In the 1990s, Melissa Auf der Maur played in two of the greatest alternative rock bands ever, Hole and Smashing Pumpkins, and so was uniquely placed to witness the magic and mayhem, charm and chaos of the era. She lays it all bare in unflinching detail in her fascinating new memoir, Even The Good Girls Will Cry, the best book about the shifting cultural sands of the '90s since the late Mark Lanegan's brutally unfiltered 2020 autobiography Sing Backwards And Weep.
Self-described in chapter 1 of her book as "the product of a one- night stand between two radically beautiful and adventurous souls" - her mother Linda Gaboriau was an academic, a journalist, a feminist activist and the first female rock DJ on CHOM- FM, Montreal's English-speaking rock radio station, her father Nick Auf der Maur a poet, newspaper columnist, TV personality, political rabble-rouser, and hard-drinking "boulevardier" - Auf der Maur was an artistic, confident, bohemian teenager when she fell in love with British post-punk (The Cure, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Echo and the Bunnymen) and US underground rock (Sonic Youth, Jane's Addiction, L7, Mudhoney). But it was seeing Smashing Pumpkins in a Montreal punk club, then hearing an advance copy of Nirvana's Nevermind album in the same venue, which truly altered the course of her life.
Three years later, on the recommendation of her friend and 'grunge dad' Billy Corgan, Auf der Maur joined Hole, playing her first gig with Courtney Love's band at Reading festival in front of 65,000 music fans.
"At the time my twenty-two-year-old mind was barely contemplating the enormity of it all," she writes. "This was only the seventh live rock concert that I’d ever performed in my life, and the first outside of Montreal clubs. I had joined the band only two weeks earlier and learned the set list over the course of a week’s rehearsal in Seattle.
"I felt like an absurd grunge Cinderella, who’d found herself with VIP access to the ball. To some back home, my joining Hole was the epitome of a dream. To others, it was the biggest sellout of our scene. I had been trained to not hunt for this, to not give a fuck about success. I was lockstep in line with the indie ethos of the early ’90s to not sell out. Success was weighted with guilt and shame. It felt like our self- worth was always at stake. Very confusing times for an aspiring and struggling artist."
If such conflicts and contradictions, or the alt. rock scene of the '90s mean, or ever meant, anything to you, Even The Good Girls Will Cry, is an essential read: precious few books rooted in what Auf der Maur calls the "last analog decade" reveal so poetically, and so perceptively, what it was like to be in the eye of the hurricane. And when we spoke to the New York-based musician, photographer, art space curator and writer, it's clear that revisiting her memories of navigating that turbulent decade has been an emotional, challenging and cathartic undertaking, and a process that's still on-going and evolving.
Obviously the '90s are very much in the rear view mirror, so why did you decide to do this memoir now?
It's both a deeply personal reason, and a largely global one. On a personal level I was finally ready to face the '90s, which I'd went running from, mainly because coming out of that overwhelming moment where amazing things happened, there was also a lot of pain, with all the death and drugs and corporate destruction. I needed a couple of decades to be able to unpack everything, to be able to look at that more objectively.
But then also generationally and culturally, with it now being exactly a quarter of a century since 9/11, where the book ends, I feel like that's a very healthy perspective on culture, and what has happened to society, what has happened to everything from alternative music to the woman's movement to photography. Everything that I cover in this book has gone through such a wild transformation in the last quarter of a century that I feel like it's a good moment to contribute my perspective and lens, using my personal story as a way of understanding a lot of the things that were happening in culture then. But also on a larger lens, it's just a sane, caring, considerate woman from that generation that wants to extend her knowledge to future generations of what has happened to culture, what has happened to art and music. And it's also a coming of age story.
The timing is perfect though. It's complete accidental unplanned poetry that 2026 is also the year that Courtney is going to be revealing herself, with her amazing new record and the new documentary [Antiheroine], after almost a decade in hiding. We both really looked into our own, very different, and very far away from each other lives, and have slowly been reconnecting. We couldn't have planned that the two women from Hole would have this moment where they come back with their own words and their own agency, not beholden to anyone but themselves, and we get to do it at the same time. We're really excited about this.
Your book is very revealing, very honest, and not like any other rock biography. Was it difficult for you to revisit your past, and did you have to self-edit sometimes, and think, Maybe I'll keep that memory just for me?
No, I do no self-editing. It's way too much information and way too personal. I had to just get everything out. I don't want to hold this stuff inside me anymore. I'm not cowardly, and I'm not afraid of difficulty in life, and that's probably why I was such a good fit for Hole at the time.
When I read the audio book, I cried in places I never expected, and I cried more than I expected
Melissa Auf der Maur
I needed to face this stuff face on for my own purging of it. I went through a lot of painful things, but by going through it, I feel a profound healing, and I'm ready to move on. I highly recommend writing a memoir for anyone who wants to, like, get over their shit, and be done with any old wounds. As parents, we have to deal with our crap or else our kids are going to inherit it, right?
In a recent New York Times profile, you mentioned that reading your audiobook made you cry.
Yeah, to do the audio book I read the book alone in a room for eight days, and I cried in places I never expected, and cried more than I expected. I thought that writing it would be hard, but actually putting it out in the world is also kind of hard. The hardest part, in terms of the labour of writing, is done, but I probably will cry a lot along the way, unexpectedly. But the healing will continue, the journey will continue, and I'm not afraid. A big part of why I got into music is the magic of exchange between artists and their audience, and the book is an extension of that too.
You write beautifully about the power of music, and one of the chapters in the book, about your discovery of Nirvana via Smells Like Teen Spirit, is titled 'The Song That Changed Everything'. What was it about that song that impacted so forcefully on you?
When I heard that song in the club where I worked as a ticket girl, it wasn't the melody only, or the lyrics, it was the whole package. The magic that Butch Vig captured for that band, with that tape machine, and those tube amps, and mics, just had more shine to it. And the song itself captured a zeitgeist moment. Kurt captured our generation in spirit, somehow. Music is a magic potion, and you never know when you will strike the chord of an entire generation, but he did that. When I first heard it, it was like, here we go, generation, here we go, the '90s have arrived boldly. The new sound was born through that song. And when I got an advanced cassette of the album album, I just played it all day at the bar where I worked, and I'd tell people, You don't understand, life as we know it is going to change. Don't you see? It's over. Life is never going to be the same.
And it's astonishing that you ended up in the centre of that world so quickly. You joined Hole, after saying 'No' several times, after their bassist Kristen Pfaff had passed away, and after Kurt Cobain had passed away, and obviously you knew of the trauma and the hurt around the band. In your recent appearance on Billy Corgan's podcast, you said, "I joined for that pocket of women and for the women of the world". It wasn't just about taking the opportunity to join a cool band.
Oh fuck no. First of all, as you know, I said no, because I didn't want to play in a giant band with death and drugs. No thank you. But when Courtney heard I said no, she called me on the phone and got me to come to Seattle to tell her to her face. When I arrived at the airport in Seattle, as I describe in my book, I'm coming down the escalator and slowly there's the reveal of this wild blonde woman with a cigarette and no shoes and a slip, holding a little girl's hand, and then this amazing redhead tomboy drummer [Petty Schemel], and I understood, Oh, this has nothing to do with music, these women need a bass player, and these women need support. They were alone, the managers and label were useless. This widowed woman, single mother on drugs, had nobody. And then the world decided to tear her down, and shred her, and blame her for everything.
So, yes, instinctively at that moment, I realised, Okay, I've got it, I got a job to do, my generational work as a woman, and as the daughter of a pioneering feminist. My mother broke down every wall that no woman was supposed to do in her generation, and that's what I made from.
You're fantastically grounded, but I can't imagine a more chaotic and traumatic situation to be thrown into at age 22, so I just wonder how you held yourself together in the midst of this madness?
Well, I had a bohemian, wild, non-traditional upbringing, with characters and wild people everywhere, but I was loved and I was safe. But my father being an addict helped me be very aware of addicts, I had a lot of red flags preparation, I wasn't a princess from the suburbs.
And I think that my daily journalling and photographing, and the consciousness I had to think, Holy shit, this is insane, that kept me sane and protected. The lens between me and the subjects was like a force field of some sort. By taking pictures and by writing obsessively in my diary, I was admitting, This is madness, you are in danger, be careful. I was just hyper aware and super self-aware.
When you wrote about the experience of making Celebrity Skin, and that era, there's a brilliant couple of lines where you write, "I was loving everything about my musical experience with the band. I was hating everything about my personal experience in the band. Both things were equally true at this time."
Yeah, at the time I was shining as a musician, and totally crying as a woman. Patty, my best friend in the band, had disappeared to heroin addiction, and Courtney was Courtney, and at the time, I didn't know who was gonna die tomorrow.
I was shining as a musician and totally crying as a woman. I didn't know who was gonna die tomorrow
There was too many conflicting feelings, but writing them down helped me understand that life is complicated. Working with Michael Beinhorn, I had a musical bond with the same guy who was making my best friend feel like shit, and got a ghost drummer to replace her [in the studio]. I was having both love and hate for the very same person who, like, ruined her, but also brought being to my own life as a musician.
I'm trying to relay a woman who went through a lot of intense things, and in writing those lines, I realised that's why this time of my life is still so complicated to unpack. It was some of the best times and some of the worst, just like any romance. It's the best and the worst, just like America, the most insane country on the planet!
Speaking of romance, you write in the book about a romantic dalliance with Billy Corgan, and go into detail about your past relationship with Dave Grohl. Did you tell either of them in advance, or did you just think, It's my life, and I'm putting it out there?
Oh, no, I told everybody I was writing the book. I mean, I didn't have to get their approval though, by any means, but, just as a friend, I gave them a heads up. But I didn't show them anything, nothing, no, no, no. I just told Dave, Hey, I'm writing a book, and our love life is going to be all over it, and he's like, 'Great!' And then I told Billy, Hey, I'm going to tell our whole story. 'Great!'
Courtney, Dave and Billy trust me because I'm a good person. They know that I wouldn't try to exploit anything that happened
There's one thing that Courtney, Dave and Billy know about Melissa: I don't want to be famous, and I'm not going to cash in on anybody's thing. I want to be a happy human being, and I love even the most complicated person, drug addict, superstar, asshole, crazy... they trust me because I'm a good person. They know that I wouldn't go in there and try to exploit anything that happened with me and any of those people. There's no way, that's just not who I am.
You had your time with Smashing Pumpkins, at an interesting period for the band. Obviously playing in your dream band was a joy, but did you have any regrets that you didn't get to do more, albeit that it was your choice to walk away?
I needed to go be free. I needed to stop being in the shadow and in the schedule of somebody else's giant plan. When we talked on his podcast, he explained that really all he wanted from me was an extra few weeks, to record a live album. And I had totally blocked that out. Now, 25 years later, yeah, I wish I actually had given him another month!
But I had been on the road for two years, on two world tours, back-to-back, and I needed to get off the road. I think both Billy and Courtney respect me more for having left their side when I needed to. I didn't need their money, I didn't need their power, I needed to be myself. And I think that's why our friendships are so strong now.
The book ends in 2001, before your solo career. Is there a chance that you might do a follow-up book?
I don't want to jinx it, but I'm promoting this book so hard in the hope that it does so well that I can. Because, yes, my second book is everything that happens after 2001. I spent a decade on my solo records, and then I decide to quit music to become a mother and go through the ultimate transformation, and start an art centre to try to make this tiny corner of the world better, so I could believe again in the world that seemed to be going all wrong.
So yeah, I really do hope I get to write a second one. I can't wait to sit down by the fire with my cat and write again. It was the most pleasurable experience of my life. I had no idea that being alone in silence could be almost as powerful as being on stage performing.
Your last solo record was released in 2010, and I know you've done stuff with Courtney for her new album, but do you see a time where you might be able to make another record of your own?
So, a couple of things on that. One, the museum exhibit of my photography that's coming out with my book [My ’90s Rock Photographs] opens in Toronto in September, and it's up for a year, and then it will travel internationally. It's a very large exhibit, and one room is an ode to my bass and the fans, and it's called the Bass Room, and I'm building a sonic score to the installation. So I've actually been in the studio, and I'm returning to music, but in a very bass forward way. It will be an hour long piece that goes throughout the exhibit, an audio journey.
But, and you're the first person I'm telling this, I also found some of my early four-track song recordings from the '90s, and they are actually working really well within this ambient score. So I am going to be releasing, with the photo book, a new body of sound. And I'm really excited about it, because I think it's the way that I'm going to ease myself back into sound. I need to come back in through the innocence place. I wrote this book, to be able to reconnect with that girl at 19 who was spending 24/7 obsessed with music, I need her to teach me how to get back there.
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