Polyvinyl Record Co. and Laura Jane Grace are pleased to announce the Friday, July 18th release of ‘Adventure Club’ from Laura Jane Grace In The Trauma Tropes, a new and incendiary, 12-song collection exploring the archetypical hero’s journey tropes from classic Greek mythology: love, war, trust, betrayal, virtue & vice, iced coffee drinks — it’s all there, and so is the fun! Featuring the help of Grace’s wife and collaborator Paris Campbell Grace (vocals) and Athens, Greece-based musicians Jacopo ‘Jack’ Fokas (bass) and Orestis Lagadinos (drums), ‘Adventure Club’ is the product of a month-long, life-changing trip and songwriting retreat in Greece that came by way of a Fellowship grant through the Onassis Foundation that provided Grace with the inspiration to create some of the best punk she’s ever made.
Like classic power-pop propelled by Oi!’s revolutionary oomph, Grace’s new single, ‘Mine Me Mine,’ lambastes endless capitalist avarice, or how it is used to manufacture suffering for others. Additionally, Grace will be making numerous North American appearances this spring and summer with Murder By Death, Alex Lahey, PET NEEDS, and Rodeo Boys in select markets starting next week. Tickets for all shows are on sale via Grace’s website, and a full listing of dates can be found below.
Before the phrase ‘Adventure Club’ became the title of Laura Jane Grace’s electrifying new album, it was the name for her gaggle of adventurous friends in Greece. In the summer of 2024, Grace joined an artist residency program in Athens, embedding with Greek punk rockers and exploring the ancient landscape and the city’s vibrant culture. They dove from beaches nestled in seaside caves into the Aegean and swam with sea turtles. They submitted to tourism, seeing the Parthenon and Epidaurus and breaking into the Panathenaic Stadium to run its track. They became addicted to Freddo espresso, a locals-only iced coffee topped with whipped milk. The lifestyle of this ‘Adventure Club’ inspired her so much that, by the time she left Greece, she’d unexpectedly finished Adventure Club, a new career apogee that recalibrates what punk rock means for her now.
Two years ago, the Onassis Foundation invited Grace to Greece. They wanted her to transform ‘Walls’, a century-old poem of isolation and doubt by Greece’s Constantine P. Cavafy, into a song for a short documentary about inmates learning to express themselves through film while in prison. When she traveled there in early 2024, the filmmaker assembled a pick-up band of local punk rockers (plus Paris) for a string of shows. When the brief tour was done, bad weather delayed her flight home. Waiting for her early-morning exit, she stayed up all night with the ad hoc group and Paris. They recorded a new version of ‘Walls’, then flew home in a delighted daze. When she returned six months later after earning a full residency with the Onassis Foundation, Grace co-wrote and cut an entire LP with Paris, bassist Jacopo Fokas, and drummer Orestis Lagadinos, that pickup group called The Trauma Tropes.
‘Adventure Club’ is frequently a record about learning to take up space, about feeling free to be yourself as the bullshit of our ahistoric moment mounts. Protest songs and personal tunes have never been a binary for Grace, and she delivers some of her most profound — and, yes, playful — work ever at that particular intersection here. But the most prominent thread through Adventure Club’s dozen tracks is one of evolution, of letting yourself become something new.
She talks often about her age, about nearing the second half of her 40s after a lifetime as a punk. What does it mean, really, to remain a punk for 44 years? For Grace, it is the same as it’s always been — a resolve to question everything about oneself and the world around you and to allow yourself to evolve within that framework. ‘Adventure Club’ epitomizes that spirit the way that the best of Laura Jane Grace’s music always has.
The young punk from Florida may never have imagined making a record in Greece, but it does not change the spirit of the songs that inspired them: to create a place where we’re all burdened by less bullshit, whether it’s our own baggage or the stuff that autocrats, capitalists, and assholes simply want to put on us because they don’t know the thrill of being happy and free themselves. Maybe they need to try writing a rock song, or simply jump into the sea.
‘Adventure Club’ tracklist:
01. WWIII Revisited
02. Wearing Black
03. I Love To Get High
04. Active Trauma
05. New Years Day
06. Mine Me Mine
07. Your God (God’s D*ck)
08. Fuck You Harry Potter
09. Poison In Me
10. Espresso Freddie
11. Free Cigarettes
12. Walls
Upcoming tour dates:
April 1st — Off Broadway — St. Louis, MO
April 2nd — xBk Live — Des Moines, IA
April 4th — Aggie Theatre — Fort Collins, CO
April 5th — Meow Wolf — Denver, CO
April 6th — The Black Sheep — Colorado Springs, CO
April 8th — Meow Wolf — Santa Fe, NM
April 9th — Crescent Ballroom — Phoenix, AZ
April 11th — Music Box — San Diego, CA
April 12th — Pappy & Harriet’s — Pioneertown, CA
April 13th — Teragram Ballroom — Los Angeles, CA
April 15th — Ventura Music Hall — Ventura, CA
April 16th — Felton Music Hall — Felton, CA
April 18th — Cornerstone Berkeley — Berkeley, CA
April 19th — Mystic Theatre — Petaluma, CA
April 21st — The Domino Room — Bend, OR
April 22nd — Holocene — Portland, OR
April 23rd — Wild Buffalo — Bellingham, WA
April 24th — Neumos — Seattle, WA
April 25th — District Bar — Spokane, WA
April 27th — Pub Station — Billings, MT
April 29th — Icon Lounge — Sioux Falls, SD
April 30th — Amsterdam Bar & Hall — Saint Paul, MN
June 19th — Southgate House — Newport, KY
June 20th — St. Andrew’s Hall — Detroit, MI
June 21st — The Axis Club — Toronto, ON
June 22nd — Le Studio TD — Montreal, QC
June 23rd — Bearsville Theater — Woodstock, NY
June 25th — District Music Hall — Norwalk CT
June 26th — Portland House of Music — Portland, ME
June 27th — Paradise Rock Club — Boston, MA
June 28th — Warsaw — Brooklyn, NY
June 29th — Asbury Lanes — Asbury Park, NJ
July 1st — Grog Shop — Cleveland Heights, OH
July 2nd — Grog Shop — Cleveland Heights, OH
July 5th — The Caverns — Pelham, TN
July 10th — Ottobar — Baltimore, MD
July 11th — Black Cat — Washington, DC
July 12th — Union Transfer — Philadelphia, PA
July 13th — Mr. Smalls — Pittsburgh, PA
July 15th — The Pyramid Scheme — Grand Rapids, MI
July 16th — Thalia Hall — Chicago, IL
July 17th — Thalia Hal — Chicago, IL
July 18th — Majestic Theatre — Madison, WI
