Entertainment

Avril Lavigne doesn't feel a need to grow up at all.

That's predictable. When you're on the A-list of Canadian pop stars (and that list is longer than you might think) with three multimillion-selling albums of teen pop-rock on your résumé, change isn't going to be a priority.

But at age 23, she's way past complicated "sk8er boi" infatuations. And as a married woman since 2006 (to Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley), she's probably not prone to hating on others' girlfriends in song these days. So what's adulthood going to do to the reigning queen of punk pop?

Not much. Not yet.

"I never really think about it; I just do what I do," Ms. Lavigne said from her home in LA before beginning her current tour, which stops at Superpages.com Center on Saturday night. "When I get off this tour and make my next record, I'm not going to be like, 'What do people want? What do I do?' It's going to be about how I'm feeling and the kind of music that I want to write, whether it's more mellow, or whether it's still rockin', or whether it's dark lyrically, or intense, or serious, or more playful."

Ms. Lavigne says she's hands-off that way; she's a creator and performer and nothing more. She leaves the business side alone: "That's why you have a million people that work for you," she notes.

It's an exceptionally fortunate situation, of course – one that came in handy last year when at least two accusations of plagiarism (including one from former Canadian songwriting collaborator Chantal Kreviazuk) were silenced.

But Ms. Lavigne's a worldwide star, and her popularity in the United States is only part of the equation.

"In different countries, the age of the fan base varies," she says. "America is easily the youngest crowd for me. In Europe and Asia, it's older. In North America, I noticed that my first record (2002's Let Go ) attracted younger fans, and when I put my second record out (2004's Under My Skin), I saw more people my age and older coming."

The point? As a whole, Ms. Lavigne's fans are as adult as she is. So she's going to keep doing what she does, living in the now and bucking music-biz trends such as free-falling album sales and immediate and lengthy touring to support a studio release.

After all, this trek hits Dallas more than a year after her current disc, The Best Damn Thing, hit shelves.

It's a larger production with dancers, wardrobe changes, an LED light display and other tricks.

And according to Ms. Lavigne, the tour has sold well despite the delay after The Best Damn Thing's release.

"It's a rockin' show, just like the old days," she says, "but there's moments where it winds down and I do acoustic stuff with my band. I play the piano, I play the guitar, I play the drums. Heck, I play the drums and sing!"

It all still works, and famously.

So why grow up?