Auf Der Maur - London, UK, Winter 2004
By: Samantha Hall
Innocent, ponderous, assured; in the corner of a breakfast lounge bar in one of the most unashamedly swanky hotels in London, sits Melissa Auf Der Maur, unquestionable rock-starlet of 2004.
For those not introduced; this is the very woman that replaced Kristen Pfaff after her tragic death to form part of the worldwide, millions-selling phenomenon that is/was Hole. As bassist/vocalist, and with the rest of the band - inclusive of ubiquitous frontwoman Courtney Love (then wife of the very slightly esteemed legend, Kurt Cobain) in tow - one of the biggest-selling, dubbed 'female' rock records since the 70s was spawned. Yes, 'Celebrity Skin' can/should be strewn across the floors of every post-adolescent, young woman caught up in every major rock 'n' roll zeitgeist of note in recent years: a minor sacrament, a way of passage for defiant femi-musos.
Years on, here is Auf Der Maur, sitting neatly, politely with her tea and juice in this very British establishment overlooking Kensington Gardens. Despite her Bohemian, arty appearance, she is unassuming, involved, well-spoken and almost knowingly vibrant. It's everything you'd hope for in the latest, feisty songstress-ascendant to the hallowed caverns of solo-star guitar-royalty.
She's got her own record out now, you see. And, boy, has the press-release accompanying 'Auf Der Maur' pounded home the emphasis of the eponymous work being ADM's' own'. In a series of quotes, she overtly stresses, almost urgently, her satisfaction in creating this piece - a gateway into her own music and her heart. After years of musical collaboration, not to mention following the flighting whims of Ms Love, this is understandable.
Yet, paradoxically, the 'collaborating artist' list spreads over several sheets and enthusiastically drops such weighty celeb-chum names as Josh Homme, Brandt Bjork, Eric Erlandson, James Iha and Jordan Zadoronzy in rapid-fire succession. The significance of these undisputed leading artists and their role in her music, and the sales possibilities for the price of such artists' involvement in this album, can't go un-noted.
Melissa nods slyly, soon going on to earnestly deliver not so much a defensive rant as set-the-record-straight balls-breaker of a retort.
'I know the list sounds a lot,' she concedes, 'but most were involved for literally an hour or two. It was my project, we worked to my structure; everything from the bare basics of finding and hiring a studio, paying for it, getting an engineer...
'Chris Goss and I co-produced it together so he was the only other consistent person involved fundamentally. He is such a great producer; he doesn't tell you what to do - he lets somebody be themselves.'
Not once is there a squirm or fidget - simply clear, confident delivery and eye-to-eye responses.
'Everything else, writing the songs... I wrote the lyrics, the guitar and put down the bass, created the rhythmic-structure, then invited friends in to create layers on top to get the feel I wanted... I created the substance. I used other artists, friends specifically for allocated songs, but the main guys involved were Steve Surland and Josh Homme.
'Steve represents my roots, where I've come from, and, Josh, my dreams, my aspirations. Now, to me, that sounds like me. His sounds are my love of music and my dream of working with Josh... I hear in myself, my big influence of Josh... And then working with Steve, well we've been best friends for years, so practically we're the same person.
'It's like I put my brain through a computer, cut up my thoughts and mixed them up to create the depth I wanted. I wanted many layers - this is the most me it could be. More like me than if I'd done it alone.'
Enflamed, Melissa justifies her every move, leaving no angles uncovered, while emotively expressing herself and her profound ideas with passion and conviction.
'What is me,' she continues, 'are the dreams and sounds in my head not physically what I may be capable of. I can't play drums. I probably never will. I need someone who has the tools to channel my ideas through them.'
As if we weren't already told, she snatches one more, final affirmation. 'I can honestly say this record represents 100% who I am through and through...' You wouldn't doubt her.
The strains to unleash one's exertions must have pent up over the years. For, most notable of all with Auf Der Maur, is Melissa's all-too backward musical history. In 1994, MAD'M left her home and university in Montreal to join, effectively, a f**king big American band, the ensemble steered righteously under the reign of the aforementioned Love.
So soon, Auf Der Maur was thrown in to fill a void and complete work on an album under massive pressure to succeed the successes of a contemporary classic of the time, 'Live Through This'. To support this, she toured the world relentlessly for an intense five years before joining The Smashing Pumpkins on their farewell tour after Hole collapsed. All epic success and experiences for a girl that was preparing a humble route into music-photography straight from uni.
'All I ever expected, from music, was a record out on an independent label and a van-tour of the States,' she reminisces, 'but it all happened so quickly and went all the other way to the end of the spectrum. I played seven shows with Tinker before I played in Hole. My eighth show was to 60,000 at Reading Festival... I've never experienced a club tour...'
Addressing her own present state: 'This is what I've been waiting for, for ten years. I wanted to go right back to where I originally started - putting out my first record, wanting to do a small club tour. What normal people do... feel music grow between you and the outside world slowly but surely.'
So despite your vast arena experience, you're comfortable with playing the less salacious likes of the Islington Academy in a couple of weeks? Do you truly lust after the authenticity of a transit van?
'I think of my album as a small club record,' she justifies. 'The most powerful shows I've ever experienced are at 500 capacity clubs, where it's hot and crowded, you can see the sweat drip off the people's faces and watch the fingers on the fret-board... that's the way I like it. That's the way I think music is introduced best.'
Aside from granting her lungs consent to sampling some of the ensuing, foggy exhaust-fumes of a rusty mini-bus for such impending, 'small-scale', on-the-road exploits, Auf Der Maur did take other massive risks in making this record. As well as potentially falling flat to the possibility of a tarnished reputation by the calculus media-eye, she invested her whole fortune in the production and recording of 'Auf Der Maur'. The only rationalisation for this? A great deal of faith and hope.
'I had no expectations. All I wanted to do was make a record that was honest and representative of me. All I wanted to do... all I've done. And from here on out, everything else is just an added bonus.
'I love touring. I love travelling the world... I love playing music, love connecting with people about music. It's the closest thing we have, unless you're a member of an organised religion, which I am not - music is my spirituality, it's my way of finding a reason for living.'
But the dollars?
'When I put money into this album, I didn't know if I would make it back and I still haven't... I really did it to make me happy. Any money I make from music is free money the way I see it. Music isn't a business, it never will be and it's a shitty business when it is. It's not fair - it doesn't help music. I just want to have enough money to make the music I make. I guess I didn't even see it as a risk. Instead of buying a house, I made an album and that's what makes my life a better place.'
But why the need to create for oneself so urgently? A musician's dream is generally considered to consist of obtaining mass success and exposure... which ADM's had. What else is left to desire - or maybe did the strain of having to maintain her independence and individuality within such a charismatic, public group make her determined to prove herself as her own entity?
'I was in Hole for five years and, yes, things had already developed and they'd created sparks... I was a visitor. I was there long enough to become part of it, in 'Celebrity Skin' I hear me - I know the role I played. I'm very proud, clear on that. In fact, I think people know themselves better within limitations. I was at the time very patient. I was never in Hole wanting to make my record. I was in Hole to develop and, in fact, I think my identity became stronger because it was limited.
'I grew up a politician's daughter. My identity was always my 'father's daughter'. From an outside perspective... I was always 'somebody else's something'. I tried even harder to become myself in Hole, but I was 'somebody else's bass player' and it inspired me... 'Who am I? If I'm not their daughter? Or their bass player?"
Admirably, rather than triggering distaste when it reached a crux, being within Hole provided Melissa a chance to find and define herself through the context of others. Melissa was surrounded by budding, intelligent, talented people who taught her and helped her grow.
Contrastingly, to predominantly work with males in music is no shocker; the vast majority of people in the 'alternative music' biz are, indeed, gents. But the endless string of 'collaborators' and 'advisers' of Auf Der Maur's output seem to be solely men. Is this a result of escaping the perception of a high-power, female-dominated band? Ultimately, the only women Melissa ever played with are Courtney, Stan and her new live band guitarist, Patty.
Gender isn't a priority, seemingly. 'I'm a human first, female second. I'm a musician, then female musician. I wanted to make sounds that make sense... Most of my musician friends are men. Conscious or unconscious, just way it is...
'Simply, fewer women make heavy rock music. In my live band, I made a conscious decision to have a female guitar-player; of course, if she couldn't play, I would've got a man, but Kim I knew had been experienced in guitar for fifteen years and had come from a heavy, heavy guitar band in San Francisco called Stone Fox.'
And the rest of the female rock world?
'It is very important for myself and Kim to represent women onstage. Girls at the rock concert need to be inspired by women up there. There aren't many women, you know; there was a good handful of female bands in the early nineties - The Breeders, Sonic Youth, and a couple of individuals, but - currently - it's very low.'
To prove that music and art is sexless marks a strong notch on the agenda in many female musicians' approximations. Music ultimately is artistic expression. It is sexless. Frustratingly, however, male rock-bands can be overweight, and sweaty and grimy (in the case of Har Mar Superstar, all three are a pre-requisite), but the laydees have to bear a certain sexual or yearning allure. Music, woefully, takes second-place.
'Females in general are more of an object of desire than men are,' states Melissa. 'Men run the world; women are their objects of desire that have their children: boring, old, classic, historical society rules but true. Women are deemed to be pretty and smell nice. In our society, men and women appreciate the beauty of women more than men. It just adds a bit of complex issue when being in the public-eye as a women, it adds extra pressure, having to be attractive. I don't really think about it anyway, but you should definitely be aware of it and that it's a double-edged sword. I was impressed with the Perfect Circle audience; although the majority were men, there was no, like, 'Show us your tits!' We used to get that a lot at our shows in Hole.'
Indeed, as we muse over the perils of chauvinist record-label A&R's and the excruciating toils us ladies have to jump through hoops for (Oh for Pete's sake, quit your moaning and do the laundry, will you...? - Macho Ed), it is evident that these new generations of men and women under 21 seem so much more welcomingly open-mindedly forward-thinking and embracing. They don't think the same way as Auf Der Maur's generation and that development and acceptance of women being genuinely real and rough and scary will eventually spread to music.
This hones in even more just why Auf Der Maur's journey is such an inspirational and influential one. Of comparisons and influences, there are few. But the story of Paz Lenchatin of A Perfect Circle/Zwan really stands out as a fitting parallel: a woman that has worked extensively with two synonymous, US rock bands (both, intriguingly, at some point involving the whiny Billy Corgan) and a character now cutting back to her own solo material and musical existence (N.B. although with David Pajo/Papa M, rather than being entirely 'solo'). Is there a union felt between the two?
Just slightly. 'It's the first time I've seen a woman since I've been in music that I've felt this sister-like, 'Whoa - we're the same type of woman' (bond), musically, (while also) being a bit of a tom-boy: being comfortable with being with the guy, but at the same time acting very feminine.' She pauses to reflect. 'When you ask me that question, I get goosebumps... It really is profound how much I can relate to her, on the same human-female, musician-life, adventure kinda way.'
Paz even also considered the significance of cultivating a matured character and musical experience before focussing on her own independent music exploration and 'adventure', as Melissa so succinctly pins it. In the upcoming year, we shall finally see what strident offerings this talented, gypsy woman can bring to the world.
Back to the topic in hand (time is pressing on), and, unavoidably, inescapably, we begin the end by dusting off the significance of the cutting, last track of Auf Der Maur's album - the immaculately sultry 'I Need I Want I Will'. After all, if 'Auf Der Maur' were a concept album, this searing outro would be the pinnacle; a mighty collaboration with Homme, boasting a significant signature-riff echoing the efforts of his prior Kyuss days, all through a fantasy enthralled dénouement. A cry of a spirit, and one's love and determination to (as trite as it seems) live out dreams and fulfil a role on Planet Earth.
And why? 'I had a dream in 1999 about aliens visiting and giving this gift of music, and this pyramid in the desert, and this incredible thing,' she dreamily recommences, '... gift of music that brought people together - the invention of three-dimensional sound. In that dream, I felt the power that music has to bring people together. I woke up and I was committed to music. And that's the song - I will pass on this music: I have a dream and shall pass it on.'
It's heavier than we anticipated, but no less impressing.
Even so, a comforting buzz resonates, a feeling of eminent warmth as the brief encounter closes. We leave with only one conclusion in mind; Auf Der Maur: this could be love.
Artists in this article: Auf Der Maur