Melissa Auf Der Maur, Musician & Photographer
MADM: Well, I had a terribly shy and enclosed personality until about twenty-two. I spent the first twenty-two years observing, not really saying much. I watch, and I watch, and I watch, and then one day I had to get on stage to play music. For me the public performance happened before I could speak. A few years of public performance, and the interviews where I had to talk alongside Courtney, the biggest, loudest talker of all. Music brought me out of my shell, which I am very grateful for. That’s the human lesson of Hole that sticks with me every day. Even just from the three people I was in the band with, the three individuals who are major marks on my life. Not to mention, a big lesson in humanity and compassion for extreme people in extreme situations.
With the Pumpkins it was about the music. The level of musicianship was in the same realm as a classically-trained person. You do not make mistakes, you do not get sick, and you have to learn a new piece every single day.
UD: Hole sounds completely different.
MADM: The complete opposite. And I didn’t realize how radically opposite it was until I was on the other side, in a band with all men. [Laughs] As well as in a band with Billy, versus Courtney. He was a machine. You can’t pay for that kind of education. When you are under pressure, and you have to perform in front of twenty thousand people, and play a three-hour show, and do it every single day for a year straight. Musicians are just working class heroes. They are people who just go and slug away and sleep in horrible, uncomfortable beds, and keep telling the story over, and over, and over to be able to, like, not die. Or to be able to, maybe, pay their phone bill.
UD: Two powerful experiences, both radical and very fortunate.
MADM: Very radical, very lucky because I think in my own work I blend the two. I don’t even mean sound-wise, because I never think about what my solo record sounds like compared to the Pumpkins or Hole. But I think you are touching on something which I haven’t really thought about, more about how I combine for myself, in the way I write music and the way I make my records, some of the structure with some of the emotional looseness of Hole.
UD: Do you miss the limelight?
MADM: No. I wouldn’t be here in Hudson, New York if I did. I would be in L.A. or New York.
UD: Do you perform anymore?
MADM: Never.
UD: Never?
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