Hole’s Courtney Love And Melissa Auf Der Maur Reunited In The Studio For The First Time In 24 Years
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In 1994, Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff died of a heroin overdose, one more tragedy in a long line of them around that time. The band quickly found a new member: Melissa Auf Der Maur, who’d previously been in the Montreal band Tinker. Auf Der Maur was in Hole for five years, and she played and sang back up on their classic 1998 album Celebrity Skin. She and Courtney Love made a glamorous pair. In 1999, as Hole were falling apart, Auf Der Maur left the band to become the Smashing Pumpkins’ touring bassist. Last night, she and Courtney Love got back together in the studio for the first time in decades.
This wasn’t the first time that Courtney Love and Melissa Auf Der Maur have been back together since 2000. In 2012, a classic Hole lineup — Love, Auf Der Maur, Eric Erlandson, Patty Schemel — played a two-song set in Brooklyn. There was talk of more reunion activities before Love shut that down. In 2018, Auf Der Maur held an all-star salute to Love at Basilica Hudson, the upstate New York venue that she co-founded, and the two of them performed together. Love again teased a Hole reunion in 2019, but nothing has come of it yet. We don’t know whether Love and Auf Der Maur were recording something or just hanging out, but the photos are nice.
This week marks the 40th anniversary of Courtney Love’s last performance with Faith No More. Back then, she was known as Courtney Henley, and the band replaced her with Chuck Moseley, and then with Mike Patton.
Courtney Love recently teamed up with my friend Rob Harvilla for the BBC podcast Courtney Love’s Women, though I can’t figure out how to listen to it.
