Rock & roll wild child Avril Lavigne hit big in summer 2002 with her spiky-fun debut song “Complicated,” shifting pop music into a different direction. Lavigne, who was 17 at the time, didn’t seem concerned with the glamor of the TRL-dominated pop world and such confidence allowed her star power to soar. The middle of three children in small town Napanee, Ontario, Lavigne’s rock ambitions were noticeable around age two. By her early teens, she was already writing songs and playing guitar. The church choir and local festivals and county fairs also allowed Lavigne to get her voice heard, and luckily, Arista Records’ main man Antonio “L.A.” Reid was listening. He offered her a deal, and at 16, Lavigne’s musical dreams became reality. With Reid’s assistance and a new Manhattan apartment, Lavigne found herself surrounded by prime songwriters and producers, but it wasn’t impressive enough for her to continue. She had always relied on her own ideas to create a musical spark and things weren’t going as planned. Lavigne wasn’t disillusioned, though. She headed for Los Angeles and Nettwerk grabbed her. Producer/songwriter Clif Magness (Celine Dion, Wilson Phillips, Sheena Easton) tweaked Lavigne’s melodic, edgy sound and her debut, Let Go, was the polished product. Singles such as “Complicated” and “Sk8er Boi” hit the Top Ten while “I’m With You” and “Losing Grip” did moderately well at radio. Butch Walker of the Marvelous 3, Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida and Don Gilmore (Linkin Park, Good Charlotte) signed on to produce Lavigne’s second album, Under My Skin, which appeared in May 2004. ~ MacKenzie Wilson, All Music Guide. Unapologetically original. Unabashedly in your face. Avril Lavigne’s 2002 debut Let Go gave young women a defiant voice and set it to music they could rock out to. Fourteen million albums and eight Grammy nominations later, the Canadian chanteuse returns with Under My Skin but if you’re expecting a whole lot of the same, you’ve got another thing coming. This is not a girl who rests on her laurels. Under My Skin opens with the dramatic tracks “Take Me Away” and “Together,” which set the scene for the kick-ass guitars and radio-ready chorus of “Don’t Tell Me,” a song of willful female empowerment that picks up where “Complicated” left off. From there it’s a one-two punch of three-chord guitar licks (“He Wasn’t”) and head-bopping optimism (“Who Knows”) alongside swirling, brooding melodies (“Freak Out”) and moody tracks (“Forgotten,” “Nobody’s Home”) that reveal a darker side of Avril Lavigne. “I grew up so much in the past two years,” admits the Napanee, Ontario, native. “I’ve been through a lot, I’ve learned a lot, and experienced a lot both good and bad. These songs are about all of that, and each is very personal to me.” Working with producers, Butch Walker (of the Marvelous 3), Raine Maida (of Our Lady Peace), Don Gilmore (Linkin Park, Pearl Jam), Avril co-wrote the dozen introspective songs on Under My Skin in near secrecy. “I’d just come off my world tour and got back to Toronto and was writing right away,” the 19-year-old says. “I had no idea what I was going to do. No one did. People wondered if I’d run out of things to write about, but it was the opposite.” After a lunch date with fellow Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk turned into a major chick-bonding session, Avril and Chantal sat down to write. The chemistry was ineffable. “We got together one night and all of a sudden we had a song,” she says. “No one knew what I was up to, not my management, not my label.” The duo got together the next night and wrote another song. “We did that for two weeks and wrote 12 songs.” Momentum took over and by summer Avril was moving into Chantal and her husband Raine Maida’s Malibu house to record. “I was only off my tour for a couple of weeks, and I was ready to record,” Avril recalls. The California air provided a needed escape from Avril’s frantic life. “It was a great time for me, living out there, being out of the public eye, and having my independence. And my friendship with Chantal evolved into one of the best I’ve ever had.” Chantal and Avril would spend all night in the studio perfecting the songs. During the day, Avril learned the city by driving to and from the studio and where ever she needed to be. No photos, no interviews, no pressure. Eventually they recorded most of the songs in Raine’s studio, and those songs appear unaltered on Under My Skin. The rest of the tracks, co-written with her guitarist Evan Taubenfeld (and one track with former Evanescence guitarist Ben Moody), were cut just up the road. “I was involved in every aspect of making this record. I’m very hands-on,” she says. “I knew how I wanted the drums, the guitar tones, and the structures to be. I understand the whole process so much better this time because I’ve been through it. I’m really picky with my sound.”