Avril Lavigne

A member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, he married Lucie Dzierzbicki, a French native of Morhange in 1953.

Their son, Jean-Claude Lavigne, was born in 1954 at RCAF Station Grostenquin near Grostenquin, Lorraine.

When Jean-Claude was a child, the family moved to Ontario, and in 1975, he married Judith-Rosanne "Judy" Loshaw.

When Lavigne was 5, the family moved to Napanee (now incorporated as Greater Napanee), a town with a population of approximately 5,000 at the time.

Also when she was 5, she was diagnosed with ADHD, which caused her several problems during her school years.

Her parents supported her singing; her father bought her a microphone, a drum kit, a keyboard, and several guitars, and he converted their basement into a studio.

Following his own love for music, Jean-Claude led the family to church at Third Day Worship Centre in Kingston, where he often played bass.

When Lavigne was 14 years old, her parents took her to karaoke sessions.

Lavigne performed at country fairs, singing songs by Garth Brooks, the Chicks, and Shania Twain.

She began writing her own songs.

Her first song was called "Can't Stop Thinking About You", about a teenage crush, which she described as "cheesy cute".

Lavigne also played hockey during high school and won MVP twice as a right winger in a boys league.

Avril Ramona Lavigne (, ; born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian singer-songwriter.

Avril Ramona Lavigne was born on September 27, 1984, in Belleville, Ontario.

She was named Avril (the French word for April) by her father.

He and Lavigne's mother recognized their child's vocal abilities when she was two years old and sang "Jesus Loves Me" on the way home from church.

Lavigne has an older brother named Matthew and a younger sister named Michelle, both of whom teased her when she sang.

"My brother used to knock on the wall because I used to sing myself to sleep and he thought it was really annoying."

She is the sister-in-law of Japanese band One OK Rock bassist Ryota Kohama.

Lavigne's paternal grandfather Maurice Yves Lavigne was born in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec.

In 1999, Lavigne won a radio contest to perform with Canadian singer Shania Twain at the Corel Centre in Ottawa, before an audience of 20,000 people.

Twain and Lavigne sang Twain's song, "What Made You Say That", and Lavigne told Twain that she aspired to be "a famous singer".

During a performance with the Lennox Community Theatre, Lavigne was spotted by local folksinger Stephen Medd.

He invited her to contribute vocals on his song, "Touch the Sky", for his 1999 album, Quinte Spirit.

In December 1999, Lavigne was discovered by her first professional manager, Cliff Fabri, while singing country covers at a Chapters bookstore in Kingston.

Fabri sent out VHS tapes of Lavigne's home performances to several industry prospects, and Lavigne was visited by several executives.

Mark Jowett, co-founder of a Canadian management firm, Nettwerk, received a copy of Lavigne's karaoke performances recorded in her parents' basement.

She is considered a key musician in the development of pop-punk music, as she paved the way for female-driven, punk-influenced pop music in the early 2000s.

Her accolades include eight Grammy Award nominations, among others.

At age 16, Lavigne signed a two-album recording contract with Arista Records.

She later sang on "Temple of Life" and "Two Rivers" for his follow-up album, My Window to You, in 2000.

Jowett arranged for Lavigne to work with producer Peter Zizzo during the summer of 2000 in New York, where she wrote the song "Why".

Lavigne was noticed by Arista Records during a trip to New York.

In November 2000, Ken Krongard, an A&R representative, invited Antonio "L.A." Reid, then head of Arista Records, to Zizzo's Manhattan studio to hear Lavigne sing.

Her debut studio album, Let Go (2002), is the best-selling album of the 21st century by a Canadian artist.

It yielded the successful singles "Complicated" and "Sk8er Boi", which emphasized a skate punk persona and earned her the title "Pop-Punk Queen" from music publications.

Her second studio album, Under My Skin (2004), became Lavigne's first album to reach the top of the Billboard 200 chart in the United States, going on to sell 10 million copies worldwide.

Lavigne's third studio album, The Best Damn Thing (2007), reached number one in seven countries worldwide and saw the international success of its lead single "Girlfriend", which became her first single to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States.

Her next two studio albums, Goodbye Lullaby (2011) and Avril Lavigne (2013), saw continued commercial success and were both certified gold in Canada, the United States, and other territories.

After releasing her sixth studio album, Head Above Water (2019), she returned to her punk roots with her seventh studio album, Love Sux (2022).