Melissa Auf Der Maur: The Mother of All Instruments 

Few bands rode the ’90s alternative music rollercoaster with more intensity than Hole, the combustible mix of punk, grunge, and pop led by frontwoman Courtney Love. When Live Through This, their second album, hit the airwaves a week after Love’s husband Kurt Cobain was found dead in April 1994, it was a critical and commercial hit. It was also the last to feature original bassist Kristen Pfaff, who OD’d a couple months later. 

That summer, Hole introduced their new bassist, a soft-spoken 21-year-old who had only been playing bass for a year. Melissa Auf Der Maur added killer low end to the band’s live shows and to 1998’s Celebrity Skin, Hole’s final and most commercially successful album — and fortunately for us, this daughter of two Canadian journalists also kept a diary and took lots of pictures. 

Three decades later, Auf Der Maur’s new memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry, captures those experiences with stunning clarity. Chronicling everything from the arduous process of recording Celebrity Skin and her fax-powered relationship with Dave Grohl to being a few blocks away from 9/11 with Paz Lenchantin and joining Smashing Pumpkins, the open and entirely candid Even the Good Girls Will Cry is an enthralling read, especially for those of who lived through the grunge era and the drug-fueled drama that grabbed headlines. 

The book also serves as the first account of “ADM” talking about her playing and her lifelong love of the bass. From the moment she picked up her sunburst ’70s Squier Precision, she says, she had found her calling, and the course of her life was forever changed as one opportunity led to the next. Being self-taught and joining a band the week she started, ADM played the way she felt, which often found her in front of the beat driving the songs of Hole, Smashing Pumpkins, and her two solo albums Auf Der Maur [2004] and Out of Our Minds [2010]. “I’m learning more about my own playing now that I’m revisiting it and talking about it,” she says. In fact, much of the book is dedicated to her role as a bassist, which provides a refreshing perspective amidst the chaos. 

How vulnerable did you feel revealing everything in Even the Good Girls Will Cry? 

Very! It wasn’t until I was recording the audiobook, reading my story to myself, that I realized what I was unleashing. I was crying in places I did not expect. This started as a journey to unpack and better understand my coming into womanhood — for myself, my daughter, and her generation — and to study my evolution. Reading it for the audiobook, it occurred to me that there would be people reflecting this back to me. It was almost terrifying to realize that I had unleashed something, and now I was going to have to face it. But I have total faith that this is a necessary part of my healing process. 

In many instances, you held your tongue with bandmates and people in the music industry. What is it like to reveal your thoughts now? 

I was just in L.A., where I had tea with Courtney [Love] and was on Billy Corgan’s podcast. Everything is out in the open now, and I’m closer to both of them than I ever have been. That’s magic! When I started writing the book, I got in touch with Dave [Grohl] and got his blessing. I told him that I was going to tell everything. Because of my Canadian, redhead, bass-playing, diplomatic ways, I don’t have enemies. If there’s one thing these people know, it’s that I’m not in this for the money, drama, or power. 

Because of my Canadian, redhead, bass-playing, diplomatic ways, I don’t have enemies. If there’s one thing these people know, it’s that I’m not in this for the money, drama, or power. 

You’ve said that “bass is the mother of all instruments.” What makes it so maternal?

When you’re in a crowd of 20 or 20,000 people, what are they moving to? They are moving to the bass. Yes, the kick drum helps, but the bass is gluing the kick drum to the guitar, vocals, and everything. They are 100 percent being moved by the bass. I’ve had my whole life as a bass player to reflect on that. That term came to me when I was in a limo in 1999 being brought to the Gibson Guitar Awards, where I was winning “Best Female Bassist” [laughs]. In the car ride, I had to write an acceptance speech, and that’s when it came to me. I scribbled it in my diary. 

Bass is the mother of all instruments. She’s the one you don’t notice until she’s gone, and she’s the one that connects everyone together without being obvious about it. That’s why I was attracted to bass in the first place: The showmanship of lead guitar or singer and the athleticism of a drummer — that just intimidated me. The deep feminine power of the bass, the silent wallflower power, is what I love. 

You joined Hole within a year of picking up the bass. That’s wild!

That does get overlooked. It was a whirlwind. I just instantly connected with the bass, and it felt so natural to be playing it. I was focused on writing songs and my role in the band. I wasn’t hung up on the whole technical side of it. Actually, I’m glad you’re bringing this up because I have two very Bass Magazine-exclusive stories. One involves Geddy Lee and the other involves Billy Corgan. 

Let’s start with Geddy.

Geddy put out a show called Bass Players Are Humans Too [on Paramount+], and I got the call to be the token female bass player [laughter]. The producers told me Geddy wanted to come to my town to learn about me and prove that bass players do more than just play bass, and that at the end of the visit, I was going to jam with him. 

What did you think of that idea? 

In that moment, I was like, “Fuck, maybe I can’t do this.” I hadn’t played bass in a very long time. I can’t bass solo jam with Geddy Lee with no drums or anything else! I told them that it sounded terrible and intimidating, but I wasn’t going to say no to Geddy jamming with me. So they showed up, we got to know each other for a couple of days, and me and Geddy hit it off so hard. In one of our conversations, I whispered to him that bass playing is really easy. He said, don’t say that. I told him it was. He said that it might be easy for me, but it’s not easy for everyone. For me, it’s that female sense of tapping into other people and just letting it come out. Later, we picked up our basses, and at the end of our jam, Geddy — who had just filmed episodes with the bass players from Metallica, Nirvana, and Primus — told me that I was the only one who let go and actually jammed with him. He said the other guys were all tech talk. I told him I couldn’t tech talk because I don’t have tech to talk, I just fucking play [laughs]. 

Bass is the mother of all instruments. She’s the one you don’t notice until she’s gone, and she’s the one that connects everyone together without being obvious about it. The deep feminine power of the bass, the silent wallflower power, is what I love. 

Awesome. How was chatting with Billy Corgan?

I went out to Los Angeles and sat down with Billy for his podcast. I was being interviewed by my mentor about the book that I just wrote, in which he’s heavily included. He decides to talk about my bass playing as someone who saw me open up for his band on the Siamese Dream tour, had me in his band, and then invited me back last summer to sit in on his solo tour. If there’s anyone who would have a perspective on my bass playing, it’s him. 

I had never had a conversation with him about my bass playing until this moment. I used to just show up and play and not make any mistakes. He said something interesting: When his beloved D’Arcy [Wretzky] went MIA, he asked me to join his band because he needed someone from inside the family during that delicate moment. His song “I Am One” [from the Smashing Pumpkins’ 1991 debut, Gish] is the sole reason I picked up the bass, and he said that he wanted to give me, as a bass player, an “expanded experience.” He knew I was hungry for it, and I was. I said yes to Hole to make an impact on the male-dominated landscape, and I said yes to Smashing Pumpkins for the music. It was the greatest music lesson of my life. 

When I started playing “Everlasting Gaze” at soundcheck in Montreal last summer, [Billy] stopped and said, “Wow, there’s that pocket. You’re the only one with it.” I’m not saying it’s better, and it’s certainly not worse, but it’s unique to me.

Your time in Smashing Pumpkins and working with Billy obviously had a big impact on you. 

Playing those shows changed my body, my soul, and my bass playing for life. The other cool thing Billy said was that my pocket is very different from anyone else he’d ever played with. When I started playing “Everlasting Gaze” at soundcheck in Montreal last summer, he stopped and said, “Wow, there’s that pocket. You’re the only one with it.” I’m not saying it’s better, and it’s certainly not worse, but it’s unique to me. He had never told me that before. He also described where bass players usually land and said I’m always pushing slightly ahead, which I didn’t know. But it kind of clicked when he said it. 

One of the highlights of the book is your chapter about learning tricky bass parts for Machina with Grohl. 

To have a man you love, who also happens to be the best drummer on the planet — as a bass player, that’s pretty fucking cool. It was definitely the most romantic thing that had happened up until that point. That time with Dave was so joyous, but also so enriching musically. Now that I look back on it, working through that music with him was surreal. That music was a lot to learn, with a lot of difficult parts, and I needed to nail it to prove to myself that I could… and to prove that female bassists were just as skilled and talented.

Are we any better at honoring and balancing women’s roles in music than we were back then?

I do think that it has gotten better, as I discuss at the end of the book. The rise of Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, and Taylor Swift — of course it’s on the upswing. But also, look at society. Look at the algorithms of the internet preying on young girls and what the administration of this country does. We are not better off as a society, and in our little secular world of music, it’s still a man’s business, but now these amazing, powerful girls own their own catalogs and have their say, although it does cost $500 to go to their concerts because it’s a crazy-ass system. The only person I see doing it motherfucking dreamily is Billie Eilish. That woman is the most talented artist of her generation. The power of the musical legacy shared between Billie and her brother [Finneas O’Connell] can only be created with a combination of magic and a loving family who supports their kids’ arts. Her daringness to call people out is just beautiful. She is as good as embodied female power can be.

There is so much progress. Billie couldn’t have existed in our generation. That would’ve been impossible. 

You talk about watching John McVie rehearse with Fleetwood Mac and thinking, “The trick is to make the music brilliantly simple when it comes to the rhythm section. It’s simple, I realize, but not easy.” 

I love sentiments that emphasize big concepts really succinctly, which I believe is part of my writing style, so I appreciate hearing things like that. Trying to take something complicated and condensing it down to one sentence is really hard, but I feel like those things are received more easily. That’s also my style as a bass player. Locking in with the drums, not stepping out and trying to do too much, is an art in itself.  

“The trick is to make the music brilliantly simple when it comes to the rhythm section. It’s simple, I realize, but not easy.” 

When it comes to your bass influences, Eric Avery is just about the only player you mention. 

He’s one of the few bass players in the world that I can reference as a musical inspiration, but I never sat and learned his shit. I don’t even know any Jane’s Addiction bass lines, but I like them. We do have a similar style. The good thing about me not having spent a lot of time talking musical shop with anyone is that I’ve always had my own mentality, and Eric is someone who seems to always have his own voice when he writes. 

What is the best advice you’ve ever been given about bass? 

None. I don’t think I’ve ever been given advice. Nobody has ever taught me anything. No one has shown me even one fucking trick. Really, the only thing that was ever said to me about my bass was when producer Michael Bienhorn told me that I stay on top of the beat like John Bonham while we were recording Celebrity Skin. That was it. I’ve never had conversations about bass at all. Well, until now [laughs].

You talk a lot about your original sunburst ’70s Squier Precision in the book. What do you love about that bass?

I had an immediate connection right when I got it, and I used it for so much of what I did. I never really shopped around for other basses because I really love that bass so much. It just feels like home to me. She’s still alive and well and with me. I eventually graduated to a Fender once they brought me on as an artist, but I put a picture of me with that Squire bass on the cover of the book. I was just a child in that picture. 

Has writing this book inspired you to once again create music? 

Yes. I love photography and I have this crazy archive at a museum called Art Gallery of Ontario, which gives me 6,000 square feet to exhibit my photography. [Melissa Auf der Maur: My ’90s Rock Photographs opens on September 2, 2026.] While conceptualizing the exhibit, I realized that I needed an ode to my bass, so I’m creating an installation called “The Bass Womb Room.” It is a sound and visual installation, an ode to the force of the bass that has moved me onstage and offstage. It’s deeply conceptual and I’ve been working on a score for that exhibit. While I’ve been in the studio doing that, I’ve decided that I also want to have fun, so I’m working on a very carefully curated cover album, which is also an ode to my bass in the form of electronic, industrial, new wave music that uses synth bass covered by me on electric with real drums. That will probably come out next year. 

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