Avril Lavigne has reflected on her early career in a new interview and has spoken of the challenges of going against the pop norms of the day.

Speaking to The Guardian, Lavigne discussed being a grungy, alternative musician in an early noughties landscape where “bubblegum pop” dominated.

“I was getting out of high school and I just wanted to rock out,” Lavigne told the publication. “I want loud guitars, I want live drums … I want to write about the crazy stuff, the insane emotions, the good and the bad.”

“I was very clear on what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do. I wanted to be angsty and to sound more like a band; I didn’t want to be all bubblegum pop. I wanted to turn my emotions into lyrics. I was honestly just very, very pure.”

Lavigne additionally spoke about the challenges of doing this at the time, saying it was not easy to speak out as a young woman in the music industry. “They didn’t care what I had to say,” she said of industry bosses. “They had their own style and didn’t bother to look at me and try to let me lead.”

Lavigne is currently on tour in support of her Green Day-inspired seventh album, ‘Love Sux’, which landed back in February via DTA / Elektra.

In a three-star review of it, NME’s Ali Shutler wrote that “like Willow Smith’s ‘Lately I Feel Everything’ and everything Cleveland’s Kennyhoopla has put his name to, ‘Love Sux’ is a progressive pop-punk album that eschews the old rules – but not at the expense of maximalist, joyful guitar anthems.”

Recently, Lavigne joined Olivia Rodrigo onstage to perform her debut single ‘Complicated’, which the latter has been performing on every night of her ‘Sour’ world tour. It was also revealed last week that ‘Love Sux’ is doing impressively well on cassette, being the year’s third-highest selling release on the format thus far.

 

Later this year, Lavigne will release a 20th anniversary edition of her acclaimed debut album, 2002’s ‘Let Go’.