Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Melissa Auf der Maur

Transcript

Melissa Auf der Maur · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin melis Off. Deemauer came of age in Montreal's bohemian
0:22
Speaker 1: art scene in the eighties and early nineties, at the
0:25
Speaker 1: very moment that alternative rock was becoming the defining sound
0:28
Speaker 1: of a generation. Through an unlikely chain of events, her
0:31
Speaker 1: band Tinker landed an opening slot for The Smashing Pumpkins
0:34
Speaker 1: and Billy Corgan. Sensing her natural talent on bass, Corgan
0:38
Speaker 1: recommended her to Courtney Love. What followed was a turbulent
0:41
Speaker 1: apprenticeship of Deemauer joined whole for to live through this
0:44
Speaker 1: tour in nineteen ninety four, just weeks after the deaths
0:47
Speaker 1: of Kirk Obain and Hols prior bassist Kristin Faff. Later,
0:51
Speaker 1: she toured with The Smashing Pumpkins, released two solo albums,
0:54
Speaker 1: and as Sense built a life as a musician, photographer,
0:57
Speaker 1: and cultural curator, having co founded Basilica Hudson, a multidisciplinary
1:02
Speaker 1: art center in New York's Hudson Valley. Even the Good
1:05
Speaker 1: Girls Will Cry as Melissa's best selling book, part rock memor,
1:09
Speaker 1: part travel diary, part psychedelic scrap book, a vivid dispatch
1:13
Speaker 1: from what she calls the last analog decade, capturing that
1:16
Speaker 1: era in all its messy, angsty glory. Off Demauer writes
1:20
Speaker 1: with the tenderness of a true survivor, about the illness
1:23
Speaker 1: and death of her father, her past relationship with Dave Grohl,
1:26
Speaker 1: and her complicated, deeply human portrait of Courtney Love. Now
1:30
Speaker 1: she's following it up with a companion photo book, My
1:33
Speaker 1: Nineties Rock Photographs, drawn from the remarkable archives she shot
1:36
Speaker 1: from one of rock's last great decades. On today's episode,
1:40
Speaker 1: I talked to Mliss off Demauer about both projects, about
1:44
Speaker 1: how her parents encouraged an unconventional life in the arts,
1:46
Speaker 1: how alternative music went mainstream, and how her relationship with
1:50
Speaker 1: Courtney Love has evolved over the years. This is broken record,
1:56
Speaker 1: real musicians, real conversations. Here's my conversation with Melissa off Demauer.
2:09
Speaker 2: JI, in whole was happened because of death. I replaced
2:12
Speaker 2: a deceased woman who died two months after Kurt committed suicide.
2:16
Speaker 2: So the whole runway to my joining that band was death.
2:20
Speaker 1: With Cony Love, who I don't know, but just from
2:22
Speaker 1: everything you know I know of her, you just presume.
2:25
Speaker 1: I mean, I wouldn't think she's getting out of the decade.
2:28
Speaker 2: Of course, impossible She's an absolute miracle. She should have
2:33
Speaker 2: been dead seventeen hundred times. She is not. She's alive.
2:37
Speaker 2: And we didn't speak after I left the band for
2:41
Speaker 2: well over a decade, and we are now the closest
2:43
Speaker 2: we have ever been.
2:45
Speaker 1: That's great.
2:45
Speaker 2: She's in the best mental health and clarity than she
2:49
Speaker 2: ever has been. She has an album in the can
2:52
Speaker 2: that I sang backups all over. She has a memoir
2:55
Speaker 2: coming out at the end of the year, in a
2:57
Speaker 2: documentary film that's a real reframing in her own words,
3:01
Speaker 2: of her survival. Basically, she's but yes.
3:05
Speaker 1: She's going there and all that. Like in the dock,
3:07
Speaker 1: is it like it goes pretty heavy?
3:08
Speaker 2: I mean it did. This is very Courtney. But it
3:11
Speaker 2: did premiere at sun Dance in January. She didn't show up,
3:15
Speaker 2: and now she's reshooting it. When it came out to rave.
3:18
Speaker 1: Reviews, she's just put the original film as like an
3:21
Speaker 1: extra or something. I loved it.
3:24
Speaker 2: Redoing it, but I mean it's probably going to be better.
3:26
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it's sure. She's going to have
3:29
Speaker 2: her moment like this is my year, my little bass
3:31
Speaker 2: player a year. In twenty twenty six, she and Billy
3:34
Speaker 2: who are my grunge parents that I refer to because
3:37
Speaker 2: Billy from the Smashing Pumpkins was my entree and my
3:40
Speaker 2: introduction to Hole and he was my musical mentor. So
3:44
Speaker 2: there are these ominous parent figures. And when I left
3:48
Speaker 2: the nineties running after my two stints in yeah, two
3:53
Speaker 2: huge bands, but also notably two of the most I
3:58
Speaker 2: never saw it this way until I left in decades later, like, yeah,
4:01
Speaker 2: you were in two huge rock bands, but you were
4:02
Speaker 2: also in the bands with the most difficult front people,
4:07
Speaker 2: like notably difficult front people.
4:10
Speaker 1: Different reasons but different, Yeah.
4:11
Speaker 2: Very different people. Courtney and Billy are radically different, but
4:13
Speaker 2: they were for better. For course, my my second parents
4:17
Speaker 2: who ushered me into my adulthood. And when I left
4:22
Speaker 2: both their bands, I didn't speak to either of them
4:24
Speaker 2: for a decade, and we're closer than we've ever been.
4:28
Speaker 2: So the good news is that there's happy endings in
4:31
Speaker 2: gen X like alternative rock purgatory Land.
4:34
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to hear that.
4:36
Speaker 2: You know, everyone's alive and talking and apologize it's still
4:39
Speaker 2: time to go.
4:39
Speaker 1: You know it's bad, I hope not. Yeah, it's true. Actually,
4:43
Speaker 1: as a fan of I'm a Billy cording fan, and
4:46
Speaker 1: he sometimes drives me nuts as a fail someone. Why
4:49
Speaker 1: would you say that? What compels you? I can't remember exactly,
4:53
Speaker 1: but everyone you know, it's like every third interview I'll
4:55
Speaker 1: read it. Isn't I a wild card?
4:59
Speaker 2: He is very He's truly himself. And when I met
5:03
Speaker 2: I was nineteen. When I met him in nineteen ninety one,
5:05
Speaker 2: he was nobody. His band had a twelve inch out
5:08
Speaker 2: and we became quick friends, pen pals, and I was
5:13
Speaker 2: entirely captured by the sound of the music. It wasn't
5:16
Speaker 2: the man, but when I walked into the band the
5:18
Speaker 2: first show, they had a Montreal for a dollar in
5:21
Speaker 2: front of twenty people, I heard the sounds of my
5:24
Speaker 2: ancient soul in this band. I didn't know who they were.
5:27
Speaker 2: I just it captured me. It changed my life. I
5:30
Speaker 2: committed to making music and picking up the bass after that.
5:33
Speaker 2: But I became friends with him, and we also discovered
5:37
Speaker 2: shortly after that we're both born as Saint Patrick's Day
5:39
Speaker 2: and in the world of astrology, but also just saints
5:42
Speaker 2: are holy and cool. But pisces were very overly sensitive creatures.
5:48
Speaker 2: He was very unique as a rock dude at that
5:51
Speaker 2: time because I mean, obviously Kurt had his own true
5:56
Speaker 2: tortured poet martyr tragedy, and Billy had his own weird,
6:03
Speaker 2: esoteric vibes that was very different than like, I mean,
6:07
Speaker 2: obviously Sound Garden and Pearl everyone had their own thing,
6:10
Speaker 2: but Billy's twist was sort of like I'm going to
6:15
Speaker 2: say this with all the love, but sort of like
6:17
Speaker 2: new age pompous intellectual philosopher, which is what made him
6:22
Speaker 2: interesting to people like me. I was like, wow, cool,
6:24
Speaker 2: he's like so poetic and strange, but he also just
6:28
Speaker 2: throws these curveballs because it's not Yeah, it's a little much.
6:32
Speaker 1: I love a line though, between like that and like
6:35
Speaker 1: annoying for any I mean even for Dylan or Joni Mitchell.
6:37
Speaker 1: It's all the same. It's like the lawn between being
6:40
Speaker 1: that kind of a purpose. Not necessarily I'm not necessarily
6:43
Speaker 1: to compare him to Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, but
6:46
Speaker 1: in a way it's, yeah, our generation he's fairly committed to.
6:52
Speaker 2: Which I love. I love that he's so using his
6:55
Speaker 2: platforms are getting bigger and bigger, like from wrestling to
6:58
Speaker 2: podcasts to the Pumpkins being the biggest they've ever been. Yeah,
7:02
Speaker 2: I mean hooray, because they you know, they really they
7:06
Speaker 2: did dip. I mean I was on when I toured
7:08
Speaker 2: with them. It was the farewell tour. We were the
7:11
Speaker 2: band was dismantling, and he made a weird concept then,
7:15
Speaker 2: which was also kind of like an example of how
7:18
Speaker 2: weird Billy was as we went on a world tour
7:21
Speaker 2: to say goodbye to the world the band was ending,
7:23
Speaker 2: and who really does do a farewell tour at the
7:27
Speaker 2: peak prime of there? Like it'd only been a band
7:30
Speaker 2: for a decade. It's not like it was like you
7:31
Speaker 2: two saying goodbye after fifty years. So he's a funny
7:35
Speaker 2: human that way. And I remember the whole time on
7:37
Speaker 2: that tour with him thinking like, wait, what's Billy's planned
7:40
Speaker 2: after this? Like why why is it? You know, I
7:42
Speaker 2: knew I was just a visiting, temporary member, but but
7:46
Speaker 2: it was the honor of a lifetime to play in
7:48
Speaker 2: my favorite band who inspired me to pick up the
7:50
Speaker 2: bass to begin with.
7:52
Speaker 1: And both times, I guess, and also in both instances,
7:54
Speaker 1: you're also replacing a bit of an iconic.
7:56
Speaker 2: Well iconic and tragic and tragic. So the problem Kristin Faff,
8:03
Speaker 2: who I replaced in Hole. She played on live this
8:06
Speaker 2: but hadn't even really been in the band for very long.
8:10
Speaker 2: She made an amazing record with them and played in
8:13
Speaker 2: that first video, Miss World, and then died before they
8:16
Speaker 2: even supported the record. So I came in at the
8:18
Speaker 2: moment where the band is ready to support the album,
8:22
Speaker 2: and then Darcy from the Pumpkins, who longstanding member that
8:28
Speaker 2: Pumpkins were always that formation, And this part of the
8:33
Speaker 2: book I think is new for a lot of But
8:35
Speaker 2: there's a lot of parts of my memoir that obviously
8:38
Speaker 2: I've never told anybody.
8:39
Speaker 1: But.
8:41
Speaker 2: Having just done an epic three month memoir book tour
8:44
Speaker 2: this spring and talking to and doing what I thought
8:47
Speaker 2: was going to be ten bookshops to turn into forty
8:50
Speaker 2: seven events and multiple a day, and hundreds of people
8:53
Speaker 2: interfacing a day with hearing their response and questions of
8:59
Speaker 2: you know, things that they had never heard, like the
9:01
Speaker 2: deep dive that people want of the behind the scenes.
9:04
Speaker 2: But one of the kind of nexus moments in my
9:06
Speaker 2: book is that strange moment that I knew at the time,
9:10
Speaker 2: but writing about it twenty five years later, when I
9:12
Speaker 2: leave Hole and join the Smashing Pumpkins, all within a month.
9:16
Speaker 2: It was a very back to back, strange move, but
9:19
Speaker 2: also very in sort of mythological rock history moment, just
9:25
Speaker 2: very controversial for the good girl to just like leap
9:29
Speaker 2: out and go into the other and replace Darcy who
9:31
Speaker 2: had mysteriously kind of disappeared. And it was a testament
9:35
Speaker 2: to me and Billy's esoteric piss's connection is I had
9:39
Speaker 2: just quietly internally decided I was done with Hole at
9:43
Speaker 2: the end of this tour of them, because well it
9:46
Speaker 2: wasn't even the end of the tour, but Courtney was
9:47
Speaker 2: really focusing on movies Hollywood, and I just wrote a
9:51
Speaker 2: letter in my diary flying home from the last show
9:54
Speaker 2: I ever played with them in Vancouver in nineteen ninety nine,
9:57
Speaker 2: and it just said that's it. I'm done. I don't
10:00
Speaker 2: feel like waiting around anymore for a band leader to
10:03
Speaker 2: decide if for making music or waiting to tour or
10:07
Speaker 2: not tour. And then I, within a week of me
10:10
Speaker 2: making that internal decision and preparing the terrifying resignation letter
10:16
Speaker 2: to Courtney, Billy calls my rotary phone and says, Darcy's
10:22
Speaker 2: disappeared and I need you to join my band. I'm like,
10:24
Speaker 2: how do you know that I am leaving? This band.
10:26
Speaker 2: Why would you ask me that? But I am and
10:28
Speaker 2: it worked out beautifully. But it was totally bizarre. But
10:31
Speaker 2: that I'd explained in the book detailed is I think
10:34
Speaker 2: is even news to me of remembering how tightly woven
10:38
Speaker 2: that moment was.
10:40
Speaker 1: Because in your mind if they feel like very different, yeah,
10:43
Speaker 1: blocks of time.
10:43
Speaker 2: Right, yes, And I forgot how you know, like in romance,
10:49
Speaker 2: how overlapped. And it's a testament to Courtney our mutual
10:54
Speaker 2: respect and now even more so, at this stage of
10:58
Speaker 2: our lives, were able to reflect on what made us
11:01
Speaker 2: a good match. Back then, I try to explain from
11:05
Speaker 2: the bass player good girl to the right of the
11:09
Speaker 2: the horror, I'm the virgin. So I tried to explain
11:11
Speaker 2: this dynamic of the two women in this band. But
11:15
Speaker 2: it's not till decades later now that she and I
11:18
Speaker 2: can reflect on how that happened and how beautifully compatible
11:22
Speaker 2: we were so polar opposite and when I left what
11:28
Speaker 2: she was not happy about, and then when I announced
11:30
Speaker 2: I was joined the Pumpkins, which she was not happy about,
11:33
Speaker 2: she very eloquently you know it shows her fundamental love
11:38
Speaker 2: and trust of me. Is in respect for me. She
11:40
Speaker 2: never said one bad word other than Melissa has gone
11:44
Speaker 2: off to be Billy Corgan's purse. And that was her nice,
11:50
Speaker 2: low hitting insult to all right, see you later. But
11:54
Speaker 2: I was very impressed at the time that this is
11:57
Speaker 2: like taking the high road. I'm just a purse, no
11:59
Speaker 2: big deal.
12:00
Speaker 1: Did you think it was gonna be much worse?
12:03
Speaker 2: Yeah?
12:03
Speaker 1: But no.
12:04
Speaker 2: I mean that's why I actually people ask me in
12:07
Speaker 2: this memoir, what I you know, The hardest parts, of
12:10
Speaker 2: course to were to write about drug addiction of others
12:13
Speaker 2: and my father's death. But what were the things that
12:15
Speaker 2: I'd learned about in the book? Was revisiting the letters
12:19
Speaker 2: of Courtney that she wrote to me that I print
12:21
Speaker 2: in the book for the first time ever. I mean,
12:23
Speaker 2: I hadn't even to miracle they survived because they were
12:26
Speaker 2: faxes and on that fading fact paper. And when I
12:29
Speaker 2: was putting my archives together, I found it right in
12:31
Speaker 2: the nick of time before it totally evaporated. By I
12:35
Speaker 2: re print in full two big letters that Courtney wrote
12:40
Speaker 2: to me at the peak of our power, both in
12:45
Speaker 2: the celebrity skin moment but also our power as women
12:49
Speaker 2: together on covers of magazines and all the fashion moments,
12:52
Speaker 2: and at the Versace shows, and it was a very elevated,
12:58
Speaker 2: high intensity time of our career, and it was the
13:00
Speaker 2: end of the nineties and women seemed to be on top,
13:03
Speaker 2: which is another story. But she writes me two letters
13:07
Speaker 2: that I think are too the most powerful things in
13:09
Speaker 2: the book. And what I like is that I get
13:11
Speaker 2: to give Courtney the floor. She gets to show the
13:14
Speaker 2: people who read the book just how brilliant, eloquent, generous
13:18
Speaker 2: and noble she is. And the first one is the
13:21
Speaker 2: beauty manifesto, where she's given me some lessons and beauty
13:25
Speaker 2: around the Malibu video and the edits, and she thinks
13:27
Speaker 2: I should be goofyer or i'llso be an ice princess
13:30
Speaker 2: and I'm a queen, not a princess. That a so cool,
13:33
Speaker 2: great letter. And then the second one is her response
13:37
Speaker 2: to my resignation, and it is generous and incredible. And
13:43
Speaker 2: I took it with a grain of salt at the
13:44
Speaker 2: time because I just need it out, and I didn't
13:47
Speaker 2: read it for twenty years, and when I read it
13:49
Speaker 2: putting this book together, I realized, and she is, for
13:52
Speaker 2: anyone who's been in the room with her, always the
13:54
Speaker 2: smartest person in the room. Even now after all the
13:58
Speaker 2: trauma and an addiction and damage, brilliant, brilliant mind, and
14:04
Speaker 2: the handwritten letter that she sends me in response to
14:09
Speaker 2: this out of nowhere ish decision for me to leave.
14:13
Speaker 2: I learned about myself twenty five years later. I did
14:17
Speaker 2: not at the time realize how bang on she was
14:21
Speaker 2: about parts of me that I had not yet grown into.
14:24
Speaker 2: I was only twenty six, and this very wise woman
14:28
Speaker 2: really schooled me, and I wasn't ready for the lesson.
14:32
Speaker 2: And I now as a as a middle aged wise woman,
14:35
Speaker 2: I understand a lot of what she was saying that
14:38
Speaker 2: I missed at the time.
14:39
Speaker 1: Which is cool. How do you think she knew that
14:42
Speaker 1: about it? I knew that about that.
14:43
Speaker 2: I'm so smart because she I think her and Billy,
14:46
Speaker 2: both since I put this memoir out, had been shockingly supportive,
14:51
Speaker 2: like proud mom and dad? Who want to do you.
14:53
Speaker 1: Really think it's shocking?
14:55
Speaker 2: Well?
14:55
Speaker 1: Maybe, well, we.
14:56
Speaker 2: Didn't like both of them, No, I guess it's not
14:58
Speaker 2: now that we've we've talked about it, But I had
15:01
Speaker 2: been out of their lives for a long time, and
15:03
Speaker 2: I don't know. Well, they're also quite potentially competitive people.
15:08
Speaker 2: So only reason I say shocking is it proves that
15:10
Speaker 2: it's all love like we they love me, I love them.
15:14
Speaker 2: They want me to succeed.
15:15
Speaker 1: You know, Billy, you're You're like the child of a divorce,
15:19
Speaker 1: but it's like the parents can come together for the graduation.
15:25
Speaker 2: And essentially, since my book came out, both Billy and
15:29
Speaker 2: Courtney in different ways, have said to me, we knew
15:33
Speaker 2: that you were this great and we both saw it
15:36
Speaker 2: anew from the moment we met you. And now the world,
15:40
Speaker 2: like Billy even said at one point out a Q
15:42
Speaker 2: and A, he ended up filling in last minute of
15:45
Speaker 2: My la Q and A. When Jennifer Finch from L
15:47
Speaker 2: seven called in sick, he came and said, in front
15:51
Speaker 2: of a live audience, now the world gets to know
15:54
Speaker 2: how amazing you are. I've always known it from the
15:56
Speaker 2: moment I met you at nineteen. I hadn't seen such
15:59
Speaker 2: self assurance in a young person. And he again, what
16:05
Speaker 2: this putting out a memoir is insane, just for everyone
16:07
Speaker 2: out there. If you want to heal your life, I
16:09
Speaker 2: write a memoir. It's so painful. But then once it's
16:12
Speaker 2: out and you've purged it and shared it, and then
16:14
Speaker 2: you start getting the feedback. Some as hard I've had
16:18
Speaker 2: trouble with other people, but this is an example of
16:20
Speaker 2: the people that are like showering me and we're bonding
16:24
Speaker 2: through my purging and self reflection and empowering my story.
16:30
Speaker 2: But Billy said something that really a sense of what
16:36
Speaker 2: happens in your middle age when you start looking back,
16:38
Speaker 2: and especially when you were a difficult and sometimes hated person.
16:42
Speaker 2: Both of them were, you know, very misunderstood yet celebrated
16:45
Speaker 2: of course, and I think they both live with a
16:47
Speaker 2: lot of pain around and both had very hard childhoods.
16:51
Speaker 2: They were not and loved and that's what in this
16:53
Speaker 2: Q and A. I was so it really. I think
16:55
Speaker 2: I probably teared up if I didn't entirely cry. But
16:59
Speaker 2: he said, you know what made you different? You know,
17:02
Speaker 2: Courtney and I were survivors. We had tough childhoods, and
17:07
Speaker 2: we were as strong as shit because we came from hard.
17:12
Speaker 2: You were strong without that kind of pain.
17:17
Speaker 1: And it was.
17:18
Speaker 2: Deeply I felt, you know, whatever, that the new world
17:23
Speaker 2: of therapy so seen. You know, I just had not
17:27
Speaker 2: even to myself understood. But you know, my father had pain,
17:30
Speaker 2: and as I've been so I held an embolded strength
17:34
Speaker 2: of a man who for whatever complicated reasons.
17:37
Speaker 1: It is.
17:37
Speaker 2: My father had a lot of pain.
17:41
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from a less aftemar after
17:43
Speaker 1: the break. And your mom was complicated too, Yes, it
17:50
Speaker 1: came an equally interesting way.
17:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, my father was in line with like true torture pain,
17:57
Speaker 2: like alcoholic addicts. So that's why the wisdom of a
18:01
Speaker 2: daughter of an alcoholic is a kind of chiseled wisdom
18:07
Speaker 2: that comes either just enjoys you and you become an addict,
18:10
Speaker 2: or you kind of work with it and try to
18:14
Speaker 2: you know, you go through complicated things where you then
18:16
Speaker 2: try to save people and you want to love everyone
18:19
Speaker 2: for all of their impossible traits, and you compromise yourself
18:23
Speaker 2: and your own happiness.
18:24
Speaker 1: And yeah, and you must feel I mean, it's been
18:28
Speaker 1: out now and it's been really well received in a lot,
18:30
Speaker 1: but it's still you must feel like an open, exposed
18:33
Speaker 1: nerve still. And I am a big one, big exposed.
18:36
Speaker 2: A metaphoric mess. I am like metamorphosizing and like healing
18:43
Speaker 2: actively and evolving. And then I have this companion book
18:46
Speaker 2: that comes out six months later, so probably by the
18:49
Speaker 2: time this is in September, the Visual Companion, which is
18:53
Speaker 2: to my so my Nineties Rock Memoir came out at March,
18:56
Speaker 2: and my nineties Rock Photographs come out in September, and
19:00
Speaker 2: it is pulling from my archive of fifteen thousand negatives
19:06
Speaker 2: shot between nineteen ninety one and two thousand and one,
19:09
Speaker 2: decade that defined me in my generation, and photographed by
19:12
Speaker 2: a woman in the band, and it's, I think, the
19:16
Speaker 2: thing I'm most artistically proud of, because that's all I
19:21
Speaker 2: actually ever wanted to be. I was in art school
19:23
Speaker 2: as a photographer. I assumed I'd make photography my life.
19:27
Speaker 2: But then I was hijacked by Courtney and the giant
19:30
Speaker 2: circus of nineties rock music, and then I've been trying
19:33
Speaker 2: to get myself back to this more conceptual artist. But
19:35
Speaker 2: the joy of writing the memoir was I got to
19:38
Speaker 2: really and also take the time to scan all my negatives,
19:42
Speaker 2: and in that photographic journey that is coming out in September,
19:48
Speaker 2: is even more wide open, like my boobs, my nose bleeds,
19:52
Speaker 2: my messy bedrooms, like the rough and tumble existence backstage,
19:58
Speaker 2: and the messiness of you know, the glorious things too,
20:01
Speaker 2: the giant crowds. And I don't mean that because we're
20:04
Speaker 2: so lucky to make giant crowds. But I have a
20:06
Speaker 2: whole room in the museum exhibit that's coming in concerts
20:11
Speaker 2: with this photo book. And the last room is an
20:14
Speaker 2: ode to the fans and to the journey. Is the
20:18
Speaker 2: bass player in my interior spiritual world basically that merged
20:22
Speaker 2: with these oceans of people. And there's actually a video
20:27
Speaker 2: installation in the middle of that room called the Bass
20:29
Speaker 2: Womb Room, which is a throbbing heartbeat, a soundtrack I
20:33
Speaker 2: am making, and it's the inner soundtrack and prism like
20:39
Speaker 2: light in video installation, surrounded by these photos of fans,
20:44
Speaker 2: giant like crowds of thousands, and it's like a zigzag
20:48
Speaker 2: between like the tiny intimate inner self that brings a
20:52
Speaker 2: sound through their instrument to commune with these oceans of
20:57
Speaker 2: fans for years, and that is very powerful, I'm assuming,
21:03
Speaker 2: you know, But music, I believe is the highest form
21:06
Speaker 2: of creative spiritual communing with a with humans. You know.
21:10
Speaker 2: I love painting, I love theater, I love film, of
21:12
Speaker 2: course I love photography. But the actual exchange and the
21:16
Speaker 2: way that music moves through people's lives and it's not
21:20
Speaker 2: just the power of the stage, but of course that
21:22
Speaker 2: rumbling of the bass through the ocean of the moving people,
21:27
Speaker 2: with the people who are playing it that's heavy, is incredible,
21:30
Speaker 2: but it's also when they go home and listen to
21:33
Speaker 2: it alone in their room. It's like this inside outside
21:37
Speaker 2: private public. And a lot of my work in the
21:41
Speaker 2: photos is really reflecting the inside of my life, the
21:45
Speaker 2: young girl I'm trying to protect from the giant abyss,
21:49
Speaker 2: but then also the power of this remarkable relationship with
21:54
Speaker 2: human kind. It's very exciting to be working in this
21:58
Speaker 2: medium to be able to reflect on what I and
22:02
Speaker 2: every other person whoever was in a rock band is
22:05
Speaker 2: doing out there every night, and what those people in
22:08
Speaker 2: the crowd outs are doing. And uh, when I talk
22:12
Speaker 2: with artists as a you know, an advocate for music
22:15
Speaker 2: being the the superpower, as I just remind them, like,
22:19
Speaker 2: you can't hold it. It is not a thing.
22:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is abstract.
22:23
Speaker 2: It's just sound, which is like essence, like environment. It's
22:28
Speaker 2: so it's like air.
22:29
Speaker 1: It's so powerful, moving airs.
22:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is literally the bass yeh is literally the base.
22:35
Speaker 1: You know?
22:36
Speaker 2: Did I mention I'm a bass player For these people listening,
22:39
Speaker 2: I am a highly defined I am a redhead Canadian
22:42
Speaker 2: bass player. That is my top line description, it's a.
22:45
Speaker 1: Great way to two I am says it all. It
22:48
Speaker 1: says it all and your base plane is like listening.
22:53
Speaker 1: I hadn't listened to whole in a long time. Listening
22:58
Speaker 1: to celebrity skin it's like, what the bass really stands out?
23:02
Speaker 2: And it's cool? Is it now that people are so
23:05
Speaker 2: nerdy crazy deep diving in the nineties I have from
23:07
Speaker 2: my memory, I did a bunch of of course press,
23:10
Speaker 2: but talking to the bass magazines, of talking to these
23:12
Speaker 2: super nerdy bass people who are like, well, there's a
23:14
Speaker 2: Melissa sound like does alyssa feel that people know about
23:19
Speaker 2: that when you're in the studio if like they're super
23:20
Speaker 2: nerdy rock enthusiast engineer. This was all news to me
23:24
Speaker 2: when I was doing these interviews, like, oh, really there's
23:26
Speaker 2: a thing. And then these nerdy bass player magazine people
23:31
Speaker 2: were like, yes, there's like a whole there's a style
23:34
Speaker 2: that you have and a feel that you have. And
23:36
Speaker 2: then you did you watch the Billy Corgan podcast with me?
23:40
Speaker 2: I did not, so because you're a Billy fan. That's
23:43
Speaker 2: it's I mean, I try.
23:44
Speaker 1: Not to take into any podcasters because I like that.
23:47
Speaker 2: I'm sorry if I don't listen to podcasts either. I
23:50
Speaker 2: didn't listen back to it, but I was in the
23:52
Speaker 2: studio with Billy and we had a conversation about my book.
23:56
Speaker 2: He invited me on the podcast and for the first
23:59
Speaker 2: time ever, again this is sort of the joy of
24:01
Speaker 2: twenty five years later and sitting with your ex band member,
24:05
Speaker 2: he broke down my bass playing to me, which never
24:09
Speaker 2: happened before. And again it had something to do with
24:11
Speaker 2: time pass because he's also played with a lot of
24:13
Speaker 2: bass players since, and because last summer he was playing
24:18
Speaker 2: like a small secret ish show in Montreal of like
24:22
Speaker 2: rarity songs, not with the Pumpkins, and I joined for
24:25
Speaker 2: one song for Everlasting Days, which is on that last
24:28
Speaker 2: record that I toured with them, and I was in
24:30
Speaker 2: that video and it was like riding a bike. I
24:34
Speaker 2: don't play bass much at the moment, and it was
24:36
Speaker 2: powerful for me to just get on stage with Billy
24:39
Speaker 2: play that song and feel so instantly like cellular memory
24:43
Speaker 2: alive and love it. And he said at soundcheck that day,
24:48
Speaker 2: when I started playing, he said, oh, there's that feeling,
24:52
Speaker 2: there's that pocket again. It's been a while. And then
24:56
Speaker 2: that's why when he did the podcast he broke it down.
24:59
Speaker 2: He's like, well, you have a very particular feeling. It
25:01
Speaker 2: was the first time. And he's such a muso, like
25:03
Speaker 2: if there was ever someone who could describe why technically
25:06
Speaker 2: or what I'm doing, it love describing things. Yes, so
25:10
Speaker 2: he uh, he broke it down. So for all the
25:12
Speaker 2: bass players listening or anyone who thinks about pockets, he
25:16
Speaker 2: describes the unique and I guess not a lot of
25:19
Speaker 2: bass players have this. Most bass players play on the
25:22
Speaker 2: beat of the kickdrum, so it's like you're playing with
25:25
Speaker 2: the kick drum. Some people in other kinds of music
25:28
Speaker 2: are behind and laid back, and that's like a space between,
25:33
Speaker 2: and that's possibly in jazz. I'm sorry for the super
25:36
Speaker 2: musos out there. I don't actually know, but some people
25:38
Speaker 2: are behind the bucket and I, which I guess is
25:42
Speaker 2: less common, but maybe for certain rock style, am ahead
25:46
Speaker 2: of the kick and I push push, push, push push,
25:51
Speaker 2: and I had I mean, I guess I've never I
25:53
Speaker 2: just play the way I've always played. I mean when
25:55
Speaker 2: I joined Hole, I had owned my bass for a
25:58
Speaker 2: year and I had only played six concerts ever, and
26:01
Speaker 2: my first show in front of sixty five thousand people
26:04
Speaker 2: at the Redding festival. I didn't make a mistake and
26:07
Speaker 2: I just played these songs. I don't even know how wow.
26:10
Speaker 2: And I used to say, and I still kind of
26:12
Speaker 2: do well. Base playing is easy. That's why I could
26:13
Speaker 2: do it. And some people are like, well, it's easy
26:15
Speaker 2: for you.
26:16
Speaker 1: Anyway, I find other things that are easy too. I
26:18
Speaker 1: we do find I guess one as an artist.
26:21
Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you it was easy for me to
26:23
Speaker 2: write my book. I was ahead, done, ahead of time. Well, actually,
26:28
Speaker 2: when I quit music at forty to become a mother,
26:31
Speaker 2: I founded an art center down the street Basilica Hudson,
26:34
Speaker 2: down the street from where we are, and I mom
26:37
Speaker 2: and pop alternative art center reclaimed eighteen eighties factory on
26:40
Speaker 2: the Hudson River, and I managed, promoted, and booked all
26:45
Speaker 2: our music festivals for decades. So when I wanted to
26:47
Speaker 2: raise my daughter in an environment that was creative and exciting,
26:50
Speaker 2: I moved a small town America after growing up at
26:53
Speaker 2: the best city in the world, Montreal. So I wanted
26:55
Speaker 2: to bring the vibrant counterculture, alternative culture to the city
26:59
Speaker 2: I was raising my daughter. So we founded this art center,
27:02
Speaker 2: Basilica Hudson, and I wrote every press release. I mean,
27:05
Speaker 2: I was promoting the whole thing in it. But I
27:07
Speaker 2: also someone recently because I've been trying to do social
27:11
Speaker 2: media this year, because I was not on social media.
27:14
Speaker 2: I kind of quit in twenty ten. I had a blog,
27:17
Speaker 2: like from two thousand to twenty ten, so my web
27:20
Speaker 2: people have been noting like, hey, you were writing, like
27:23
Speaker 2: that's why we're kicking off my substuct you know next month.
27:26
Speaker 2: Is that I always was blogging when I and when
27:31
Speaker 2: the blogs came. When the internet arrived, I started right
27:35
Speaker 2: away these diary entries which are kind of full like beginning,
27:39
Speaker 2: middle end.
27:41
Speaker 1: But do you mean them to be or do they
27:42
Speaker 1: just come out?
27:43
Speaker 2: It just come that way. It's like I want to
27:45
Speaker 2: tell this thing. But I mean, having spoken about my
27:48
Speaker 2: father and the ease in which I wrote this book,
27:52
Speaker 2: I am completely convinced that he wrote it with me.
27:56
Speaker 2: There so not only just you know, on my shoulder,
27:58
Speaker 2: definitely writing it with me. But I grew up reading
28:02
Speaker 2: about my life in the city, the life of my
28:05
Speaker 2: city in his articles, and he has a very particular
28:08
Speaker 2: call the beginning middle end way of storytelling. And I
28:12
Speaker 2: think having had my childhood narrated by somebody has shaped
28:17
Speaker 2: the way I walk through the world, narrating my own
28:21
Speaker 2: day and my own month and my own decade. And
28:24
Speaker 2: I think that's why it came so easily. But that
28:27
Speaker 2: being said, it wouldn't necessarily have been easy or good.
28:30
Speaker 2: And apparently it's good in terms.
28:33
Speaker 1: Of off this writing this did I mean it probably
28:35
Speaker 1: would have found its way to me anyways. I love music,
28:38
Speaker 1: I love to read, and so whatever. But it's very good.
28:41
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really thank you.
28:43
Speaker 2: I am super proud of too things.
28:46
Speaker 1: But it's so long.
28:47
Speaker 2: It's one hundred pages longer than they asked me to
28:49
Speaker 2: And when I submitted my book, I had already cut
28:52
Speaker 2: a hundred pages out of this. So I now realize
28:56
Speaker 2: the sub stack will probably have a lot of the
28:58
Speaker 2: outtakes because I had to cut a ton of the
29:02
Speaker 2: Jeff Buckley story that like lots of interesting like sidebars
29:07
Speaker 2: that I wish I didn't have to cut. It was
29:09
Speaker 2: literally six hundred pages, so I cut one hundred plus
29:12
Speaker 2: pages out, and when I submitted it to the publisher,
29:17
Speaker 2: I wrote a cover letter that said, I know this
29:19
Speaker 2: is longer than you asked for, but I couldn't help
29:23
Speaker 2: but notice that Thurston More in Flees memoirs were about
29:27
Speaker 2: this long, and I think there's less women in my
29:31
Speaker 2: department telling those stories, so I think we should probably
29:35
Speaker 2: keep it as long as it is. And I got
29:39
Speaker 2: greenlit the exact book that I handed in, nothing edited.
29:43
Speaker 2: I was ready to cut. It's like we could cut,
29:45
Speaker 2: like the details about my Welsh choir teacher. You know,
29:48
Speaker 2: if you're really looking to trim it down, you're like, no,
29:50
Speaker 2: we're keeping the Welsh choir teacher. Okay, great, but to
29:54
Speaker 2: the point of it being well written. Both my parents
29:58
Speaker 2: were the most My mother is still alive and a
30:00
Speaker 2: master of the word. She's a literary translator. She lives
30:04
Speaker 2: in the world of manuscripts and has for fifty years.
30:06
Speaker 2: So like I watch her. Her days ruled by now
30:11
Speaker 2: a computer. But when I was growing up, a typewriter
30:13
Speaker 2: and hundreds and hundreds of pages.
30:14
Speaker 1: It's just so.
30:15
Speaker 2: And my father wrote his articles at the bar and
30:18
Speaker 2: a typewriter. So the written word was the power of
30:20
Speaker 2: my parents, but it translated into their talking the way
30:25
Speaker 2: they communicate. My mother is one of the most eloquent
30:28
Speaker 2: speakers of anything, culture, anything emotion. So I was raised
30:32
Speaker 2: by good speaking people were amazing writers, and so that
30:36
Speaker 2: ended up fueling obviously some kind of like I didn't
30:40
Speaker 2: know that I had it, but I managed a channel,
30:42
Speaker 2: I suppose. But when I had, right when I had
30:45
Speaker 2: handed in the book, they were psyched. We were waiting
30:48
Speaker 2: for the first industry reviews to come to sort of
30:51
Speaker 2: get the bell weather of what those book buyer kind
30:54
Speaker 2: of librarian people, not like reviews of like rock people
30:57
Speaker 2: who care about Dave Girl. So it was like we're
31:00
Speaker 2: all waiting of like what's what are the initial reviews
31:03
Speaker 2: going to be? And I remember it happened to be
31:05
Speaker 2: around then that Evan Dando put out his memoir and
31:10
Speaker 2: I was invited to go see him play. I hadn't
31:12
Speaker 2: seen the Lemonheads and obviously Forever, and I went to
31:16
Speaker 2: the show in New York City and I hadn't seen Evan,
31:19
Speaker 2: who was a big part of unless he was cut
31:22
Speaker 2: out too, so like there's one he's not in there,
31:26
Speaker 2: But like there's so many people I had to get balance,
31:28
Speaker 2: like how many guys and bands am I going to
31:30
Speaker 2: talk about? How many? Versus how many spiritual visions I had?
31:34
Speaker 2: So anyhow, I ran it. I went to see him
31:37
Speaker 2: backstage before the show and I said congratulations on your book.
31:40
Speaker 2: And he said, oh, I hear you have one memoir
31:42
Speaker 2: coming out, right, And I said yeah, and he said
31:43
Speaker 2: have you read it yet? And I said read it?
31:47
Speaker 2: I wrote it and he said, oh, I didn't read
31:50
Speaker 2: mine until I was doing the audio book. Granted, Evan
31:53
Speaker 2: is like proudly a mess.
31:56
Speaker 1: But I thought he was like a literary I mean,
31:57
Speaker 1: he's a smart.
31:58
Speaker 2: Guy, but I guess he doesn't have the discipline perhaps
32:00
Speaker 2: to write. I'm sure he dictated stuff. All I know
32:03
Speaker 2: is that's what he said to me. I think it
32:05
Speaker 2: was known even I'm not busting his spot because I
32:08
Speaker 2: think it was even said in New York Times, like
32:10
Speaker 2: he didn't write it. But I then went back to
32:13
Speaker 2: my publishers, who I love, Hashet de Capo and my
32:17
Speaker 2: agents and said, wait a second, Evan didn't write his book.
32:21
Speaker 2: Tell me more like, well, most rock memoirs are ghostwritten.
32:25
Speaker 2: And I didn't know that. And I said, oh shit,
32:28
Speaker 2: are people going to think somebody else wrote my book?
32:31
Speaker 2: And hands down my agents and publishers and I think
32:34
Speaker 2: it translated into the way it was received, said absolutely not.
32:38
Speaker 2: It's too personal, it's too originales. Oh, they'll think.
32:42
Speaker 1: Exactly what we just assume right picking it up, this
32:45
Speaker 1: is going to be.
32:46
Speaker 2: But anyone who can get through a book or who
32:48
Speaker 2: cares about writing, apparently, if you read it, you can
32:51
Speaker 2: tell no one could have channeled like it's because it's
32:54
Speaker 2: not just I guess my voice that I found, but
32:56
Speaker 2: it is the thing I worked the hardest on, which
32:59
Speaker 2: is where the bass player in me comes out. Is
33:02
Speaker 2: the arc of the arrangement in a song. It's verse,
33:06
Speaker 2: chorus versus chorus, bridge, bridge bridge. It's like I built
33:09
Speaker 2: a structure of this book that reflected a song arrangement
33:14
Speaker 2: of Dreamscape number one, Dreamscape number two, father interlude. So
33:19
Speaker 2: I have all of these sort of interludes and then
33:22
Speaker 2: broken up by my photos. So I really wanted to
33:24
Speaker 2: be a journey and not just a literary experience. And
33:28
Speaker 2: apparently people believe I wrote it, and I did write it.
33:31
Speaker 2: You've heard it here.
33:32
Speaker 1: Now after the break, we're back with the rest of
33:36
Speaker 1: Melissa A DeMar Your dad is seemed coolest. Yeah, I
33:44
Speaker 1: mean your mom too, But I really did relate to
33:46
Speaker 1: your your dad in so many lays.
33:48
Speaker 2: I mean, like timeless journalists that I hope still.
33:52
Speaker 1: Exist, I don't know. I don't think they did.
33:56
Speaker 2: He was definitely from another century already, so now they're
33:59
Speaker 2: really outdated. Yeah yeah, right before coming into this, I
34:04
Speaker 2: was approving as the error of to his like see
34:09
Speaker 2: in writing I'm It's only child, but I was just
34:11
Speaker 2: a hit. Just received a request from moment Factory. You
34:16
Speaker 2: know that's a big and immersive you know, they're a
34:18
Speaker 2: Montreal based thing, but they do all the Billie Eilish
34:21
Speaker 2: like Olivia Adrigou everything shows. But they also have deep
34:24
Speaker 2: roots in Montreal and Montreal is really invests in their
34:27
Speaker 2: culture queebeck. Even over the rest of Canada, the government
34:32
Speaker 2: invests in the identity and the artists and the culture
34:36
Speaker 2: of the city and so there's always something. So Moment
34:40
Speaker 2: Factory decorate the Montreal and the city of Montreal with
34:43
Speaker 2: installations all over the place. So like, for example, our
34:46
Speaker 2: mini Notre Dame Cathedral, you know, which is the miniature
34:49
Speaker 2: of the Paris one. Moment Factory has one of my
34:52
Speaker 2: favorite like New Age Cathedral video sonic shows. Some people
34:58
Speaker 2: think it's kind of like cheesy, but Montreal has this
35:01
Speaker 2: really cool lo fi hi fi thing where it's an
35:04
Speaker 2: ancient city but it's super high tech, which is why
35:06
Speaker 2: moment Factory and all like the special effects for films
35:09
Speaker 2: like the French Canadian. The quebecer is a very very
35:12
Speaker 2: like high tech, but the culture is very ancient and
35:16
Speaker 2: so but there's always these interventions happening between futuristic video
35:19
Speaker 2: installation mon Factory and an old place in Montreal. And
35:22
Speaker 2: I just as I was walking into this interview, was
35:27
Speaker 2: approving the use of a quote of my father's for
35:30
Speaker 2: a moment Factory video installation they're going to be doing
35:34
Speaker 2: at the Montreal Cemetery. So the Montreal Cemetery is the
35:36
Speaker 2: equivalent of pat Laches and it was for Canada, you know,
35:40
Speaker 2: for like old cemeteries. But it was designed by Home Homestead,
35:44
Speaker 2: who did Central Park. So all of Montreal is based
35:47
Speaker 2: around this, this giant, beautiful mountain, so Mount Royal, the
35:51
Speaker 2: Royal Mountain.
35:52
Speaker 1: That has been a park exactly.
35:55
Speaker 2: And I grew up in front of the park. I
35:57
Speaker 2: grew up on the park and the cemetery is on
36:00
Speaker 2: the top of the mountain. My father is buried there.
36:02
Speaker 2: And Moment Factory are doing an immersive history tour of
36:07
Speaker 2: the museum of the cemetery, like projections Dead of Winter.
36:11
Speaker 2: So they were getting my approval as my father's error
36:15
Speaker 2: to approve the quote that I don't know if it's
36:17
Speaker 2: going to be written on his tombstone or audio projected,
36:21
Speaker 2: but it is. My life has been so much fun
36:25
Speaker 2: it should be illegal. And he, you know, he had
36:30
Speaker 2: the largest funeral of Montreal history. He was completely in
36:34
Speaker 2: love with his city. His city was his muse. He
36:36
Speaker 2: gave every bar, every alleyway, every homeless person, every nune
36:41
Speaker 2: all the love equally. And he devoted himself to that
36:45
Speaker 2: city but burned at both ends by being a journalist
36:48
Speaker 2: and a basically an ambassador of the spirit of that city.
36:51
Speaker 1: And he was a journalist, but he was also like
36:53
Speaker 1: a bit I can mean, you know, run. He did
36:55
Speaker 1: a bit of every I mean. So he was a.
36:57
Speaker 2: Journalist, of course. He started as a newspaper journalist, but
37:01
Speaker 2: then grew into radio, had his own television series which
37:04
Speaker 2: is on CBC, so ahead of its time, like Vice TV.
37:08
Speaker 2: Probably were directly inspired because those are guys I grew
37:11
Speaker 2: up with. But it's nineteen sixty nine to nineteen seventy three,
37:16
Speaker 2: every summer man and a camera on the streets of
37:20
Speaker 2: Montreal asking the people of Montreal at that counterculture moment,
37:25
Speaker 2: what's on your mind, and they would just stand with
37:28
Speaker 2: the camera and speak to all the wild people in
37:32
Speaker 2: the hot summer streets in Montreal. I have all the
37:34
Speaker 2: archives are incredible, and that's what got my father into politics.
37:38
Speaker 2: So he had as had his own radio and then
37:41
Speaker 2: his own TV show, and he met the people who
37:43
Speaker 2: are the voters who were not satisfied with the politicians.
37:47
Speaker 2: So when my father got into Montreal politics and won
37:50
Speaker 2: as an independent in nineteen seventy four at the age
37:53
Speaker 2: of thirty two, it had never been in politics. He
37:55
Speaker 2: wins his first election and continues to run different districts,
38:02
Speaker 2: but then eventually gets the stronghold of downtown Montreal as
38:05
Speaker 2: his neighborhood. And all the bar owners, all the little ladies,
38:10
Speaker 2: everybody depends on my father. His father. His number is
38:13
Speaker 2: in the phone book and you can call him twenty
38:15
Speaker 2: four hours a day, as like the Montreal helpline. So
38:17
Speaker 2: my father lived to be that guy that you could
38:20
Speaker 2: stop on the street and complain about your garbage pickup
38:23
Speaker 2: or whatever. And then when I got old enough and
38:26
Speaker 2: I was on the campaign trails with him and knocking
38:29
Speaker 2: on doors and waiting on election night getting all of
38:32
Speaker 2: these you know, weight is he gonna lose? Is he
38:34
Speaker 2: gonna win? And watching this like ferocious, like determination to
38:38
Speaker 2: represent the people of Montreal, and as a twelve year
38:42
Speaker 2: old girl being like I remember one night being so scared,
38:45
Speaker 2: like if he loses, he'll be so disappointed. He works
38:48
Speaker 2: so hard, and I remember tugging on his sleeve and saying, Nick,
38:51
Speaker 2: why do you do this? And like this is why
38:56
Speaker 2: he's my hero. And he looked down. He said, Melissa,
38:59
Speaker 2: because I don't trust those assholes to do this, and
39:03
Speaker 2: this is what we should all be living by right now.
39:06
Speaker 2: Don't trust the asshole politicians to be taking care of
39:09
Speaker 2: the people. And he did it, and he had the
39:11
Speaker 2: voice of his column He wrote from the Montreal Gazette
39:14
Speaker 2: three days a week for his whole career, and it
39:16
Speaker 2: was just what's happening in Montreal. He was the voice
39:20
Speaker 2: of this is and he had his morning radio slot,
39:23
Speaker 2: but mainly his columns, which then was a book when
39:27
Speaker 2: after he died, we put together a collection of his
39:29
Speaker 2: work and it was and that's where I get a
39:31
Speaker 2: lot of the quotes in my memoir where I bring
39:34
Speaker 2: his stories about my life through his voice. And it
39:38
Speaker 2: is a funny place that we're starting in this conversation
39:41
Speaker 2: about but my father was a very particular storyteller, and
39:45
Speaker 2: that he wrote in that format, which at the time
39:47
Speaker 2: is like the blog slash social media of the time.
39:50
Speaker 2: It's the sure substack whatever it is. But he just
39:53
Speaker 2: three days a week wrote like a letter to montrealer.
39:55
Speaker 2: It's like, hey, I'm at the bar. I met this person.
39:58
Speaker 2: I think strawberries are stupid and raspberries are overrated. Like
40:02
Speaker 2: he just wrote whatever the hell he wanted, and he
40:05
Speaker 2: was the voice of Montreal. And I grew up, you know,
40:07
Speaker 2: with kids who would tell me like we read your
40:09
Speaker 2: father's column every morning at breakfast, and like so I
40:12
Speaker 2: and then I was a character in the column, Like
40:15
Speaker 2: he'd talk about what he got me for his birthday,
40:17
Speaker 2: or the time we went to a Buddha pest and
40:19
Speaker 2: he got scammed by a person with the coconut shells
40:22
Speaker 2: and he lost one hundred bucks. Like this was just
40:24
Speaker 2: he just told him.
40:25
Speaker 1: Dad looks at the kind of person who would be
40:27
Speaker 1: thrilled that he got scammed by breast.
40:29
Speaker 2: He yes, and again I was scared.
40:31
Speaker 1: Is he mad?
40:31
Speaker 2: He was kind of laughing. He's like, I can't believe.
40:33
Speaker 2: And then he tried to go back to find the guy.
40:34
Speaker 2: I was like, you're not gonna be able to find
40:36
Speaker 2: this guy anyhow. He was incredible, but he died at
40:39
Speaker 2: my age that I am right.
40:40
Speaker 1: Now, you're oh, yes, So does do you have this
40:44
Speaker 1: sort of typical the usual thing? I keep wanting both
40:48
Speaker 1: my parents are still alive, and but I sort of
40:52
Speaker 1: wonderf that'll happen to me as well. But I feel
40:54
Speaker 1: like there is a thing where people sort of start
40:55
Speaker 1: to get anxious around well to their parents.
40:59
Speaker 2: Well, grief is a beast. So no matter what, death
41:02
Speaker 2: is the greatest mystery other than love, because love is
41:06
Speaker 2: throughout life, but death is over and then it's just
41:08
Speaker 2: left of those who didn't die to deal with the
41:12
Speaker 2: mystery of what the health. Yeah, and so I think,
41:16
Speaker 2: if anything, I get tingling and weird every Easter, because
41:20
Speaker 2: he died on Good Friday, cremated on Easter Sunday, and
41:24
Speaker 2: buried at the biggest funeral Montreal history on Easter Monday.
41:28
Speaker 2: So we had this arc and every time Easter comes,
41:32
Speaker 2: I start my DNA starts sort of like flickering, and
41:35
Speaker 2: I start having new feelings about him. I think it's
41:40
Speaker 2: been like twenty seven years now, or something. So it's
41:44
Speaker 2: and that it doesn't change like there was at the
41:46
Speaker 2: twenty five year anniversary. I think it might have been
41:48
Speaker 2: the first time I wept, like like I just woke up.
41:52
Speaker 2: I realized this is horrific. This is it's still it's
41:56
Speaker 2: like you protect yourself from loss and grief. But what's
41:59
Speaker 2: interesting is now that I'm on the eve of turning
42:03
Speaker 2: the age that he was when he died. I mean,
42:06
Speaker 2: I have actually felt a tiny bit spooked about that,
42:09
Speaker 2: and I'm not you know, I'm not afraid of death actually,
42:11
Speaker 2: and I'm grateful that I witnessed my father diet at
42:16
Speaker 2: the young age my I was twenty six, and it
42:18
Speaker 2: was the greatest gift gateway of my life to be
42:20
Speaker 2: able to like just look straight on at the brutality
42:23
Speaker 2: of like how especially the way he went out. Just fuck,
42:27
Speaker 2: you can't live. See you later.
42:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're such a fun person to talk to you.
42:33
Speaker 1: I wish I had even more time.
42:35
Speaker 2: Do you have any other questions? I didn't answer.
42:37
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of questions. So doing celebrity skin
42:44
Speaker 1: your drummer, bile drummer and hold patty? Yeah?
42:47
Speaker 2: She u booted out.
42:49
Speaker 1: She gets replaced by a man.
42:51
Speaker 2: I mean, what brutal, what terrible, tragic, horrible.
42:55
Speaker 1: And the producer is a guy who is interested. I don't.
42:58
Speaker 2: I've never yeah, Michael byin her, and he had a
43:01
Speaker 2: reputation at the time for making hit records about being
43:04
Speaker 2: hard on drummers, so we kind of knew it going in.
43:07
Speaker 1: Was that his agenda to get her possible.
43:10
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing that's so tragic about it is
43:13
Speaker 2: that what makes Celebrity Skin great is the songs. And
43:16
Speaker 2: Patti wrote all those parts, and we worked for years
43:19
Speaker 2: writing that record, and her punk meets just the coolest
43:24
Speaker 2: style of drumming. The record is great because she wrote
43:27
Speaker 2: me and her wrote together as bass player, drummer, rhythm
43:31
Speaker 2: section in that style.
43:32
Speaker 1: That is that.
43:33
Speaker 2: But the agenda for everyone, for the managers, the label,
43:38
Speaker 2: and for Courtney the bandleader, was make the most glossy,
43:43
Speaker 2: radio friendly, ready to go hit record. That's what was
43:48
Speaker 2: being commissioned. And so, according to some people, perfect drums
43:54
Speaker 2: and not nuance. But then I also write a whole
43:57
Speaker 2: chapter which you might remember, called the Rise of the
44:00
Speaker 2: Digital soul Sucking Monster, where I discover there's a new
44:04
Speaker 2: invention called pro tools, and it lives in a tiny
44:06
Speaker 2: toaster and it's leaving our fabulous, expensive studio and going
44:11
Speaker 2: up into Runyan Canyon with all these guys doing coke
44:14
Speaker 2: on computers fixing drum and bass parts. I was like,
44:18
Speaker 2: excuse me, what is happening actually, And so I write,
44:21
Speaker 2: there's a whole chapter dedicated to what I saw coming,
44:25
Speaker 2: and I will and the joke is, yeah, they wanted
44:28
Speaker 2: it to be perfect. And I describe this conversation of
44:31
Speaker 2: me and this pro tools engineer, which was like a
44:33
Speaker 2: new specimen of human explaining showing me these wavelengths, like,
44:39
Speaker 2: is that what they're called wavelengths? Yes, this is your
44:42
Speaker 2: base part waveforms, thank you, this is your base part.
44:45
Speaker 2: This is the kick drum, and I'm moving it to
44:47
Speaker 2: make it perfectly. And I said, wait wait, but he said,
44:50
Speaker 2: Michael wants them perfect. And I said, I said, but wait,
44:53
Speaker 2: but what about the perfection of human imperfection? Are we
44:56
Speaker 2: risking losing? And what's cool?
44:59
Speaker 1: Though?
44:59
Speaker 2: Now I have to say, I mean the making celebrity
45:01
Speaker 2: skin was so painful because I lost my best friend
45:04
Speaker 2: in the band. She didn't die, but she did disappear
45:08
Speaker 2: to her addiction for a decade after that, So it
45:10
Speaker 2: was like losing her, and then also just the turmoil
45:13
Speaker 2: of the pressure of like make the hit, and just
45:16
Speaker 2: like the fame that was rising, and Courtney's miracle of
45:20
Speaker 2: becoming all of a sudden a red carpet ready, like
45:24
Speaker 2: the whole transition that what happened during Celebrity Skin was
45:27
Speaker 2: so drastic, So there was a lot of pain wrapped
45:31
Speaker 2: in and my father died while we were making it,
45:33
Speaker 2: on the eve of releasing it, so I was a
45:36
Speaker 2: shell of a human. So I have very painful associations
45:40
Speaker 2: with making the record, But twenty five years later, I'm
45:42
Speaker 2: very proud that it stands very strong again, mostly for
45:46
Speaker 2: the songwriting, and I'm very proud of my bass playing
45:49
Speaker 2: and my backups, so you know, there's like twelve of
45:51
Speaker 2: my vocals to every one of Courtney's growls. So proud
45:54
Speaker 2: of it. And I think it has also aged beautifully
45:58
Speaker 2: as far as authentic tape recording and slight pro tools intervention.
46:06
Speaker 2: So now we've gone too far, you know, now. I
46:08
Speaker 2: mean that's obviously everything from dance music to pop to
46:11
Speaker 2: hip hop. I mean, obviously it's a lot of it's
46:13
Speaker 2: all mad on machines, But as far as rock bands go,
46:17
Speaker 2: it's very important. And I'm assuming Rick Rubin is still
46:20
Speaker 2: making real records with bands in the room, you know,
46:22
Speaker 2: like that's still that's so rare now because a bands
46:26
Speaker 2: don't even exist because people can't afford practice spaces, so
46:28
Speaker 2: you can't everyone's at home making their music because you
46:30
Speaker 2: can't have a drummer and a bass where and you
46:33
Speaker 2: have to have ten jobs to be able to do anything,
46:35
Speaker 2: so you can't be in the studio like in a
46:37
Speaker 2: dumpy space for ten years.
46:38
Speaker 1: Realized too, you know, like people used to get like
46:41
Speaker 1: even for myself when I was in bad like the drummer.
46:44
Speaker 1: You know, drummers just have like they can't ever stop.
46:46
Speaker 1: I was just can't and I was thinking about how
46:47
Speaker 1: like they amusing used to bother everybody. Yeah, you're like
46:51
Speaker 1: the like the beat to everything is the same. You're like, well,
46:53
Speaker 1: it's like the beat on a song ever changes, like
46:56
Speaker 1: the rhythm. It's like the rhythm is just locked through
46:58
Speaker 1: because you don't have a person.
47:02
Speaker 2: Well, isn't that also reflecting like how mono are arts
47:08
Speaker 2: and culture other than incredible artist You know, there's always
47:11
Speaker 2: birthing of incredible radical counterculture original artists, but the general
47:16
Speaker 2: mainstream of existence is like everyone's wearing the same clothes,
47:20
Speaker 2: liking the same coffee, and doing the same thing on
47:24
Speaker 2: their stupid phone. So the the the ironing out of
47:27
Speaker 2: characters that you know, we were blessed as gen x of,
47:31
Speaker 2: like the the Alan Gibbs, you know, the beat poets
47:34
Speaker 2: of the sixties through the nineties, not to mention the seventies.
47:38
Speaker 2: I know, it's cool.
47:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking at the book right.
47:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a section of the book called Fellow Travelers,
47:43
Speaker 2: and it's the I went to art school for self portraiture,
47:46
Speaker 2: but it turns out I went to art school for selfies,
47:48
Speaker 2: and that's like a whole grid of showing my selfies.
47:50
Speaker 2: I took with every from Danny DeVito to Adam Sandler
47:54
Speaker 2: to you know where you look so young and happy
48:03
Speaker 2: Freedom Concert, which was an amazing show, and everybody was,
48:07
Speaker 2: you know, grateful for what we have in the liberated
48:10
Speaker 2: America compared to at the time in the great nineties
48:15
Speaker 2: Freedom Free Tibet Festival, Utopia.
48:19
Speaker 1: That decade, that from ninety one to two thousand and one,
48:21
Speaker 1: that as you explained it, with that being the decade
48:24
Speaker 1: decades never really do start culturally like with the turn
48:27
Speaker 1: of a right. But so nine even one, two thousand
48:30
Speaker 1: and one, you really do capture it amazingly, and you
48:34
Speaker 1: explain it kind of maybe as like a thing that
48:37
Speaker 1: wasn't so great, and probably in hindsight it wasn't. As
48:39
Speaker 1: a kid at the time, it felt amazing that popular
48:43
Speaker 1: culture was dominated by alternative things, alternative rock, ridge hip hop,
48:49
Speaker 1: which felt very countercultural still like scale, like everything was
48:52
Speaker 1: counter Video games are a big business, yeah, you know,
48:56
Speaker 1: skateboarding like all of this. So as a kid, you're like,
48:58
Speaker 1: this is like life is amazing exactly, but you kind
49:01
Speaker 1: of explain it, and I can understand it now is
49:03
Speaker 1: a bit of a loss of something important.
49:07
Speaker 2: And I stole, co opted and stole youth culture, counter
49:12
Speaker 2: culture scene, and now you can't even have it anymore.
49:14
Speaker 2: Back to this monoculture everything. I mean, we watched our
49:17
Speaker 2: generation basically be like packaged and our you know, don't
49:22
Speaker 2: give a shit about what we're wearing, gonna sound like
49:24
Speaker 2: whatever we want to sound like, don't even put on
49:28
Speaker 2: makeup when I'm going on stage, like that, genuine, just carefree, original,
49:35
Speaker 2: you know, no one trying too hard, just being yourself.
49:38
Speaker 2: You know, got put onto literally the runway and like Jkruad,
49:42
Speaker 2: so like it went from like this cool organic thing
49:45
Speaker 2: to like mainstream and now we're just kind of like
49:48
Speaker 2: flying through like fake alternative mainstream forever, you know. So
49:51
Speaker 2: for me, the it's an ode to the last analog decade,
49:55
Speaker 2: but it's also it's a love letter, but it's also
49:57
Speaker 2: a eulogy. It's gone, it's dead, you know, like that
50:02
Speaker 2: was you know, before all this like meta meta of
50:06
Speaker 2: self reflection and likes and seeing yourself in the mirror
50:09
Speaker 2: of your phone. It was just so free and like
50:12
Speaker 2: no one thought about, you know, that whole that silly
50:15
Speaker 2: saying of dance, Like no one's watching. That's what the
50:17
Speaker 2: nineties was, just do you. And we were so empowered
50:20
Speaker 2: because we were also coming out of the eighties, which
50:23
Speaker 2: was a stupid like I feel like we're in the
50:25
Speaker 2: eighties all these like porn, Sephora fucking like whatever, this
50:30
Speaker 2: plastic surgery, crazy mainstream like girl horrific, and I'm a
50:35
Speaker 2: mother of a fourteen year old girl. Luckily she's a
50:37
Speaker 2: weird alternative looking redhead. Anyways, So yeah, we were coming
50:41
Speaker 2: out of the eighties being like, God, we're not going
50:42
Speaker 2: to like wear workout clothes. Anyway, now we are back
50:46
Speaker 2: workout with like blown out hair.
50:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, and would know. And at least in the eighties
50:53
Speaker 1: there was a what turned out to be burgeoning alternative
50:57
Speaker 1: scene that you had the pick Sees or whatever.
51:00
Speaker 2: Not to mention Robert Smith and the Cure and Morrissey
51:03
Speaker 2: and England. England just gave it. The eighties were like
51:07
Speaker 2: the dream music for me. I talk a lot in
51:10
Speaker 2: the book about my love of depeche Mode. Like writing
51:13
Speaker 2: the book, I pretty much only listened to the Cure
51:15
Speaker 2: of the Smiths and depeche Mode, like I mean, I
51:17
Speaker 2: just went back to I went back to my childhood
51:20
Speaker 2: of like the girl who fell in love with music
51:22
Speaker 2: who then decided she wanted to find her generations sound,
51:26
Speaker 2: you know. So I the eighties was where I fell
51:28
Speaker 2: in love with music, and it was those guys you.
51:31
Speaker 1: Missed not putting that on here. So this was this
51:33
Speaker 1: book was written.
51:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'll figure out I'll make a playlist.
51:36
Speaker 1: Actually this missing depeche Mode. I'll let you know what
51:39
Speaker 1: you're sing for. I wish I had more time to
51:42
Speaker 1: talk to you. I want to talk to you more
51:43
Speaker 1: down the stairs, just if you have a little bit
51:45
Speaker 1: of time, of course, but hopefully we'll see you sign
51:48
Speaker 1: off or anything.
51:48
Speaker 2: That's it. You cut it off for doing this. Yeah,
51:51
Speaker 2: of course, thank you for having me. I was very happy.
51:54
Speaker 1: I pad the book. It's really beautiful. An episode description,
52:00
Speaker 1: you'll find a link to a playlist of some of
52:02
Speaker 1: my favorite songs s featuring Melissa off Demahmer. Be sure
52:05
Speaker 1: to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast
52:08
Speaker 1: to see me all our video of interviews, and be
52:11
Speaker 1: sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record pot.
52:14
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
52:16
Speaker 1: Record is produced and edited by Lea Rose, with marketing
52:19
Speaker 1: and help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
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Speaker 1: is Ben Tomaday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
52:26
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52:43
Speaker 1: Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond,