Avril Lavigne to Give Everyone the Bird on Upcoming Tour

For her upcoming tour, Avril Lavigne is taking a cue from Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera. "They go offstage ten friggin' times!" says the singer, who plans to take nightly breathers when she crisscrosses the globe on her five-month trek, which kicks off on March 5th in Victoria, British Columbia. "I'm going off, like, twice [per night]. I've never done a change or a break."

On this tour, her third, Lavigne's clothes won't be the only thing changing: For the first time, dancers will join her onstage, hyping the crowd on big numbers like the amped-up "Girlfriend." "There are kicks and punches, but nothing cheesy or super bubblegum," says Lavigne, who will also revisit her earlier hits. And while the twenty-three-year-old says she's grown out of her "Sk8er Boi"-era sassiness, her inner badass lives on. "I'm covering [Joan Jett's] 'Bad Reputation,'" she says. "While I'm singing the track, there will be a montage of videos of me with a cigarette, flipping the bird."

Avril will pause her tour on April 6th to perform at the JUNO Awards (Canada's version of the Grammys), where the Ontario-born singer scored five nominations, including Album of the Year for 2007's The Best Damn Thing. But she'll be looking forward to getting back on the road. "I just went back to Canada to visit my family and I got off the airplane and was like, 'Fuck that!'" she says. "It was so cold I couldn't deal."

When Lavigne's tour wraps in June, she'll go back to sunny Los Angeles to spend some quality time with her hubby, Sum 41's Deryck Whibley, and she'll also dive back into a new batch of songs. "I have so much creative energy, so I've been writing,"she says. "I want to do more acoustic stuff. It doesn't mean that's what my next record is going to be, but I'm doing it to get it out."

In the meantime, she's resting up — and watching the presidential candidates battle it out on TV. "I wish I could vote here," she says. "I think Hillary might get it. It'd be fucking awesome if a chick won!"

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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