Courtney Love has emphatically ruled out the possibility of reuniting Hole, and insisted that media and fans clinging on to the idea should “get over it.”
In a new interview with Vogue, when the singer is asked, ‘Do you think there’ll ever be a proper Hole reunion?’ she replies, “No, absolutely not. And you guys have gotta get over it. Our old manager [and longtime Metallica co-manager] Peter Mensch calls once a year to ask about a reunion: ‘Hey, just doing my thing I do every year with you and Jimmy Page [of Led Zeppelin].’ And I’m so honoured to be in that company, but it’s just not gonna happen.”
“We’re all really good friends,” Love clarifies, “and Melissa [Auf Der Maur] and I are especially close—we talk every day. But Eric [Erlandson] is kinda off the grid right now—I think he’s in Japan literally becoming a monk. I’m not even kidding. Melissa, Patty [Schemel], and I think he’s become a monk or something on that level of asceticism.”
To be fair, much of the talk of a Hole reunion in recent years has originated with Courtney herself.
Last year, in an interview with the NME, Love, who is now based in London, said, "Before I came back I actually had Melissa [Auf der Maur, bass] and Patty [Schemel, drums] come with our tech to this old-world rehearsal studio. We had a good session, but it takes a bit of time to get back into the rhythm of it all.”
"It’s something I’d love to do and [I've] been taking guitar lessons over Zoom during lockdown and I’m writing again so we’ll see!"
In October 2019 Love posted a photo on Instagram from the rehearsal, showing herself, Schemel and Auf Der Maur, captioned, “Whose rusty af? Ladies !!!” using the hashtags #hole, #rehearsal, # tonight and #hollywood.
She later commented, "We r so rusty. Just finding our way through songs n songs we like n riffs seeing what's what! It's cool. Af nice to be together."
And in May 2019 Love spoke to The Guardian about the possibility of Hole reforming for the 25th anniversary of the classic 1994 album Live Through This, saying, "We are definitely talking about it. There's nothing wrong with honouring your past; I’ve just kind of discovered that. If you don’t, people will rewrite history and you will become an inconvenient woman."
So, in summary, so we’re clear, that Hole reunion Courtney Love keeps hinting at is definitely not happening, says Courtney Love, who keeps hinting at it.
Elsewhere in her interview with Vogue, Love described herself as a “village elder”.
“This might sound a little precious,” she says, “but celebrity is so overrated in the grand scheme of being an artist. And I say that as someone who’s been living off of celebrity for a long time because I’m no spring chicken anymore. I’m something of a village elder now, and it’s so much better. I hope I don’t sound trite, but it feels profoundly different to wake up every day now saying, ’I’m not a celebrity, I’m an artist, and today I’m gonna make stuff’.”
Via Vogue, Love has also released a new video, a cover of California Stars, written by Billy Bragg and Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, and based on a Woody Guthrie poem. Love describes it as a “charming, rollicking little song.”
