Singer wants to set the record straight

Lavigne takes issue with image and wants her musicianship to be recognized.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Avril Lavigne knows her image: a moody, teen rock star with an acidic tongue, steely stare and tough-girl attitude.
"I have been labeled like I'm this angry girl -- I'm like, this rebel, I'm like, punk, and I am SO not any of them. It's so funny, and I'm actually really shy," the petite, Canadian-born Lavigne says in typical teenspeak, sitting on a hotel bed wearing a black hooded sweat shirt, grayish pants, boxy shoes and socks bearing the message "boys are dumb."
Lavigne as the one-dimensional angry rocker chick is just one misconception she hopes to dispel with the release of her second album, "Under This Skin." It's the follow-up to her monstrously successful debut, 2002's "Let Go."
Though she's only 19, Lavigne has had a profound effect on the pop world in her short career. In 2002, most teen female singing stars were little more than sexy nymphets singing prepackaged pop that was neither distinctive nor written by the stars themselves.
An alternative
Along came Lavigne -- a brash teen who didn't dye her hair blond, wear tight outfits or bounce to a bubble-gum beat. She played instruments (piano and guitar) and actually was credited with co-writing her own songs.
Girls looking for an alternative to Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera flocked to Lavigne. Her album sold more than 5 million copies and received a slew of Grammy nominations thanks to hits such as "Sk8er Boi," "I'm With You," and "Complicated."
Though she's not fond of the term, Lavigne became the anti-Britney -- and flourished because of it.
"I get fan letters like all the time ... and pretty much every letter just talks about, 'Thank you for not being Britney Spears. I love how you're yourself and you stand up and you're strong,"' she says in a little girl's voice. "I came out and I was myself, dressing, like, my own way."
It wasn't just Lavigne's look -- today her hair is light brown with black streaks -- that got people's attention. She was billed as a true artist. Many adult performers don't write their own material, so a 17-year-old doing so made Lavigne seem even more authentic.
Contributions questioned
On her biggest hits, she was paired with the then-unknown production trio known as The Matrix, who were also listed as co-writers. But after The Matrix started becoming ubiquitous as pop writers and producers -- working with everyone from Liz Phair to even Spears and Hilary Duff -- some people started wondering how much Lavigne had actually contributed to her hits. It didn't help that the trio, who declined to be interviewed for this article, later seemed to be diminishing Lavigne's contributions.
The issue still gets Lavigne steamed.
"I've been writing since I was a little girl. I've been playing guitar since I was a little girl. I've been writing full-on songs since I was 14; like, full-structured songs," she says defiantly. "I am a writer, and I won't accept people trying to take that away from me, and anyone who does is ignorant and doesn't know what they're talking about -- and don't you dare!"
New collaborators
Not surprisingly, The Matrix is absent from "Under My Skin." Lavigne instead co-wrote most of the songs with fellow Canadian singer Chantal Kreviazuk -- whom she calls her new best friend. She also worked with Ben Moody, formerly of the Grammy-winning duo Evanescence.
Lavigne, who lets out a few little snide digs at her former production team -- "I didn't want it to be all, cheesy programming" -- beams when she describes working with Kreviazuk and her husband, Raine Maida of the group Our Lady Peace (he produced some of the album). She even lived in the pair's California home while recording "Under My Skin."
Kreviazuk says Lavigne was in complete control of the album and its artistic flow.
"She's just so motivated, so driven, when she sat down to write a song, she was just a pistol," she says. "I think that it's quite hilarious that people are saying the opposite, because she's so much a part of the songwriting process."
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