Avril Lavigne knows 'love is a lot of work' as she drops album with MGK, Travis Barker
It’s a new Avril Lavigne on “Love Sux,” her first album since 2019’s emotionally dense “Head Above Water.”
Then again, maybe it’s just the old Lavigne, romping back with taut blasts of guitar, ridiculously catchy choruses and lyrics that both snarl and wink with middle finger sentiments.
“It was so much fun to get back into that sense of wanting to rock out,” Lavigne tells USA TODAY about working on the new record, which arrived Friday in various formats, including cassettes. “I didn’t really overthink anything. I got together with people who understood me in this genre and we complemented each other so well.”
“Love Sux,” the seventh album of Lavigne’s career, bows on Travis Barker’s label, DTA Records. The Blink-182 drummer is longtime friends with Lavigne and extended the band’s connection to Blink bassist and singer Mark Hoppus, who guests on “All I Wanted.”
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“I don’t think I had ever met Mark (before this), but he blew me away,” Lavigne says. “He was writing in front of me, recording his vocals, playing his bass. He can engineer and he’s obviously an awesome songwriter and I got to see that firsthand. I have so much respect for him that I just keep gushing about him.”
Lavigne, calling from her home in Malibu, California – a typically sunnier lifestyle than her family in Canada experiences, she jokes – says she stocked “Love Sux” with collaborations, an uncharacteristic move that brought her a new level of happiness in the studio.
Pop/hip-hop singer and producer Blackbear joins her on the current power-pop single, “Love it When You Hate Me,” while Machine Gun Kelly drapes surfer-dude vocals over the buoyant “Bois Lie.”
“He’s one of the hardest workers I know,” Lavigne says of MGK. “He came in the studio with his guitar and started playing his concept for the song and I was like, ‘This guy writes his (stuff) and he’s really focused and serious.’”
Between 2002 and 2013, Lavigne stormed radio with a steady procession of immaculately produced hits. From the arm-swaying “Complicated” to the caffeinated “Sk8er Boi” to the hand-clapping cheerleader stomp of “Girlfriend,” the youthful singer – now a still-eternally-youthful-looking 37 – maintained an aura of optimism and relatability as she sang about the peaks and pitfalls of love.
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But in 2019 she delved into more personal terrain, detailing her struggles with Lyme disease – which she was diagnosed with in 2014 – on the title track of “Head Above Water” and examining a toxic relationship on “I Fell in Love with the Devil.”
Despite her past romantic crashes – she married Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley in 2006, Nickelback singer Chad Kroeger in 2013 and dated Pete Jonas in 2020 – and the resigned sigh of her new album title, Lavigne is still hopeful about relationships.
She also recognizes the irony of falling in love with Mod Sun, her producer on “Love Sux,” during the recording of the album. But she never considered changing the name of the release.
“I love the album title. It’s like how a lot of people feel,” she says. “Love is hard. Love is a lot of work. And sometimes it just doesn’t end well.”
Lavigne will take her new brisk pack of songs on the road in late spring, starting in her Canadian homeland in May with plans for a summer slate of festivals. She’s also among the marquee names playing the three dates Oct 22-23 and 29 of Las Vegas’ When We Were Young festival, which also boasts peers My Chemical Romance, Paramore and Bring Me the Horizon.
Considering her 2020-21 shows in Europe and Asia were scratched due to the pandemic, Lavigne is eager to return to the stage.
“I’m really grateful to be doing my thing and making music and I’m blessed to have the fan base that I have. They’re so supportive,” she says. “And it’s so crazy with social media that I can see what they say and hear them and feel them. They’re not going anywhere, for the rest of my life. It’s so incredible.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Avril Lavigne taps Machine Gun Kelly, Travis Barker for Love Sux album
