Imagine the Nineties rock band Hole as a big American house. If frontwoman Courtney Love is the hurricane door and the library, the broken faucet and the pentagram scrawled on the basement floor, then Melissa Auf der Maur is the wind chime hanging outside on the front porch. When Hole went pop, transitioning out of the indignant poetry of “Teenage Whore” and “Doll Parts” into luxurious radio hits like “Celebrity Skin” and “Malibu”, it was Auf der Maur, the ethereal Canadian on bass, who served as the glue connecting both worlds. Her background vocals, those gorgeous oohs and aahs, trailed Love’s guttural fury, adding calm and beauty to the darkest of spaces. It was a role she was expected to fill in reality, too. The 22-year-old Auf der Maur joined Hole in the summer of 1994, mere weeks after the fatal overdose of their original bass player Kristen Pfaff, and months after the suicide of Love’s husband Kurt Cobain.
“Someone recently called me a monster whisperer,” the 54-year-old laughs today. “I have a high tolerance for people who are a tiny bit difficult. My parents were radicals, and that trained me in how to deal with unexpected things. But instead of deciding to shed it all and have a more mellow life, I joined a wild rock band and lived on the road for 17 years.”
