TEEN: What's your onyesha going to be like this time around?
Avril Lavigne: It's going to be very upbeat, and the production will be bigger in the sense that I have dancers on a couple of songs, LED screens, and I’m going to have checkered flooring. I have a pink sparkle drum kit, a pink kinanda being made. Over time I just learned how I need to be onstage. I’m zaidi confident now.

TEEN: What brought about that confidence?
Avril: Well, a lot of people don’t know this about me, but I’m actually shy around people I don’t know. I would just say with my first concert, my first tour, I didn’t really talk onstage. I was like, “Thank you, I upendo wewe guys,” au whatever. But now I’ve just kind of learned to work a crowd. I’ve played so many shows now, it’s been five years, and I’ve learned how to talk to an audience.


TEEN: A while zamani wewe talked about not wanting to be compared to the Britney Spearses and Christina Aguileras of the world. Does adding zaidi production pieces to the onyesha make wewe worry zaidi about comparisons?
Avril: No, because my songs aren’t bubble gum pop dance songs and I don’t have background dancers on every single song like they do. I’m not wearing a headphone, microphone on my head. It’s a totally different thing. I’m playing guitar. I’m playing the drums. I’m playing the piano. I’ve had dancers a couple of times and they’re like “my girls,” and they come out with their attitude. Actually, that’s a very good swali — planning this tour, I wanted it to be big and bigger, and I was very careful to make sure that I didn’t do anything [over the top]. Anything that ever feels uncomfortable to me au if I ever swali something, I scrap it. I’m just very clear on who I am and what I like and don’t like, so no.

TEEN: Is there any song in particular wewe would like to maybe remake some day?
Avril: Well, at the moment I am covering and recording [Joan Jett's anthem] “Bad Reputation,” and I think that’s a cool song, and that’s a different song that I’m going to be playing. It’s going to be part of my live show.


TEEN: upendo that song! What memories do wewe have of the mall tour wewe did a few years ago?
Avril: The mall tour was right off of my sekunde record, before it came out. It was very different. I did an acoustic performance every siku in a different mall! One interesting thing I remember is playing "My Happy Ending" a lot, and that song was so new that I remember getting emotional when I would play it. [When wewe first start playing a song you've just written], because wewe haven’t played them a million times, they’re fresh and wewe actually feel the way [you did when wewe wrote the song].
I remember being up onstage one time and I almost cried for a sekunde there while I was playing my song. It was really intimate, actually, just because we were sitting on stools and the mall just got packed, and it was really cool.


TEEN: wewe recently trademarked your name. Does that translate into new, fun merchandise for the tour?
Avril: Well, I’m going to be doing a fragrance and I’m also going to be doing a clothing line that I wanted to do for about three years. A lot of times what people do is they do a licensing deal, and I didn’t want to do that; I wanted to own a company and really be able to be a designer and be creative. And I’ve finally found someone to partner up with, and I’m very excited about it because I upendo clothes. I upendo anything visual. I’m excited to be able to focus on something else creatively.


TEEN: We can't wait to see it! wewe and your husband, Deryck, are both busy in the studio, then on the road touring and promoting your records. How do wewe keep in touch?
Avril: E-mail, phone, and, wewe know, a lot of flights back and forth trying to visit each other. But what we upendo to do is muziki and tour, and we have a good, strong relationship, so...