Twenty-five-year-old rocker L.P. released her second album, Suburban Sprawl and Alcohol, in June 2004 and has been touring steadily since then. I caught her between gigs for a quick interview about her craft, her fans, and Howard Stern.

AfterEllen.com: How did you get started in music and when did you start?
L.P.: I started at 19, 20 years old. I had bands in high school, then I started writing at 19. Just crappy bands, then I got really serious in 95-96. I had a band called Lionfish, then I went solo.

AE: You had a musical family too?
LP: Yeah, my mom was an opera singer. Not that musical a family. My grandfather wrote songs and stuff like that. He had an Italian love song that was big for a while. My dad is tone deaf and my mother was an opera singer. She died. So I grew up listening to a lot of opera, but then my mom passed away when I was 18. So then I was doing rock and discovering I could sing.

AE: You do a lot of vocal lessons now, right?
LP: I studied opera for a bunch of years, but now I’m going to this rock coach. Everything is based in opera exercises, but it’s more toward a rock end. You do the exercises to build strength. I went to a rock coach because opera can teach you the proper way to use your voice, but rock coaching can teach you the proper way to abuse your voice. I do a lot of screaming; I sing really high and really hard. Before I was training, I could sing really badass for two nights in a row, but now I can push it and do ten shows in a row. That’s nice. It just gives you the freedom to sing however you want.

AE: You tour a lot. How many days a year would you say you tour?
LP: About 200 and change shows a year. That’s when we're really going full-force hardcore touring.

AE: Do you have any kind of mentor that helped you get into the rock scene?
LP: Not really, I just did it myself, singing and playing in clubs and meeting musicians. I have a manager who has really been very helpful to me. Now we break even on the road but initially he was the guy who helped me get everything and go solo. I wanted to leave my band and go solo and get out on the road.

The rock scene is kind of a social scene. Being in a band is very social. You have to be the kind of person who likes to talk to people and deal with people. Especially if you’re doing it the way I’m doing it, going the grassroots way. Maybe if you get a record deal right out of the box or something, then maybe it’s different. But if you’re doing the touring thing, you have to be a social butterfly.

And even with fans, you accumulate fans by talking with them after shows. It becomes a little scene in each town. I kinda feel like it’s a bunch of people I hang out with in every town.

AE: Do you think you have more of a lesbian fan base or mainstream fan base?
LP: It’s all over the place. I do have pockets of lesbian fans here and there. But I haven’t really gone after the lesbian following. I think that they’ll find me; I know they will. I’m out as out can be and I just keep playing.

I did a lot of touring with this band called Cracker. We got a lot of their fans, which is a different type of fan than what I would normally get if I went out by myself. So that’s been cool to set up some fans in different places. You got straight guys pounding fists in the front row, then we have some good lesbian followings in a few places.

AE: Howard Stern is a big fan of yours. Do you have an opinion on the FCC problems that are going down with him?
LP: Him going to satellite radio is a really good step. It’s going to change things. Eminem bought a whole station so he can say whatever the fuck he wants. So it’s perfect for someone like him. Howard Stern—they’ve always wanted to fuck with him. I can listen to him for five days in a row and it’s oh Howard—he’s good, he’s funny, because he has a lot of really liberal ideas that I agree with. Then he’ll say something really awful and I hate that guy, like when he gets into to the stuff with the girls.

I think satellite radio will just get bigger and bigger because people will always find a way to say what they want. I dig the underground thing; it’s cooler and it always will be.