“Was Courtney impossible, difficult, a drug addict, terrifying, and even mean sometimes? Yes, she was. But it took me one second to understand that she was also a survivor”: Melissa Auf der Maur on her time in Hole and why she’s “proud” of Courtney Love

Melissa Auf der Maur and Courtney Love in 1998.

Melissa Auf der Maur, the Canadian bassist best known for her stint in Courtney Love’s Hole, has written a memoir, and has been talking to the Guardian about it and her time at the centre of 1990s alt rock.

She stepped, knowingly, into the eye of a hurricane; the biggest rock story in a generation. Auf der Maur joined Hole in mid 1994, just after previous bassist Kristen Pfaff had died of a heroin overdose and, of course, just a couple of months after Kurt Cobain’s suicide.