Grace’s announcement ended a period of relative stagnancy for Against Me! Yet questions remained. Most notably, would these changes affect the band’s sonic aesthetic? Amidst the transition and subsequent learning process for herself and the band, Grace acknowledges the concern that the publicity of her announcement and transition could overshadow any future music.
“It was a fine line,” she says on the phone from her Surfer’s Paradise hotel room. “I didn’t want what I did to be perceived as a publicity stunt. I don’t want it to overshadow the music and I didn’t want that announcement to be a way of promoting our music.”
Grace has maintained the courage of her conviction throughout the biggest change in the band’s career without anger, but instead a sense of hope. “At the same time it’s important to me to be visibly trans and to have a trans voice because there aren’t many trans voices out there.”
This voice will be heard on the band’s upcoming record, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, a concept album about on a transgender prostitute. Of the album’s progress, Grace notes, “We’ve been working on it for a year now, but we’ve literally done it two or three times now. We’ve started it, scrapped it, started it, scrapped it. We’ll get back to work when we finish this tour and see how far we get before we have to get off on the next tour.”
The transition of Laura Jane Grace found many fans revisiting past works, including 2010’s White Crosses for hints at her frustration. But fans shouldn’t dig too deep for hidden meaning. “Most of the time my songs aren’t thinly veiled in metaphor,” she says. “If I’m writing about my transition it’s been quite blunt. And perhaps people have just missed that.”
Transgender Dysphoria Blues may very well be their most vital album to date. Even after five full-length albums, Grace has discovered her true song-writing voice. “I’m 32-years-old and I’ve been living for 32 years in a dominantly single-sexual world, and that’s not my voice.”
While Grace’s transition into a female has been a smooth one, one aspect of her personality that hasn’t been lost is her trademark biting honesty and quick-witted sarcastic edge. Grace admits that she’s become a visible member of transgender community, but only to an extent. “It’s not like you get a badge, learn the secret handshake and then meet on Wednesdays,” she laughs. “I mean, was I working very hard to be a member of the single-sexual community beforehand?” she asks.
Instead, Grace’s role in the transgender community is driven less by the need to maintain a visibility, but more for her own emotional support.
“I’m just a person,” she says with a tender vulnerability. “It’s important for me to connect with other trans boys and girls around the world because where I live in St. Augustine I don’t have any friends that are trans. And travelling can be kind of lonely. I just want to make friends, you know?”
One of the most vital and identifiable elements of Laura Jane Grace’s writing and Against Me! aesthetic has been anger towards social injustices and an anger regarding Grace’s oft-marginalised role in society. It is this anger that propelled early releases and DIY gigs set up in laundromats. That anger was both intensified and repressed when Against Me! turned their back on their anarcho-punk roots and signed with a major record label.
Now that that chapter has been closed for Against Me! Grace and the rest of the band can truly look forward. Their next album will likely be released on the band’s own label, Total Treble Music. Grace is noticeably enthused about the prospect. “Creative control is important to me and you really can’t have more control than we do at the moment,” she says.
There’s a lightness in Laura Jane Grace’s voice, and a noticeable bounce in her step onstage when the band plays tracks from their upcoming album. Grace is now living the life she was always meant to, free of having to hide her true identity. And the band, which Grace admits has “gone through the gamut,” in terms of record labels, is now operating free of constrictions. Is this then the dawn of a new Against Me!? Have they traded anger and resentment for a newfound sense of optimism?
Grace doesn’t even have to pause. One thing that hasn’t changed is her sense of immediacy and the need to cultivate her emotions in a place she knows best – onstage. “There’s a juxtaposition. The writing process for me is a chance to vent and deal with whatever issues the song is about. And then playing that song live, regardless if the song is about your darkest moment, being onstage feels great. Having that mix, being able to write a song that might have been very painful to write is one thing, but then getting onstage and being able to scream these songs at the top of my lungs, that’s cathartic. I need that.”
BY JOSHUA KLOKE
