Hole bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur has played down the chances of a Hole reunion – although she describes their jam together as a “beautiful” moment.
Band leader Courtney Love said earlier this year that the classic lineup, also featuring Eric Erlandson and Patty Schemel, would work together again after a series of successful rehearsals. The following week she admitted her announcement had led some of her colleagues to “flip out” with her. Later she said getting back together was a bad idea because she didn’t want to wind up on the “oldies circuit.”
Now Auf Der Maur tells the Guardian: “Courtney described it as, ‘We went on a date but we did not make out.’ That’s what I can say.
“It was fucking beautiful to be in the same room with them for the first time in aeons. That was special – it was truly beautiful and there was a group hug. That’s as far as it’s gone. Now I’m back to being a mother and having a big old factory.”
She co-runs the Basilica Hudson art centre, a converted factory in New York, with husband Tony Stone, and appears intent on focusing on that project.
She’s fascinated with the resurgence of interest in 1990s art. “I catch glimpses the first thing I feel and think is, ‘Wow, the echo of what we were about is happening right now.’ In terms of the ‘genuine originality’ in the 90s, people were just developing on their own terms. I meet people today who are doing the same thing – like 25-year-olds who have flip phones. People are pulling away in order to nurture their own independent minds, which is really exciting.”
Auf Der Maur was briefly a member of Smashing Pumpkins – and she says her decision to work with Billy Corgan’s band was based on the discovery of a coincidence. “Billy is a Pisces too, which is essentially why I joined,” she says. “When he and I met, I was 19. He was like. ‘You were born on St Patrick’s Day? I was born on St Patrick’s Day – we’re soulmates.’”
