The Rules of Winning

[July 4th, 2007]

Morgan Grace claims to "epitomize independent," which makes her a far-from-obvious choice for an American Idol contest. But a chance MySpace visit and one good pop song earned her just such a title—and 10 grand, to boot.

"There was a thing on MySpace where normally it would be like, 'Shave her legs and win a free iPod!'" Grace explains, "But it said, 'American Idol Underground, upload your songs.' So I [did]." Then, last August, the local rocker's "The Rules of Dating"—a "teenybopper" tune advising listeners how not to scare off a man—won her $10,000 and the title of first place in the online music community's songwriting contest.

Feeling as if the heavens parted just for her—much like she describes receiving her first nylon-string guitar on Christmas, 1989—Grace used an AIU-issued voucher to press 1,000 more copies of her 2003 debut, The Rules of Dating. She wanted to give the title, winning track its due, and she included a few previously unreleased demos (and a track of her talking with Def Leppard on Rockline) to sweeten the pot.

When asked to describe her competition during our afternoon meeting at the Green Room, Grace says, "This will be an exercise in diplomacy: 'The Rules of Dating' is trite, but it has a certain charm. It's super lo-fi, not L.A.-slick, polished perfection, which is where everything else was coming from." And, oddly enough, the 29-year-old says, "There was no promise of any kind of major label...and all of the prizes were totally geared toward helping me stay independent, [which was] great. Pay me and leave me alone."

The accomplishment Grace is most proud of, though, is quitting alcohol. And music played a part in that, as well. She says of longtime drummer Sam Henry (the Wipers, I Can Lick Any SOB in the House): "We met in 2004...I quit drinking in 2004, and he was just getting clean and sober himself, [which] made us fast friends. I call everything before that the 'B.S.' era, you know, 'Before Sam.' Back when I sucked, back when I was a drunken hag."

Grace mentions that she and Henry also come from the same "weird place of having this total love for punk rock and this total passion for jazz. Rocking and swinging at the same time," ponders Grace, "it's a feat." The striking brunette says of her band (which is currently rounded out by bassist Allen Hunter of the Eels): "We don't really fit anywhere. We've played dirty punk shows with Dead Moon, and the first thing I ever did was on Hush Records. So, whatever."

After operating for years as what she calls "a shit-talking, confrontational, nightmare of a person," Grace is happy to be working on new, deeper material for her third full-length, Eyes In the Back of My Head. Over a nonalcoholic beer and several hand-rolled cigarettes, Grace—who cites the Go-Gos and Glenn Danzig as equal influences—sums up her career as only she can: "It's a lot cooler to write a song about a painful experience than it is to punch somebody in the face—which, I've done that, too. Thank God for music."