Avril Lavigne

It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing.

I think I would probably die without my eyeliner, but besides that I'm pretty basic.

It's so different now coming out as a new artist today than it was when I came out almost ten years ago. Now, it's all about singles, it's really quick, it's online. I came out when people sold records and they still do today but - I don't know what the key is.

On my first album I was wearing a lot of guys pants, baggy clothes and stuff like that. I was 17 and I was a little tomboy. And you would never see me wearing a dress or heels on my first record.

Inspiration for my music just comes from, you know, my life experiences.

I'm very free-spirited and crazy. I love to have fun, and I like doing stupid things. At the same time, I'm like a 35-year-old. I have a house. I have a car. I have a steady job. I have a business, and I have to make serious decisions.

We have parties at my house. My girlfriends and I play our iPods, with all of our favorite songs. We pick our songs and jump up on the counter and dance, and do runway stuff, and we take video with my camera. When I'm with my girlfriends, I act like I'm 19.

You get built up and put on a pedestal and then people want to bring you down. It can be hurtful. Some people try to make me look bad or not a nice person but it's completely false.

No one really knows what I'm really like, and you won't unless you spend a day with me, or if you're my friend. No one ever knows what anyone is really like. Read all the interviews you want on them, it's just the media talking and you can't really get to know someone that way, obviously.

The mall tour was right off of my second record, before it came out. It was very different. I did an acoustic performance every day 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.

My songs aren't bubble gum pop dance songs and I don't have background dancers on every single song.

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 love you guys,' or whatever. But now I've just kind of learned to work a crowd.

I have to fight to keep my image really me... I rejected some gorgeous publicity shots because they just didn't look like me.

I'm the kind of person who always likes to be doing something.

People are like, 'Well, she doesn't know the Sex Pistols.' Why would I know that stuff? Look how young I am. That stuff's old, right?

I was eating bad stuff. Lots of sugar and carbs, junk food all the time. It makes you very irritated.

You can't complain about the pressures, the paparazzi, the madness. Because that is the job. I've always understood that's the deal.

I don't fight. I don't believe in it.

I have always looked for ways to give back because I think it's a responsibility we all share.

I'm very comfortable with how I look. I always have been. I think I look pretty good. There's nothing I want to change. I'm pretty happy with what I've got.