Broken Record Melissa Auf der Maur

Melissa Auf der Maur came of age in Montreal’s bohemian art scene in the ’80s and early ’90s, at the very moment that alternative rock was becoming the defining sound of a generation. Through an unlikely chain of events, her band Tinker landed an opening slot for the Smashing Pumpkins, and Billy Corgan, sensing her natural talent on bass, recommended her to Courtney Love. What followed was a turbulent apprenticeship. Auf der Maur joined Hole for the Live Through This tour in 1994, just weeks after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and Hole’s prior bassist, Kristen Pfaff. She later toured with the Smashing Pumpkins, released two solo albums, and has since built a life as a musician, photographer, and cultural curator, co-founding Basilica Hudson, a multidisciplinary arts center in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Melissa Auf der Maur’s book, “Even the Good Girls Will Cry” is a bestseller, part rock memoir, part travel diary, and part psychedelic scrapbook. It’s a vivid dispatch from the last analog decade that captures that era in all its messy, angsty glory. Auf der Maur writes with the tenderness of a true survivor: about the illness and death of her father, her past relationship with Dave Grohl, and her complicated, deeply human portrait of Courtney Love. Now she’s following it with a companion photo book, “My 90’s Rock Photographs,” drawn from the remarkable archive she shot from inside one of the most photographed moments in music history.

On today’s episode, Justin Richmond talks to Melissa Auf der Maur about both projects: how her parents encouraged an unconventional life in the arts, how alternative music went mainstream, and how her relationship with Courtney Love has evolved over the years.