What does it truly mean to be a woman in the rock music scene? Join host Buzz Knight on this week's episode of takin' a walk as he engages in a captivating conversation with the legendary bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, known for her powerful contributions to Hole and Smashing Pumpkins. With a rich tapestry of experiences, Melissa opens up about her artistic upbringing in Montreal, the influences that shaped her, and her unforgettable journey through the vibrant rock scene of the 90s. This episode is a must-listen for anyone passionate about music history, as Melissa shares insights from her memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry, which dives deep into the complexities of survival, creativity, and identity as a woman in a male-dominated industry.
As they stroll through the stories behind albums that defined a generation, Buzz Knight and Melissa Aug der Maur explore her transition from Hole to Smashing Pumpkins, discussing the creative processes that birthed iconic songs and the challenges faced along the way. With humor and authenticity, they touch on the importance of reclaiming voices in today's digital landscape, making this episode not just a reflection on the past, but an inspiring message for future generations of women in music.
Throughout this episode of takin' a walk, listeners will gain a rare glimpse into the life of a legendary musician who has navigated the highs and lows of the music industry. Buzz Knight's engaging style brings out the best in Melissa as they delve into her artistic reinvention and the cultural impact of her work. Whether you're a fan of classic rock history, indie music journeys, or simply love stories behind songs, this episode promises to deliver rich music history insights that will resonate with anyone who appreciates the power of music.
Don't miss out on this inspiring conversation that celebrates the resilience of women in music and the legacy they continue to build. Tune in to takin' a walk with Buzz Knight and Melissa Auf der Maur for a heartfelt exploration of music, identity, and the stories that shape our lives. This is more than just a podcast; it's a journey through the heart and soul of music history that you won't want to miss! #legendary musician interviews
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Welcome to Taking a Walk on Buzzs Night, and today
we're diving deep into one of rock's most compelling stories
with the incredible Melissa auf der Maher. For those who
know rock history, Melissa's journey is a legendary one from
the Montreal music scene, becoming the bass player for Hoole
during their most turbulent and triumphant era, then joining Smashing
(00:25):
Pumpkins during their final tours. But Melissa is much more
than her time with these iconic bands. He's a visual artist, filmmaker,
solo artists, with two critically acclaimed albums, and now powerful memoir.
Her new book, Even the Good Girls Will Cry. It's
a raw, unflinching look at what it really means to
(00:48):
be a woman in rock and roll. It's about survival, creativity, ambition,
and finding your voice in an industry that often tries
to silence it. This isn't just another rock memoir. It's
a cultural document about art, identity and resilience. Today, we're
going to walk through Melissa's remarkable career, explore the stories
(01:11):
behind the music, and dig into why she felt now
was the time tell her story and her own words.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Melissa, thank you for being on the Take on a
Walk podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
It is an honor to have you.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
I this is my first official podcast in the promotion
phase of my nineties rock memoir, so it is an
honor to start with you. Westwood is my mother's birthplace,
and then Walpole is where.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
My uncle and my cousins and those who did not
flee the US like my mother did in the sixties
to reject all of the political injustices of America, and
she found her way to Montreal in the sixties, but
her family stayed and my uncle and all my cousins
(02:04):
all were came to be in Wopol, Massachusetts. So that's
my other New England connection. And then my grandparents were
Cape Cod so all of my childhood Christmases and Easters
and summers were on the Cape, and so that is
my deep New England connection. And there was a time
(02:27):
being raised in Montreal that my only gateway to America
was Cape Cod. So my vision of America was very
skewed to quaint, sweet Cape Cod. And then the whole
world broke open. Even though I was indoctrinated by my
two socialist, politically active counterculture parents to not trust the
(02:49):
United States. But for me, Cape Cod and my cape
Cod grandparents were like the coolest, sweetest place in the world.
So I didn't quite understand what the problem was with America.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I'm still trying to figure out it out.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
All. No, now we all know the problems.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well do you like chowda? First of all? Too? Do
you like and I love?
Speaker 5 (03:09):
I love Boston accents? My grandfather and my uncle real
pac the cop people. My mother decoded herself and became
a very eloquent international linguist type, so she spoke in
the old New England sort of international Katherine Hepburn style,
(03:30):
which was like my grandmother. But my grandfather and my
uncle were the strong Boston accents.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yes, well I didn't grow up here. I grew up
in Stanford, Connecticut. But sometimes people listen to me speaking
because they know I've been here for a number of years,
and they end up saying, well, I could detect the accent,
and I'm like, darn, I'm not from here.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Well this was That is equivalent of me mourning the
fact that it took about five years being in the
rock band hole living in the US to erase most
of my Canadian news. Although people still hear it in
my I guess house, and there's certain words I say
(04:16):
that still have like the oh oddness. But when I
join whole, I said Nirvana pasta, avocado Mazda, and then
all of a sudden it turned into like, oh, it's
Nirvana avocado pasta. That was so that was like the
(04:38):
big unfiltering of my Canadian innocence. And then I became
semi dual citizen and accepted in all places.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yes, can I hear you pronounce your name?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Because first of all, I think it would sound more
authentic than the way I probably say it. But secondly
it will it will even guide me further. But I
just dying to hear you pronounce your name.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
Yeah. Well, it's been hard my whole life because I
grew up a politician's daughter, and I heard all of
the city of Montreal mangle my father's name. So my
father said it differently than I say it. So my
father was Nick Aftermore. I am Melissa Aftermauer because I
understood that Swiss German, which is what my last name is.
(05:31):
In the realm of international German speakers, auf Dermauer is
how you would assume my German full sentence last name
is of the wall on the wall in Swiss German.
But it turns out that Swiss German is completely different
(05:53):
than German. So I had sort of turned into an
international German pronunciation Aftermower. In fact, Swiss German it's uf
der moule. So my father was correct in that he
was nick aftermore. But then I traveled the world and
explained it's a German sentence, and so people say alf
(06:14):
del Mauer, I said, exactly, so who It's really not
clear that I say Melissa Aftermauer, but people can say
after more, after ma after Mower.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I have to tell you often this podcast is a
rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
It should probably be called the rabbit Hole.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
That is one of the best rabbit holes I think
that I've been on in a long time.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Yeah, name wise tricking, I mean, Swiss German is quite
a rabbit hole of a.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Like.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Ethnically, Swiss Germans are quite niche and remote to the world,
mostly because it is known to most Swiss German people
that they don't actually often leave the alpine villages of
Swiss German existence. They're quite insular. Swiss German heritage is
(07:07):
quite ancient and stays within, so there's not a lot
of like public facing Swiss German stories and people. So yeah,
it's innates with my name. It's quite underground in the
big mountains of Switzerland. They don't leave, they don't leave.
I'm one of the few. My daughter and I are
(07:29):
for the most part, the only ones of my lineage
in North America.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
So well, believe it.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Or not, we are going to talk about your new book.
Even the good girls will cry in a second. But
I do want to go back to that moment in time,
the beginning, and what was it about Montreal music and
the scene in the nineties that really shaped you as
an artist? How did that environment prepare you for what
was going to be coming down the railroad tracks.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Yeah, I mean, obviously in the book, I go pretty
deep right off the bat into my two parents. The
top of the book is chapter one is my Incredible mother,
Chapter two is my incredible father, and chapter three is
the incredible city I was raised in. So I often
my whole life in fact, and even those who got
(08:23):
to know me in the rock world really understood that
really was my parents and my city that made me
unique but also uniquely prepared to dive into a global
stage of drama, addiction, tragedy, fame, creative, zeitgeist, all these
(08:46):
incredible things that I was thrown into at twenty two.
So it's both my remarkable parents and my city that
really shaped a unique, I guess, perspective on what it
means to you know, try to live your life to
your fullest. So I credit mostly my origins for how
(09:09):
I somehow ended up in this like once in a
very rare opportunity to travel the world in a giant
rock band and be plucked out of absolutely nowhere, like
I was not on the road globally seeking these wild
nomads to join. They found me in Montreal, hiding in
(09:29):
the underground, you know, they they detected me and I
often you know, obviously a lot of my story is
right time, right place. But it's the remarkable authenticity and
originality of my parents and my city that I think
kind of made me like visible to someone like Billy Corgan,
(09:57):
who I essentially were refer to throughout my book, but
also my life as my mentor, like my spiritual mentor
who found me in a tiny club when I was nineteen.
I didn't even play bass yet when I saw the
Smashing Pumpkins play in front of twenty people like the
band made an impression on me, and I introduced myself
(10:21):
at the show and he saw something in me you know,
I don't and we became penpals, and then the rest
of it became my destined story in rock music. But
I think it was you know, Montreal was lucky in
that it had a deep legacy of counterculture because of
(10:43):
the cultural movements of the French Canadian slash Quebequis. For
those who don't understand what the they're not actually French Canadians.
They reject the idea of French. They were the Quebequa,
the identity of the French speaking que Becker's that my
Anglophone parents felt a kinship to. They were counterculture underdogs
(11:08):
who wanted to represent and help underdogs get heard. And
in the sixties, the counterculture movements wherever you lived in
North America, whether it was like racial equity or you know,
feminist movements. My parents both aligned with the French rights.
The Francophone rights of Quebec was what I was really
(11:32):
raised in the in the midst of and I was
my parents sent set an example of fight for the underdog,
make sure that they get heard, fight for their rights,
don't let the dominant powers at b a race and claim,
(11:53):
you know, the voice of authorities. So it was a
lot of just resistance and resistance. And so that obviously
as seen in our our generation's music, everything that came
out of Seattle and of course Kurt who became like
the you know, the sacrificial Jesus figure of our generation's music.
(12:18):
It was a response to a horrific eighties Reagan era
in America of this corporate selloutus that you know, we
are now kind of seeing an unfortunate rise of again.
But but it really was that I just fit right
in and this counterculture movement of declaring that individuality and
(12:39):
not being you know, not being even though ironic, my
my book is titled even the Good Girls Will Cry,
but we are we were programmed to not be good,
don't like be good, and don't rock the boat. It's
we were programmed as a generation and as a result
(13:00):
of my parents generation to fight the powers that'd be So,
you know, to answer your question, I obviously fit right
in and whether it was my little micro of my
parents and my city. By the time these nomadic counterculture
nineties music forces were orbiting these small cities and the
(13:22):
radio stations and the local punk clubs. I was part
of this similar wave and they recognized me from the
ground up, and that's how I found my way into
the larger stage of the rock bands of that generation.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
So I'm a husband of a photographer, and the backdrop
with which you're doing this interview as a fabulous look
at a bunch of your photos in the background. There
you were studying photography and visual arts when music took
over your life. How did your artistic background influence your
(14:03):
approach to music and performance?
Speaker 5 (14:07):
Yep, good question. I mean I again credit my origin story.
My mother signed me up for this experimental arts school
at the age of seven, So I went to a
visual arts performing arts school from grade one through high school.
So I was raised in a very eclectic, wonderfully creative
(14:30):
environment where the young people who were part of this
experimental school which continues to be the biggest public performing
arts school in Montreal, but it had started in the
seventies as a concept for experimental parents to sign up
their kids. So I was raised with truly a fine
(14:50):
art background and performance in music. So from the get go,
I was a multidisciplinary artist. In my mind, it's like
you find visual pursuit, you find a performance pursuit, you
find her instrument. So in my case, I was in
a choir and I my choir teacher, my Welsh choir teacher.
Through in middle school. I dedicated my first solo record too,
(15:12):
because mister Edwards showed me the power of music by
having middle school choir seeing the Mozart Requiem with the
Montreal Symphony Orchestra. So that's an example of the power
of music. It was in me. I gravitated towards photography,
and by high school I had my own darkroom and
I was photographing for the yearbook. So my photos just
(15:33):
started as mainly because I was sort of shy and
I wanted to have an agency around, you know, my perspective.
So I had an amazing gateway into photography very early.
And this is like, you know, these are freelance parents
with no money. I was just borrowing like a shitty
camera that my mother had, So it wasn't like I
(15:56):
was given all these tools. It was just makeshift creative
environment of oh, your interest in photography, borrow this. Oh,
I have a friend who's an art photographer go in
turn for him in his dark room on the weekend.
So I just found my way and found my tools
that resonated with me. Meanwhile, my parents were like remarkable
(16:18):
literary people, so there was no photography or music environ
environment at all. They were literary geniuses who could use
the word to express who they were. Which, obviously fast forward,
you know, forty years later, I ended up writing this book, which,
to be honest, was the most pleasure I love writing.
(16:39):
It turns out that the kind of slightly dyslexic art
student who thought music and photography would be better for
me because my grammar is terrible, I don't really you know,
want to compete with my amazing parents who like use
the word. So who knew that I would have all
of these actually under my own, you know roof of
(17:03):
of my upbringing and the visual thing I think just
gave me quite literally a perspective. So, like I talk
a lot in my book about turning to my camera
almost as a shield of protection. When I'm on tour
with these crazy rock bands, I would use my camera
(17:24):
to almost separate me from the audience. Like sixty thousand
people at my first concert, take a picture of the
audience so I can remember how crazy this is. My
visual art art just gave me an agency of my
own perspective while also being highly aware that I was
documenting history and the making of our generation. And I
(17:47):
didn't want to lose sight of my privileged perspective, which
was I'm on stage in front of thousands of people
with these radical individuals that are being documented by you know,
Rolling Stone and MTV. But I want to have my
own say on how this is being documented. And then
that's when I kind of went into photography on the road.
(18:10):
I you know, photograph Lollapalooza for Spin magazine. So I
made myself available as an insider. Outsider.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
So you joined.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Hole in nineteen ninety four, It was really one of
the most chaotic and scrutinized periods in rock history.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
What was your first day at the office?
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Like insane? I mean truly When I played my first
show with Hole, which was August of nineteen ninety four
at the Redding Festival. It was Courtney's first performance in
the wake of Kurt's suicide and Kristin, the former bass
player's overdose. So I had been in the band for
(18:54):
two weeks when I barely had had time to learn
the songs. But I did not make mistake on my
first show. I remember very clearly thinking, as long as
I can play these songs and get through this song
in this set, I will have done my job. So
I in It was chaotic, It was emotionally kind of unspeakable.
(19:20):
It was truly, I guess someone mentioned like, obviously I
was in the eye of the storm. I was thrown
into this like eye of this orbiting the chaos and
the wake of these deaths and the rise of this
fame and the confusion of our generation of what had
happened to our underground and I it has been said
that the eye of the storm is quieter than you know,
(19:43):
everything happening around it. So in a way it was
very quiet, you know, it was truly. I was backstage
focusing on my parts, focusing on is Courtney okay? Is
this lovely redhead drummer who will become my best friend
in the band? Is she okay? Is everybody okay? Are
(20:05):
we going to make it through? And in a way
it was very intimate, and I focused on the emotional
reality in my immediate environment, which was tricky. You know,
and there was a toddler on tour with us, because
Kurt had abandoned a wife and child. So I tried
(20:27):
to say, you know, present as a young woman who
cared about the people I was in a band with,
and who cared about the music and the message of
the music. So it was, you know, maybe a survival
mechanism of just focus on the here and now. But
it's how it's it's what happened. And then luckily I
(20:48):
had like my camera on my diary to sort of
keep me grounded in what seemed impossible to actually comprehend
at the time I was twenty two.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Incredible chronicling there, My god, Celebrity Skin became this massive
commercial success. Can you share what the creative process was
like in the studio and how you found your place
in that sound?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Right?
Speaker 5 (21:21):
And so imagine I joined Hole in ninety four and
Celebrity Skin didn't come out till ninety eight. So we
had this world tour of lived through this. We went
around the globe for over a year. It ended at
the MTV Awards in September of ninety five, so we
had this WorldWind visceral travel experience. Then we were sent
(21:42):
to write a new record, and so we descended into
this sort of post world tour and recovery. These people
were in traumatic grief of the loss of the people
who had so the writing of Celebrity Scan was quite laborious.
(22:05):
I describe it at length in my book of What
Didn't come easily We you know, and it did take
us three years to write and record this record, which
yes in I was actually just with Courtney last week
in la We hadn't been in Los Angeles together since
(22:26):
nineteen ninety nine, so it was like this vortex opened.
I oddly went my first podcast, I Lie was last
week recorded. Billy Corgan's podcast was the first podcast for
this record, for this record, it's actually a book for
this for this cycle. And the next day turned out
(22:46):
Courtney was also in town and we had tea and
we giggled at how outrages what has happened in the
quarter century since we had last been in Los Angeles
recording and promoting and releasing a Celebrity Skin, And we
actually had a funny conversation about how in the quarter
century we were so used to when Celebrity Skin came
(23:09):
out and it was so radically different than live Through This,
Lived Through This was very visceral and very feminist anthem anger,
and then Celebrity Skin came out and it was very
polished and it gone on to top forty and it
was like a glossy success, but there was a sense
(23:30):
of shame in there and there was a sense of well,
live Through this is the critically acclaimed, credible one, and
then did we sell out with Celebrity Skin being so glossy?
This arrival of pro tools is like these big budgeted
videos and these slick photo shoots. But the funny thing is,
when Corny and I were having tea last week twenty
(23:54):
five years later, is actually Celebrity Skin in some ways
has a aged beautifully and it has a timeless slickness.
But it also was a very special album. Conceptually, it
was her love letter to California and her love letter,
Courtney's love letter to the conflicts that is Hollywood. You know,
(24:19):
Fleetwood Mac was a huge inspiration for her. On that record,
it was like we were playing with this sort of slick,
feminine glossiness. And whether it's because Malibu was a top
forty hit whereas Lift Through This didn't have top forty hits,
(24:40):
but it has actually made an impact on pop culture
in ways that lived through this didn't. So I feel
that they both have deep, long lasting impact in very
different orbits. And I have met in the last few
years because my daughter is a fourteen year old and
(25:02):
she follows her the big, powerful, glossy pop powerhouses of
her generation Billie Eilis, Olivia Rodrigo, obviously, Taylor Swift, and
blah blah blah. But in some ways that generation remembers
celebrity Skin more than they do live through This because
(25:26):
it had broader reach, and those in the know know
that live through this was this like wild Arrival post Kurt.
But if you listen to records made by powerful women today,
they sound much more like celebrity Skin they do lo
Fi live through this so well, I'm proud to say
(25:47):
that I think it aged well in that it made
a big impact on what now is really everybody's glossy.
I mean everybody uses the INTERNT, you know, the computers
for and everybody, you know whatever that everyone's pretty shamelessly
glossy at this point, even what I consider one of
the most powerful voices of her generation, Billie Eilish and
(26:10):
her brother Phineas. It's pretty slick. You know, what they
make and what they deliver in the world to an
obviously very large audience is very slick, and I think
that they would maybe consider Celebrity Skin more related to
their work than lived through this.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
You know, we'll be right back with more the Taken
a Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk podcast.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
So moving from a Whole to Smashing Pumpkins two very
different musical environments, did it take you a long time
to adapt to that?
Speaker 5 (26:55):
I had no time. I went from one band to
the other in one week, so I had no time
to adapt. I completed my Celebrity Skin tour with Hole.
Courtney became a Hollywood movie star in the support of
our during the Celebrity Skin tour. She literally became a
Hollywood celebrity. So this crazy transition happened for her, and I,
(27:20):
who was committed to music, made a decision to leave
Hole so I could continue my pursuits in music because
I could see that her interests were moving into Hollywood.
And it was a very strange timing in that the
long standing bass player of the Smashing Pumpkins, Darcy, the
(27:41):
one female member of that band, had essentially disappeared during
the making of that last nineties Pumpkins record Machina Machines
of God, and there was like this incredible destined timing
where Billy called me one day when Darcy had disappeared
and said he was, you know, making this record and
(28:03):
he wanted to pull within close family friends and asked
if I would take her place. And it was right
as I was preparing to leave Hole, so I went
back to back in like one fell Swoop and it
was quite dramatic, and it was also quite notable that
the bass player for this this band went into the
(28:26):
next band, and there was a lot of Like when
I joined Hole replacing a deceased bass player, there was
quite a lot of sort of drama attached to my arrival.
So I was, you know, very well versed at that
point of arriving in dramatic fashions. But notably the music
(28:48):
transition was very exciting, and that I went from playing
a pretty short catalog. Hole only had three albums, and
not many of them were played, not many of the
songs were played live. But when I joined the Pumpkins,
they had four albums, one was a double album, they
(29:11):
had multiple b si Rarity albums, and I went from
the short set list to this massive because Billy is
a very prolific songwriter, but also he'd never wanted a
set to be the same twice, so I had to
be so nimble as a bass player and learn a
song a day. I had to be ready to change
(29:34):
the set list every day, and sometimes we opened for
our selves on this big European farewell tour. Now the
Pumpkins are back, but at the time, the two year
two thousand our tour was the finale of the Pumpkins,
and they did go on hiatus after that, but we
went on this incredible European farewell tour where we were
playing three to four hours a night, opening for ourselves.
(29:58):
We were playing acoustic sets for our rock sets that
were It was so epic, and the amount of learning
and bass playing I had to do was exciting. I
had to like, really it was. I've always said whole
was my like bachelor's in humanity, and then the Pumpkins
(30:19):
was my masters in music, and I'm grateful for both.
But yeah, the music transition was incredibly dramatic and very
much what I needed. I wanted to get back into
the music after what had been a very complex five
years and whole where music kind of was secondary to
her fame and her family drama. You know, it was
(30:41):
a very complicated persona to be supporting in whole, whereas
the Pumpkins was always and still is about the music.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I'm honored you would be the second podcast you would
do to Billy Corgan, And I really mean that. What
are the characteristics that make him such an incredibly special artist?
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Well, even just hanging out with him last week, you know,
there we are in our fifties. He's one of the
hardest working man in show business. Always was. I say
it in my memoir, But when I joined the band,
he had three rules. No mistakes, no days off, can't
get sick. So you know, he had a bit of
that James Brown reputation of you just like music comes first,
(31:32):
you don't have you know, these other like frivolous things
of being human don't count. So he's very, very hard working.
He's obviously very prolific, and some another trait he shares
that I share as we are not addicts. With all
due respect and compassion for the addicts that I played
(31:54):
music with. He always music was for He is a
pretty healthy, saying individual. Sure he has personality quirks of
you know, some I don't want to name the bad
qualities of Billy, but he takes himself very seriously, and
(32:17):
he takes his role as a musician incredibly seriously and
very committed to his fans. Like if there was one
thing I saw on the road of the Pumpkins, Billy
would spend hours a day with his fans before and
after the show. That's like a very particular thing. Maybe
now in the days of social media, sure fans give
(32:39):
get access, but Billy was doing that before social media.
He is very devoted to his fans, very hard working
and working every day. Like when I left the podcast,
he records his podcast at Howie Mandel's a TV studio
last week in Van Nis, and he had to go
(33:01):
to the studio right after he finished his interview with
Nancy Wilson from Heart then me, then he went to
the studio. The guy is working every day all day,
so that's obviously a big part. And he was one
of those guys which I hope they still exist. But
he was shy and awkward and weird and unloved by
(33:22):
his parents in that kind of way, and he spent
every day of his childhood in his room learning how
to play guitar. You know, that is a important quality
of musicians that there is nowhere else to go, so
you learn your instrument. So he's a ridiculous guitar player.
I mean, the guy is like an amazing, you know,
(33:44):
shredder of all shredders, and he eats a songwriter, So
that makes him very cool.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Understatement. For sure.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Writing a memoir like Even The Good Girls Will Cry
certainly means confronting your.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Past head on.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Was there one chapter in particular that was the most
difficult to write?
Speaker 5 (34:08):
Definitely? I mean, so my memoir, for those who hopefully
will read it, yes, it chronicles my time and hole
in the Smashing Pumpkins and my perspective of what our
generation went through as far as being essentially co opted
and raped by corporate greed. But within that coming of
(34:30):
age story, my father, who was a larger than life person,
not just in my life but in the city of
Montreal to anybody who witnessed my city, my father has
a street named after him. The guy was just such
an incredible force, and he in his political career and
(34:53):
his journalistic career, and I had a TV show, he
had radio shows, he had a column. He ran down
town Montreal on and off for a couple of decades.
He was so passionate for people in the Underdog. He
wanted to represent people. And my father was a complicated
(35:16):
man raised by real poverty immigrants, immigrants who came in
Europe from Europe in the thirties and raised in a
lot of difficult environments. He was a tortured individual who
smoked and drank and died at my age pretty much so.
(35:42):
My father was an addict, and so later in life
when I'm in bands of addicts, it wasn't un familiar
territory for me of people burning the candle at both ends.
So the hardest chapter, of course, in my book was
witnessing my father's demise and the horrendous death of my father,
(36:03):
which is disturbing personally but also just for anyone who
has watched someone self destruct, especially someone who loves life
as much as he did, and that was brutal. It
was like a lot of work for me, but I
knew to both honor my father but also heal myself
(36:23):
from what was decades of me avoiding facing what I
went through in my twenties watching my father die. He
died of cancer, but it was a self induced smoking
and drinking cancer of cancer of the throat and mouth
and brain. You know, smokers and drink smoking drinking combo,
(36:45):
can you know create a real pretty aggressive cancer. You know,
he did smoke three packs a day his whole life,
from like a teenager on, so that somehow some crazy
drinkers and smokers lived till Nini, but he did not.
So that was horrendous writing that was impossible, But it
actually did what I needed to do, which is finally
(37:05):
face all my pain in that which I had sort
of tucked away for way too long.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
So what advice would you give to young women today
who are trying to break into the music industry?
Speaker 5 (37:17):
Oh god, well, the industry is not what it is then,
and it is the world is not what it is now.
I know a big part of the book, other than
healing myself and my book is dedicated You probably don't
have the final version. I don't know what you say,
but it's dedicated to my daughter and all the girls.
(37:39):
So the future generation of women who have to do
what I did, but with a new set of tools
in a new world to reckon with. And yes, do
I believe there's been dark entities always, sure, every hundreds,
every generation is dark entities of war and crisis. But
(37:59):
in particular right now, I think young women are just
with the evil of the phone and the self reflection
of their own the you know, the beauty myths that
were things that me and Courtney and our generation were
really saying, fuck you two. You know, I went on
stage without even looking in the mirror. Poor girls are
(38:19):
like being asked to look at themselves every fucking second
on their phone. I hate what has happened to our
women's movement. I feel we have gone beyond backwards. This
is like worse than what I feel like the eighties
hair metal, eighties plastic like beauty Like I hated what
(38:40):
the role models were of women in the eighties that
we reacted to. I feel like, if you look at
even just the current administration in the United States, it's
a lot of plastic women. They look like blow up dolls.
They look like pornography to me. So I'm deeply concerned
about women's perception of female role models. So the book,
(39:01):
other than a personal self healing journey, it's trying to
bring up really timeless coming of age woman story beyond music,
just how does a woman find her own voice? How
does a woman find power within, not the surface without,
you know, not what you look like, but what's inside.
(39:24):
And then also this question of digital versus analog, because
our generation, you know, followed the arc of an analog
world into a digital world, and our generation really was
the last coming of age and an analog reality is
I want to tell a story of human experience in
the real world, in the room that you grow up
(39:47):
with with your girlfriends, in the room with your friends
that you discover music with, with your friends, in the
real world, like even relationships are being morphed by like
texting and face timing. It's I want to bring readers
into an innocent world where all you had was the
people in that room and in that audience with you,
(40:10):
and in that tour bus with you, or on the
stage with you, and you know, I try to capture
really also the power of that music exchange between the
audience and the performer and remind people both in the
book but also in my photography that it comes out
in the fall with my photo book that will be
a follow up to my memoir of there was no
(40:32):
cameras in those audiences. Those audiences gave you undivided attention
of true connection between humans and music. And so I
want to try to seduce people into imagining rebelling against
the digital reality, embracing the power of real relationships and
(40:55):
real analog experiences, which is always live music, live music,
and even to an extent I've been thinking about I've
always said that the power of music is you can't
hold it. You know, music is not something you can
hold in your hand unless you're playing a guitar, of course,
But for people who love music, music fans, you listen
(41:15):
to it. You're not watching. Yeah, you can watch YouTube,
or you can watch music videos, but at this point,
the power of music still remains in the ether. So
what I really hope is that women in future generations
and this current generation living in this like overly liken
(41:38):
monitored and overly like the attack on their attention is
so sick, like, you know, so sad that like music
platforms have so much video content and so so much data,
Like just let them listen to music. Just let music
be the thing. So if girls can actually or young
people can just focus on the people that love the
(42:01):
music with them, the music that is being made. Somewhere
in there, there's a timeless, analog power that will allow
them to find their calling in life and find the
real connection, you know, and be hopefully very self aware
of the mining that is happening. They're you know, Courtney
(42:22):
on Celebrity Skin and this amazing song Awful. It's like
it's a song about warning teenage girls that they are
coming after you. These teenage girls, their devotion to what
they love, their friends, their fashion, their music, that devotion
has been mined to a sick extent, like they started.
(42:46):
You know, so much of online is trying to get
young girls to focus on consuming and buying products. So
I want women to know they have fucking power. They
but they are being abused by a system that wants
to steal their attention and steal their passion. And you
(43:08):
have the power to claim that as your own and
not let male, dark tentacles of corporate greed take it
from you. Own your power, you know. Even to a
certain extent. You can complain about certain parts of Taylor Swift,
but at least she has spoken about owning her power.
(43:29):
She was abused by a male system and she got
it back. So there's a lot of power happening with women,
even though there's also this sick like new trying to
dismantle all the amazing work that my generation and my
mother's generation and the suffragettes did before. Their amount of
power over the one hundred years of women is. They're
(43:51):
trying to dismantle this. They are trying to make us
believe that we don't have power over our bodies and
over our sense of self beyond being a mother, being
a wife, being a fucking pawn to a male dominated world,
you know. So my goal is to go out and
speak to all people to remind them they have the
(44:14):
power and they are being people are trying to control us,
you know, especially young people who don't know a little
better because they're young people. They don't know they're just
being like hijacked.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
You've continued to create, whether it's it's music, visual art,
or running Basilica Hudson, which I want you to talk about.
How do these creative outlets feed each other?
Speaker 5 (44:40):
Well, they're all connected. I mean again, it kind of
comes down to my origin story. I mean, I think
that it's even Freud that talks about like creative imprints
on your young self comes from your childhood. So much
of like early memories of beauty or things that move
you always kind of come from the same place, the
things that awoke your spirit when you're young. Basilica Hudson,
(45:04):
my nonprofit Reclaimed eighteen eighties factory devoted to independent, innovative
arts and culture, is just an extension of what I
grew up with and what was instilled in my values
by my parents, which is create an environment where individual,
authentic voices, independent voices can be heard. So all of
(45:27):
it is just trying to create spaces of independent belief
and independent passions and not be part of a system
which is more and more clear to many is very
broken and very corrupt. So all of it is just
a continuation of the same thing of just trying to
empower individuals to believe that they have a say in
(45:52):
the world and they don't have to conform to other
larger forces.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Melissa, So, since we do call this little podcast Taken
a Walk, is there someone you would like to take
a walk with? Living or dead?
Speaker 5 (46:10):
Oh? Sure? Do I get to pick the location too?
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Sure? And you could pick more than more than one?
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (46:16):
Oh cool? Maybe I could have an array of people. Okay,
So in the Hudson Valley there's this incredible My favorite
Victorian stroll that I take is this beautiful castle basically
on the Hudson River called Olana, which was founded by
the Hudson River Painter School movement. So Frederick Church was
a painter in the mid late eighteen hundreds and he
(46:38):
created this like utopian visual utopia surrounded by mountains and
what looked like Renaissance skies. Every day in the Hudson
Valley on these great Catskill mountains, and I take walks
with my friends who have dogs. I'm a cat person,
but I like taking walks with dog walkers through these
strolling Victorian view sheds. And I would love to walk
(47:02):
with Carl Jung to speak about man and his symbols
and all of this symbolic you know, the power of
visual symbols and esoteric attempts to make sense of this
crazy world that we live in alongside. Okay, I could
(47:23):
be really dramatic. It would be hard for her stroll
that I could pull push free to Collo in some
cool magic rolling bed. And then I would add, let's say,
someone a great one of my favorite first ever photographers
that sort of sound. It looked like what I was
trying to get from my inner visuals, which is this
(47:45):
great photographer named Francesca Woodman who died by suicide at
a young age, but she was a very pioneering woman
who turned the camera on herself at a very young
age to do what I ended up doing in our school,
which was contemplating what the muses are to these like
you know all these male artists who painted women or
(48:08):
who sculpted women. But what if the women take themselves
as the muse, So be the hybrid of like the
creator and the mews. So I'd like a walk with
those three people overlooking beautiful Hudson River Skies.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Melissa, congratulations on even the good Girls will cry. There
are so many moments when I do this podcast I
go how did I get so lucky to be doing this?
Speaker 3 (48:36):
And this is another one of those moments.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
I'm incredibly grateful that you took the time to be
on taking a walk. I hope, I hope it felt
like we were just hanging out at the coffee shop.
Speaker 5 (48:48):
Yes, we were. I love hanging out of coffee shops.
One of my favorites tea cats, by the fire, strolling
looking at skies my favorite. So appreciate you having me
on and and hopefully your listeners. I want to take
a deep dive into nineties rock through a female photographer
bass player's lens.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
Thank you so much, Melissa, You're welcome. I'm Buzznight and
thanks for listening to the Taking a Walk podcast. Now,
please check out our companion podcasts produced by Buzznight Media
Productions with your host, Lynn Hoffman. Music Save Me, showcasing
the healing power of music, and comedy Save Me shining.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
A light on how laughter is the best medicine.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
All shows are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and are
part of the iHeart podcast network.
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Welcome to Taking a Walk on Buzzs Night, and today
we're diving deep into one of rock's most compelling stories
with the incredible Melissa auf der Maher. For those who
know rock history, Melissa's journey is a legendary one from
the Montreal music scene, becoming the bass player for Hoole
during their most turbulent and triumphant era, then joining Smashing
(00:25):
Pumpkins during their final tours. But Melissa is much more
than her time with these iconic bands. He's a visual artist, filmmaker,
solo artists, with two critically acclaimed albums, and now powerful memoir.
Her new book, Even the Good Girls Will Cry. It's
a raw, unflinching look at what it really means to
(00:48):
be a woman in rock and roll. It's about survival, creativity, ambition,
and finding your voice in an industry that often tries
to silence it. This isn't just another rock memoir. It's
a cultural document about art, identity and resilience. Today, we're
going to walk through Melissa's remarkable career, explore the stories
(01:11):
behind the music, and dig into why she felt now
was the time tell her story and her own words.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Melissa, thank you for being on the Take on a
Walk podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
It is an honor to have you.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
I this is my first official podcast in the promotion
phase of my nineties rock memoir, so it is an
honor to start with you. Westwood is my mother's birthplace,
and then Walpole is where.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
My uncle and my cousins and those who did not
flee the US like my mother did in the sixties
to reject all of the political injustices of America, and
she found her way to Montreal in the sixties, but
her family stayed and my uncle and all my cousins
(02:04):
all were came to be in Wopol, Massachusetts. So that's
my other New England connection. And then my grandparents were
Cape Cod so all of my childhood Christmases and Easters
and summers were on the Cape, and so that is
my deep New England connection. And there was a time
(02:27):
being raised in Montreal that my only gateway to America
was Cape Cod. So my vision of America was very
skewed to quaint, sweet Cape Cod. And then the whole
world broke open. Even though I was indoctrinated by my
two socialist, politically active counterculture parents to not trust the
(02:49):
United States. But for me, Cape Cod and my cape
Cod grandparents were like the coolest, sweetest place in the world.
So I didn't quite understand what the problem was with America.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I'm still trying to figure out it out.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
All. No, now we all know the problems.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well do you like chowda? First of all? Too? Do
you like and I love?
Speaker 5 (03:09):
I love Boston accents? My grandfather and my uncle real
pac the cop people. My mother decoded herself and became
a very eloquent international linguist type, so she spoke in
the old New England sort of international Katherine Hepburn style,
(03:30):
which was like my grandmother. But my grandfather and my
uncle were the strong Boston accents.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yes, well I didn't grow up here. I grew up
in Stanford, Connecticut. But sometimes people listen to me speaking
because they know I've been here for a number of years,
and they end up saying, well, I could detect the accent,
and I'm like, darn, I'm not from here.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Well this was That is equivalent of me mourning the
fact that it took about five years being in the
rock band hole living in the US to erase most
of my Canadian news. Although people still hear it in
my I guess house, and there's certain words I say
(04:16):
that still have like the oh oddness. But when I
join whole, I said Nirvana pasta, avocado Mazda, and then
all of a sudden it turned into like, oh, it's
Nirvana avocado pasta. That was so that was like the
(04:38):
big unfiltering of my Canadian innocence. And then I became
semi dual citizen and accepted in all places.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yes, can I hear you pronounce your name?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Because first of all, I think it would sound more
authentic than the way I probably say it. But secondly
it will it will even guide me further. But I
just dying to hear you pronounce your name.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
Yeah. Well, it's been hard my whole life because I
grew up a politician's daughter, and I heard all of
the city of Montreal mangle my father's name. So my
father said it differently than I say it. So my
father was Nick Aftermore. I am Melissa Aftermauer because I
understood that Swiss German, which is what my last name is.
(05:31):
In the realm of international German speakers, auf Dermauer is
how you would assume my German full sentence last name
is of the wall on the wall in Swiss German.
But it turns out that Swiss German is completely different
(05:53):
than German. So I had sort of turned into an
international German pronunciation Aftermower. In fact, Swiss German it's uf
der moule. So my father was correct in that he
was nick aftermore. But then I traveled the world and
explained it's a German sentence, and so people say alf
(06:14):
del Mauer, I said, exactly, so who It's really not
clear that I say Melissa Aftermauer, but people can say
after more, after ma after Mower.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I have to tell you often this podcast is a
rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
It should probably be called the rabbit Hole.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
That is one of the best rabbit holes I think
that I've been on in a long time.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Yeah, name wise tricking, I mean, Swiss German is quite
a rabbit hole of a.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Like.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
Ethnically, Swiss Germans are quite niche and remote to the world,
mostly because it is known to most Swiss German people
that they don't actually often leave the alpine villages of
Swiss German existence. They're quite insular. Swiss German heritage is
(07:07):
quite ancient and stays within, so there's not a lot
of like public facing Swiss German stories and people. So yeah,
it's innates with my name. It's quite underground in the
big mountains of Switzerland. They don't leave, they don't leave.
I'm one of the few. My daughter and I are
(07:29):
for the most part, the only ones of my lineage
in North America.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
So well, believe it.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Or not, we are going to talk about your new book.
Even the good girls will cry in a second. But
I do want to go back to that moment in time,
the beginning, and what was it about Montreal music and
the scene in the nineties that really shaped you as
an artist? How did that environment prepare you for what
was going to be coming down the railroad tracks.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Yeah, I mean, obviously in the book, I go pretty
deep right off the bat into my two parents. The
top of the book is chapter one is my Incredible mother,
Chapter two is my incredible father, and chapter three is
the incredible city I was raised in. So I often
my whole life in fact, and even those who got
(08:23):
to know me in the rock world really understood that
really was my parents and my city that made me
unique but also uniquely prepared to dive into a global
stage of drama, addiction, tragedy, fame, creative, zeitgeist, all these
(08:46):
incredible things that I was thrown into at twenty two.
So it's both my remarkable parents and my city that
really shaped a unique, I guess, perspective on what it
means to you know, try to live your life to
your fullest. So I credit mostly my origins for how
(09:09):
I somehow ended up in this like once in a
very rare opportunity to travel the world in a giant
rock band and be plucked out of absolutely nowhere, like
I was not on the road globally seeking these wild
nomads to join. They found me in Montreal, hiding in
(09:29):
the underground, you know, they they detected me and I
often you know, obviously a lot of my story is
right time, right place. But it's the remarkable authenticity and
originality of my parents and my city that I think
kind of made me like visible to someone like Billy Corgan,
(09:57):
who I essentially were refer to throughout my book, but
also my life as my mentor, like my spiritual mentor
who found me in a tiny club when I was nineteen.
I didn't even play bass yet when I saw the
Smashing Pumpkins play in front of twenty people like the
band made an impression on me, and I introduced myself
(10:21):
at the show and he saw something in me you know,
I don't and we became penpals, and then the rest
of it became my destined story in rock music. But
I think it was you know, Montreal was lucky in
that it had a deep legacy of counterculture because of
(10:43):
the cultural movements of the French Canadian slash Quebequis. For
those who don't understand what the they're not actually French Canadians.
They reject the idea of French. They were the Quebequa,
the identity of the French speaking que Becker's that my
Anglophone parents felt a kinship to. They were counterculture underdogs
(11:08):
who wanted to represent and help underdogs get heard. And
in the sixties, the counterculture movements wherever you lived in
North America, whether it was like racial equity or you know,
feminist movements. My parents both aligned with the French rights.
The Francophone rights of Quebec was what I was really
(11:32):
raised in the in the midst of and I was
my parents sent set an example of fight for the underdog,
make sure that they get heard, fight for their rights,
don't let the dominant powers at b a race and claim,
(11:53):
you know, the voice of authorities. So it was a
lot of just resistance and resistance. And so that obviously
as seen in our our generation's music, everything that came
out of Seattle and of course Kurt who became like
the you know, the sacrificial Jesus figure of our generation's music.
(12:18):
It was a response to a horrific eighties Reagan era
in America of this corporate selloutus that you know, we
are now kind of seeing an unfortunate rise of again.
But but it really was that I just fit right
in and this counterculture movement of declaring that individuality and
(12:39):
not being you know, not being even though ironic, my
my book is titled even the Good Girls Will Cry,
but we are we were programmed to not be good,
don't like be good, and don't rock the boat. It's
we were programmed as a generation and as a result
(13:00):
of my parents generation to fight the powers that'd be So,
you know, to answer your question, I obviously fit right
in and whether it was my little micro of my
parents and my city. By the time these nomadic counterculture
nineties music forces were orbiting these small cities and the
(13:22):
radio stations and the local punk clubs. I was part
of this similar wave and they recognized me from the
ground up, and that's how I found my way into
the larger stage of the rock bands of that generation.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
So I'm a husband of a photographer, and the backdrop
with which you're doing this interview as a fabulous look
at a bunch of your photos in the background. There
you were studying photography and visual arts when music took
over your life. How did your artistic background influence your
(14:03):
approach to music and performance?
Speaker 5 (14:07):
Yep, good question. I mean I again credit my origin story.
My mother signed me up for this experimental arts school
at the age of seven, So I went to a
visual arts performing arts school from grade one through high school.
So I was raised in a very eclectic, wonderfully creative
(14:30):
environment where the young people who were part of this
experimental school which continues to be the biggest public performing
arts school in Montreal, but it had started in the
seventies as a concept for experimental parents to sign up
their kids. So I was raised with truly a fine
(14:50):
art background and performance in music. So from the get go,
I was a multidisciplinary artist. In my mind, it's like
you find visual pursuit, you find a performance pursuit, you
find her instrument. So in my case, I was in
a choir and I my choir teacher, my Welsh choir teacher.
Through in middle school. I dedicated my first solo record too,
(15:12):
because mister Edwards showed me the power of music by
having middle school choir seeing the Mozart Requiem with the
Montreal Symphony Orchestra. So that's an example of the power
of music. It was in me. I gravitated towards photography,
and by high school I had my own darkroom and
I was photographing for the yearbook. So my photos just
(15:33):
started as mainly because I was sort of shy and
I wanted to have an agency around, you know, my perspective.
So I had an amazing gateway into photography very early.
And this is like, you know, these are freelance parents
with no money. I was just borrowing like a shitty
camera that my mother had, So it wasn't like I
(15:56):
was given all these tools. It was just makeshift creative
environment of oh, your interest in photography, borrow this. Oh,
I have a friend who's an art photographer go in
turn for him in his dark room on the weekend.
So I just found my way and found my tools
that resonated with me. Meanwhile, my parents were like remarkable
(16:18):
literary people, so there was no photography or music environ
environment at all. They were literary geniuses who could use
the word to express who they were. Which, obviously fast forward,
you know, forty years later, I ended up writing this book, which,
to be honest, was the most pleasure I love writing.
(16:39):
It turns out that the kind of slightly dyslexic art
student who thought music and photography would be better for
me because my grammar is terrible, I don't really you know,
want to compete with my amazing parents who like use
the word. So who knew that I would have all
of these actually under my own, you know roof of
(17:03):
of my upbringing and the visual thing I think just
gave me quite literally a perspective. So, like I talk
a lot in my book about turning to my camera
almost as a shield of protection. When I'm on tour
with these crazy rock bands, I would use my camera
(17:24):
to almost separate me from the audience. Like sixty thousand
people at my first concert, take a picture of the
audience so I can remember how crazy this is. My
visual art art just gave me an agency of my
own perspective while also being highly aware that I was
documenting history and the making of our generation. And I
(17:47):
didn't want to lose sight of my privileged perspective, which
was I'm on stage in front of thousands of people
with these radical individuals that are being documented by you know,
Rolling Stone and MTV. But I want to have my
own say on how this is being documented. And then
that's when I kind of went into photography on the road.
(18:10):
I you know, photograph Lollapalooza for Spin magazine. So I
made myself available as an insider. Outsider.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
So you joined.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Hole in nineteen ninety four, It was really one of
the most chaotic and scrutinized periods in rock history.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
What was your first day at the office?
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Like insane? I mean truly When I played my first
show with Hole, which was August of nineteen ninety four
at the Redding Festival. It was Courtney's first performance in
the wake of Kurt's suicide and Kristin, the former bass
player's overdose. So I had been in the band for
(18:54):
two weeks when I barely had had time to learn
the songs. But I did not make mistake on my
first show. I remember very clearly thinking, as long as
I can play these songs and get through this song
in this set, I will have done my job. So
I in It was chaotic, It was emotionally kind of unspeakable.
(19:20):
It was truly, I guess someone mentioned like, obviously I
was in the eye of the storm. I was thrown
into this like eye of this orbiting the chaos and
the wake of these deaths and the rise of this
fame and the confusion of our generation of what had
happened to our underground and I it has been said
that the eye of the storm is quieter than you know,
(19:43):
everything happening around it. So in a way it was
very quiet, you know, it was truly. I was backstage
focusing on my parts, focusing on is Courtney okay? Is
this lovely redhead drummer who will become my best friend
in the band? Is she okay? Is everybody okay? Are
(20:05):
we going to make it through? And in a way
it was very intimate, and I focused on the emotional
reality in my immediate environment, which was tricky. You know,
and there was a toddler on tour with us, because
Kurt had abandoned a wife and child. So I tried
(20:27):
to say, you know, present as a young woman who
cared about the people I was in a band with,
and who cared about the music and the message of
the music. So it was, you know, maybe a survival
mechanism of just focus on the here and now. But
it's how it's it's what happened. And then luckily I
(20:48):
had like my camera on my diary to sort of
keep me grounded in what seemed impossible to actually comprehend
at the time I was twenty two.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Incredible chronicling there, My god, Celebrity Skin became this massive
commercial success. Can you share what the creative process was
like in the studio and how you found your place
in that sound?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Right?
Speaker 5 (21:21):
And so imagine I joined Hole in ninety four and
Celebrity Skin didn't come out till ninety eight. So we
had this world tour of lived through this. We went
around the globe for over a year. It ended at
the MTV Awards in September of ninety five, so we
had this WorldWind visceral travel experience. Then we were sent
(21:42):
to write a new record, and so we descended into
this sort of post world tour and recovery. These people
were in traumatic grief of the loss of the people
who had so the writing of Celebrity Scan was quite laborious.
(22:05):
I describe it at length in my book of What
Didn't come easily We you know, and it did take
us three years to write and record this record, which
yes in I was actually just with Courtney last week
in la We hadn't been in Los Angeles together since
(22:26):
nineteen ninety nine, so it was like this vortex opened.
I oddly went my first podcast, I Lie was last
week recorded. Billy Corgan's podcast was the first podcast for
this record, for this record, it's actually a book for
this for this cycle. And the next day turned out
(22:46):
Courtney was also in town and we had tea and
we giggled at how outrages what has happened in the
quarter century since we had last been in Los Angeles
recording and promoting and releasing a Celebrity Skin, And we
actually had a funny conversation about how in the quarter
century we were so used to when Celebrity Skin came
(23:09):
out and it was so radically different than live Through This,
Lived Through This was very visceral and very feminist anthem anger,
and then Celebrity Skin came out and it was very
polished and it gone on to top forty and it
was like a glossy success, but there was a sense
(23:30):
of shame in there and there was a sense of well,
live Through this is the critically acclaimed, credible one, and
then did we sell out with Celebrity Skin being so glossy?
This arrival of pro tools is like these big budgeted
videos and these slick photo shoots. But the funny thing is,
when Corny and I were having tea last week twenty
(23:54):
five years later, is actually Celebrity Skin in some ways
has a aged beautifully and it has a timeless slickness.
But it also was a very special album. Conceptually, it
was her love letter to California and her love letter,
Courtney's love letter to the conflicts that is Hollywood. You know,
(24:19):
Fleetwood Mac was a huge inspiration for her. On that record,
it was like we were playing with this sort of slick,
feminine glossiness. And whether it's because Malibu was a top
forty hit whereas Lift Through This didn't have top forty hits,
(24:40):
but it has actually made an impact on pop culture
in ways that lived through this didn't. So I feel
that they both have deep, long lasting impact in very
different orbits. And I have met in the last few
years because my daughter is a fourteen year old and
(25:02):
she follows her the big, powerful, glossy pop powerhouses of
her generation Billie Eilis, Olivia Rodrigo, obviously, Taylor Swift, and
blah blah blah. But in some ways that generation remembers
celebrity Skin more than they do live through This because
(25:26):
it had broader reach, and those in the know know
that live through this was this like wild Arrival post Kurt.
But if you listen to records made by powerful women today,
they sound much more like celebrity Skin they do lo
Fi live through this so well, I'm proud to say
(25:47):
that I think it aged well in that it made
a big impact on what now is really everybody's glossy.
I mean everybody uses the INTERNT, you know, the computers
for and everybody, you know whatever that everyone's pretty shamelessly
glossy at this point, even what I consider one of
the most powerful voices of her generation, Billie Eilish and
(26:10):
her brother Phineas. It's pretty slick. You know, what they
make and what they deliver in the world to an
obviously very large audience is very slick, and I think
that they would maybe consider Celebrity Skin more related to
their work than lived through this.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
You know, we'll be right back with more the Taken
a Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk podcast.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
So moving from a Whole to Smashing Pumpkins two very
different musical environments, did it take you a long time
to adapt to that?
Speaker 5 (26:55):
I had no time. I went from one band to
the other in one week, so I had no time
to adapt. I completed my Celebrity Skin tour with Hole.
Courtney became a Hollywood movie star in the support of
our during the Celebrity Skin tour. She literally became a
Hollywood celebrity. So this crazy transition happened for her, and I,
(27:20):
who was committed to music, made a decision to leave
Hole so I could continue my pursuits in music because
I could see that her interests were moving into Hollywood.
And it was a very strange timing in that the
long standing bass player of the Smashing Pumpkins, Darcy, the
(27:41):
one female member of that band, had essentially disappeared during
the making of that last nineties Pumpkins record Machina Machines
of God, and there was like this incredible destined timing
where Billy called me one day when Darcy had disappeared
and said he was, you know, making this record and
(28:03):
he wanted to pull within close family friends and asked
if I would take her place. And it was right
as I was preparing to leave Hole, so I went
back to back in like one fell Swoop and it
was quite dramatic, and it was also quite notable that
the bass player for this this band went into the
(28:26):
next band, and there was a lot of Like when
I joined Hole replacing a deceased bass player, there was
quite a lot of sort of drama attached to my arrival.
So I was, you know, very well versed at that
point of arriving in dramatic fashions. But notably the music
(28:48):
transition was very exciting, and that I went from playing
a pretty short catalog. Hole only had three albums, and
not many of them were played, not many of the
songs were played live. But when I joined the Pumpkins,
they had four albums, one was a double album, they
(29:11):
had multiple b si Rarity albums, and I went from
the short set list to this massive because Billy is
a very prolific songwriter, but also he'd never wanted a
set to be the same twice, so I had to
be so nimble as a bass player and learn a
song a day. I had to be ready to change
(29:34):
the set list every day, and sometimes we opened for
our selves on this big European farewell tour. Now the
Pumpkins are back, but at the time, the two year
two thousand our tour was the finale of the Pumpkins,
and they did go on hiatus after that, but we
went on this incredible European farewell tour where we were
playing three to four hours a night, opening for ourselves.
(29:58):
We were playing acoustic sets for our rock sets that
were It was so epic, and the amount of learning
and bass playing I had to do was exciting. I
had to like, really it was. I've always said whole
was my like bachelor's in humanity, and then the Pumpkins
(30:19):
was my masters in music, and I'm grateful for both.
But yeah, the music transition was incredibly dramatic and very
much what I needed. I wanted to get back into
the music after what had been a very complex five
years and whole where music kind of was secondary to
her fame and her family drama. You know, it was
(30:41):
a very complicated persona to be supporting in whole, whereas
the Pumpkins was always and still is about the music.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I'm honored you would be the second podcast you would
do to Billy Corgan, And I really mean that. What
are the characteristics that make him such an incredibly special artist?
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Well, even just hanging out with him last week, you know,
there we are in our fifties. He's one of the
hardest working man in show business. Always was. I say
it in my memoir, But when I joined the band,
he had three rules. No mistakes, no days off, can't
get sick. So you know, he had a bit of
that James Brown reputation of you just like music comes first,
(31:32):
you don't have you know, these other like frivolous things
of being human don't count. So he's very, very hard working.
He's obviously very prolific, and some another trait he shares
that I share as we are not addicts. With all
due respect and compassion for the addicts that I played
(31:54):
music with. He always music was for He is a
pretty healthy, saying individual. Sure he has personality quirks of
you know, some I don't want to name the bad
qualities of Billy, but he takes himself very seriously, and
(32:17):
he takes his role as a musician incredibly seriously and
very committed to his fans. Like if there was one
thing I saw on the road of the Pumpkins, Billy
would spend hours a day with his fans before and
after the show. That's like a very particular thing. Maybe
now in the days of social media, sure fans give
(32:39):
get access, but Billy was doing that before social media.
He is very devoted to his fans, very hard working
and working every day. Like when I left the podcast,
he records his podcast at Howie Mandel's a TV studio
last week in Van Nis, and he had to go
(33:01):
to the studio right after he finished his interview with
Nancy Wilson from Heart then me, then he went to
the studio. The guy is working every day all day,
so that's obviously a big part. And he was one
of those guys which I hope they still exist. But
he was shy and awkward and weird and unloved by
(33:22):
his parents in that kind of way, and he spent
every day of his childhood in his room learning how
to play guitar. You know, that is a important quality
of musicians that there is nowhere else to go, so
you learn your instrument. So he's a ridiculous guitar player.
I mean, the guy is like an amazing, you know,
(33:44):
shredder of all shredders, and he eats a songwriter, So
that makes him very cool.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Understatement. For sure.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Writing a memoir like Even The Good Girls Will Cry
certainly means confronting your.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Past head on.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Was there one chapter in particular that was the most
difficult to write?
Speaker 5 (34:08):
Definitely? I mean, so my memoir, for those who hopefully
will read it, yes, it chronicles my time and hole
in the Smashing Pumpkins and my perspective of what our
generation went through as far as being essentially co opted
and raped by corporate greed. But within that coming of
(34:30):
age story, my father, who was a larger than life person,
not just in my life but in the city of
Montreal to anybody who witnessed my city, my father has
a street named after him. The guy was just such
an incredible force, and he in his political career and
(34:53):
his journalistic career, and I had a TV show, he
had radio shows, he had a column. He ran down
town Montreal on and off for a couple of decades.
He was so passionate for people in the Underdog. He
wanted to represent people. And my father was a complicated
(35:16):
man raised by real poverty immigrants, immigrants who came in
Europe from Europe in the thirties and raised in a
lot of difficult environments. He was a tortured individual who
smoked and drank and died at my age pretty much so.
(35:42):
My father was an addict, and so later in life
when I'm in bands of addicts, it wasn't un familiar
territory for me of people burning the candle at both ends.
So the hardest chapter, of course, in my book was
witnessing my father's demise and the horrendous death of my father,
(36:03):
which is disturbing personally but also just for anyone who
has watched someone self destruct, especially someone who loves life
as much as he did, and that was brutal. It
was like a lot of work for me, but I
knew to both honor my father but also heal myself
(36:23):
from what was decades of me avoiding facing what I
went through in my twenties watching my father die. He
died of cancer, but it was a self induced smoking
and drinking cancer of cancer of the throat and mouth
and brain. You know, smokers and drink smoking drinking combo,
(36:45):
can you know create a real pretty aggressive cancer. You know,
he did smoke three packs a day his whole life,
from like a teenager on, so that somehow some crazy
drinkers and smokers lived till Nini, but he did not.
So that was horrendous writing that was impossible, But it
actually did what I needed to do, which is finally
(37:05):
face all my pain in that which I had sort
of tucked away for way too long.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
So what advice would you give to young women today
who are trying to break into the music industry?
Speaker 5 (37:17):
Oh god, well, the industry is not what it is then,
and it is the world is not what it is now.
I know a big part of the book, other than
healing myself and my book is dedicated You probably don't
have the final version. I don't know what you say,
but it's dedicated to my daughter and all the girls.
(37:39):
So the future generation of women who have to do
what I did, but with a new set of tools
in a new world to reckon with. And yes, do
I believe there's been dark entities always, sure, every hundreds,
every generation is dark entities of war and crisis. But
(37:59):
in particular right now, I think young women are just
with the evil of the phone and the self reflection
of their own the you know, the beauty myths that
were things that me and Courtney and our generation were
really saying, fuck you two. You know, I went on
stage without even looking in the mirror. Poor girls are
(38:19):
like being asked to look at themselves every fucking second
on their phone. I hate what has happened to our
women's movement. I feel we have gone beyond backwards. This
is like worse than what I feel like the eighties
hair metal, eighties plastic like beauty Like I hated what
(38:40):
the role models were of women in the eighties that
we reacted to. I feel like, if you look at
even just the current administration in the United States, it's
a lot of plastic women. They look like blow up dolls.
They look like pornography to me. So I'm deeply concerned
about women's perception of female role models. So the book,
(39:01):
other than a personal self healing journey, it's trying to
bring up really timeless coming of age woman story beyond music,
just how does a woman find her own voice? How
does a woman find power within, not the surface without,
you know, not what you look like, but what's inside.
(39:24):
And then also this question of digital versus analog, because
our generation, you know, followed the arc of an analog
world into a digital world, and our generation really was
the last coming of age and an analog reality is
I want to tell a story of human experience in
the real world, in the room that you grow up
(39:47):
with with your girlfriends, in the room with your friends
that you discover music with, with your friends, in the
real world, like even relationships are being morphed by like
texting and face timing. It's I want to bring readers
into an innocent world where all you had was the
people in that room and in that audience with you,
(40:10):
and in that tour bus with you, or on the
stage with you, and you know, I try to capture
really also the power of that music exchange between the
audience and the performer and remind people both in the
book but also in my photography that it comes out
in the fall with my photo book that will be
a follow up to my memoir of there was no
(40:32):
cameras in those audiences. Those audiences gave you undivided attention
of true connection between humans and music. And so I
want to try to seduce people into imagining rebelling against
the digital reality, embracing the power of real relationships and
(40:55):
real analog experiences, which is always live music, live music,
and even to an extent I've been thinking about I've
always said that the power of music is you can't
hold it. You know, music is not something you can
hold in your hand unless you're playing a guitar, of course,
But for people who love music, music fans, you listen
(41:15):
to it. You're not watching. Yeah, you can watch YouTube,
or you can watch music videos, but at this point,
the power of music still remains in the ether. So
what I really hope is that women in future generations
and this current generation living in this like overly liken
(41:38):
monitored and overly like the attack on their attention is
so sick, like, you know, so sad that like music
platforms have so much video content and so so much data,
Like just let them listen to music. Just let music
be the thing. So if girls can actually or young
people can just focus on the people that love the
(42:01):
music with them, the music that is being made. Somewhere
in there, there's a timeless, analog power that will allow
them to find their calling in life and find the
real connection, you know, and be hopefully very self aware
of the mining that is happening. They're you know, Courtney
(42:22):
on Celebrity Skin and this amazing song Awful. It's like
it's a song about warning teenage girls that they are
coming after you. These teenage girls, their devotion to what
they love, their friends, their fashion, their music, that devotion
has been mined to a sick extent, like they started.
(42:46):
You know, so much of online is trying to get
young girls to focus on consuming and buying products. So
I want women to know they have fucking power. They
but they are being abused by a system that wants
to steal their attention and steal their passion. And you
(43:08):
have the power to claim that as your own and
not let male, dark tentacles of corporate greed take it
from you. Own your power, you know. Even to a
certain extent. You can complain about certain parts of Taylor Swift,
but at least she has spoken about owning her power.
(43:29):
She was abused by a male system and she got
it back. So there's a lot of power happening with women,
even though there's also this sick like new trying to
dismantle all the amazing work that my generation and my
mother's generation and the suffragettes did before. Their amount of
power over the one hundred years of women is. They're
(43:51):
trying to dismantle this. They are trying to make us
believe that we don't have power over our bodies and
over our sense of self beyond being a mother, being
a wife, being a fucking pawn to a male dominated world,
you know. So my goal is to go out and
speak to all people to remind them they have the
(44:14):
power and they are being people are trying to control us,
you know, especially young people who don't know a little
better because they're young people. They don't know they're just
being like hijacked.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
You've continued to create, whether it's it's music, visual art,
or running Basilica Hudson, which I want you to talk about.
How do these creative outlets feed each other?
Speaker 5 (44:40):
Well, they're all connected. I mean again, it kind of
comes down to my origin story. I mean, I think
that it's even Freud that talks about like creative imprints
on your young self comes from your childhood. So much
of like early memories of beauty or things that move
you always kind of come from the same place, the
things that awoke your spirit when you're young. Basilica Hudson,
(45:04):
my nonprofit Reclaimed eighteen eighties factory devoted to independent, innovative
arts and culture, is just an extension of what I
grew up with and what was instilled in my values
by my parents, which is create an environment where individual,
authentic voices, independent voices can be heard. So all of
(45:27):
it is just trying to create spaces of independent belief
and independent passions and not be part of a system
which is more and more clear to many is very
broken and very corrupt. So all of it is just
a continuation of the same thing of just trying to
empower individuals to believe that they have a say in
(45:52):
the world and they don't have to conform to other
larger forces.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Melissa, So, since we do call this little podcast Taken
a Walk, is there someone you would like to take
a walk with? Living or dead?
Speaker 5 (46:10):
Oh? Sure? Do I get to pick the location too?
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Sure? And you could pick more than more than one?
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (46:16):
Oh cool? Maybe I could have an array of people. Okay,
So in the Hudson Valley there's this incredible My favorite
Victorian stroll that I take is this beautiful castle basically
on the Hudson River called Olana, which was founded by
the Hudson River Painter School movement. So Frederick Church was
a painter in the mid late eighteen hundreds and he
(46:38):
created this like utopian visual utopia surrounded by mountains and
what looked like Renaissance skies. Every day in the Hudson
Valley on these great Catskill mountains, and I take walks
with my friends who have dogs. I'm a cat person,
but I like taking walks with dog walkers through these
strolling Victorian view sheds. And I would love to walk
(47:02):
with Carl Jung to speak about man and his symbols
and all of this symbolic you know, the power of
visual symbols and esoteric attempts to make sense of this
crazy world that we live in alongside. Okay, I could
(47:23):
be really dramatic. It would be hard for her stroll
that I could pull push free to Collo in some
cool magic rolling bed. And then I would add, let's say,
someone a great one of my favorite first ever photographers
that sort of sound. It looked like what I was
trying to get from my inner visuals, which is this
(47:45):
great photographer named Francesca Woodman who died by suicide at
a young age, but she was a very pioneering woman
who turned the camera on herself at a very young
age to do what I ended up doing in our school,
which was contemplating what the muses are to these like
you know all these male artists who painted women or
(48:08):
who sculpted women. But what if the women take themselves
as the muse, So be the hybrid of like the
creator and the mews. So I'd like a walk with
those three people overlooking beautiful Hudson River Skies.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Melissa, congratulations on even the good Girls will cry. There
are so many moments when I do this podcast I
go how did I get so lucky to be doing this?
Speaker 3 (48:36):
And this is another one of those moments.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
I'm incredibly grateful that you took the time to be
on taking a walk. I hope, I hope it felt
like we were just hanging out at the coffee shop.
Speaker 5 (48:48):
Yes, we were. I love hanging out of coffee shops.
One of my favorites tea cats, by the fire, strolling
looking at skies my favorite. So appreciate you having me
on and and hopefully your listeners. I want to take
a deep dive into nineties rock through a female photographer
bass player's lens.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
Thank you so much, Melissa, You're welcome. I'm Buzznight and
thanks for listening to the Taking a Walk podcast. Now,
please check out our companion podcasts produced by Buzznight Media
Productions with your host, Lynn Hoffman. Music Save Me, showcasing
the healing power of music, and comedy Save Me shining.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
A light on how laughter is the best medicine.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
All shows are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and are
part of the iHeart podcast network.
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