Melissa Auf der Maur will chronicle her unique experiences playing bass during formative eras for both Hole and Smashing Pumpkins in her memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry, which will be released March 17 through Da Capo.
“This book is about the decade that defined me and my generation, 1991-2001, and my life in the rock bands which allowed me to have a front row seat to an incredibly visceral and unforgettable moment in the counterculture,” says the Montreal-born musician. “It’s a love letter to the power of music and one-of-a-kind voices that make the world a cooler place. It’s also an ode to the analog, and what magic has been lost. Sharing what our generation witnessed, and what the world once was, in my hope of building a more livable future together.”
Auf der Maur famously joined Hole for the band’s 1994 tour in support of the album Live Through This, mere weeks after the deaths of both frontwoman Courtney Love’s husband Kurt Cobain and Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff. She remained in the group for five years and was featured prominently on its 1998 album Celebrity Skin.
In 1999, Auf der Maur replaced D’arcy Wretzky in Smashing Pumpkins and played with the Billy Corgan-led group for a year before its dissolution. She went on to release a riff-heavy, self-titled 2004 solo album and its follow-up, Out of Our Minds, six years later. Auf der Maur and her husband, filmmaker Tony Stone, now own the upstate New York venue Basilica Soundscape.
“All my musical friends know I’ve loved heavy music since 1990, but I guess I look more like an art teacher than a person who loves hard rock,” Auf Der Maur told SPIN in 2004. “What’s so crazy is that I grew up so androgynous and so one of the guys. I started playing bass because I wasn’t that cute. I used to work as a DJ in a bar, and my guy friends were like, hey, do you wanna comedown and play live music and drink beer?’ That’s how I got into this.”
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