← Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Melissa Auf der Maur Joins Buzz Knight: Unpacking the Stories Behind Iconic Rock Music and Women’s Voices
00:49:43
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- [00:01]
Buzz Knight
Taking a Walk welcome to Taking a Walk. I'm Buzz Knight and today we're diving deep into one of rock's most compelling stories with the incredible Melissa Auf Dermar. For those who know rock history, Melissa's journey is a legendary one from the Montreal music scene, becoming the bass player for Hole during their most turbulent and triumphant era, then joining Smashing Pumpkins during their final tours. But Melissa is much more than her time with these iconic bands. She's a visual artist, filmmaker, solo artist with two critically acclaimed albums and now powerful memoir. Her new book, Even the Good Girls Will Cry, is a raw, unflinching look at what it really means to be a woman in rock and roll. It's about survival, creativity, ambition, and finding your voice in an industry that often tries to silence it. This isn't just another rock memoir, it's a cultural document about art, identity and resilience. Today we're going to walk through Melissa's remarkable career, explore the stories behind the music, and dig into why she felt now was the time to tell her story in her own words.
- [01:21]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
- [01:26]
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- [02:32]
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Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt from renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Ready Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures this
- [03:33]
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- [04:08]
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- [04:35]
Buzz Knight
Lenovo. Taking a Walk Melissa thank you for being on the Taking a Walk podcast. It is an honor to have you
- [04:49]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
I this is my friend first official podcast in the promotion phase of my 90s rock memoir so it is an honor to start with you. Westwood is my mother's birthplace and then Walpole is where my uncle and my cousins and those who did not flee the US like my mother did in the 60s to reject all of the political injustices of America and she found her way to Montreal in the 60s but her family stayed and my uncle and all my cousins all were came to be in Walpole Massachusetts. So that's my other New England connection and then my grandparents were Cape Cod so all of My childhood Christmases and Easters and summers were on the Cape. And so that is my deep New England connection. And there was a time, being raised in Montreal, that my only gateway to America was Cape Cod. So my vision of America was very skewed to quaint, sweet Cape Cod. And then the whole world broke open, even though I was indoctrinated by my two socialist, politically active, counterculture parents to not trust the United States. But for me, Cape Cod and my Cape Cod grandparents were like the coolest, sweetest place in the world. So I didn't quite understand what the problem was with America.
- [06:19]
Buzz Knight
I'm still trying to figure it out.
- [06:20]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
We all know now. We all know the problems.
- [06:24]
Buzz Knight
Well, do you like chowder, first of all, too? Do you like.
- [06:27]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
I mean, I love Boston accents. My grandfather and my uncle, Real Pak, the Ka people. My mother decoded herself and became a very eloquent international linguist type. So she spoke in the old New England sort of international Katharine Hepburn style, which was like my grandmother. But my grandfather and my uncle were the strong Boston accents. Yes.
- [06:56]
Buzz Knight
Well, I didn't grow up here. I grew up in Stanford, Connecticut. But sometimes people listen to me speaking because they know I've been here for a number of years and they end up saying, well, I could detect the accent. And I'm like, darn, I'm not from here.
- [07:14]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Well, that is equivalent of me mourning the fact that it took about five years being in the rock band Hole, living in the US to erase most of my Canadian ness. Although people still hear it in my, I guess, house. And there's certain words I say that still have like, the O H oddness. But when I joined whole, I said Nirvana, pasta, Avocado, Mazda. And then all of a sudden it turned into like, oh, it's Nirvana, Avocado, Pasta. So that was like the big unfiltering of my Canadian innocence. And then I became semi dual citizen and accepted in all places. Yes.
- [08:08]
Buzz Knight
Can I hear you pronounce your name? Because first of all, I think it would sound more authentic than the way I probably say it. But secondly, it will even guide me further. But I just dying to hear you pronounce your name.
- [08:23]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Yeah, well, it's been hard my whole life because I grew up a politician's daughter and I heard all of the city of Montreal mangle my father's name. So my father said it differently than I say it. So my father was Nick Ofmore. I am Melissa after Mauer, because I understood that Swiss German, which is what my last name is, in the realm of international German speakers. Auf der Mauer is how you would assume my German full sentence last name is of the wall on the wall in Swiss German. But it turns out that Swiss German is completely different than German. So I had sort of turned into an international German pronunciation off dermauer. But in fact Swiss German it's uef dermur. So my father was correct in that he was Nick Offdermore. But then I traveled the world and explained it's a German sentence. And so people say auf der Mauer. I said exactly. So it's really not clear. But I say Melissa auf Dermauer. But people can say off dermore aftermar off Dermauer.
- [09:43]
Buzz Knight
I have to tell you often this podcast is is a rabbit hole. It should probably be called the Rabbit Hole. That is one of the best rabbit holes I think that I've been on in a long time.
- [09:55]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Yeah, name wise, tricky name. I mean Swiss German is quite a rabbit hole of a. Of a. Like ethnically Swiss Germans are quite niche and remote to the world mostly because it is known to most Swiss German people that they don't actually often leave the Alpine villages of Swiss German existence. They're quite insular. Swiss German heritage is quite ancient and stays within. So there's not a lot of like public facing Swiss German stories and people. So yeah, it's innate with my name. It's quite underground in the big mountains of Switzerland. They don't leave. They don't leave. I'm one of the. My daughter and I are for the most part the only ones of my lineage in North America. So.
- [10:55]
Buzz Knight
Well, believe it or not, we are going to talk about your new book. Even the Good Girls will Cry in a second. But I do want to go back to that moment in time, the beginning. And what was it about Montreal music and the scene in the 90s that really shaped you as an artist? How did that environment prepare you for what was going to be coming down the railroad tracks?
- [11:18]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Yeah, I mean, obviously in the book I go pretty deep right off the bat into my two parents. The top of the book is chapter one is my incredible mother. Chapter two is my incredible father. And chapter three is the incredible city I was raised in. So I often my whole life in fact, and even those who got to know me in the rock world really understood that really was my parents and my city that made me unique, but also uniquely prepared to dive into a global stage of drama, addiction, tragedy, fame, creative zeitgeist, all these incredible things that I was thrown into at 22. So it's both my remarkable parents and my city that really shaped a unique, I guess, perspective on what it means to, you know, try to live your life to your fullest. So I. I credit mostly my origins for how I somehow ended up in this. Like, once in a, you know, very rare opportunity to travel the world in a giant rock band and be plucked out of absolutely nowhere. Like, I was not on the road global seeking these wild nomads to join. They found me in Montreal, hiding in the underground. You know, they detected me and I often, you know, obviously a lot of my story is right time, right place, but it's the remarkable authenticity and originality of my parents in my city that I think kind of made me like, visible to someone like Billy Corgan, who I essentially refer to throughout my book, but also my life as my mentor. Like my spiritual mentor who found me in a tiny club when I was 19. I didn't even play bass yet when I saw the Smashing Pumpkins play in front of 20 people, like, the band made an impression on me. And I introduced myself at the show and he saw something in me, you know, I don't. And we became pen pals. And then the rest of it became my. My destined story in rock music. But I think it was, you know, Montreal was lucky in that it had a deep legacy of counterculture because of the cultural movements of the French Canadian Quebecois. For those who don't understand what the. They're not actually French Canadians. They reject the idea of French. They were the Quebecois. The identity of the French speaking Quebecers that my Anglophone parents felt a kinship to. They were counterculture underdogs who wanted to represent and help underdogs get heard. And in the 60s, the counterculture movements wherever you lived in North America, whether it was like racial equity or feminist movements, my parents both aligned with the French rights, the Francophone rights of Quebec was what I was really raised in the midst of. And my parents set an example of fight for the underdog, make sure that they get heard, fight for their rights, don't let the dominant powers at be erase and claim the voice of authority. So it was a lot of just resistance and resistance. And so that obviously is seen in our generation's music. Everything that came out of Seattle. And of course, Kurt, who became like the, you know, the sacrificial Jesus figure of our generation's music. It was a response to a horrific 80s Reagan era in America of this corporate selloutness that, you know, we are now kind of seeing an unfortunate rise of again. But it really Was that I just fit right in in this counterculture movement of declaring that individuality and not being, you know, not being even though ironic. My book is titled Even the Good Girls Will Cry. But we were programmed to not be good, don't like be good, and don't rock the boat. We were programmed as a generation, and as a result of my parents generation to fight the powers that be. So, you know, to answer your question, I obviously fit right in. And whether it was my little Microsoft of my parents in my city, by the time these nomadic counterculture 90s music forces were orbiting these small cities and the radio stations and the local punk clubs, I was part of this similar wave and they recognized me from the ground up. And that's how I found my way into the larger stage of the rock bands of that generation.
- [16:58]
Buzz Knight
So I'm a husband of a photographer, and the backdrop with which you're doing this interview has a fabulous look at a bunch of your photos in the background there you were studying photography and visual arts when music took over your life. How did your artistic background influence your approach to music and performance?
- [17:25]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Yep, good question. I mean, I again credit my origin story. My mother signed me up for this experimental art school at the age of seven. So I went to a visual arts performing arts school from grade one through high school. So I was raised in a very eclectic, wonderfully creative environment where the young people who were part of this experimental school, which continues to be the biggest public performing arts school in Montreal. But it had started in the 70s as a concept for experimental parents to sign up their kids. So I was raised with truly a fine art background in performance, in music. So from the get go, I was a multidisciplinary artist. In my mind, it's like you find a visual pursuit, you find a performance pursuit, you find your instrument. So in my case, I was in a choir. And my choir teacher, my Welsh choir teacher, through in middle school, I dedicated my first solo record to, because Mr. Edwards showed me the power of music by having middle school choirs sing the Mozart Requiem with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. So that's an example of the power of music was in me. I gravitated towards photography, and by high school I had my own darkroom and I was photographing for the yearbook. So my photos just started as mainly because I was sort of shy and I wanted to have an agency around, you know, my perspective. So I had an amazing gateway into photography very early. And this is like, you know, these are freelance parents with no money. I was just borrowing like a shitty Camera that my mother had. So it wasn't like I was given all these tools. It was just makeshift creative environment of, oh, you're interested in photography? Borrow this. Oh, I have a friend who's an art photographer go intern for him in his darkroom on the weekend. So I just found my way and found my tools that resonated with me. Meanwhile, my parents were like remarkable literary people, so there was no photography or music environment at all. They were literary geniuses who could use the word to express who they were, which obviously fast forwarded. You know, 40 years later, I end up writing this book, which, to be honest, was the most pleasure like I love writing. It turns out that the kind of slightly dyslexic art student who thought music and photography would be better for me because I. My grammar is terrible. I don't really, you know, want to compete with my amazing parents who like, use the word. So who knew that I would have all of these actually under my own, you know, roof of my. Of my upbringing. And. And the visual thing, I think, just gave me quite literally a perspective. So, like, I talk a lot in my book about turning to my camera almost as a shield of protection when I'm on tour with these crazy rock bands. I would use my camera to almost separate me from the audience. Like 60,000 people at my first concert take a picture of the audience so I can remember how crazy this is. My visual art just gave me an agency of my own perspective while also being highly aware that I was documenting history in the making of our generation. And I didn't want to lose sight of my privileged perspective, which was I'm on stage in front of thousands of people with these radical individuals that are being documented by, you know, Rolling Stone and mtv. But I want to have my own say on how this is being documented. And then that's when I kind of went into photography on the road. I, you know, photographed Lollapalooza for Spin magazines. So I made myself available as a. An insider. Outsider.
- [21:38]
Buzz Knight
So you joined hole in 1994. It was really one of the most chaotic and scrutinize periods in rock history. What was your. Your first day at the office like?
- [21:52]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Insane. Ah, God. I mean, truly. When I played my first show with Hole, which was August of 1994, the Reading Festival, it was Courtney's first performance in the wake of Kurt's suicide and Kristen, the former bass player's overdose. So I had been in the band for two weeks when I barely had had time to learn the songs. But I did not Make a mistake. On my first show, I remember very clearly thinking, as long as I can play these songs and get through this song and this set, I will have done my job. So I, you know, it was chaotic. It was emotionally kind of un. Speakable. It was truly, I guess someone mentioned, like, obviously I was in the eye of the storm. I was thrown into this, like, eye of this. Orbiting the chaos in the wake of these deaths and the rise of this fame and the confusion of our generation, of what had happened to our underground. And it has been said that the eye of the storm is quieter than, you know, everything happening around it. So in a way, it was very quiet. You know, it was truly. I was backstage focusing on my parts, focusing on, is Courtney okay? Is this lovely redhead drummer who will become my best friend in the band? Is she okay? Is everybody okay? Are we gonna make it through? And in a way, it was very intimate in my. I focused on the emotional reality in my immediate environment, which was tricky. And there was a toddler on tour with us because Kurt had abandoned a wife and child. So I tried to stay present as a young woman who cared about the people I was in a band with and who cared about the music and the message of the music. So it was, you know, maybe a survival mechanism of just focus on the here and now, but it's home. It's what happened. And then luckily I had like my camera and my diary to sort of keep me grounded in what seemed impossible to actually comprehend at the time. I was 22.
- [24:20]
Buzz Knight
Incredible chronicling there. My God, Celebrity Skin became this massive commercial success. Can you share what the creative process was like in the studio and how you found your place in that sound?
- [24:39]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Right. And so imagine I joined hall in 94 and celebrity skin didn't come out till 98. So we had this world tour of Lived through this. We went around the globe for over a year. It ended at the MTV Awards in September of 95. So we had this whirlwind, visceral travel experience. Then we were sent to write a new record. And so we descended into this sort of post world tour and recovery. These people were in traumatic, like, grief of the loss of the people who had died. So the writing of Celebrity Scan was quite laborious. I describe it at length in my book of it didn't come easily. We, you know, and it did take us three years to write and record this record. Which, yes, in. I was actually just with Courtney last week in LA. We hadn't been in Los Angeles together since 1999. So it was like this vortex opened. I oddly went. My first podcast, I Lie, was last week recorded. Billy Corgan's podcast was the first podcast for this record. For this record. It's a book for this cycle. And the next day turned out, Courtney was also in town and we had tea and we giggled at how outrageous what has happened in the quarter century since we had last been in Los Angeles recording and promoting and releasing Celebrity Skin. And we actually had a funny conversation about how in the quarter century we were so used to when Celebrity Skin came out and it was so radically different than Live through this. Live through this was very visceral and very feminist anthem anger. And then Celebrity Skin came out and it was very polished and it got onto top 40 and it, you know, was like a glossy success. But there was a sense of shame in there and there was a sense of, well, Live through this is the critically acclaimed, credible one. And then did we sell out with Celebrity Skin being so glossy, this arrival of pro tools, this like these big budgeted videos and these slick photo shoots. But the funny thing is, when Courtney and I were having tea last week, 25 years later, is actually Celebrity Skin in some ways has aged beautifully and it has a timeless slickness. But it also was a very special album. Conceptually. It was her love letter to California and her love letter, Courtney's love letter to the conflicts that is Hollywood. You know, Fleetwood Mac was a huge inspiration for her on that record. It was like we were playing with this sort of slick feminine glossiness. And whether it's because Malibu was a top 40 hit, whereas Live through this didn't have top 40 hits, but it has actually made an impact on pop culture in ways that Live through this didn't. So I feel that they both have deep, long lasting impact in very different orbits. And I have met in the last few years because my daughter is a 14 year old and she follows her the big, powerful, glossy pop powerhouses of her generation, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, obviously Taylor Swift and blah, blah, blah. But in some ways that generation remembers Celebrity Skin more than they do Live through this because it had broader reach. And those in the know know that Lived through this was this like wild arrival post. Kurt. But if you listen to records made by powerful women today, they sound much more like Celebrity Skin than they do. Lo Fi lived Through this. So I'm proud to say that I think it aged well in that it made a big impact on what now is really everybody's glossy. I mean, everybody uses the Internet, you know, the computers for and everybody, you know, whatever, everyone's pretty shamelessly glossy at this point. Even what I consider one of the most powerful voices of her generation, Billie Eilish and her brother Phineas. It's pretty slick, you know, what they make and what they deliver in the world to obviously very large audience is very slick and I think that they would maybe consider celebrity skin more related to their work than lived through this, you know.
- [29:49]
Public/Lenovo/LifeLock Ad Voice
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- [30:55]
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- [33:40]
Buzz Knight
So moving from whole to Smashing Pumpkins. Two very different musical environments. Did it take you a long time to adapt to that?
- [33:52]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
I had no time. I had, I went from one band to the other in one week so I had no time to adapt. I completed my my Celebrity Skin tour with Hole Court, became a Hollywood movie star in the support of our during the Celebrity Skin tour. She literally became a Hollywood celebrity. So this crazy transition happened for her and I, who was committed to music, made a decision to leave Hole so I could continue my pursuit to music because I could see that her interests were moving into Hollywood. And it was a very strange timing in that the long standing bass player of the Smashing Pumpkins, Darcy, the one female member of that band, had essentially disappeared during the making of that last 90s pumpkins record, Machina Machines of God. And there was like this incredible destined timing where Billy called me one day when Darcy had disappeared and said he was making this record and he wanted to pull within close Family, friends and asked if I would take her place. And it was right as I was preparing to leave Hole. So I went back to back in like one fell swoop. And it was quite dramatic. And it was also quite notable that the bass player for this band went into the next band. And there was a lot of, like, when I joined Hole, replacing a deceased bass player, there was quite a lot of sort of drama attach to my arrival. So I was very well versed at that point of arriving in dramatic fashions. But notably, the music transition was very exciting in that I went from playing a pretty short catalog. Hole only had three albums and not many of them were played, not many of the songs were played live. But when I joined the Pumpkins, they had four albums. One was a double album, they had multiple B side rarity albums. And I went from these short set list to this massive. Because Billy is a very prolific songwriter, but also he'd never wanted a set to be the same twice. So I had to be so nimble as a bass player and learn a song a day, I had to be ready to change the set list every day. In some times. We opened for ourselves on this big European farewell tour. Now the Pumpkins are back. But at the time, the year 2000, our tour was the finale of the Pumpkins and they did go on hiatus after that. But we went on this incredible European farewell tour where we were playing three to four hours a night, opening for ourselves. We were playing acoustic sets, opening for our rock sets that were. It was so epic and the amount of, of learning and bass playing I had to do was exciting. I had to, like, really, it was. I have always said Hole was my, like, bachelor's in humanity. And then the Pumpkins was my master's in music. And I'm grateful for both. But yeah, the music transition was incredibly dramatic and very much what I needed. I wanted to get back into the music after what had been a very complex five years in Hole, where music kind of was secondary to her fame and her family drama. You know, it was a very complicated Persona to be supporting in whole, whereas the Pumpkins was always and still is about the music.
- [37:47]
Buzz Knight
I'm honored you would be the second podcast you would do to Billy Corgan. And I really mean that. What are the characteristics of that make him such an incredibly special artist?
- [38:04]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Well, even just hanging out with him last week, you know, there we are in our 50s. He's one of the hardest working men in show business. Always was, I say it in my memoir, but when I joined the band, he had three rules. No mistakes, no days off, can't get sick. So, you know, he had a bit of that James Brown reputation of you just like music comes first, you don't have these other frivolous things of being human don't count. So he's very, very hard working. He's obviously very prolific. And another trait he shares that I share is we are not addicts. With all due respect and compassion for the addicts that I played music with, he always. Music was first. And he is a, you know, a pretty healthy, sane individual. Sure he has personality, quirks of, you know, some. I don't want to name the bad qualities of Billy, but he takes himself very seriously and he takes his role as a musician incredibly seriously and very committed to his fans. Like if there was one thing I saw on the road with the Pumpkins, Billy would spend hours a day with his fans before and after the show. That's like a very particular thing. Maybe now in the days of social media, sure, fans get access, but Billy was doing that before social media. He is very devoted to his fans, very hardworking and working every day. Like when I left the podcast. He records his podcast at Howie Mandel's TV studio last week in Van Nuys. And he had to go to the studio right after he finished his interview with Nancy Wilson from Hart, then me, then he went to the studio. The guy is working every day, all day. So that's obviously a big part. And he was one of those guys, which I hope they still exist. But he was shy and awkward and weird and unloved by his parents in that kind of way. And he spent every day of his childhood in his room learning how to play guitar. You know, that is a important quality of musicians that there is nowhere else to go. So you learn your instrument. So he's a ridiculous guitar player. I mean, the guy is like an amazing shredder of all shredders. And he's a songwriter, so that makes him very cool.
- [40:48]
Buzz Knight
Understatement for sure. Writing a memoir like Even the Good Girls Will Cry certainly means confronting your past head on. Was there one chapter in particular that was the most difficult to write?
- [41:05]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Definitely. I mean, so my memoir, for those who hopefully will read it, yes. It chronicles my time and Hole in the Smashing Pumpkins and my perspective of what our generation went through as far as being essentially like co opted and raped by corporate greed. But within that coming of age story, my father, who was a larger than life person, not just in my life, but in the city of Montreal. So anybody who witnessed my city. My father has a street named after him. The guy was just such an incredible force. And he, in his political career and his journalistic career, you know, he had a TV show, he had radio shows, he had a column, he ran downtown Montreal on and off for a couple of decades. He was so passionate to. For people and the underdog. He wanted to represent people. And my father was a complicated man, raised by real poverty immigrants, immigrants who came in Europe from Europe in the 30s and raised in a lot of difficult environments. He was a tortured individual who smoked and drank and died at my age, pretty much. So my father was an addict. And so later in life when I'm, you know, in bands with addicts, it wasn't unfamiliar territory for me of people burning the candle at both ends. So the hardest chapter, of course in my book was witnessing my father's demise and the horrendous death of my father, which is disturbing personally, but also just for anyone who has watched someone self destruct, especially someone who loves life as much as he did. And that was brutal. It was like a lot of work for me, But I knew to both honor my father, but also heal myself from what was decades of me avoiding facing what I went through in my 20s watching my father die. He died of cancer, but it was a self induced smoking and drinking cancer of cancer of the throat and mouth and brain. You know, smokers and drink, smoking, drinking combo can, you know, create a real pretty aggressive cancer. You know, he did smoke three packs a day his whole life from like a teenager on. So that somehow some crazy drinkers and smokers lived till 90, but he did not. So that was horrendous writing, that was really impossible, but it actually did what I needed to do, which is finally face all my pain in that which I had sort of tucked away for way too long.
- [44:08]
Buzz Knight
So what advice would you give to young women today who are trying to break into the music industry?
- [44:14]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Oh, God. Well, the industry is not what it is then and it is the world is not what it is now. I, you know, a big part of the book other than healing myself. And my book is dedicated. You probably don't have the final version. I don't know what you saw, but it's dedicated to my daughter and all the girls. So the future generation of women who have to do what I did, but with a new set of tools and a new world to reckon with. And yes, do I believe there's been dark entities always, sure. Every hundreds, every generation is dark entities of war and crisis. But in particular right now, I think young women are just with the evil of the phone and the self reflection of their own. The beauty myths that were things that me and Courtney and our generation were really saying, fuck you too. I went on stage without even looking in the mirror. Poor girls are like being asked to look at themselves every fucking second on their phone. I hate what has happened to our women's movement. I feel we have gone beyond backwards. This is like worse than what I feel like the 80s hair metal, 80s plastic beauty. I hated what the role models were of women in the 80s that we reacted to. I feel like if you look at even just the current administration in the United States, it's a lot of, of plastic women. They look like blow up dolls. They look like pornography to me. So I'm deeply concerned about women's perception of female role models. So the book, other than a personal self healing journey, it's trying to bring up really timeless coming of age woman story beyond music. Just how does a woman find her own voice? How does a woman find, find power within? Not the surface without, you know, not what you look like, but what's inside. And then also this question of digital versus analog because our generation followed the arc of an analog world into a digital world. And our generation really was the last coming of age in an analog reality is I want to tell a story of human experience in the real world. In the room that you grow up with with your girlfriends, in the room with your friends that you discover music with with your friends in the real world. Like even relationships are being morphed by like texting and facetiming. It's. I want to bring readers into an innocent world where all you had was the people in that room and in that audience with you and in that tour bus with you or on the stage with you. And you know, I try to capture really also the power of that music exchange between the audience and the performer and remind people both in the book but also in my photography that it comes out in the fall with my photo book that will be a follow up to my memoir. There was no cameras in those audiences. Those audiences gave you undivided attention of true connection between humans and music. And so I want to try to seduce people into imagining, rebelling against the digital reality, embracing the power of real relationships and real analog experiences, which is always live music, live music. And even to an extent I've been thinking about, I've always said that the power of music is you can't hold. It is not something you can hold in Your hand. Unless you're playing a guitar of course. But for people who love music, music fans, you listen to it, you're not watching. Yeah, you can watch YouTube or you can watch music videos. But at this point the power of music still remains in the ether. So what I really hope is that women in future generations, in this current generation living in this overly like monitored and overly like the attack on their attention is so sick. Like you know, so sad that like music platforms have so much video content and so many, so much data like just let them listen to music, just let music be the thing. So if girls can actually or young people can just focus on the people that love the music with them, the music that is being made somewhere in there there's a timeless analog power that will allow them to find their calling in life and find the real connection and be hopefully very self aware of the mining that is happening. Courtney on Celebrity Skin and this amazing song, Awful. It's like it's a song about warning teenage girls that they are coming after you. These teenage girls, their devotion to what they love, their friends, their fashion, their music. That devotion has been mined to a sick extent. Like they started, you know, so much of online is trying to get young girls to focus on consuming and buying products. So I want women to know they have fucking power, but they are being abused by a system that wants to steal their attention and steal their passion. And you have the power to claim that as your own and not let male dark tentacles of corporate greed take it from you. Own your power. You know, even to a certain extent you can complain about certain parts of Taylor Swift, but at least she has spoken about owning her power. She was abused by a male system and she got it back. So there's a lot of power happening with women even though there's also this sick like new trying to dismantle all the amazing work that my generation and my mother's generation and the suffragettes did before. The amount of power over the hundred years of women is they're trying to dismantle this. They are trying to make us believe that we don't have power over our bodies and over our sense of self. Beyond being a mother, being a wife, being a fucking pawn to a male dominated world, you know. So my goal is to go out and speak to all people to remind them they have the power and they are being, they're people are trying to control us. You know, especially young people who don't know better because they're young people, they don't know they're Just being like hijacked,
- [51:25]
Buzz Knight
you've continued to create, whether it's. It's music, visual art, or running. Basilica Hudson, which I want you to talk about. How do these creative outlets feed each other?
- [51:37]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Well, they're all connected. I mean, again, it kind of comes down to my origin story. I mean, I think that it's even Freud that talks about like creative imprints on your young self comes from your childhood. So much of like early memories of beauty or things that move you always kind of come from the same place of things that awoke your spirit when you were young. Basilica Hudson, my non profit reclaimed 1880s factory devoted to independent, innovative arts and culture is just an extension of what I grew up with and what was instilled in my values by my parents, which is create an environment where individuals, authentic voices, independent voices can be heard. So all of it is just trying to create spaces of independent belief and independent passions and not be part of a system which is more and more clear to many, is very broken and very corrupt. So all of it is just a continuation of the same thing of just trying to empower individuals to believe that they have a say in the world and they don't have to conform to other larger forces.
- [52:55]
Buzz Knight
Melissa so in closing, since we do call this little podcast Taking a Walk, is there someone you would like to take a walk with, living or dead?
- [53:06]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Oh, sure. Do I get to pick the location too? Sure.
- [53:09]
Buzz Knight
And you could pick more than one?
- [53:12]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Yeah. Oh, cool. Maybe I can have an array of people. Okay. So in the Hudson Valley there's this incredible. My favorite Victorian stroll that I take is this beautiful castle basically on the Hudson river called Olana, which was founded by the Hudson river painter school movement. So Frederic Church was a painter in the mid late 1800s and he created this like, utopia, visual utopia, surrounded by mountains and what looked like Renaissance skies. Every day in the Hudson, Hudson Valley, on these great Catskill mountains. And I take walks with my friends who have dogs. I'm a cat person, but I like taking walks with dog walkers through these strolling Victorian view sheds. And I would love to walk with Carl Jung to speak about man and his symbols and all of the symbolic. The power of visual symbols and esoteric attempts to make sense of this crazy world that we live in alongside. Okay, I could be really dramatic. It would be hard for her to stroll, but I could pull, push Frida Kahlo in some cool magic rolling bed. And then I would add, let's say, someone, a great. One of my favorite first ever photographers. That sort of sound it looked like what I was trying to get from my inner visuals, which is this great photographer named Francesca Woodman, who died by suicide at a young age. But she was a very, a pioneering woman who turned the camera on herself at a very young age to do what I ended up doing in art school, which was contemplating what the muses are to these, like, you know, all these male artists who painted women or who sculpted women. But what if the women take themselves as the muse? So be the hybrid of like the creator and the muse. So I'd like a walk with those three people overlooking beautiful Hudson river skies.
- [55:21]
Buzz Knight
Melissa, congratulations on. Even the good girls will cry. There are so many moments when I do this podcast. I go, how did I get so lucky to be doing this? And this is another one of those moments. I'm incredibly grateful that you took the time to be on Taking a Walk. I hope, I hope it felt like we were just hanging out at the coffee shop.
- [55:45]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
Yes, we were. I love hanging out at coffee shops. One of my favorites, Tea cats by the fire, strolling, looking at skies. My favorite. So appreciate you having me on and hopefully your listeners want to take a deep dive into 90s rock through a female photographer bass player's lens.
- [56:06]
Buzz Knight
Thank you so much, Melissa.
- [56:07]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
You're welcome.
- [56:10]
Buzz Knight
I'm Buzz Knight and thanks for listening to the Taking a Walk podcast. Now please check out our companion podcasts produced by BuzzKnight Media Productions with with your host Lynn Hoffman. Music saved me. Showcasing the healing power of music and comedy saved me. Shining a light on how laughter is the best medicine. All shows are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and are part of the I Heart Podcast Network.
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Buzz Knight
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Buzz Knight
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Melissa Auf Der Maur
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Buzz Knight
The truth is gruesomely horrific.
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Melissa Auf Der Maur
How could you do this to your best friend.
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Buzz Knight
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Bethany Frankel
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- [58:47]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
If you love high stakes competition and incredible food, don't miss America's Culinary Cup.
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Bethany Frankel
Premiering Wednesday on CBS, 16 of the
- [58:54]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
most decorated chefs in the country go head to head for an unprecedented $1 million prize. Hosted by Emmy nominated food expert Padma Lakshmi, this is a high pressure arena
- [59:05]
Bethany Frankel
where every dish matters and one mistake sends you home.
- [59:08]
Melissa Auf Der Maur
America's Culinary cup premieres Wednesday after Survivor on CBS and streaming on Paramount. Plus.