Laura Jane Grace talks Tom Petty, biggest life regret, DeSantis and her love/hate relationship with Florida

Growing up as an adolescent in a red state with a rebellious attitude may not mix well with most. But it clashed perfectly for Laura Jane Grace, helping launch her into the rockstar she is today.

Whether it's her hometown of Naples or her current digs in north Chicago, Grace has often expressed her dislike for places she has called home.

It's not necessarily meant to offend those who lives there, but more directed at a lack of problem solving or an authoritarian-like leadership that she has long revolted against, regardless of location. To those who know Grace's music, whether solo work or with Against Me!, none of that is a surprise.

Her activism comes naturally. It's a passion that, at its core, is about taking care of people, regardless of gender identity, skin color, nationality or religion. For those who do otherwise, well, then it becomes personal.

As Grace prepares for her latest U.S. tour, including a homecoming-like show in Gainesville, the crusader will soon be playing live shows around Florida for the first time in five years — a state now run by a governor who she says stands for everything she is against. As a transgender woman, Grace is well aware that lawmakers have taken a heightened focus on LGBTQ-related matters and fears that one day she may be a target of radical policies that prevent her from doing what she loves most: Playing live shows.

The Gainesville Sun caught up with Grace to speak about her return to the Sunshine State, discussing a range of topics that include the current political environment, cutting her teeth in Gainesville's punk scene and how she can't seem to escape the indirect influence Tom Petty had on her music career.

The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Listen: Here are 10 career-spanning, must-hear songs from Laura Jane Grace

Andrew Caplan: Do you like living in Chicago?

Laura Jane Grace: No, I actually kind of hate it to be honest with you.

AC: I think you have a song about that.

LJG: Yeah, It's not a metaphor. I've always written very literally. It makes me double down, too, when people take offense to it because I'm like, "What? Did you, like, build this f---ing city? Are you, like, the corrupt city government or do you like exorbitant property taxes? What part of it do you like, exactly?" I think when it really comes down to it, this is just too big of a city for me. I'm not cut out for this.

I desperately miss Gainesville living. I miss living in a place where you don't have to have a car and you can walk to get coffee in the morning and ride your bike to shows, just a slower pace.

AC: I understand. There are things about Gainesville that I didn't think I'd miss until I moved away for a bit.

LJG: It's one of those "you don't know what you got until it's gone" types of vibes. But life circumstances happen and changes happen. Since about 2021, I've been kind of splitting my time between Chicago and St. Louis, which is smaller scale and easier to manage. There are oddly a lot of things about St. Louis that remind me of Gainesville around 1998-1999, which makes me like it so much.

AC: What was it like coming up in Gainesville's punk scene around then with other bands, like Hot Water Music?

LJG: No Idea Records deserves the credit. No Idea is what made the Gainesville scene. Something that really made us outsiders at first was we were underage, so we couldn't go to the bars. We weren't a part of the drinking scene or anything like that. So we played shows at the Civic Media Center. I think the CMC was a really unique thing, too, particularly back then with everything that was going around in the activist scene. You had the Gainesville Radical Cheerleaders, you had like all the food stuff happening. There was just an awesome activist scene.

(CMC is an alternative library and community center in Gainesville that hosts political, cultural and educational events. It provides resources for progressive grassroots organizing, activism and access to information and viewpoints often underreported or distorted in mainstream media.)

The Fest started happening after that, once there was this vibrant scene happening around Wayward Council on West University Avenue. I think that scene was already set when we showed up and it then gave the foundation for The Fest to stand on. Then it really coagulated and came together and became what it is.

AC: Speaking of CMC, you played a mystery set there during Fest 18 when Against Me! had the two-night, two-album shows. It was a very intimate but packed house and everyone seemed so happy to be there. How did that show come about and was there a nostalgic feeling, or anything like that, for you in the moment while playing?

LJG: Yeah, you know, I loathe the fact that I'm a nostalgic person, but I am, kind of, to the core, which sucks. But it was strange because it was surreal in a way ... Like, I want to support the CMC in any way I can, always. It would f---ing break my heart if the CMC no longer existed.

LJG: When the opportunity came up to play there, I was like, "Of course, yes, that's going to be awesome. I want to do that." In a way, it felt like this coming back-to-your-roots type of vibe. But at the same time, it wasn't the CMC that I knew when it was on University Avenue. It's the new one, but still somewhat feels like the old one.

I used to live two blocks over from where the new CMC is and before that I used to live like three blocks to the west and they used to do Food Not Bombs in that little park that was right across the street from the CMC. I just have so many memories tied to so many spaces in Gainesville and it was inevitable that it would feel like that kind of nostalgic, homecoming thing but in a totally surreal "everything's changed" type of way. I guess that's just true to how Gainesville is now, where you go back and I can remember all the feelings that I had. So many of the landmarks are gone now, so many things have changed. At the same time, there are other places there that still look the same, it's really weird. Nature of a college town though, you know?

AC: I saw on Twitter you shared the Tom Petty song "Walls." Given that he has strong Gainesville roots, how much of his music has been influential to you, whether it be songwriting, structure or sound?

LJG: Yeah, you know, it's kind of f---ing crazy in ways that I didn't have anything to do with. I grew up an Army brat. My dad was in the Army and before I moved to Florida in 1992, I lived overseas in Italy. When I was like 10 years old, my dad got me my first CD player and also a copy of Tom Petty's "Full Moon Fever." Then, when my parents divorced and I moved to Naples, Florida, by then I started playing guitar. I had an acoustic guitar, but I wanted an electric guitar. So my dad got me my first electric guitar, which was a Traveling Wilburys model. It wasn't a great guitar, but it was my first electric guitar. By the time I moved to Gainesville when I was 18 years old, I had already become familiar with all the rest of his body of work, the videos on MTV and stuff like that.

I was thinking about this the other day actually when I was listening to "Walls." One of my biggest f---ing life regrets was around 2002, not that I'm a drummer at all, but at one point Stan Lynch (the drummer in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) had the Vistalite kit that he played on the song "American Girl" for sale in his shop. I want to say he was only asking like 10 grand. At the time I was like, "Jesus Christ, $10,000? I could never afford that." But now I look back like "You f---ing idiot. You should have done anything possible to get that 10 grand and buy it."

At the same time, the twin reverb amplifier that I played on every single Against Me! record and still use to record to this day, I bought off Stan Lynch. My 1964 Jaguar Fender guitar that I recorded the "Bought to Rot" record with and use pretty much exclusively as a studio guitar — because it's too nice of a guitar to tour with — I bought off of Stan Lynch. I also saw Tom Petty play in 2006 at UF. Stevie Nicks was there. It was incredible. The impact and influence he's had on my life is kind of immeasurable in ways that I don't even understand.

And speaking of guitars, I have always been drawn to Rickenbackers and the first time I ever saw a Rickenbacker was when Tom Petty was holding one. I also got to know his second cousin, PJ Fancher, through touring with the Graba** Charletons.

Gainesville is a small town, so it was kind of inevitable, but I think he's a really important part of Gainesville. I think that his impact and legacy doesn't even need to be commented on because it's so obvious how much he's done.

AC: I've seen you tweet a few times during Fest weekend that you wish you were there. It's been a while, but this upcoming tour has six Florida shows on it. Was that primarily because of the gap since your last time playing here?

LJG: Pretty much. With Fest, it's tough to make it because it falls on the weekend of my daughter's birthday and I don't want to miss that. I still have family in Florida so I still go down to visit regularly, but I do miss playing Florida shows. I miss Florida desperately. I know there is a lot of bull---- right now around Florida, especially with (Ron) DeSantis. F--- DeSantis to hell, 100 times and back. But nonetheless, I still love Florida. I still think it's one of the most unique places in the world and, esthetically, Florida offers something that's still really untapped and unrepresented.

AC: There's so much happening politically in Florida right now that seems to have ramped up since the pandemic. But considering your dislike for Chicago and reasons for liking St. Louis, could you ever see yourself moving back in the midst of this political environment?

LJG: I don't know, but there's a strange part of me, with these Florida shows coming up, that hears a voice saying, "Hey, this could be the last time you're ever able to be in Florida." There is a distinct possibility that they may make a person like myself illegal in Florida. It seems like that's the overall intent of everything (lawmakers) are doing by targeting transgender youth. They're just like laying the foundation to then come after transgender people in general. It's always a strange thing to know there is that danger where a person can be outlawed. Even just the idea of being targeted as a parent because I have a kid and I'm transgender. Those things terrify me.

At the same time, the most politicizing and pivotal moments in my life happened because of tyrants in Florida, or abuses of power by people in Florida, whether those were police officers or people in the church. It's disgusting, abhorrent behavior that only leads to fascism. I think it's pretty obvious that DeSantis has ambitions to be president. He is a brute, and there's no intellect happening other than his lust for power and control, and to dehumanize certain groups of people and make Florida a white nationalist safe haven. It's been about serving the Republican base and I think it's f---ing disgusting.

They're coming after school pretty hard, so eventually, they're going to come after UF or Santa Fe College. They're grifting people, too, in a way with (climate change) as if the hurricanes aren't getting worse, as if Florida is headed into some real f---ing severe problems. And with my family down in South Florida and knowing what the hurricane damage has already done to insurance rates and stuff. Like what's the plan there? How are you going to get around that? Make your police state and see what happens.

For tickets to shows on the upcoming tour, visit www.laurajanegrace.com/tour. Here are all the stops:

April 5 - Columbia, MO - Blue Note

April 6 - Kansas City, MO - Knuckleheads Saloon

April 7 - Little Rock, AR - White Water Tavern

April 8 - Memphis, TN - Minglewood Hall - 1884 Lounge

April 11 - Atlanta GA - Masquerade - Purgatory Stage

April 12 - Tallahassee, FL - 926 Bar and Grill

April 14 - Gainesville, FL - High Dive

April 15 - Orlando, FL - The Social

April 16 - St. Petersburg, FL - The Floridian

April 18 - Fort Lauderdale, FL - Culture Room

April 19 - Jacksonville, FL - Jack Rabbits

April 21 - Winston Salem, NC - The Ramkat

April 22 - Charlotte, NC - Neighborhood Theatre

April 23 - Charleston, SC - Charleston Pour House

April 25 - Asheville, NC - Salvage Station

April 26 - Chattanooga, TN - Barrelhouse Ballroom

April 28 - Nashville, TN - Third Man Records - Blue Room

April 29 - Louisville, KY - Zanzabar

April 30 - Chicago, IL - House of Blues * w/ The Interrupters

May 7 - Boston, MA - MGM Music Hall at Fenway * w/ Frank Turner & The Interrupters

May 9 - Harrisburg, PA - Club XL Live * w/ Frank Turner

May 11 - Portland, ME - Aura

May 12 - New York, NY - Pier 17 The Rooftop * w/ Frank Turner & The Interrupters

May 13 - Asbury Park, NJ - Stone Pony Summerstage * w/ Frank Turner & The Interrupters

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Laura Jane Grace ready to hit the road, talks Tom Petty, DeSantis