Melissa Auf der Maur | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode: Melissa Auf der Maur | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan
Date: March 11, 2026

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Overview

In this profoundly reflective episode, Billy Corgan interviews his longtime friend, bassist, photographer, and memoirist Melissa Auf der Maur. The conversation traces her unique upbringing, her evolution from art school student to rock icon, and the nuanced, intertwined journeys she shared with both Corgan (of The Smashing Pumpkins) and Courtney Love (of Hole). The episode also discusses Melissa’s new memoir, her role in documenting '90s culture, and hard-won insights into identity, loyalty, trauma, and legacy at the end of the analog era.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origin Story – Roots of Individualism

[00:05–03:28]

• Melissa’s Montreal upbringing in a bohemian, activist family; both parents as journalists and cultural figures.
• Her father's radical socialist ideals, “The parties change. I don't change...the people have the power. Corporate government, don't trust them.” — Melissa, [03:00].
• Early experiences with her fiercely independent mother: living in a circus caravan in Wales, Morocco, Kenya —instilling nomadic curiosity and a sense that “no man is ever going to define who you are.”

2. Art School, Early Ambitions, and Photography

[04:28–07:12]

• Attendance at an experimental art school where fine arts were central; early aspiration to be a conceptual photographer and multimedia artist.
• The “hijacking” of her photography passion by rock music, but her solution was obsessive documentation: “I took a roll of film every day in Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins.” — Melissa, [06:34].

3. First Encounter with the Smashing Pumpkins

[07:36–13:58]

• July 23, 1991: The “electric Buttocks” show at Les Foufounes Électriques in Montreal.
• Iconic moment: A beer bottle thrown at Billy during the Pumpkins' set, leading him to leap into the crowd and confront the culprit (Melissa’s roommate’s boyfriend, Bruce).
• Melissa’s awe at the performance and the band's grandiosity:

  “...That is when you captured my heart. ...Montreal, we have one more for you. And you played ‘I Am One’ and it changed every cell in my body.” — Melissa, [13:36–13:58].

• Spark of connection: “On behalf of Montreal, Canada, I apologize and I will follow your band. I love your band.” — Melissa, [15:27].

4. Path to Becoming a Bassist & Formation of Tinker

[17:01–22:19]

• Inspired by Pumpkins and other bands’ “cool wallflower, stoic girls on bass,” Melissa picks up bass, forms Tinker.
• Opening for the Pumpkins: After a letter to Billy, Tinker is added last-minute as an opener during the Siamese Dream tour.
• Pivotal encouragement: “Wow, one day, maybe you'll play in my band.” — Billy, [23:56].
• Reflection: “That confidence that you gave me, that Billy Corgan told me I was good enough ... that's it. Music is calling. I'm doing it.” — Melissa, [24:07].

5. The Feminine Force of the Bass

[24:13–26:53]

• Melissa describes bass as “the mother of all instruments—unnoticed, but no one can live without.”
• Corgan defends having women on bass against sexist perceptions; highlights Melissa’s uniquely aggressive but still feminine “pocket” as bassist for the Pumpkins:

  “Of all the females that ever played bass for the Smashing Pumpkins, you're the most aggressive…in the pocket…your pocket is unchanged from 25 years ago.” — Billy, [26:12–27:03].

6. Joining Hole and Navigating Grunge Stardom

[30:26–42:02]

• Billy refers Melissa to Hole after the tragic loss of Kristen Pfaff, discusses Courtney Love’s complex relationship with image, femininity, and public perception.
• Behind-the-scenes:

  “I said, I have the perfect person for you, but there’s only one problem. She’s really beautiful. Are you okay with that?” — Billy, [32:30].

• Melissa’s initial refusal, then recruitment by Courtney: “She had already made up her mind. You were going to join the band. That’s it.” — Billy, [40:31].
• Motivation: Understanding the cultural calling to support “the feminine force that was going to be destroyed…our job was to help get women’s stories out there and put us on a male-dominated landscape.” — Melissa, [42:02].

7. Songwriting, Gender, and 90s Rock Myths

[43:02–47:36]

• Debunks myth that Kurt Cobain wrote Hole’s 'Live Through This'; credits Courtney and Eric Erlandson’s songwriting (“He helped me with one chorus.” — [46:36]).
• How Courtney challenged both Billy and Kurt to write more directly and personally:

  “Why can’t the person I talk to…why is that person not writing lyrics?” — Billy, [48:13].

• The intricate artistic and personal relationships among Billy, Courtney, and Melissa described as “my weird grunge parents”.

8. Celebrity Skin, Fractures, and Evaporation

[52:04–56:26]

• Emotional cost of rock stardom: “By the time I joined your band [the Pumpkins], my heart was frozen…I had become the good, pretty girl, lost my best friend, the drummer from Hole is living on the street. It was so painful.” — Melissa, [52:04].
• Courtney Love’s Hollywood ambitions and their impact on the band, Melissa’s growing alienation.

9. Transition to The Smashing Pumpkins, Final Days of the 90s

[58:09–63:33]

• Sequence of events: Feeling demoralized by the collapse of Hole, Melissa is offered a last tour with the Pumpkins as bassist.
• Corgan describes the Pumpkins as “boot camp” and a “master’s” in musicianship, offering Melissa a year of full immersion as the band ends (playing 182 shows in 11 months).
• The symbolism of witnessing, and participating in, the end of the analog era:

  "My book is really mourning...the change of the millennium. …I want to be the voice of that last analog decade..." — Melissa, [69:03, 70:54] "We might go down as the last true analog generation." — Billy, [71:16]

10. Memoir, Memory, and Healing

[72:06–89:44]

• Melissa’s motivation for writing her memoir: reconciling her experience as "an outsider-insider," “a good girl who did good things for other people...lost myself along the way and had to find myself.”
• Billy and Melissa’s reconciliation of their memories, the impact of trauma ("And I didn't trust you...I felt like my value was only...what it brought to you..." — Melissa, [85:33]).
• Honest exchange about the “missed opportunity” to document the last days of the original Pumpkins, and about Melissa’s self-described "evaporation" during that era.
• Resolution and affection:

  "I've always had respect for you...if at the end of the day you didn't believe it, I didn't want it." — Billy, [85:11] “We all retreated and we weren’t able to be there for each other. …Now we are really good friends for each other, because we now see the perspective.” — Melissa, [88:38]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The bass is the instrument that is unnoticed, but no one can live without.” — Melissa, [00:00], [25:31]
• “That’s when you captured my heart...you played I Am One, and it changed every cell in my body.” — Melissa, [13:36]
• “Women tend to play with a different pocket than men do on the bass...you're the most aggressive.” — Billy, [25:48–26:12]
• “I had a job to do for women. ...It wasn't about even rock music, actually. It was to get women’s stories out there.” — Melissa, [42:02]
• “We might go down as the last true analog generation.” — Billy, [71:16]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:05–03:28] Melissa’s family and early influences
• [07:36–13:58] First meeting with the Pumpkins / beer bottle story
• [19:01–23:56] Starting Tinker, letter to Billy, and the opening gig
• [24:13–26:53] Philosophy and role of women/bass in alternative music
• [30:26–42:02] Journey to joining Hole, feminism, and gender politics
• [47:36–52:04] Songwriting, the “grunge parents” dynamic, band fractures
• [58:09–63:33] Joining the Pumpkins, emotional and musical bootcamp
• [69:03–71:54] End of the analog era and legacy preservation
• [72:06–89:44] Memoir writing, reconciliation, and closure

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Tone and Language

The episode is unguarded, humorous, and laced with affection and introspection. Billy and Melissa candidly discuss issues of gender, ambition, burnout, and creative and personal identity—often referencing very specific moments and emotions with a sense of shared history, vulnerability, and gratitude.

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Conclusion

Listeners gain a rare, inside look at 1990s alternative rock from the vantage of one of its muses and chroniclers. The episode is as much about memory, healing, and bearing witness as it is about music—celebrating the legacy of an analog generation, and the enduring bonds and scars carved by creativity and survival. The final feeling is one of mutual respect and reconciliation, as both guests underscore the enduring, transcendent value of telling one’s own story.

Transcript

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

The bass is the instrument that is unnoticed, but no one can live without.

[Billy Corgan]

As I was playing, a beer bottle smashed against my guitar.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

So even though I'm in the crowd choking Bruce to the ground like this. The best I got back on stage, picked up a guitar and finished the song.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

That is when you captured my heart. I remember you said, wow, one day maybe you'll play in my band.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay, here we go. We're gonna get to the tough. I've been waiting 25 years to ask you these questions. And here's your new book. I have lots of.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh my goodness.

[Billy Corgan]

Deeply penetrating questions and. And concerns.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Your spirit is concerns squeezed into those pages. It's the origin story of what you do.

[Billy Corgan]

All right, so let's. Let's. An origin story. So we'll start with Nick and Linda.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, yes. Thank you.

[Billy Corgan]

Take me to Nick and Linda.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

My parents. I love that you remember that.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Without. You know, I always say that you and Courtney were my grunge parents and that my parents. I live in omnipresent shadows of my cool Montreal parents. Both music journalists, culture journalists, activists. Like everything good 70s 60s counterculture raised me with the idea that the golden thread to purpose in life is just know what you, Melissa, loves, needs to do. Never work for the man, never work for anybody else. But your. Your vision of what the world needs. And so they're the best role models. My father died as, you know, like super long ago. But with him I feel like the baton was further past that. I. I really look up to my parents and they were the best role models for what I feel like the 21st century needs more of which is unique individualism.

[Billy Corgan]

Talk a bit about though. Your dad's sort of cult personality in Montreal.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. Okay. Well, that's also what's interesting is. Cause I grew up in the shadow of a larger than life person. My father was a journalist turned politician, but also a man about town.

[Billy Corgan]

Ran out of a bon vivant.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

A bon vivant boulevardier, Smoking, drinking, intense lifestyle. Not unlike the people of the rock bands that you and I were not. But the people, other people in rock bands.

[Billy Corgan]

But this might have something else, something to do with us ending up in those bands with those people or. Or even romantically being involved with those types of people.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes, it is true, actually. So he was both like remarkable and impossible. And I grew up on the campaign trails on election night.

[Billy Corgan]

What was his political platform?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

He was proud. He was an independent and he founded about 10 different Montreal Independent movement parties. And every time he left a party, they'd say, nick, you're so inconsistent. He's like, the parties change. I don't change. And his thing was entirely, the people have the power. Corporate government, don't trust them. So he was just. He was a radical socialist who wanted to fight for the people.

[Billy Corgan]

I didn't know this, or if I did, I'd forgotten. But I saw some illusion in doing the research to interview you about this kind of traveling with your parents, like, gypsy life.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

That's my mother. Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Can you talk a little bit about that?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

So my father injected me with all the political, public facing stuff and my mother injected me with the no man is ever going to define who you are. She chose to be a single.

[Billy Corgan]

She got that one through.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes. She had me as a single mother because she didn't tell my father I was born until I was 2. So they had a romantic weekend. She had what she wanted. And before I met my father, I had lived in a circus caravan in Wales, a British Post office truck in Morocco and a hut in Kenya, Africa, with chimpanzees. My mother was a radical, independent hippie woman who brought her little girl on that trip when she and I spent my second birthday, St. Patrick's Day, 1974, in Africa in a. Like, I have the photo of my birthday party in an African tribe of children and me, which is, I think, where I got injected with the travel nomad came from my mother and my father, public mania, you know, he gave me that ability to walk into the spotlight with you. Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Um, I met you, I think you were 19 or 18.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

19. Yeah. Probably like in.

[Billy Corgan]

Yep. University, I think, was still kind of generally in the mix.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I was at university, it was the summer of 91.

[Billy Corgan]

What's the. Tell me about the face school.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

So no one, no one wanted me to go to the face school.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

So I'm a little jealous. My father didn't love the idea. My mother was determined to go to an experimental art school where they did not have to learn English, history or math until later. And the foundation was Fine Arts Core education. And the trick, it was a 70s. It was like the LaGuardia, the Fame School of New York. And it was a public school. And the idea was if you get kids to do art and performance, they will like education. Which was true because when I ended up in university, which is what I left to join rock bands, I didn't want to leave because I had been loving school my whole life. So it was an amazing art school and I went straight into university at the Fine Arts department At Concordia, which was the.

[Billy Corgan]

And the hope was to be a photographer or just an artiste art for

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

me it was always multimedia photography in school, based at home in my room. So I always envisioned I'd be able to marry the two together. And I was like, oh, I could maybe be like a rock photographer as a musician, but it was to be a fine arts photographer, like a conceptual artist with photography as my core.

[Billy Corgan]

Yes, yes. How'd that work out?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Well, I got hijacked by rock bands and I. I persevered in that. I was like actually angry at you for convincing me that I'm planting the seed of destiny, which was join a rock band. I loved rock music, but I did not like having to compromise my photo passion. So that turned into becoming an obsessive documentarian. And I wise, by the way, turns out that a quarter of a century later, a little bit of my photos are in the memoir. But following the Memoir is my 90s rock photography museum exhibit and photo book that comes out in September. So I took a roll of film every day in Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins.

[Billy Corgan]

Wow, I didn't know that.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Did you notice me taking photos on stage every show?

[Billy Corgan]

Not at all.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah, you were busy. But I especially once I joined the Pumpkins and I didn't have to play like sidekick, backup vocalist, foot switches, timers. I had three cameras on every stage that we played. And I'm gonna deliver you in another time. An amazing photo album. Just my. But so I took a roll of film a day and now it's been a quarter century and now my documentarian photography is actually gonna get a light of day because the archive is now deemed as a time capsule. Which it is, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Cause I know many ways that period

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

is under documented and lost in the analog digital transition. So even the people who documented it and as you know, we indie cool. And then all of a sudden we were like Mark Sellinger fancy photography. We didn't have the in between. So there's actually an under documented DIY vibe. And that's what I did. Like I recently ran into Beck when he was playing with Boston Pops at Tanglewood and like doing. And when I walked backstage, I hadn't seen him since Lollapalooza 95 and I was delivering him a little Polaroid from my Lollapalooza photography and he was like, I remember you had a camera and you were the only one who wasn't embarrassed to take a picture because everyone in the 90s pretended they didn, but you were like a tourist. And it's true. I genuinely was like, this is so exciting. I'm on tour with Pavement. I'm on tour with back. I'm going to take pictures. And I realized that culture that we had of like, anti caring, but you and I didn't do that. We were very, like, passionate care. We didn't pretend we didn't want to. Like.

[Billy Corgan]

I just wish I'd documented more.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah, well, you were busy and you also had other people documenting for you, whereas I.

[Billy Corgan]

It's a different discussion.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I didn't. I didn't. I had to document for myself. But I also was mainly a photo student who was like, I can't go to RISD and become an art photographer, so I'll just find this new language which was documentary. Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

July 23rd, 1991.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

That's our day.

[Billy Corgan]

Say this because I can't speak French. Le Fondness Electronique.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh my God, I love that. Quebecers are going to love this. So Les Fauffon en' et priques is Canada's CBGB's. Translated in French. Les Faux Funeral Triques. The crazy punk club. You played your first Montreal show in July 91 translates to electric Buttocks.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay. Did not know that.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

See if you.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

This jog what happened? What happened that night?

[Billy Corgan]

We'll get there. See if this jogs your memory. My memory is that the sun was still up when we were playing.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Well, it was July. You're probably right. It's a dark room, but you're probably right. You were playing. It was a Loony Tuesday. This you might not remember. I have the flyer, Loonies in Canada are $1 coins. So you were playing for $1 on a Tuesday one. I was a ticket girl at that venue.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay. And so you got in for free?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I got in for free for my $1 show. But mainly there was a Sub Pop logo on the flyer. No one had heard of your band. You had that 12 inch. And I. It was my night off because nobody really buys a $1 ticket, but so I just. I like. I said to my roommates, some Sub Pop band is playing. Let's go see them.

[Billy Corgan]

Yes.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I was one of, I think 20 people in the audience.

[Billy Corgan]

Very, very small audience.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Sparse. Yes. What happened next?

[Billy Corgan]

I believe I was playing the solo in one of our songs. So I was intently looking at my guitar sort of here, and as I was playing, a beer bottle smashed against my guitar.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

I don't think it broke, but the beer kind of splattered and I immediately kind of whirled up to see who threw the bottle. There's only 20 people out there. And usually when that happens, people aren't in a big hurry to let you know who threw the bottle. It's just the way the crowds work. But for whatever reason, when I gave the death glare, the people around your roommate. What was your roommate's name?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Bruce.

[Billy Corgan]

Bruce. Good name for a roommate. The people around Bruce seemed to kind of almost like, not me. And as soon as I saw the body language of people going away from Bruce, you could tell I threw my guitar off midstrom, dove into the crowd, and began strangling him to the ground. I remember, and I just remember the look of terror in his eyes because he didn't seem to want to fight, even though he just thrown a beer bottle at me. We also had a rule which you might remember in the band, which is, no matter what happens, keep playing. So even though I'm in the crowd choking Bruce to the ground like, this the best. And once I kind of like. I don't know another way to put it. It's kind of like, you know, when you. When you alpha dog and the dog sort of submits. Bruce sort of submitted to the moment. So I was done choking. I was like, I made my point.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yep. But the bigger point you made, which is always my favorite part.

[Billy Corgan]

Let me finish my little spiel. So then I got back on stage, picked up a guitar, and finished the song.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

That is when you captured my heart. That's when I thought. So from my perspective, I'm standing in the audience with Br, who actually is just my roommate's boyfriend who happened to have moved in. So we're watching a show. I, with every song, am becoming as if I've never heard music before. Like, oh, oh, wait. Because it was more slick, more romantic.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, as Courtney, your. Your erstwhile bandmate used to say, it's unfair because the Pumpkins on their first album sounded like a second album.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

It's true. It was so much more realized and magnificent than a lot of the other bands.

[Billy Corgan]

We had a plan.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Well, of course. You had a vision. I had never heard of you before. I'd never heard it. It, like, won me so quick. And I was getting, like. I felt like, the sounds of the universe and everything that was inside me that I didn't know was coming out. And literally halfway through the show, Bruce, who's watching next to me, he's like, what the is wrong with these guys? And I looked. I'm like, what? He's like, they're so full of. They're not. They're not playing an arena. They're playing a punk club. Why are they acting like this? And I was like, it's amazing. This is so, like, grandiose. And so then he started heckling you.

[Billy Corgan]

And I don't remember the heckling.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

So he was screaming, drop the attitude. Drop the attitude. And I was like, why are you doing this to these people? You had been tuning your guitar and said, I'm just tuning my guitar hole. And the two of you had that banter. You started your song, he threw the beer bottle. And as he threw the beer bottle, and then you jumped off stage. In my mind, like imprinted was. He just ruined my favorite band show. Now this band is not gonna continue playing. And there's an answer in this band for me. And this is where, like, the real Swansea, you got up, finished your set, and then you said, you finished that song. And you said, montreal, we have one more for you. And you played I Am One. And it changed every cell in my body. Which is why later, a thousand years later, I play that song, I hear that song. And I thought, wow, that is some amazing balls and confidence. And that's when I beelined to the side stage after the show.

[Billy Corgan]

When I was angry in particular, we were angry collectively. We tended to play better, especially back then, of course. So you probably got. You probably got a really good version of I Am One.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

It was so good. And then meanwhile, you know, in terms of. For other people's perspective, Darcy and James being your bookends, which I write about in the book of why I ended up. Cause I was 19. I loved music, but I didn't play music yet. But all in one summer. I saw the Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, the Breeders and Hole. Every single one of them were cool wallflower, stoic girls on base. And it was not intellectual, but I understood. That's my position. That's where I could fit in. But there was so between Darcy and this effeminate other person on the stage, I'm like, this is welcoming. And I obviously noticed Jimmy. Jimmy as a bass player. That was the other kind of, like, missing part too. He seemed like a radically incredible drummer compared to the more kind of punk. I don't just. I hadn't seen that.

[Billy Corgan]

He was light years of most.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Exactly.

[Billy Corgan]

He was light years ahead of most indie drummers.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

So between the rhythm section you're commanding, like, strangle play. I don't. I was a shy person. Do you remember what happened when I walked side stage? You got off stage, you're moving your gear off. And what does this 19 year old

[Billy Corgan]

girl say you said something like, hi, I'm Alyssa from Montreal and I'm very sorry that my roommate threw a beer bottle at you. I apologize for all of Canada.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I said. I. I said, on behalf of Montreal, Canada, I apologize and I will follow your band. I love your band. And then we became friends.

[Billy Corgan]

And I did ask you, why did he throw the beer bottle? And you said, he thought you had too much attitude. And I remember thinking, well, yeah, you're

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

in a rock band.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, it's the only way to play that type of music.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Well, also, we should talk about in terms of what made the Pumpkins different, which actually is what I think the inspiration I got when I. When you kind of parted the sea for me is that I had missed. I grew up with the 80s, the cure, the Smiths, which obviously you have a love for Depeche Mode, all that too. But what I had missed was classic rock, glam classic rock. And so I went from like that to punk to grunge. I did not understand even, like I had kind of missed Sabbath. Like I did not have riff oriented. So I. That was my gateway to all of that. Was you. And it felt more who I am, which is more fantastical, more fantasy, more romantic, you know, I was not a big Punk didn't resonate with me. I want fantasy and drama like Depeche Mode and the Cure or what you gave me, which was that. So I feel like you gave me classic rock, but through a lens of a new, you know, a new generation.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. Well, James had a great quote once, and it ended up being on the COVID of a magazine as only James E. How would put it? The quote was, we're like Led Zeppelin, but without all the elves.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Right. Even though I like elves. But he also didn't have. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, perfect.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay. So we. We stayed in touch after that.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah, I remember you gave me your address. We became Pen. I sent you like one postcard.

[Billy Corgan]

And then I remember I still have something you sent.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. And then I got a return to sender a couple years later. That's on the eve of Siamese Dream. So the little band that had made their first record that blew my mind all of a sudden was on Virgin, making their big come, you know, their next. Their next frontier.

[Billy Corgan]

But we did see each other after that on the.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, we. That was like months later Chili Peppers tour. That was literally November of 91. So it was like I met you with the beer bottle. Then I saw you opening for Pearl, Jim. And Chili Peppers.

[Billy Corgan]

Pearl Jam was opening for us, but it's okay. It was Pearl Jam, Pumpkins, Chili Peppers.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Are you sure?

[Billy Corgan]

I'm positive.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Because I also went to the Cal palace show two months later in San Francisco.

[Billy Corgan]

Anywhere where we kicked off the bill. So Nirvana could be on the bill.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Correct. Because I thought that. Oh, my God, then I have that wrong in my book. Cause I thought it was Pumpkins. Pearl Jam, Chili Peppers. And then Nirvana. Pearl Jam, Chili Peppers.

[Billy Corgan]

Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam blew up on the tour.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

So that's what they were.

[Billy Corgan]

So when they started, they were kind of an unknown entity. Got it.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Got it.

[Billy Corgan]

And by the. Midway through the tour, the. The audiences started coming early to see them as well.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

So I went down to Burlington, Vermont from Montreal. It's only like hour drive for you. I didn't, with all due respect, to flee. And everybody wasn't like, I wasn't there for the Chili Peppers or Pearl, Jim. I was there for the Pumpkins. And that's when we saw each other again. And then you were just like taking off, like, that's when your world started getting big.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. So in my mind, and correct me, you're, you know, we're kind of pen pally. You're kind of over here. You're the beautiful Botticelli painting up there in Montreal.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes, exactly.

[Billy Corgan]

And we'd see a kind of cross paths here and there, but then there's this moment where you're in this band, Tinker. So talk about Tinker a little bit.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Well, totally Pumpkins inspired. I, after that summer, decided I've gotta get a bass. I started, found mentors with guys kind of your age in my rock scene in Montreal. They invited me to their jam space. They lent me a bass, an SVT amp, and I, within like six months, I was playing in a band with all guys. And then I formed this band, Tinker, which I think existed for not more than a year by the time I even left Montreal, but. So the band Tinker, the other band member, Steve Durand, I met at the pool table when I was DJing, because I was a cassette DJ at the Dive Bar. They're all cassette DJ, cassette DJ.

[Billy Corgan]

That's really taking the hipster thing to another level.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

It literally was hip. I started there at 19. I was DJing before I was even playing bass. And all I did was make mixtapes, press play, playpool, not take requests. And after I saw your show, I went to Sam the Record man and I bought the Gish cassette and I played it on auto repeat, the whole album. And I would occasionally be like, we're only playing one album for this hour. Thank you. And I was playing Gish, playing pool, and this cute guy I'd never met, a bike courier guy, came up to me. He's like, is this the Pumpkins? And I was like, how do you know that? Because, you know, that was that time where your secret, like, favorite band was like, only yours. He's like, I just saw them in Toronto last week. And he had seen the same show, but in Toronto. And he instantly, like, I wanted. He won my trust. And I said, I got a jam space around the corner. We started this little band, Tinker, and it was only our sixth show when Siamese Dream exploded. And you were coming through town with the Siamese Dream Tour, fall of 93. What year Siamese Dream came out in? Spring of 93.

[Billy Corgan]

I feel like it came out about September of 93. That sounds about right for me.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

So it was November of 93, but

[Billy Corgan]

we were touring constantly, so we would have been touring before the album came out, while the album was coming out after. So it's not.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And I had not really seen you since the Gish moment. So, like, two years had gone by. I had learned, taught myself to play bass, got indoctrinated through older guys that never made a pass in me that took me very seriously as a woman who wanted to make music, started a band with guys, and we had played a handful of shows. And because I was a ticket girl dj, I knew all the promoters, and I called my promoter friends, the guy who. You know, the guys who brought Nirvana and Jesus, Lizards and Pumpkins. They were like the main rock promoters who were always, like, the most powerful people in the town. And I called them and I said, hey, I'd love to open up for the Pumpkins when they come through. And they're like, melissa, we love you. But they're touring with Swerve Driver. They didn't ask for a local opener. I was like, come on, do it for me. He's like, sorry, can't do it. So what did I do next, Billy?

[Billy Corgan]

I don't remember.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, my God. This is the best part of the story. Other than the beer bottle, I wrote a letter. Dear Billy, remember me, Melissa and the beer bottle. I now have my own band, and I'd love to open up with you when you come through town. Care of Virgin fan Po Box.

[Billy Corgan]

Wow.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I sent that to the Virgin Records Po Box, who's Mr. Attentive to his fans. Billy got the letter. I had my phone number in there and the week of the show, the local promoters who said, sorry, Melissa called me with their tail between their legs and said, the Pumpkins people just called, and you're opening up. Billy said, Melissa's band should open up. So I showed up as Soundcheck, the poster is still like, pumpkins swerve driver. You know, we were squeezed onto the bill at the very last moment. And I remember so well, loading into this giant venue. I'd only ever played, like, tiny clubs. The size of this stage, if my

[Billy Corgan]

memory is about a two, It's a beautiful seat.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Theater, Metropolis, the best venue in Canada, I think, actually. And it was such a huge honor. We got to be the opening slot. And by the time we went on at, like, 7, the place was already packed, sold out months in advance. You know, you guys were on the mega rise. And I. You saw me at soundcheck, gave me a, like, big brother hug. I was so grateful. And you can't wait. And then you watch from the side of the stage. And that was like, kind of like, I in many ways, played for you because you were the gateway, the one that sort of inspired me to even pick up the bass. And then I walked off stage and you said, which you won't remember, but I remember you said, wow, one day, maybe you'll play in my band. And literally, I could have never.

[Billy Corgan]

Prophetically, by the way.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes. And maybe I could have never seen you again. That confidence that you gave me, that Billy Corgan told me I was good enough to play in the Pumpkins one day, I was like, that's it. Music is calling. I'm doing it.

[Billy Corgan]

I do remember watching the gig, and I remember thinking, like, oh, okay.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I mean, I don't even know what I was doing or how I did it, because I taught myself. You know, I had these, like, a great support network. But it's. I always, you know, I say this and I feel. I apologize on behalf of all bass players. I'm like, bass is easy. But I'm like. And I, you know, Geddy Lee, all these bass players that I've met, and I always say that, and they're like, well, it's not really true because you have to kind of, like, embody it. So I guess whether it's the PIs, these, you know, emotional, it was easy

[Billy Corgan]

for me to play. It starts with that you like to play bass.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Okay. But it's also that you, like, feel it, you know, like, it's a deep, emotional.

[Billy Corgan]

But, but. But bass is usually the last instrument chosen. You see, most bass players Are failed guitar players or they. They get stuck on bass to be in the band. They don't. They really want to be a guitar player, but, you know, there's somebody's buddy and, well, you can play bass.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Maybe it's different for women. Maybe women, you know, being like the glue and the maternal figure. I always say that the. The mother. When I won the Gibson Award, you know, bass best bass player in 99 with hole, I said I had to write my speech on the way. And I said, you know, ode to the mother of all instruments. The bass is the instrument that is unnoticed, but no one can live without. So it's a feminine force in me,

[Billy Corgan]

I will say, because I got asked a lot about it in the beginning. It was a sexist question, why do you have a girl on bass? Is she only there for eye candy? And they would ask Darcy that directly in an offensive way.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Old school days.

[Billy Corgan]

But, you know, even extending to working with people like Nicole Dear of Fantino.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

People would say to me, do you have a particular fetish for women on bass? And I would. What I would say is women tend to play with a different pocket than men do on the bass. And in the Pumpkins world, the bass actually has to be a bit behind. Of all the females that ever played bass for the Smashing Pumpkins, you're the most aggressive.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, really?

[Billy Corgan]

In the pocket? Yeah. Yeah.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

What does that mean? We don't know.

[Billy Corgan]

No, but I'm saying if this is. If this is the. If. If anybody wants to envision, because we work with computers now, if this is the. If this is the heart of the beat, right? This is the kick drum, and this is the click of the kick drum. Okay. You either play on top or behind. Okay. Darcy traditionally played a bit behind. I play slightly on top on the bass. On the recordings, you play a little bit more aggressively pocket wise than I do. So when we played together in Montreal recently for the first time in 25 years, I was like, oh, there's that pocket.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

So it's a different interest.

[Billy Corgan]

And here's the thing. What's interesting about musicians is they tend to have a consistent pocket. So your pocket is unchanged from 25 years ago. You still play because I haven't been playing.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Wow.

[Billy Corgan]

You still play in the exact same spot on the beat.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

What does that mean? I want science, like neurological people to explain what that is.

[Billy Corgan]

Or scientifically, I think it's just the way you feel.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

I think it's as simple as the musician feels the spot in the rhythm which is most Exciting to them.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

It's probably something cool about quantum physics and time in there that, like, where my time zone is in the universe or something. Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

So for us, for Jimmy and I, it was a bit of adjustment when you first joined the Pumpkins because you were a little bit more on the aggressive side of the pocket.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

And so the band at some point had to adjust its own.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I wonder. Okay. I wonder what that did to.

[Billy Corgan]

Which is why it kind of, you know, I think we toured for 11 months on the Machine Record. Probably the last four or five months was when it really locked in and became its own animal.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Interesting because Jimmy also has an interesting, like, time pocket that's unique. And I remember when we were touring at our height, which was that European tour, which was the best at the whole. And the last big Europe tour with Mike Garson. I remember. Cause Mike was such a cool, intellectual music person to talk to on the bus. He said, he's like, wow, the way you play with Jimmy, I had never noticed. He was like, Jimmy's sense of journey of a song. And he's like, you never fall off. I'm like, really? In my mind, I was just like, I'm just following him. I don't know how I'm doing it. But he's like, that could be really hard for some people.

[Billy Corgan]

But Mike used to say, you guys play seven and three quarters instead of eight bars.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh.

[Billy Corgan]

Cause we'd rush, we'd jump the downbeat. Yeah.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Interesting.

[Billy Corgan]

But let's go back in the story.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Okay.

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[Billy Corgan]

I remember the day I feel like I was in my house in Chicago. But I remember the day where Courtney called me. Courtney love.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Very important. Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

If you don't any. If you need a Courtney definition. Courtney calls me and says I need a bass player. And you know, Kristen tragically had died this horrible story in the wake of another idea. Well, yeah, I mean it was all. It was all a lot of sorrow.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

So I certainly had my moment of pause about whether I wanted to throw you into this maw m a w But I remember the one thing I remember saying to Courtney, I said, I've got the perfect person for you. Okay.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

What made me perfect?

[Billy Corgan]

Okay. Well, I was right. I mean, you were the perfect person. I mean when people think of whole. Because they're. There were other good bass players for Hull but you became the one that people.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Well, I stuck it out the longest too.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, that's part of the job.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Well, she wanted me there the longest too, which is great.

[Billy Corgan]

Sure.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

And we can talk about the sisterly relationship in a second. But. But the first thing I said because I knew how self conscious she was about other females and perceptions of beauty and people attacking her as not beautiful enough and all these types of things that she was going through. If you remember, at one point she had that. That fanzine briefly when Kurt was still alive and she called it. But she's not even pretty.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. I mean that was so much of her cool themes like.

[Billy Corgan]

But she was. She was. She was very focused on not only her own self perception of beauty, but the way other people sort of not. Not whether or not they thought her beautiful, but whether they had the right to say who she was or who she wasn't. So that was a big deal.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

That's what made her such a pioneer. Ugly, pretty on the inside, ugly from the bat. Like all of. Yes, she was just the inside. Same female.

[Billy Corgan]

And to really talk about that, let's call it that. All of it in a very open way.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

So what did you say?

[Billy Corgan]

When I wake up in my makeup. You know what I mean?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

So incredible.

[Billy Corgan]

So I said. I said, I have the perfect person for you, but there's only one problem. She's really beautiful. Are you going to be okay with that?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, my God. This behind the scenes I never heard of.

[Billy Corgan]

And. And. And she said, well, how beautiful. I said, she's really beautiful.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Thank you. I did not feel. I felt like some makeupless redhead.

[Billy Corgan]

So in my mind, because obviously I'm revisiting something from over 30 years ago, in my mind, it was kind of a twofold. Well, I've thrown up the disclaimer, so I have an out. When. It's just I offered you for the job for whole, because I believed you could do the job, but at the same time, I kind of had an out if she didn't want you because either you weren't the right person, or she was going to be weirded out by having somebody that was more conventionally beautiful standing next to me. And I feel like it moved very quickly from there.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I mean, they had reading booked, and they needed a bass player in, like, four weeks.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

They had been holding auditions from my side. Meanwhile, I had. I mean, first of all, you were headlining Lollapalooza. You'd had my phone number because I wrote a thank you, Billy, for letting me open up for your band at the P.O. box. Phone number. You magically called me from tour and you said, I have good news and great news. I'm headlining Lollapalooza. I have a day off in Montreal. We can go to lunch. Great news. You're gonna join my friend Courtney's band. Obviously, I'm in the know. I know what's happening.

[Billy Corgan]

Sorry. Cause we've. I don't think we've ever discussed it. What I did do is I made sure that if she wanted to connect with you, that she'd have to go back through me.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

So I'm calling you at that point.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Exactly.

[Billy Corgan]

To sort of vet it out the other way, to make sure that it's not a fait accompli. Okay.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And what did I say?

[Billy Corgan]

I don't remember.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I said, no, thank you. You think I want to join that band? In the wake of death.

[Billy Corgan]

And you talk about it in your great book here.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes. No, thank you. Billi, what are you thinking?

[Billy Corgan]

Even the girl. Girls cry. You had met Courtney briefly prior to

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

this, the same summer that I met you. Whole play, the same week that the Pumpkins played.

[Billy Corgan]

I think that's when she tried to encourage you to sleep with her roadie.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes, exactly. Exactly. She said, are you the girl talking to our roadie, Kim? Were all sexually frustrated. That was the first words out of Courtney's mouth to me.

[Billy Corgan]

Shades of things to come.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes. So you called me. I said, absolutely not. There was not even a consideration. You said, well, talk to me when I get to Montreal. You had a day off. We went for lunch. I remember walking you through my neighborhood, showed you my mother's house, and we sat down in a park. And you said, so tell me, why don't you want to join Courtney's band? And I said, I have my own life, and that sounds like hell. And you said to me, are you sure you don't want to be in the biggest female rock band and never have to tour or work? I remember you said. And I said, that sounds horrible. No. And so what happened next? Because then you went to New York on Lollapalooza and she joined you on stage. I always envisioned that what happened.

[Billy Corgan]

Can we talk about the backstory in that a little bit? Because it's something that's not off explored.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes, please do. All I know is I said no. You left Montreal. I went to Lollapalooza the next day, dropped a grandma mushrooms. Didn't even say goodbye to you. Just like, left. And that was it. In my mind. I never even thought about it until.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, the backstory of her coming on Lollapalooza was. She was still in mourning over Kurt's tragic death.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

This is July. He had died in April.

[Billy Corgan]

Yep. Yes. And we're much more conscious of these things now. And I think I felt intuitively, I saw this sort of narrative lining up up that they were going to turn her into kind of a widow's version of Yoko Ono. Not. And I mean this respectfully, of course. I love the Lenin family.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah,

[Billy Corgan]

we're talking about. We're not talking about Yoko Ono after John Lennon was assassinated. We're talking about the way people talked about Yoko after the Beatles broke up. Exactly.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

The demon who broke up. That everyone's.

[Billy Corgan]

So I saw this narrative lining up and out of some sort of weird loyalty, fidelity. And also, I guess I was willing to. To immolate my marriage Yeah. I told the band, Courtney is going to join us on tour, and Courtney's going to get up during Lallapalooza and perform a song or two. And the band went, okay.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. Because they're sensing sweet people. Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Yes. But we. We thank you. Because that's not something most people understand about that band, but of course I do. There was a. There was a sense that getting her back out in the world instead of behind a haze of whatever mourning was valuable.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Empowering a woman who was abandoned and left behind by, yes, a heroic icon, but a man who left his wife and daughter, to me, is like the part that I'm most upset about.

[Billy Corgan]

You lived it, and I lived it in my own version.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I was very upset.

[Billy Corgan]

When you saw Francis in the crib and you saw where's my life gonna go. There was that period of time where it was very, very hard. Touch and go, for lack of a better phrase, where does this all go? Because there seemed to be, at the moment, there seemed to be a need to pin the blame on somebody.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Absolutely. And we lived in a patriarch hellscape that even me, an empowered woman from a single mother, didn't realize until I wrote my book how much that was still dictating culture. What they did to Courtney. They burned her at the stake. I joined accidentally in the end. I said, yes, but we'll get to that part after. Is that your paternal sort of instinct of helping your friend be a hero at that moment in mourning and then my eventual joining of her band. I think we both were there instinctively to help support the feminine force that was going to be destroyed for having and be blamed for not just breaking up the band, killing her husband, I mean.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. And so whatever contribution that. That it did seem to shift the narrative.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes. I'm glad.

[Billy Corgan]

However, there's still the crowd out there, still going on.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And That's July of 94, Reading Festival, late August. 94 is booked. Hole is in like, a primo slot. They still don't have a bass player. You are hanging out with Courtney on tour. And I guess what happened is you said the girl from Montreal said no. Meanwhile, Patti and Eric from Hole are back home in Seattle. She's on tour. Morning. With you. They're auditioning bass player after bass player after. Courtney has not seen them, met them, I guess.

[Billy Corgan]

Am I right in assuming she gave the job to find a bass player to Eric?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. So they were out there just, like, getting girls to come through a practice base in Seattle while she's on tour. She somehow Was relying on Billy's recommendation. And all I know is what happened next is that my roommate, I guess somebody gave her my phone number. Must have been you. My roommate. I come home from university, I come home from school, My roommate's like, courtney Love call. I'm like, oh, God, really? Courtney Love called again. Courtney Love called.

[Billy Corgan]

I was like, yeah, put it this way, that call wasn't gonna stop until you picked up.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

No stopping. And I remember, and I write about it to the T in my memoir. I'm like, it's midnight. She's probably still up. I'm gonna call this 206 number and tell her, hey, thanks so much for the invite, but I'm not interested. She picks up the phone. It's like after midnight in Seattle. She's like, hey, so Billi said, you said, no, I need you to get on the plane and tell me to. It's like, actually in that point, she is convincing, she's charismatic. She.

[Billy Corgan]

She's. She's incredibly charismatic.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Unbelievably intelligent, too, because she. I think she kind of like, sideswapped 10.

[Billy Corgan]

Stop for a second. She'd already done her research on you. She had a mental dossier on, right. What kind of boys you liked, what kind of music you were into, probably

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

even the photography thing. You were already.

[Billy Corgan]

She knew.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Probably knew I was a Pisces.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, that first. I'm sure I talked about that, but. But the point is, she knew. She'd already made up her mind. You were going to join the band. That's it.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And guess what? She got me to join the band in one phone call. And it was as simple as, get on the plane, bring your base, my people are going to call you. And I hung up. And oddly, that week, because it had gone around that Billy from the Pumpkins had recommended me to join Hole. Everybody knew Hole. Everybody. My boyfriend, band member, Steve, my father, both said to me, you should probably do that. I was like, what the what? I already told everybody, I'm not doing it. And all of a sudden, Montreal was telling me, sounds like a great once in a lifetime opportunity. So I had my community telling me. Then I had this like, incredible wild woman call me. I was like, fine, I'll get on the plane to meet her. And I just found last week the photo my mother took of me getting on the plane with a little overnight case in my base and, like a ticket to seatt. And in my memoir it's called the One way ticket to Seattle. And I just, like, I get there, no turning back, like, she just sucked me in. And I did it for women when I saw her, Patty and Frances living in this giant house with security and security tape from the suicide Weird like fans vigil.

[Billy Corgan]

But it's worth pointing out that now you're at the house where he killed himself is just right there. It's not like she's living somewhere else.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

No, she's living in it. It's unbelievable. I joined for that pocket of women and for the women of the world. I literally understood that through my strange mentor Billy. I had a job to do for women and that I understood it. I'm doing this to get women's stories out there and to put us on a male dominated landscape. And it was like a mega calling, like through the ages of art history. It wasn't. Not about even rock music actually, because your band was the band that I felt as a bass player. I, on that flight to Seattle, listened to Live through this on my cassette Walkman. I hadn't even listened to the record because it was more feminist, like pop rock than I like. I liked Fantasy, so I wasn't even. I respected it, but I wasn't a fan of the band. I kind of liked in a weird way. Pretty on the inside more. But when I flew on that plane to meet them and listen to Live through this. Yeah, I understood what was happening. This woman, those lyrics about women. That's what I understood.

[Billy Corgan]

Three, you know, apocryphal whole records. The first one really is pure Courtney and Eric.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

And LA and Jumbo's Clown Room. And Courtney, Courtney bashing her way through saying I don't know what I'm doing, but intuitively I'm here. And, and you know, even, you know, convincing Kim Gordon, my favorite non favorite person in the world to produce, she gives. I said, why'd you get Kim Gordon to produce? Because I won't get a bad record review.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. I mean, it's true.

[Billy Corgan]

I said, how much? She goes, I had to give Kim Gordon six grand and a bunch of pot.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

And that's like the entire calculus.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

She knew the calculus.

[Billy Corgan]

The entire calculus of sleeping with critics. Yeah. Working with Sonic Youth. She was going to get her way through. No. No matter what.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

The friend Michael Stipe.

[Billy Corgan]

And that's. And that's. That's when I met her. Was, was. She was on tour on that record.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

And she had even in. In 91 poor nobody knew who she was other than some rock critic people. She had a vision of where she was going to go. The second record, you really see the The. The influence of Kurt's success of songs. People overly attribute Kurt's influence as if he was sitting there telling her what to wr. Everybody was under that sway. You couldn't not be. This was the biggest band in the world who kicked open the doors to the Pixies and Sonic Youth and all these other bands. Suddenly everybody's on the world stage all of a sudden because of Kurt's courage and incredible talent. The third album, which is the one. And we'll get to that in a second. The third one really is really the first time someone, in this case me, sits down and gets her to be on the record. What do you want to say? Yeah, can we say it in a

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

more skilled way and more world domination top 40, you know, like the. There was more than she wanted.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, the business model was there. And by the way, there's, you know, she often talked, talked and talks about the influence of Albini and making In Utero as Kurt's sort of recoil reaction to the success of Nevermind. In her mind, that was a mistake. Not because he made a bad record. It just wasn't produced like a record to go in it, to win it.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I do feel like I have to rewind to one thing, but live through this, because you are a man who, you know, came in for the third record. I remember thinking, wow, we're doing this thing. She already was being underestimated as a songwriter. Her and Eric were being underestimated as songwriters who lived through this. Everyone said Kurt wrote that record. I still to this say, first of all, listen to doll parts in Miss World. This is one riff or three chords repeated over and over. This isn't. It's about the power of this, the lyrics. I've always said. And I said, if anything, she inspired Kurt's lyrics. Like, I was so pissed. And you as a incredible songwriter and kind of song Dr. Vibe who came in for the third record, we should pledge to the people. Eric and Courtney Roche lived for this. Like Kurt's influence was undeniable to everyone, including my own babies.

[Billy Corgan]

I asked her at the time, before the second record came out, how much is you and how much is him? And she said at the time. So I'm going based on what I was told at the time. He helped me with one chorus.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Exactly.

[Billy Corgan]

So the point otherwise, he's in the closet, right? In heart shaped box.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Exactly. That's.

[Billy Corgan]

And I heard that at the time that wasn't posthumous reorganization or reaction. As we know, Courtney can be very reactive to media narratives.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yep.

[Billy Corgan]

So at the time contemporaneous, if that's the right word, to what was happening. I was told his only influence on this record is this one chorus. I don't even know which.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

It's asking for it. If you live through this with me, I swear that I would die for you. And that makes sense because. And that's the one. And her literally, that is the title of the record.

[Billy Corgan]

I have this influence on him in

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

reverse, which she really did. And that's why I'm always shocked, of course, because it's a male dominated universe. Is that actually the universe is probably female dominated, but the planet Earth is very male dominated. But no, the lyrics. I hear his evolution of lyrics by the time Heart Shaped Box happens, it's like her.

[Billy Corgan]

My rep as a lyric writer is wholly responsible to her.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Billy Corgan]

I can speak about it directly because you knew the Gish album so well. She called me on the phone and said, I'm paraphrasing. I wish I could do the what, what she. What the is with the hippie lyrics.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Exactly. Which is my tendency too. She made us both smarter because she,

[Billy Corgan]

she the, the, the thing that will forever stick with me. And this is where I am forever grateful. She said, why can't the person that I talk to. Oh, on the phone or have a tea with. Why is that person not writing lyrics? Why are you hiding behind this hippie haze?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Interesting.

[Billy Corgan]

Why are you writing like hippie Hayes Donovan lyrics in some sort of sentimental mode as opposed to talking about what you actually talk about in reality? And she's the one who puts that, that, that, that thumb on me and said, and that's why Siamese Dream was such a watershed because I was like, okay, you, I will do that. And she's an ace lyric writer, as you know. So she said a really. So if you're in that, let's call it that Star Trek kind of, you know, good, bad.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Black, white, oppositional force, which we did have particularly at that time. It was like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do that better than you think I can. And that's what Cool. So I, I, I, I, I'm totally transparent. So I don't know this for a fact. I know it sort of, you know, let's it call, call it in the milieu of the information that flows through. Because as most people wouldn't understand my version and my traipsing through that particular arc, you know, my life with her in early 90s into the mid-90s, it's never really been told. And I'm not here to talk about that. But we are talking about something that's very particular because you come in on the back end of this.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. And I actually refer to the two of you because you're my weird grunge were like, you found me, put me with her. Then I went to you after. I actually. I think in the memoir I even say it's not my story to tell, but I talk about your this on and off again. I talk about when we played in Chicago. The guy who invited me to the band doesn't come to the show, but James IHA does. And I say, I guess they're on an off again period. It was like the two of you were in such argumentative. And then I remember actually we saw each other right before for Melancholy. We played on a pukel pop stage. It was whole and pumpkins. Also Screaming Tree or Caius. It was like an amazing bill. And you two were not speaking. And I weirdly went to see you backstage and the two of you were like in an argument. But on the same.

[Billy Corgan]

She was mad that I was hanging out with some groupie or something.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Okay, well, all I know is I

[Billy Corgan]

was kind of like. I was like. But wait, you know, you're. You're. We're not together and you're mad that I'm with some groupy trait, Right?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes. There was a lot of like volatile love shit between you.

[Billy Corgan]

The way she would say it. Cause she's very hippie about love types of things. No pun intended. Isn't. Isn't that I was interested in someone else other than her. It was that I was sleeping with someone below my station.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes, exactly. It's like the lyrics thing where she's like holding you accountable. Get. Yes, exactly. She wants you to raise.

[Billy Corgan]

Yes.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

So. But you're not going to remember. And I remember. I think I didn't even say this in my book or maybe I got edited out. But that day at Pukle Pump, you gave me a cd, rough, like early mixes of Melancholy. And I of course went backstage or on the plane the next day. I'm like, oh, Billie gave me some. She was like, what? She took them. I never saw them again. I didn't even think I heard them. But she was like. And I remember thinking, oh, am I just a pawn between these. This rivalry? And I'm just like this little. This daughter that gets pulled between these. But I, you know, I kind of. That's my role as a bass player and as like the younger one to everybody is I kind of got like. And I. That's why my book, Even the good girls will cry. There was something. I was like, I'm. I'm good for everybody. I'm here. Everyone can trust me. I'm angelic. I'm not difficult. But my issue was that I ended up kind of evaporating my own sense of what I was supposed because I was living at the. The shadow of everything.

[Billy Corgan]

I'm glad you mentioned that because. Because it is personal, but it's part of our shared story. That was part of my issue with you in the late 90s is when you started to evaporate.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

How could I not? But absolutely. By the time I joined your band, my heart was frozen. I had like, literally, I talk about in the book that this ice princess who had like become the good pretty girl to the wild Courtney to the da da. Following my orders, lost my best friend Patty to like a powerful producer who got a ghost drummer. And the drummer from Hull becomes like living on the street. Like, it was so painful.

[Billy Corgan]

It was very dark too.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Darkest ever.

[Billy Corgan]

I can stop for one second. It's also worth pointing out that in this period that you join hole, Courtney's Hollywood thing kicks in where now she's in movies.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Thank you. Do you know how demoralizing that was? I went through all of that. We pulled that record celebrity scan out of like two, two years, $3 million. So, so much work. I'm like, just waiting for her. I want to play music and I am waiting for the girl who's now becoming a Hollywood movie star. I was so pissed when I realized, like, oh, my God, we just did all this. Courtney showed up, the record label pays all this money, we have a hit record, and she's going to put our tour on hold to go make Hollywood movies. Are you joking? Whenever we play la, all those Hollywood movie stars, Brad Pitt, her boyfriend Edward, Mary, they all want to be on the stage that we're on. And you want to go be in movies. I was so pissed.

[Billy Corgan]

But to be fair to her, to

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

be fair to her, culture shifter she wanted to be.

[Billy Corgan]

She can speak for herself, but to be fair to her, that was always her vision.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

It's true. She started as an actress. I mean, for her, it's power of culture changing. I get it. But she was so good as a rock performer and musician and songwriter. And I had put in so much, I. Even for half a second. We don't have to get into them, but Q Prime, the Metallica managers that we had had for a Second, I was even feeling for them. They had pulled all the stops for us to be the biggest. Like you had said, in the park in front of my mother's house. Do you want to be in the biggest female rock band of the 90s? No, but I was. And guess what happened if she did not support that? We got there and she left and I.

[Billy Corgan]

Her loyalty. Her loyalty was.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I like that you're defending her. Actually.

[Billy Corgan]

No, it's not. Actually. I'm going to be critical for a second hero. Her loyalty. And this is why we didn't make good bedfellows. But we're good friends.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Her loyalty is to whatever burning ambition she has at any particular moment. And if I was going to be critical, it's been issues with loyalty. And I think in our case, two people are still in her life and it's still in communication. Right. I mean, we're talking about an active relationship here.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

We're not talking about her.

[Billy Corgan]

You know, we haven't talked to her in 10 years. I mean, I just saw her the other day.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. We're closer than ever.

[Billy Corgan]

And you're on her new record. Yeah, but people like that. And I'm generalizing.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

The hardest lesson they learn is to understand who's truly loyal and who's in it for the right reasons, which is, we love you.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

And we accept you for who you are. But at the same point, you can't treat us like toys that. That we can be picked up and put together.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

That burning ambition burns bridges. And I. When I left that band, I felt incredibly. Although we stayed on good terms. Ish. Even though we didn't get to this part of the story. Maybe you want to get us there. But I left. Is that when I realized her loyalty to music was not where I had just, like, sacrificed five years of my precious life to support this joint vision of becoming the. And I wasn't even. And, like, I was proud of Celebrity Skin. More so now. But at the time, I was pretty bummed about the super slickness of it and losing our bass or losing our drummer. It all felt so, you know, like the biggest sellout slash success. I am proud of it, but I had a lot of inner conflicts around the making of that record. And by the time I saw that she wasn't gonna commit, Like, I remember the managers were like, hey, Melissa, talk to her about, like, committing to this other tour we were doing. Also, to be fair to all of us, what was the state of 90s rock music by 99 Corn Limp Bizkit, like, Blink 182. It was not like an inspiring environment.

[Billy Corgan]

No. You would call alternative bands that played guitar that sat sort of in the middle of the spectrum. They were neither Lilith and they were neither nu metal.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And we were.

[Billy Corgan]

We were all kind of getting crushed

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

in that and our identities back to. Actually. I love. Thank you. You brought up me evaporating. So by 98, I'm on tour with Hole and I'm basically an ice princess who, by the way, my father died while making Celebrity Skin. I. I was being put really in this role as like, pretty girl at the photo shoots. And all of a sudden I was just becoming this, like, mannequin to Courtney's, like, Hollywood. And I was being mined for my beauty, which I had when you met me. I'm glad you think I'm was pretty, but I did not wear makeup. I did not look at myself in the mirror. I did not think of myself as a pretty girl. I thought of myself as like a powerful, like, hippie who could bring love and change to the universe or something. I'm still trying to be that. But I demoralized. By the time I was writing my resignation letter to Hole on a flight from Vancouver to la, we had ruled. We had played Glastonbury, we headlined all these incredible. This Canadian festival. And when I saw that she was not her. She was no longer committed to it. I. I was it. My heart left. I was like, I'm done. I'm not. I can't do this anymore for her. She's not doing it for the music. I wrote this letter. Letter. I land in la. I'm like, terrified. Like, talking to a lawyer. How am I going to tell Courtney that I'm leaving her band? Do you know how terrifying that is? You again? How do you have my rotary phone number in Laurel Canyon? I don't know how, but I'm home that week. I'm like, I gotta get out of this bad relationship with this band Hole. Billy Corgan calls me in a parallel universe. Darcy has evaporated while you're making this record.

[Billy Corgan]

Yes.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Literally, I pick up the phone and this Chicago, familiar voice who changes my life every time he calls, says, the stars have wind. Melissa, it's time for you to join my band. Like, first of all, Billi, I'm in Hole. But how do you know that I am about to leave? Somehow you just picked up on it. You must have obviously knew that she was, like, making movies. You probably could tell that there was something shifting.

[Alison Hagendorf]

How the.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

You knew that I had to leave Hole to join your band. And right all of a sudden, at that moment, I had already made my decision to leave Hole. But then I had this, like, other problem coming in, which is if I leave Hole to join the Pumpkins, the explosion between my grunge parents and the pawn in your weird relationship was going to like, massively have. You know, so that. What I don't remember. Do you know what happened? And did Courtney ever, like, say you don't take. Because I have the facts. It's actually in my book when I tell her that I am leaving. And then she picks up on. I don't tell her I'm leaving to join you, but somehow she finds out that I'm also about to join you on your missing bass player last album of the 90s, she writes me this incredible facts. It's like, fine, but you better. The narrative was going to be hers, of course.

[Billy Corgan]

What did she call you? My purse.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

She said, so Melissa's gonna go become Billy Corgan's purse. And that was like, how the only public statement she made about me leaving the band.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Was kind of hilarious and cool.

[Billy Corgan]

Let me decode. You have your own version of Courtney decoding. I'm decode it for you. As somebody who was in the game longer, she picked one clean shot that would stick, but couldn't hate on me and couldn't hate on you.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

It was very respectful, ultimately.

[Billy Corgan]

So you get one clean shot that'll stick. It's true. And the fact that it's in your book shows you.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

No, it's a master with language. It's like, I'm going to pick the one thing that's going to stick.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. And ultimately, what's interesting, and this is back to probably the conversation we've never had of. By the time I join your band and I am. Am like practically an evaporated, like princess. Like all I. I felt like the whole everyone controlled my life, like, including you. And it wasn't your fault that you gave me an amazing opportunity, which, you know, when I.

[Billy Corgan]

And we paid you well too.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes, you did. And also, I don't know if you're going to remember this, but on that phone call, I said, I don't know.

[Billy Corgan]

You did say, I don't know.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And I was saying kind of no again to this second life changing thing. And. And it was because I felt like I had no more myself.

[Billy Corgan]

Yes. I didn't know that part of it.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Well, of course. Because you and I hadn't been talking because you and Courtney were so big and I had Just sort of like evaporated. Well, you had evaporated completely. And also again, my father had died. I was like, it's trauma. Very much in grief of my own. Of my omnipresent father who, you know, it took me a while to come

[Billy Corgan]

out of my big personality.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes. And so you actually said the same thing. Get on the plane and come listen to the record. And of course, by the time I got to Chicago and Alan Mulder Flood are mixing what I think is your best record. In many ways.

[Billy Corgan]

Some people agree with that.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I think it's actually. It's my favorite record. I mean, Siamese Dream and Gish mean so much to me viscerally. But it's my favorite record of yours.

[Billy Corgan]

It's really grown in stature in the last 10 years, as it should.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And I think I sat there in the studio, I'm like, as if I can say no to play this music. He's annoying because he still controls me and he kind of owns me in a weird way, which was painful for me. I think that's why.

[Billy Corgan]

Can I give you a different perspective on that?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. I'm just telling you that was my evaporation, but I want to give you

[Billy Corgan]

a different perspective on that. There is truth in this. Kind of. Not so much that you owed me. It was like I felt I had the best line on what was best for you. Now, if that's pedantic or tumentary or the teacher telling the student how to live a their life.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

But.

[Billy Corgan]

But in my. In my estimation, it was a perfect fit. And I'll give you why.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Okay.

[Billy Corgan]

We only needed someone to do the tour, which ended up being 11 months.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yep.

[Billy Corgan]

We didn't need you to join the band. Although I asked you performatively to say you were in the band because we didn't want to yet tell people that the band was breaking up.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

I waited till the middle of 2000 to do that. Famously on Krock out here on with Tammy Heidi, one of my favorite DJs of all time. May 23, 2000, I went on the radio live on KROC and. And jokingly said, we're tired of fighting Brittany world.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I remember this. Yes. Well, as I actually was presented by you that it was your last tour, your last record and you're breaking up. So I probably missed that public announcement. In my mind. I knew, yeah, you know, I was joining the fun.

[Billy Corgan]

But what I'm trying to say to you is this, this is and.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And no, you were helping me.

[Billy Corgan]

But no but, but no but I'M saying there is. There is a certain truth to like. It's not a you owe me. It's like I kind of know what's best for you. And up to that point, you could argue, maybe I did, maybe I didn't. But. But here's the other thing that you don't understand because we never discussed it. And this is a.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Until right now, people.

[Billy Corgan]

This is a perfect venue to discuss it.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Can I hold your hand when you tell me?

[Billy Corgan]

Sure.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Because actually, I. I was not open to you when I was in your band. I was quite.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, I understand.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

About everything.

[Billy Corgan]

I understand. Okay. But here's the thing.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

And it. And you talking about evaporating and. And let's. I'm going to give my definition of what it means to me when you say that the Melissa that I know knew the pre band Melissa, the Artie Melissa, the Botticelli Melissa, had sort of gotten lost, of course, in the maze of Courtney Colt. Whole politics, disappointment, waiting around for her to decide. She gave a call.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Corporate takeover of the music world.

[Billy Corgan]

Corporate gloss. And look, you know us pretty well. I mean, you know the entire band.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

And so you are one of the only people on the planet. I mean, it's a very small list of people that actually knows how the Pumpkins operated internally.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah, not the Pumpkins, spiritually. Metaphysically, of course.

[Billy Corgan]

So in my estimation, it wasn't just, hey, here's somebody I can trust, somebody who, you know, to Courtney's phrase, can look the part, be the part and do the gig. And by the way, everybody was comfortable because we were not bringing in an outsider. This is a family member in many ways. But the thing you don't understand until this moment is I saw it as immolation in the sense of like, you're going to learn how to be a musician.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

You did well.

[Billy Corgan]

I mean, you're going to go to Pumpkins College.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Listen, I say it in my book, which was whole was my bachelor's in humanity and the Pumpkins was my master's.

[Billy Corgan]

But I'm saying I knew that.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And I didn't know that till I

[Billy Corgan]

was kind of a. I know people have asked through the years. It comes from an incident that happened one time. We almost never had anyone in rehearsal in the band, especially in the early days. We worked almost wholly alone. And there was an incident where somebody was in the room and they didn't like the way I talked to Darcy. I was annoyed or something. The way it was a musical problem. It wasn't a personal issue. We weren't fighting about chocolate. It was something about music. Because the expectation in the pumpkins, as you know, was you're gonna have to know these 50 or 60 songs. You cannot forget them. Yeah.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

You can't make mistakes. There's days off. You can't get sick. Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

You're enjoy that. You're going to go to the hospital. If you really got to go to the hospital.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay. So you. You lived the boot camp. I did, but here's the thing. And. And I'm cycling back to this. This person pulled me aside and said I was kind of a bit off put by the way you talked to Darcy. And I said, you understand what you're doing is a. A weird reverse form of sexism. I speak to everybody in the band like a musician. Right. And when they're on the floor, we are musicians and we speak to each other like musicians. If you want me to speak differently to her because she's a woman, you're actually being disrespectful.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

She's not a woman in a band. She's a musician in the band. The fact that she's female, in my eyes is. Is. Is incidental.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

So in your evaporating.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

And in your. And you. You're getting lost and sitting around in all these years of waiting to make a record. It was like, hey, let's. Why don't you get on this rocket ship for a year?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

It was the best. No. A hundred percent. You knew I did it. It changed me forever. That. That binder of the song, how I had to play that every night. And the changing set list and the. The tunings being different than the thing and like what.

[Billy Corgan]

I'll just look at you because you were at the last pumpkin show. December 2nd, 2005 hour show. It was four hours, four and a half.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Okay.

[Billy Corgan]

It had a few breaks, but. But we played. It was either 38 or 43 songs.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And you changed the set list almost every night on the tour. So every night I'm waiting to hand to the guitar techs this insane color coded like my own. I don't even read music. I could not play a show without a whole like, remember the changing of the notes. These sets were so. I mean, the. I want to thank you for my music education. It started in 1991 when I heard the music. Music. Joining your band was the decade bookend to be able to. You know, you made me the bass player that I became for really just making two solo records after that. But that's how I was able to make Records is I joined the Pumpkins for one year and I toured the world and it embedded into my cellular like I am the bass player and the. The woman I am as a. A true road worthy cellular changed person for having played 182 shows in that one year.

[Billy Corgan]

I didn't know we played.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. I counted all the things for the. For the memoir and it was the greatest physical experience of my life other than caring and birthing a child. Truly it was.

[Billy Corgan]

I love you and I'm glad we had that experience together. A couple things.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Because you were there. It's self serving but it's. It's my show.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes, yes.

[Billy Corgan]

Being in a group that was disintegrating in many ways. The second group in a row that you're in that's disintegrating.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, so depressing. Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

At least.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And the 90s ending, by the way, we don't have. We can't forget about that.

[Billy Corgan]

That's actually the best point of all.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Heartbreaking.

[Billy Corgan]

I think we all kind of felt intuitively that this story's over.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I know. And I still mourn it. My book is really Mourning of the change of the millennium.

[Billy Corgan]

I was thinking about it. I feel like you're the first person from our generation that sort of encapsulated the era in a holographic three dimensional way. Other people have written stuff, but it's usually just settling scores and agenda.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I dedicated the book to the decade that defined me and my generation. I would have never picked any other time to become a woman that decade. And what I witnessed as an outsider, insider. Cause I obviously was a music fan first, but then I got swept in, thanks to you, in the inside of this magic and destruction and so simultaneous. Simultaneous with the same thing happening with the corporate and digital rise that was happening. And then our arc is that I as an outsider who meanwhile was looking at it through more of a lens of art history. You know, for me, Botticelli, I always look at my role in history is through like from. From the woman who posed for Botticelli for Birth of Venus. To me, I don't see it as less of an arc of that.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, I see.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And I in that arc of the end of Analog.

[Billy Corgan]

Sorry, is the point that we know about Acheli but we don't know her name exactly.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Her name is Simonetta and she died of consumption in her 20s. And she's one of the most famous, you know, redhead faces in the world. And that in photography. That's what I was working on and in my photo book I'm gonna be showing my studies and turning the camera on me was become the muse to the female photographer. And I was taking it, taking agency for the muses of Botticelli, basically. So by the time we're in 2000 and 2001, I recognized that the 20th century was ending. The corporate digital monsters were coming to eat our souls. Which we are now seeing has happened.

[Billy Corgan]

It's fully fleshed now. Yeah.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And that to me way too.

[Billy Corgan]

AI kicks in.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

It's happening and it's terrifying. I am going on this tour of this memoir to be the voice of that last analog decade so that I, as a woman, so that I for my 14 year old daughter can bring as much I can through weaving these tales with you. The magic that we carried in that last decade to be able to spin

[Billy Corgan]

it, we might go down as the last true analog generation.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

We are, it already happened. We are the last. We're the pro human, pro analog generation that has gifts to give the future. And I want to highlight. That's why we're making this documentary, that's why I'm writing this book. It's why I'm taking my photos out of the archive, is I want to solely go on tour to speak to people whether they're Gen Xers or teenagers now.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, if I can give you one statistic that might encourage you right now, based on our most recent Data from Spotify, 53% of the pumpkins audience is under 35.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. So cool.

[Billy Corgan]

Hope they want something tactile.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

They want authenticity and they want people like us who lived before this, lived before this, lived.

[Billy Corgan]

You're not going to be able to trump that. I do, yes. Obviously memory is what memory is. I'm going to hold your book up again.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

I highly encourage people to read this beautiful book. There's even a couple pictures of me

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

in there I brought. Here, give it to me. While you were telling me. Whatever you're saying, tell me. I'm a hand. I need you to. Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

What do you think?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

This was the day I opened up for you and you told me I was going to be in your band one day.

[Billy Corgan]

Got to go this way.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

That's a selfie because I apparently went to school for selfies because I was taking photos of myself in 94 when nobody else was. But that's my Billy and Melissa selfie.

[Billy Corgan]

My little Botticelli.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

There's things in there where you're telling a story that involves me and I'm like, I don't quite remember it like that.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, Interesting. And it's going to happen.

[Billy Corgan]

As somebody who's dealt with public shame a lot, there's that.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I don't shame you.

[Billy Corgan]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Let me finish. There's almost a reflexive feeling of, like, do I have to defend this or give my side of the story? And I had a couple days, and I resisted the temptation to write you, to kind of quibble with the story.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, thank you. You waited till right now.

[Billy Corgan]

No, no, no, I'm not actually, I'm not quibbling now. What I'm saying is, is that as somebody who's in the book, I had to kind of do this thing of, like. And I feel like it was around Christmas, I had to do this thing, like. Because I do believe memory is not accurate.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Correct.

[Billy Corgan]

So what I'm saying, and I'm not accusing you of inaccurate memory, what I'm saying is, is you told your story, and you told it with integrity and

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

with my own sense of. So memoirs isn't.

[Billy Corgan]

Let me finish this. So I, I had a response. Peace with it. Because at the end of the day, I'm supportive of you telling your story.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

And I think that goes to the nature of our relationship now for over 30 years. I value your take on it, even if I don't always agree or understand.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah, well, honestly, I hope you can

[Billy Corgan]

see that, because that's at the, that's at the root of my faith in you.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Of course. This is why you wrote to me and said, do you want to be on my podcast to support your book? Because I don't know how to get through the algorithm, because I just joined Instagram a year ago. I need help to get this story out because I actually remain in the analog world, and I quit when I became a mother. I did not.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. I don't write music and I don't. You know, I, I, I really removed myself from everything when I became a mother. And now I'm kind of coming back to tell my story, but I want you not now to tell me the parts that don't really remember, because I.

[Billy Corgan]

Because in very Piscean nature, I, I let it go.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Right. And you. What I like about what you're saying, most importantly, is that the same person who witnessed my evaporation and by the time I joined your bands, my son, sort of like arm's length to everybody. Cause I did not trust anybody.

[Billy Corgan]

Including me, by the way.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. I mean, I didn't trust anybody, and I fell in love with some, like, other dude who was sort of adding an extra shadow to my life.

[Billy Corgan]

I was like, yeah, not just any dude.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Right. So there was a lot of, like, shadows I was cast. I was just, you know, it was a hard time for me. That's why I wasn't open to your invitation for your next music project.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay, wait, wait. That's what. That's where I do wanna correct you.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Okay, great. That was at the part of the book. So let me tell you.

[Billy Corgan]

Please. Please. Yeah.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

One thing is that you can. Of what I'm realizing 25 years later. I write this book, and it's not only about Billy Corgan, obviously. It's about my parents. It's about who I was in high school. It's about who I was to Courtney.

[Billy Corgan]

It's a 90s story.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And it's how. Also a good girl who really did good things for other people. I was sort of like. I was a good daughter. I was a good bass player. I was a supportive person. I lost myself along the way and. And I had to find myself to take agency for my own life. And this book is solely because you're right, memory is inaccurate. And I took a lot of memoir classes. And they actually encourage you to follow your personal intuition of your story that you need to tell. And you're actually encouraged to change facts, even.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

The memoir is different than, like, an analytical biography because it's ultimately a story. It's subjective. And I want to. And my experience of what happened is what matters, not what actually did, what did Billy say, or what did. So my.

[Billy Corgan]

But I do need to correct you on one thing.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, good. I can't wait to hear the correction. But I am. I'm just proud of myself even coming here on the show today, having never talked to you about any of this until right now, is that I found my story. Like, I got to tell my story.

[Billy Corgan]

That's why I encourage people to read it.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Thank you.

[Billy Corgan]

It's not. It's not the. Hey, I was around all these famous people. No, let me tell you. The inside baseball. And I was lucky to be there. It's like, no, I was part of this story. Here's my side of the story, which most of you probably don't know.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah. Because.

[Billy Corgan]

And then in hindsight, and I think we're doing it here today, too, you can also help people understand your value in that story.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And I get to help understand these radical and, you know, more known people, you and Courtney and reframing a lot of that. But also our Generation. I had an outsider, insider view of our generation and what happened. Which was both terrible.

[Billy Corgan]

Like a journalist and a photographer.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes, exactly. And a daughter of two journalists.

[Billy Corgan]

Yes. Okay, so.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh my God, here it is.

[Billy Corgan]

No, no, it's, it's, it's honestly, it's honestly fairly subtle.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay, so the context for this, this, this correction with a capital C. Spoiler

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

alert for the book. Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

No, no, it's, it's, it's. I understand, understand reading it. Why you probably have a memory that's slightly different than mine. What happened was we did this 11 month tour. It took a while to click in. Of course, people were doing the classic where's Darcy? What happened to the band? All that stuff. The band is internally falling apart, the record company's abandoning us, the venues are smaller, but as the tour goes on, it actually catches momentum. I don't know if you remember that, but about halfway through the tour, a journalist in Chicago actually pulled me aside after I'd announced the band was breaking up and said, you're insane to break the band up now. He said, you have so much momentum, you've actually recaptured true, organic momentum. Do not break up the band. My publisher at the time, a man named Tom Sturgis, son of the great screenwriter Preston Sturgess and the man who gave me my first publishing deal, he came to Chicago and said, do not break up the band.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And this is the stuff that's helpful for me to hear because I was so arm's length, I didn't even. Like in my mind, I was.

[Billy Corgan]

So, no, I wasn't telling you any of the stuff. Our relationship was kind of cordially distant. Yes, we love each other, but it was like, you do your thing, I'll do my thing. Okay, so I'll see you on stage. But here's the thing that you probably don't remember, and I think the reason I'm not just saying it to sort of try to correct the record. I want you to understand there's a point to this.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Great.

[Billy Corgan]

So this band is gathering momentum and gathering momentum and by the time we get to the band's final. This is something you probably wouldn't remember. I go to the promoters in Chicago Jam Productions and I say, we're going to do a final show. Band's going to break up. Okay, fine, what do you want to do? I said, I want to do the last show at the Metro. That's where we started, full circle. But I'd like to do an arena show because we've done a lot of Big shows in Europe. I'd like to do that set, I think two days before the final show, day off and then we'll do the final show. But I also want to do a show in. I think we should do the same show in Los Angeles, Angeles and New York. So I like to do like the former Staples Center, Madison Square Garden, then come home to Chicago, do the United center where the Bulls play. And then we, we end at the Metro and that's it. Bob's your uncle, band's done. And that was, that was real. The band was going to end.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

So here's where you, here's probably what you don't remember. Number one, we put the tickets on sale. They told me I was. They told me there's no way you're going to sell out Los Angeles and New York and you're crazy. So we're not going to do it.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Okay.

[Billy Corgan]

They told me to pound sand and I think of a better way to put it, but that's the nice version. You can imagine the Chicago version of that. The tickets go on sale and they blow out in five minutes. I mean the demand is through the roof. They literally call me the same day and say, okay, now we're ready to put Los Angeles. And I said, we just advertised. These are the last shows.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Uhuh. So we can't.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, no, they said, no, we can, we can put the shows on, but before you can do LA and New York and then go to Chicago. And I said, you just told me we couldn't do it. Well, look at the ticket sales. And now they're doing the music business thing. Oh, now you're hot. Now we want you. And so I said, no, forget that.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Okay. That's why we didn't. I wish we had played those shows. But anyway, well, I mean, we were still good at that moment. So like, what an incredible.

[Billy Corgan]

We rehearsed, I think approximately three to four weeks to do the final show. I actually have, I actually have all the tapes, believe it or not. Really? Yes. I have the. All our rehearsals. I have them all.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Amazing. That's cute. For the Pumpkins documentary, make one day.

[Billy Corgan]

But here's the crux of the story and then we'll get to wrapping it up. In the interim, as we're rehearsing for the final shows, I'm going in the studio during the night or the day and I'm finishing. What is Machina two.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Okay. Which I kind of.

[Billy Corgan]

I'm trying to finish up all the tapes now I have a band that's got momentum we have public momentum. We have internal momentum. We're playing great. I mean, there's a lot of fire on that, too. If anybody's ever seen us playing in Korea. I mean, we are.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, my God, the best fire.

[Billy Corgan]

I mean, we're on fire.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I mean, I truly have never played a bass like that again in my life.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay, Point proven. So I came to you and I said, listen, I've got this crazy idea. Just hear me out. I know you want to get out of here. I know you want to get out of here. I know you're planning your vacation to tahiti or whatever. January 2nd.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yes. I don't remember this.

[Billy Corgan]

I've already arranged with the Metro, if you're willing, that we would go in the Metro in January of 2000. So we'll be on the same stage that we played the last show. So we will literally be writing and documenting the last glimmers of this band, because I thought the band would never get back together. We're going to actually record a posthumous record that no one knows we're doing. We will do it in secret. I've already got everyone's agreement that we will record a record in secret. I need four weeks of your time. That's all I need. And what I want to do is I either want to go ahead and release it. I either want to go ahead and release it, or I want to put in a can. So some future date, it'll have some value as, like, oh, you thought the band ended here. We actually had this little coda of four weeks where we went in and I. And the other pitch, I said to you, because I could see your eyes kind of going, oh, God, he's roping me in. Was. Was. I said, it's. It'll be a warts and all project, meaning whatever comes out of it doesn't

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

have to be perfect.

[Billy Corgan]

It's. It's a doc. It's. It's a process of Document, documentary of the band disintegrating.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Okay.

[Billy Corgan]

It's like. It's like putting a camera on someone as they take their last breaths. So we'll film it.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Wow.

[Billy Corgan]

We'll record it and then we'll figure out what to do with it. And you go, I appreciate what you're saying. No.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Now, do you know I have no recollection of this.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, I can understand that.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And I wrote this whole book by heart. I never even looked at anything. I remembered everything. I erased that in my mind, so.

[Billy Corgan]

So.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Wow. You really saw an evaporated human being. Because I don't remember that.

[Billy Corgan]

So in the book, what you say is, is I come to you kind of at the end of the cycle, and I'm trying to convince you to soldier on. And you go politely, I love you, but I got to get the hell out of here. That's not what happened. I tried to sell you on four more weeks, weeks of commitment so that we could document what we created. And I wanted you to be part

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

of that, part of a recorded thing, because I never got to record with you. I am sad.

[Billy Corgan]

No, no, it's okay.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I actually. Well, if I were me now, I would have recognized.

[Billy Corgan]

But you can understand why after that, I felt like kind of. I wasn't mad. I was just kind of like. Do you not understand what you just said no to?

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

I did.

[Billy Corgan]

I can understand why James said no to it. Jimmy was fine with it.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Did James say no, too?

[Billy Corgan]

He said, absolutely not.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, I must have been in sync with no.

[Billy Corgan]

James was.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

No. But actually at that point, because, as you know, James and I were really close on the road because we liked the similar fashion and photography and had mutual friends maybe. I kind of knew he was going to say no, and that's why I said no.

[Billy Corgan]

It's all good. It was meant to be.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

That's interesting. I obviously now.

[Billy Corgan]

The writer in me. The writer in me mourns that we don't have that document.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Did you write a document? We didn't ever go to write together, even though you then invited me to Chicago and wrote one song on my solo record. And it was more. I didn't get to use that either. Okay. I am sad about that.

[Billy Corgan]

No, but it's fine.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

But I actually am impressed that you didn't hound me harder. That you just sort of let me be the. The frozen. No, thank you. I. Very strange. I'm actually. Because I feel like if you had insisted harder, maybe you could.

[Billy Corgan]

I think that's the dividing line. And I think as adults now, we can talk about it. The dividing line is I've always had respect for you.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Thank you.

[Billy Corgan]

And if there's any pressure in any of the moments along the way, it was because I thought I had a better version of it for you. But if at the end of the day. But if at the end of the day you didn't believe it, I didn't want it.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Well, I think it's because at that point, we nailed it earlier is I didn't trust anybody. I didn't. I was traumatized. I was traumatized by all of the things that happened. I didn't trust you anymore.

[Billy Corgan]

So I gotta read the book to read about the trauma.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

And I didn't trust you. I think. I think in my mind there was this feeling of they only want me for the value that I can offer them and their world. They don't want me for what's good for me. I really felt like no one had. Was looking out for me. That everybody. I mean, and if you see the world of the brutal music industry that it was, that was. I mean, why should I trust anyone? And I. I really felt like my value was only. I get it, worth it for what it brought to you. But I now know, especially because the testament to time, the same way that Courtney and I are so close now, and she really did forgive me for leaving the band. I mean, she had other stuff to do and she had to self destruct after that. But you both, and me towards you, we really deeply care about our sole purpose in this lifetime of ours. And that I now know very much so that you were looking out for me as this young girl, like some metaphysical crazy fantasy that I needed to live out. But you did not hound me to stay. And I'm pretty grateful for that too. Thank you. But I am surprised that I don't

[Billy Corgan]

say it was time to remember. Yeah, it was time to go.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

I mean, in many ways it's, you know, if you could read it almost in the shadow of it. It's. It's somebody trying to hold on to something, something, you know, for another heartbeat.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Right. You. You're saying all of it? Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

I mean, the death of the band

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

was very traumatic for you. No. And I guess that's what's sad is that because I had this sort of daughter, everyone owns me living in the shadow issue that I. Which is definitely what this book is about. And that's, I think, why, like Underdogs will like this book is. It's about someone who survived being in the shadow of everybody and got to 25 years old, be my own person and tell it my way, is that I did not have time to consider you and what you were going through, which was you had lost Darcy. Your band was evaporating and breaking in. As a Pumpkins fan, you know, had I not been in the band, I would have been mourning with you. But instead I was traumatized like everybody was. And I was mourning ultimately for our generation and everything we all lost. We were in trauma collectively, entering a future that we all sensitive Pisces freaks knew was gonna be pretty weird. Like we felt, you know, the writing was on the wall of where we were all gonna go as a culture. And I think we all retreated into our own mourning and mourning and individual trauma that didn't allow us to see the others. And I same with Courtney. It took me a decade to even. Even really see what happened to Courtney after I left, you know. Yeah. She became this huge Hollywood star, but then had never mourned the death of her husband. Had never mourned the fact that people accused her of killing her. That all of us just went in. Terrible, so.

[Billy Corgan]

Including her own father.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Exactly. And so I think that we all retreated and we weren't able to be there for each other. I was definitely not there for you. You know, I didn't have any perspective of what Billy was going through. Cause in my mind, I'm like the huge pumpkin, the big boss. He's always had control. I don't have. So I think where we're at now is that we're really good friends for each other because we now see the perspective. And you forgive me for not saying yes to that cool opportunity? I forgive you for. I thought you just tried to own me so that you could get something from me, which, like, what did you do? You could have had any bass player, but you chose me.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. The one thing I would say is an addendum to that is.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

You know, the Pumpkins has died various deaths along the way.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Now you. Yes, you have a whole other chapter that happens.

[Billy Corgan]

Sure. But. But there's been multiple fatalities along the way, and sadly, even real fatalities. But. But the thing I would point out to you, and I would say this to you privately in the. In the exact same way, is it was a very close closed circle.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

And. And yes, we had different people come in, but the only people we let in the circle in those 14, 13 years, whatever it was, was you and Garson. Mike Garson.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, yeah. Sweet Garson. Yeah. I am honored, as you know. And obviously, I was there from the ground up and that beer bottle moment. And my pledge to you then truly was a pledge from a. For I was the one who came to you. I was the one who opened and the spiritual relationship. Yeah. I made this happen. I made us happen. Let's put it that way.

[Billy Corgan]

I love you. I love you. Thank you for doing the show.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Fun.

[Billy Corgan]

And best of luck on the book.

[Melissa Auf der Maur]

Oh, thank you.