Auf Der Maur: Making waves

Former Smashing Pumpkin Melissa Auf Der Maur charts her own course with solo debut

By Mike Prevatt

We've spoken to singer/songwriter/bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur now for well over our permitted time allotment, and before hanging up to undoubtedly begin the interrogation process all over again, she has two unsolicited contributions she wishes to make. First, she asks why Nevada went red in the presidential election (we make up something about the libertarians). Then she makes particular mention of local active rock station KXTE 107.5-FM, which she says was the first American broadcast outlet to play her first single, "Followed the Waves."

"That was such a big surprise," she says. "They rarely play female artists."

Auf Der Maur--the official name of her act--is full of bombshells, both of her own doing and from forces acting on her behalf. Aside from those in rock gossip circles, few expected the former Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bassist to emerge with a solo album, and if they had, probably not with the enviable guest list of collaborators it boasts (including Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme, former QOTSA ally Mark Lanegan, former bandmates Eric Erlandson and James Iha, and producer Chris Goss).

She's been promoting her self-titled debut--released first in Europe, then in the States earlier this year--vigorously for the past year. When the Pumpkins hung it up in 2000, Auf Der Maur, who grew up in Montreal and has been a musician since she was 6, took two years off to hone her craft and record songs she had been writing privately since she signed on with Hole in 1994, when she literally went from having played only six club dates with her former band one day, and sharing a stage with Courtney Love in front of 65,000 people at England's Reading Festival the next.

"When I was in Hole I was collaborating, but on the side, on my days off, I would experiment with my four-track at home because music is an endless adventure I can always learn [from] and get better at," says Auf Der Maur. "Most of these songs were never written to be put on an album; they were written on a love of exploring music. It's always turning a page to the next thing."

Part of her desire to more deeply and independently discover herself as an artist also came from how limited her role as a collaborator was with her former high-profile bands--though she had a greater responsibility than some might've expected. Many critics were astonished at how heavy her new album sounds, which is ironic given that her main duty in Hole was to sweeten its sound.

"I knew what drives me is heavy and dissonant music," says Auf Der Maur, "but I guess people associate me with my five years with Hole, and my role in Hole was to make things prettier, literally, like my backup vocals and sense of melody. The things Hole needed was my pop sensibility and that was only a fraction of me. Maybe they associate me with `Malibu,' where there's seven of my vocal parts to one of Courtney's growl parts."

Though she is signed to Capitol Records, Auf Der Maur did not exploit her music business connections to make her album. In fact, she concertedly took the do-it-yourself route, financing the project herself, asking only her friends (with the exception of Morrissey, who declined) to participate in the studio and not worrying about what label was going to release whatever the end result would be. The organic nature of her freedom has served her well.

"I returned right where I left myself in 1994, when I had played seven club shows," says Auf Der Maur. "So I saw this as the way to be where I was, and wear my heart on my sleeve, and put my songs out there and play to these intimate crowds where they can see me sweat or see I'm nervous or hear what I say to my band members in between songs.

"This is the most exciting thing because it's so terrifying and so much more personal," she adds. "I'm not hiding behind distance or someone else's music or anything. It's me direct, with myself and with people. It's been a real lesson of honesty, and it's been really exciting."