Love, Magic, & Music: Melissa Auf der Maur on her new memoir
It was a week before the release of Melissa Auf der Maur’s new memoir and Courtney Love had just set the music world abuzz with a post that seemed to suggest a Hole reunion.
As it turns out, Melissa knew about as little about it as the rest of us did, but that isn’t to say she was all that surprised. When you’ve been the sidekick and confidante to one of music’s most unpredictable and provocative stars, surprise doesn’t come easily.
‘Music, and relationships in music, are as magical and mysterious as love. And she is magical and mysterious. I mean, you never know what is gonna happen. Are you going to be in love with your partner forever? Are you going to get married? Get divorced? Are you going to have sex every night, or not have sex at all? These are things nobody knows. I can legitimately tell you that I have no idea what is happening.’
While the myth of the reunion was dispelled, there is so much in that response that is uniquely Melissa. It’s that demeanor, perspective, and come-what-may attitude that attracted the likes of Billy Corgan, Courtney Love, Dave Grohl, and so many more. And it’s that gentleness and almost philosophical nonchalance that fills her memoir, giving its unique tone and point of view.
Released on St. Patrick’s Day—Melissa’s fifty fourth birthday, not to mention the birthday of her ‘spiritual fucking cowboy’ Billy Corgan— Even the Good Girls Will Cry is a memoir that chronicles the heyday, bliss, and tragedy of the 90s rock music scene through the eyes of a young Montreal DJ and aspiring musician who would quickly be hurled into the middle of the biggest shitshow of all.
At twenty two, Auf der Maur joined Hole, at the recommendation of Billy Corgan and the continued insistence of Courtney Love. Kurt Cobain had just died, and a few months later, Hole’s bassist, Kristen Pfaff, would follow, leaving the band looking to fill the position for an already-planned world tour to support their amazing new record. A few weeks later, Auf der Maur was on stage headlining Glastonbury. The rest, as they say, is history. A well-chronicled one that would lead to stints in the Smashing Pumpkins, a romance with Dave Grohl, and the amazing ability to close one magical chapter and immediately begin another.
‘Billy was the gateway,’ Auf der Maur notes. ‘He was the mentor. He's the reason why I fell into this world. Courtney was the fearless feminist that taught me so much about how misogynistic and shitty this world is. By witnessing her being burned at the stake, I learned much more about it. And then Dave was the guy who opened my heart. The one who allowed me to fall in love for the first time. These are all just matter of fact, deeply personal experiences that happen to play out on a weird public stage. For some weird reason, this psychedelic girl happened to get trapped into a really complicated web of these three people who were all much bigger, not just personas in the world, but forces that had zeitgeist moments wrapped around them.’
Part travelogue, part diary, part dream journal, Even the Good Girls Will Cry combines these personal experiences with larger than life pop culture figures with philosophical meditations on the crazy fairytale she found herself in.
‘I was an obsessive photographer and diary keeper. I didn't wanna forget anything because I knew that history was happening, but I also knew that psychotic things were happening and I would never be able to understand it until later. Right before I turned fifty, I realized that was a milestone of human maturity that would be a very reasonable, handsome time to look back. A quarter of a century seems like a healthy timeline to gain new perspective and unpack things that you’ve done.’
Aur der Maur’s memoir is out now, with a companion photobook and art opening coming in the fall. ‘It's two projects—it's the photographer girl, and the girl who writes about it. After all those incredible decades I had in music, I finally get to explore them in new ways of communication.’
During our video call, Melissa flips through books of intimate photos of friends and icons, many of which were developed at one-hour photo shops before shows. A large whiteboard behind her maps the layout of the upcoming book of photography. ‘That book is going to the printer this week. It's the visceral version of the memoir in that it's just photos, but there are cool essays from curators and photo historians. For me, it's finally getting to present the obsessive photographer in me. This was my art form on the road.’
Melissa’s first photo show, held in Brooklyn in 2001, was cut short following 9/11. Now, twenty-five Septembers later, her work will be back on display, this time at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. ‘I’m working on the last room, which is trying to embody the two most magical feelings. There’s me alone in a dark room, in my diary, in my four-track recording. Alone. That like womb-like alone. When I'm in tune with that, it feels so good. On the other flip side of it is me on a stage with wild uncontrollable characters channeling the music of the gods to an ocean of beautiful open ears and open hearts. Those two extremes of me alone and me in the great cosmos of human sharing through the magic of music, with the bass as my frequency, those are my two favorite spots.’
As we wrap up our discussion, we return to the future, and to the possible future Courtney Love seemed to tease the world with earlier this month. ‘When I'm done with 2026, I will be purged and lightweight. And I don't know what that future will be. As I said, the mystery of music and the people in it are all on par with love. You can't force it. And love and magic and music are all intertwined. And you know, that's why I don't know if Courtney and I are ever gonna share a stage together. That’s why I don’t know if I’mI ever gonna play with Billy again? Who knows? I do know that if I purge all of this and share all of my love and honest critiques of the time and of the people in it, I'll be more likely to have a big exciting future that is modern– an existence, unburdened by my nineties definition.’
With ’Even the Good Girls Will Cry,’ Melissa Auf der Maur provides a clear, wide-eyed look at a blurry decade. It’s a levelheaded glimpse at larger-than-life figures from a credible, compassionate narrator whose life seemed to bounce effortlessly from one adventure to the next. It was a decade defined by heroes and heroin, musical diversity, expansion, and acceptance. It was a time of new subgenres, festivals, and the last true era of analog media. By waiting three decades to share her story, we are able to look back at a high water mark of music and culture and see just how changed, and changed forever.
Sidebar: Looking back at your work over your career, what are your favorite, most meaningful songs from each band?
‘I can, because of my association with emotional memories of things that happened and then also bass frequencies. So I'll pick one from each.’
Hole:
‘Use Once and Destroy,’ which she always called ‘Melissa's Song.’ It's on Celebrity Skin and it's a bass and drum written by me and Patty. That is the most me. Whereas the rest of me in Hole is me supporting the band leaders and wondering how can I bring my style to their style versus like, who am I? So, ‘Use Once and Destroy.’ But in terms of the classic Live Through This, ‘Miss World’ has always been it. People always focus on ‘Doll Parts,’ and I get it. That is the feminist anthem. But ‘Miss World’– the simplicity and power of that song of just one riff the whole way through. Quiet, loud, quiet loud, quiet loud. Such an anthemic, brilliant. For me, that is the song of that album, especially because of the iconic cover of the record. That idea of this melting beauty queen and that moment.
Smashing Pumpkins:
With the Pumpkins, there are two. It's the song that changed my life when I first saw them, ‘I Am One.’ And then it's the one I'm in the video for, ‘Everlasting Gaze.’ When I joined the Pumpkins onstage last year in Montreal, I played that song. ‘Everlasting Gaze’ somehow just fits. That's where Billy is. He and I share a lot of—I don't even know what the fuck it is—frequency and vibes. I just did his podcast and on this podcast was the first time Billy Corgan—who's known me since I was nineteen, before I even played bass— analyzed my style of bass playing. I was like, why did it take til now for my music mentor to break down exactly what style I have? He said, “well, it's because when you came and joined us on stage in Montreal last year. The moment you got back up on stage, it's like, ‘oh, that's Melissa's feel.’ I was like, tell me more. So I've learned a bunch about myself and those are the songs I love.
Solo:
And then for me, on my solo record, ‘Followed the Waves.’ It was the first single off the first solo record I made. When I wrote that I had just left the Pumpkins. It was one of the first songs of my own where I realized I can write rock music myself at home on a four-track. And, um, that song is one of my favorites to play.
Nolan Gawron is a writer, photographer, radio deejay, and dad —hopefully not in that order. One of his first major musical awakenings came in the years covered in Melissa’s memoir, so the stories hit extra hard. His radio show In With the Out Sound airs every Tuesday from 6-8pm Eastern on Uncertain.FM.