Superlatives
A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers.
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A drunk driver sideswiped her, landing her ride in the shop and leaving her unharmed but shaken.
I want to be playing with them again.
Its complicated, but Im hopeful.)
Grace isnt sure, but that isnt too unusual for her.
It probably sounds a little cliche, but every record you do is a chapter in your life.
It really encapsulates a specific period of time, she says.
You dont really understand what youre making as youre making it.
You need perspective, you need some distance.
You may need to ask me again in five or ten years.
Grace has had years in some cases, decades to reflect on Against Me!s discography.
(The bands gritty debut,Against Me!
Hardest Against Me!
It is just such a mouthful.
It takes so much breath to sing.
I recorded that song when I was 26, and Im fucking 43 now.
I look at that vocal performance and Im like, Hats off, younger you!
I just got to get this one take, one time.
Theres a ferocity that fucking sounds like razor blades and is not always kind on the throat.
Your voice really is a muscle.
When I first started touring, the idea of doing vocal warm-ups was laughable.
Never in a million years would I be caught dead backstage doing vocal warm-ups.
Now, for the past decade, Ive used the same app on my phone to do vocal warm-ups.
I have this Vicks steamer thing that Ill sit near while I do them.
At this point, Im sure I have nodes.
Im sure I have scar tissue.
I used to be a drinker.
I used to be a smoker.
I still smoke weed sometimes.
Your voice also just changes as you get older, so Ive been kind of adapting to that.
I dont sing older songs the way I used to.
I adjust the register sometimes.
Bamboo Bones offWhite Crossesis so high in parts.
I struggle with that song for real.
When I moved there, I didnt know anyone.
I really came into the city kind of blind and it was intimidating.
I was out of my element, but people were really cool.
The record feels really tied to this city.
The one in St. Louis is a killer hang.
They dont care if you smoke weed there.
Its never too crowded; Im sure they wish it was.
Song that has exceeded her expectations
There are songs that end up coming back in unexpected ways.
Holy Shit!, off ofSearching for a Former Clarity,is a good example.
I wrote it and I didnt really like it that much.
Ill throw it on the set list and it works really well.
Im not sure why, 20 years later, it feels really good to play.
Sometimes things like that happen that surprise you.
When I wrote it, I had not been as direct withsome of the lyricsthat I wanted to write.
I went back andrewrote the second verse to play it live now.
Essentially, its like Im playing a new song.
I like that I have the ability to do that.
It can still become something new as opposed to having to rigidly be what it was.
It is kind of alive in that way.
Sometimes its those songs that force you to ask yourself,Why is this still relevant to me?
Its those songs that end up lasting for a long time.
Favorite Against Me!
album closer
I always put my favorite songs at the end of a record.
Undoubtedly, Black Me Out offTransgender Dysphoria Blues,feels like the mission statement of that record.
That song is definitive in a lot of ways.
It has some personal meaning to me but has also shown me the power of manifestation.
Playing that song every night and seeing the way things have turned out always gets me.
Its also a song that, leading up to recordingNew Wave,we played every night on the road.
Whatever the chorus says the most, thats usually the title of the song, right?
During this period, everyone rebelled against that, and youd come up with the most asinine song title.
I rarely start out with a title in the writing process.
It was always, Okay, the songs finished.
I guess we got to call it something.
Oftentimes, we wouldve already developed a name for it within the group that was just kind of referential.
Like the Boom, Boom, Tap, Tap song or something that only we got.
Thats how we would reference them, like, Oh, its The Roller.
Its the song that kind of rolls.
Matt suggested Unprotected Sex With Multiple Partners.
As a metaphor for the music industry, I think I nailed it with that one.
ButTransgender Dysphoria Bluesundoubtedly was the most difficult to get made because of the personal circumstances happening around me.
Our drummer left andAdamstarted playing with the band.
It was one of the coolest experiences and also one of the darkest.
It didnt feel like there was necessarily going to be a future for the band.
We had chosen this kids house well, it was his dads house with a finished basement.
Its an unforgettable experience that is hard to even describe.
There are no basements in South Florida.
The water level is too high.
Best Against Me!
song to mosh to
I was in Greece recently.
I was brought over by theOnassis Foundationand did two shows, both of which were filmed.
One was in Athens and the other in Thessaloniki.
I was like, Fuck it.
So we played the song two times in a row just because everyone was having such a good time.
Most striking album cover
I started out doing the artwork for Against Me!
I did all the first EPs and the artwork forReinventing Axl Rose.
I also did the artwork forThe Eternal Cowboy.
Its a picture of me, but it was my art direction, it was my idea.
Then after that, it became an issue.
We were on tour so much, and I needed to make a choice.
Especially because I was coming from a place of hands-on X-Acto knife collage work.
I ended up beginning a collaboration with Chris Norris, who also goes by Steak Mtn.
Chris is from Florida and played in a bunch of Florida bands that I grew up seeing.
He was closely associated with No Idea Records, one of Against Me!s first labels.
We just had really similar points of reference, similar ideas for how it should look.
Ive always loved the idea of really marrying yourself to a designer.
He ended up doing a number of the Against Me!
records and hed do our shirts and tour posters.
Along the way, there were other people.
I did the cover ofNew Waveand some of the more recent album covers, likeStay Alive.
I smoked every one of those joints.
I own that ashtray.
I took that picture.
It was a Kmart that was in Michigan by where we were recording.
To me, there was something so striking, so haunting about a vacated Kmart.
Its a disappearing past.
When I look at it, Im like, Oh, thats so cringe.
It shouldnt have been on the record.
Also the song is maybe my least favorite on that record.
I dont like to play it; I just dont think its well written.
But theres a lot ofShape Shift With Methats brutally painful for me to think of.
I was going through something at the time and I just dont like to play it.
Maybe Ill come back to it, but I dont know.
Its kind of where the band left off.
Hopefully, well get back there.
Reinventing Axl Rosetrack shes most proud of
Undoubtedly, Pints of Guinness Make You Strong.
Its still a song I sing every night.
Its still a song everyone reacts to.
We Laugh at Danger and Break All the Rules, also off that album, is actually about myothergrandmother.
So all my grandmothers were present on the record.
The air is finally clear now, and I feel good about that.
Ill play it still, but Im always like, Really?
It dumbfounds me that people like it.
But it goes to show, as an artist, you dont always know what you do best.
I like to get up onstage and just ask what people want to hear.
Its a balance, though.
I want them to hear what they want to hear.
I dont want to be like, You liked that song?
Well, I dont.
I was there behind the camera every time someone was interviewed.
For me, it wasnt even about the final result.
Seeing the crew that worked on it get educated in real time was kind of a profound experience.
In a lot of ways,True Transs micro-doc format feels ahead of its time.
And Im like, Yeah?
I dont fucking know.
Against Me!
Thats true no matter what is going on in my life, you know?
