Laura Jane Grace releases surprise album “Stay Alive”

Laura Jane Grace (Against Me!, …and the Devouring Mothers) released a surprise solo album overnight. Titled Stay Alive, the album is fourteen tracks written and recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic. Preorders are now up for physical copies and bundles, including limited edition vinyls.

As the info on the Polyvinyl page details:

Laura Jane Grace wasn’t planning on making a solo record this year. In fact, she was planning on making a record with Against Me!, the band she’s fronted for the past 23 years. But clearly, nothing went according to plan this year. “We came home from the Against Me! tour we were on in March, and right before we left, we had been in the studio working on songs, and I had been working on them for months prior,” says Grace. As she sat at home, all of her tours canceled, and the members of Against Me!…

“I sat around for a month-and-a-half at a home just being shellshocked being like, ‘What the fuck happened and what the fuck is happening with the world?’ As I started to get my bearings, I just came to the realization that waiting was going to kill the record and kill the songs. I spent two years working on all these songs, and the idea of throwing them away didn’t sit well with me,” says Grace. “But then I was like, ‘What am I waiting for?’ All I have to do is adjust my scope. I can sit here on my fucking ass and do nothing, or I can work.” 

(Grace) called Electrical Audio, the iconic studio in her adopted hometown of Chicago, Illinois, to ask if she could make a record with famed engineer Steve Albini. The goal was to go in and document these songs exactly as she’d been playing them in her home, straight to analog tape. When she hung up the phone, she had four days booked. 

You can check out the new album via Spotify below, and pick up a digital or physical copy over at the Polyvinyl store.