. Yeah, I mean, I guess I am working the tour right now.

Ayisha Jaffer: You didn't even know until this moment in time?

Paris Campbell: No, I mean, it's been so much fun, that it truly doesn't feel like work. But I guess technically speaking, I am merch wife.

Ayisha Jaffer: That's something I've done myself. And it's where you meet the people more directly too, and you see kind of the joy on everybody. And they like to share their experience, no matter what.  People love to share their experience. No matter what.  Any great memories so far?

Paris Campbell: There's been a lot of people who have come to shows that have made a point to come up to me and tell me about how they've been individually following Laura Jane and I separately since before we met, and that seeing us come together has been really cool for them, which I never considered, but people who knew me from the internet would also, you know, probably have followed Laura Jane as well. And then you know, we'd have, I guess, fans in common in that way. And that's just really cool. It feels like people have kind of seen us individually grow, and then wind up together.

Ayisha Jaffer: Oh, that's really lovely.

Paris Campbell: Yeah, it's really sweet. I mean, it's very parasocial and a little bit strange, but it's very sweet and endearing.

Laura Jane Grace: Especially because, like, we didn't have any mutuals when we met. It wasn't like we knew friends or anything like that. So to have, like, fans kind of have that connection is really cool.

Paris Campbell: Yeah. 

Ayisha Jaffer: Well, then how did you meet?

Laura Jane Grace: Um, they asked me out on a date.

Paris Campbell: She followed me on Instagram.

Ayisha Jaffer: And it was like a slide into the DMs kind of situation?

Paris Campbell: I did slide into the DMs, yes, but, to be fair, there was there was like, a lot of interest being shown in the activity of the likes and the story viewing. 

Laura Jane Grace: I wasn't creeping. I just, I thought they were funny. You know? They are! They're funny.

Paris Campbell: No, never, never creepy.

Ayisha Jaffer: No, no, I didn't get that.

Paris Campbell: Just very, very sweet.

Ayisha Jaffer: I love that. Oh, I love it. Well, you're on this tour, Hole In My Head is coming out February 16. When you've taken this approach on this record, is there a theme, a concept? Or is it more like journalistic?

Laura Jane Grace: I just always write, you know? And like, there comes a point where I'll have like, so many songs in my pocket, that it's like clear that there's a record there. And then, you know, it kind of informs itself. It kind of creates itself. Because, like, I only think about what it means after the fact. And it's because usually you're tasked with answering questions, you know, whether that's for the bio or for an interview, right, you know? But if it came down to it, I would never sit down and define the thing myself. I just enjoy the act of writing. I enjoy singing songs, I enjoy recording and being in the studio. And with this record in particular, like, it's all songs that came together on the road. And that's the best way, in my opinion, to make a record because then you know that the songs work, because you've already tested them all live. It's not like something that was created in a studio and then you go out and you're like, "I hope people like this."  Right, yeah, it's more natural.  It feels that way.

Ayisha Jaffer: Yeah. There's a song — there's many songs on this record I'm very excited about — "Dysphoria Hoodie" I want to talk about.

Laura Jane Grace: Yes. 

Ayisha Jaffer: It's like the security blanket song, and you actually have one.

Laura Jane Grace: I mean, you're looking at two people wearing dysphoria hoodies right now, probably.

Ayisha Jaffer: Can you just tell me what inspired you to put that pen to paper on that particular track? 

Laura Jane Grace: Yeah, I mean, that song just kind of like came out of the ether. It didn't take a lot of effort, and it's definitely lived experience, you know? Like, I did not invent the concept of a dysphoria hoodie, but a dysphoria hoodie is that garment of clothing that you wear when you don't want the world to read your gender. Like, you know, you want a little bit of protection, a little bit of armor and something that's comfortable. And you know, I travel a lot, so I definitely, like, am a connoisseur of the hoodies and the pockets within pockets, and like, yeah. Love a good dystphoria hoodie. And I have a brand loyalty when it comes to Adidas.

Ayisha Jaffer: Yeah, I see you as well, Paris?

Paris Campbell: Yeah, I do love Adidas. That was something interesting is that I did always love Adidas. But yeah, we did get this one in particular in New York a couple weeks ago.

Laura Jane Grace: Playing the song, though, it's funny, because it clearly demonstrates like the generational gap of people who listened to Run DMC and people who did not, because like for me, it was painfully obvious of like, you know, the lyric of when it says, "Adidas on my chest / all day long, I dream of sex." It's like you know...

Ayisha Jaffer: It's perfect.

Laura Jane Grace: Run DMC, right?

Ayisha Jaffer: We're talking about, you know, we were talking about Gainesville, and we were talking about, now I know you live in Chicago, but also now St. Louis. What drew you to St. Louis? 

Laura Jane Grace: I had a pandemic freakout. You know, I had built my life around being a touring musician who had an apartment in Chicago, and then a pandemic hit, and I found myself in a position where I could not plug in an amplifier for like, a year and a half. And I saw a studio space that was just sitting there empty in St. Louis, and St. Louis is within driving distance of Chicago, so I could go there on the months when I'm not with my daughter, and just kind of went in blind, like I did not know a single soul in St. Louis, and just made a rash decision. And now here we are, yeah.

Ayisha Jaffer: Is that how you got connected with Native Sound?

Laura Jane Grace: It is. Yeah, yeah. St. Louis is way more manageable than Chicago for me when it comes to, like, having a social life and going out, just because it's like five minutes, you can drive anywhere, right? I've been dry since 2018, but it was like, "I want to go out to bars and I want to drink nonalcoholic beers, and I want to hang out." And I did that, and like, met people and met, you know, local musicians, and found out were like the studios were and booked time with another friend to produce a record for them at Native Sound to just kind of do a test run. And I liked it a lot and got along well with the engineer, David Beeman. And then just booked time for myself to go in and record a record. And Native Sound is a rad, vibey spot that's like right above a bar, so if you, like, want a break from recording, you can go downstairs and immediately be in a social environment. And I mean, it's just a very uniquely St. Louis place.

Ayisha Jaffer: Does it catch that ambient sound? The bar?

Laura Jane Grace: Yeah, well, that was a learning experience, too, because there is a lot of noise bleed coming from outside where I was like, "OK, you can make a studio work with this much outside noise coming in."

Ayisha Jaffer: So how was that process, then, working with David Beeman? And it was Matt Allison as well.

Laura Jane Grace: Yeah, Matt Allison mixed, and David Beeman engineered, but like really, the unsung hero of the record is Matt Patton. So Matt Patton plays bass in the Drive-By Truckers, and I had never met Matt before, but was like looking for players to come in and play on the record. And just like literally sent out a tweet, and Matt was like, "I'll come and do it." So Matt drove up from Mississippi and spent like a week with me in the studio and played bass on half the record, sang on half the record, and it was awesome. We got along really well. And then flash-forward to now, earlier in December, Paris and I, as well as our friend Mikey Erg, went down to Water Valley, Mississippi, where Matt's studio is, Dial Back Sound, and then we recorded like a six-song EP, that'll be out at some point next year as well. So it just really, like, I don't know, worked out like that, you know?

Ayisha Jaffer: Next year or this year?

Laura Jane Grace: This year. Sorry. Yeah. This year.

Ayisha Jaffer: We're at that edge, right? I just wanted to make sure.

Laura Jane Grace: Good call. Yeah.

Ayisha Jaffer: Paris, have you been to St. Louis then?

Paris Campbell: Yeah! So I've been I've been to, I don't know what to call it, I want to call it the studio, but it's more like a, it's like a compound. Like this house, it's, I don't know, it reminds me of The Walking Dead. But yeah, I've been, and it's pretty awesome.

Laura Jane Grace: I haven't seen The Walking Dead enough to totally know that reference, other than I know that The Walking Dead are zombies. And maybe there's zombies in the neighborhood.

Paris Campbell: So OK, so there's this like locked-door protocol in St. Louis that makes me think of when they're in the school in The Walking Dead; like, how they have to lock the door or unlock the door before they enter, and then lock it behind them. Like every door in the place in St. Louis is like another lock, and it's all color coded. And there's like hidden hallways and passages and stairs that lead to nowhere.

Ayisha Jaffer: It's just like one big haunted house.

Laura Jane Grace: But I kind of purposely arrange it like that for security reasons in case someone breaks in. So like, you don't know where the light switches are. It's purposely, like, confusing. There's like doors that are hidden behind things. And just because there's, you know, music equipment there.

Paris Campbell: Yeah. She has a mannequin.

Laura Jane Grace: Well, his name is Trashman Gary, and he has feelings. He's also part of the security system. I mean, I know I'm giving away my security secrets right here live on air, but I take the mannequin, set him up in a Kylo Ren outfit, and set him in front of doors when I leave.

Ayisha Jaffer: I just wanted to say, Laura Jane Grace, you're such an important voice. And thank you for using your platform for good and for change. There's so much that you've done, and we don't have enough time to go over all of it from, you know, the documentary series to the memoir and just really changing the world with your voice. And so there's a lot that you've done. I'm wondering if there's — I know you've already told us about the EP, which is very exciting — but is there anything else we can know about that you're working on right now?

Laura Jane Grace: Well, one thing I'm really excited about is that on the ninth, we're going to Greece and doing a thing with the Onassis Foundation where we're gonna do like two concerts or something like that, and they're gonna film it and I don't know exactly what it'll be when it comes out. But that's coming up. And then a lot of touring next year, we're going to go out on the road in March, and that's with Matt Patton and Mikey Erg will be backing me on that tour. And that'll be like the album-release tour. And then there's a tour in May. And then, as I said, hopefully the EP will come out sometime in the fall and do some touring around that. So a lot of touring in the future. But you know, I definitely have ambitions to write another book and like, I have a lot of other stuff going on that I can't really talk about. But yes.

Ayisha Jaffer: It's me prying, so I get it.

Laura Jane Grace: See, it sucks, because I am the type of person, like, I want to talk about everything. And if I have something going on, and I'm excited about it, like, I want to share that. But like, other people are like, "Don't."

Ayisha Jaffer: I totally understand. Don't worry, I'm not going to egg it on. So Paris, are you going to be going on all this touring life as well?

Paris Campbell: Yeah. So I mean, I'm definitely going to Greece in five days.

Ayisha Jaffer: Not the honeymoon, though?

Paris Campbell: No, no, no, not the honeymoon. I'll be doing merch for the tour in March. And then when we tour the EP, I mean, I'll be onstage, I guess. So I don't know. We'll figure it out. But yeah, I'll be there.

Ayisha Jaffer: Paris, what did you play on the EP?

Paris Campbell: I'm singing backup vocals. 

Ayisha Jaffer: That's awesome.

Laura Jane Grace: It's really fun to be able to make music with your partner, though.

Paris Campbell: It's incredible. I mean, it's like, it's something that I genuinely never thought I would do with a partner, especially coming out of like doing comedy. And I used to do music when I was a teenager, and then I kind of had like, given up on that dream, you know? I was like, "Oh, no, I'm just going to do comedy and my own thing." And then I don't know, Laura Jane, like, brought it back out of me. And now I'm singing again. And it's your fault.

Laura Jane Grace: It's fun.

Ayisha Jaffer: That's magic, though. That's magic, when you can get that passion back and be able to utilize it with your partner. That's special. Well, before I let both of you go, is there anything else you want our listeners to know? 

Laura Jane Grace: I don't know. I don't think so. Thank you. Thank you for listening.

Paris Campbell: Yeah. Cool.

Ayisha Jaffer: Well, thanks for being here. Hole In My Head is coming out in February 16. Laura Jane Grace, thank you.

Laura Jane Grace: Thank you.

Ayisha Jaffer: All right.

Paris Campbell: Thank you.

External Link

Laura Jane Grace – official site