Little Miss Can't Be Wrong

Lavigne and her band make perfect co-conspirators. The boys are all a few years older and treat their pint-size leader like a kid sister. The four punk rockers have been trying to school Lavigne on what she should listen to. "For her birthday, I got her [AC/DC's] Back in Black, the Clash singles and the new Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - your straightforward rock & roll, your punk and your pop punk," says bassist Charlie Moniz, the resident indie-rock connoisseur. Brann gave her a copy of Nirvana's Nevermind. And Colburn gave her the Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream and some Pixies stuff. "I started her off with the more palatable ones, like 'Monkey Gone to Heaven,' " he says. "Then I give her 'Debaser,' and she's like, 'I don't know about that.' " She even got a lesson in recent music history from one of her heroes: the Goo Goo Dolls' Johnny Rzeznik. "What's that CD that Johnny Rzeznik bought me?" Lavigne asks her tour manager, Dan Garnett. "It starts with an R." She squinches her forehead and tries to remember. Finally she asks me, "Do you know who Johnny Rzeznik's idol was?" The Replacements, I suggest. "Yeah, the Replacements! I never have time to listen to it, but I like it."

She's hardly punk, but you gotta start somewhere. And there's no arguing that Lavigne is a different kind of girl than other teen superstars. She's girly and tomboyish at the same time -- like when she shows me that she had her legs waxed and then explains that she did it because she can't be bothered shaving. Or when, regarding herself in a dressing-room mirror, she pulls her shirt up and pats her tummy to check for jiggles -- and then points out the sparkly little bellybutton ring with dolphins hanging in her navel. She recently stopped wearing antiperspirant because she heard the aluminum in it can give you breast cancer, so she's constantly sniffing her armpits and spritzing herself with perfume.

Lavigne says she's always wanted to live on her own, but she admits that it has been difficult to adjust to the constant traveling. "When we're on tour," she rhapsodizes, "I'll finally be able to go to bed in the same place. The tour bus is like your home, your security. For the past nine months, I've been in a different bed every night, a different city. On the bus, it's like living in a house with your family." Lavigne should know: When she's not on the road, she still lives with her parents. "Basically, right now, my only friends are my band," she says, before lowering her voice to add, "which I guess is kind of sad, but that's the way it is right now. Pretty much, this is everyone in my life." With that, she takes out her new green and black disguise hat and gets ready to head back to her hotel room. "Look," she says, and turns the hat around to show me what's sewn on the back. "I have something with a flower on it," she says and giggles devilishly.

[From Issue 918 — March 20, 2003]