Melissa Auf der Maur Reflects on Courtney Love and 90s Rock in New Memoir
In a candid and revealing new memoir, Melissa Auf der Maur, the former bassist for the iconic rock band Hole, offers a tender, dishy, and wildly funny account of her time in a group marked by tragedy and chaos. Speaking exclusively to Adam White, Auf der Maur delves into themes of beauty, trauma, her inevitable romance with Nirvana's Dave Grohl, and her determined effort to reshape public perception of Courtney Love.
The Glue Between Worlds: Auf der Maur's Role in Hole
Imagine the Nineties rock band Hole as a sprawling American house. If frontwoman Courtney Love embodies the hurricane door, the library, the broken faucet, and the pentagram scrawled on the basement floor, then Melissa Auf der Maur is the wind chime hanging outside on the front porch. When Hole transitioned from the indignant poetry of songs like "Teenage Whore" and "Doll Parts" to the luxurious radio hits of "Celebrity Skin" and "Malibu," it was Auf der Maur, the ethereal Canadian on bass, who served as the essential glue connecting both worlds. Her background vocals, those gorgeous oohs and aahs, trailed Love's guttural fury, adding a layer of calm and beauty to the darkest of spaces.
This role extended beyond music into reality. The 22-year-old Auf der Maur joined Hole in the summer of 1994, mere weeks after the fatal overdose of original bass player Kristen Pfaff and months after the suicide of Love's husband, Kurt Cobain. "Someone recently called me a monster whisperer," the 54-year-old laughs today. "I have a high tolerance for people who are a tiny bit difficult. My parents were radicals, and that trained me in how to deal with unexpected things. But instead of deciding to shed it all and have a more mellow life, I joined a wild rock band and lived on the road for 17 years."
Unpacking the Past: A Memoir of Chaos and Healing
Now, Auf der Maur has chronicled this journey in her book, Even the Good Girls Will Cry. The memoir traces the craggy chaos of her life, from her nomadic upbringing as the daughter of a second-wave feminist bohemian mother and a prominent journalist father to her tumble through Montreal's counter-culture music scene and into the maximalist chaos of Nineties alt-rock. It paints her as the zen interloper in a world defined by addiction and early death, blending scenes of unbearable tragedy with moments of absurd humor, such as Courtney Love performing a lewd magic trick with a lit cigarette.
She wrote the book for her 14-year-old daughter, to fill in gaps and answer questions, and to allow herself to move on. "By putting it all down, I've allowed myself to feel differently about it," she says. "It's like therapy – you just talk it through and let it go." In a Zoom interview from her home in upstate New York, where she lives with her husband and daughter and runs an arts centre, Auf der Maur reflects on the era with clarity and insight.
Reframing Courtney Love: A Complex Contradiction
Courtney Love looms large in the narrative, portrayed as a mad genius philosopher, as destructive as she is beguiling. Auf der Maur recounts how musicians warned her off Love, how Sonic Youth went after her publicly, and how she was endlessly pilloried amid wild speculation about her marriage, parenting, and the circumstances of Cobain's suicide. "I made a very determined commitment to reframe a very misunderstood, Medusa-style power-goddess," Auf der Maur explains. "This woman is so special, and was treated so terribly by the music community and by the press. I've always been protective of her, even though I lived in the chaos of her world. She is a maniac and a hero – and yes, you can be both at the same time. She is a complex contradiction of everything."
Her time in Hole was not without challenges. Her closest friend in the band, drummer Patty Schemel, descended into heroin addiction and was replaced on Celebrity Skin. Love herself spun in and out of addiction, distancing herself from the band to chase movie stardom. Amid this, Auf der Maur's father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and she became fixated on her image, embodying the frozen beauty of a rock glamazon.
Faxed Insights and Evolving Perspectives
The memoir includes two frank and evocative faxes from Love at the peak of Hole's success. One from 1998, during an argument over the "Malibu" video, sees Love writing about stars like Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, and the power of innate beauty. "I don't have the luxury of your bones," she wrote. "DON'T GET TRAPPED BY YOUR BEAUTY!! Because you are better than just beautiful." At the time, Auf der Maur found the letter "manipulative and hypocritical," but her perspective has shifted. "I was so disillusioned," she says. "I had lost my father. I was in deep grief. I'd become an ice princess. And reading those faxes 25 years later, I see someone so engaged and tuned into me. I'm one of the few people who will receive that level of her love and support." Today, they are closer than ever, with Auf der Maur contributing vocals to Love's forthcoming solo record.
Life After Hole: Love, Loss, and Legacy
Auf der Maur departed Hole in 1999, burnt out and grieving. She then began a relationship with Nirvana's Dave Grohl, adding another strand to the dysfunctional soap opera of Nineties rock. "The parallels of the two happy non-drug addicts of Hole and Nirvana," she laughs. "We didn't see it at the time – the profound, shared, weird role we played in rock mythology. Or, as they call it now, 'shared trauma'. There were wounds there we hadn't yet begun to unpack." They were together for three years, a period Auf der Maur recalls as one of transition and self-discovery.
In 2006, she moved to Hudson, New York, married filmmaker Tony Stone, and had her daughter River in 2011. "I promised myself I wasn't going to go back on the road and instead experience a different type of life," she says. "Like what would happen if I stayed in the same bed for not only months on end, but years? So now I have this adult life of the same house, the same view, the same kitchen sink. It's f***ing crazy to me." River, who makes music herself, hasn't yet read the memoir but wrote a song inspired by its title, a gift that brought Auf der Maur to her knees.
As mothers to girls, Auf der Maur, Love, and Schemel find joy in watching the next generation of women in music. "We tried to do so much, and we did do so much, but there's also such joy in getting to watch the women of the future do their work, too – and through the eyes of our daughters," she reflects. Even the Good Girls Will Cry: My 90s Rock Memoir is out now, offering a poignant and humorous look at a defining era in rock history.
