Melissa Auf der Maur book on her music career and life with Courtney Love

When Melissa Auf der Maur was 19, a terrible demon gave her the title of her future memoir. “Even good girls cry,” the wiry-haired monster hissed as he pressed her onto his bed in his Montreal home. He understood his purpose, as he would write in his book of that title in 2026. “Believing in the unseen.”

Yes, okay. In the golden light of this early spring evening in upstate New York, the 54-year-old mother and grateful grunge survivor knows others might believe less. But his belief that “the spirit of romantic, dark, mystical, dangerous music” has visited him remains unshakable.

In any case, these and other nocturnal visions (a dream of social fervor predicted music entering the blood to unite humanity) were effectively self-fulfilling. At 22, against her rational judgment, the good Canadian girl followed her cosmic inner voices to the worst group in the USA. Hole.

She describes Courtney Love’s sudden entry into the spiraling storm system as “chaos incarnate”: heroin addict, single mother, grieving widow of generational icon Kurt Cobain, and, through it all, one of the most maligned women on the planet.

“My camera, my diary, and I were recording the pain, the drugs, the crying little girl in the locker room… like, who’s going to be her daddy? How’s that going to work?” He remembers his trial by fire at the 1994 Reading Festival.

“I was so silent in the utter destruction and disgraceful existence of these fragile, powerful people that I couldn’t perceive anything. He was the ultimate, in-the-moment presence, so I was obsessively documenting because I had no idea. Like, I’m not going to figure this out for 25 years. I need to put it together.”

Revealed by bassist-photographer and formerly silent witness Even Good Girls Cry It’s not just a decade-old rock mythology, it’s a warning. From frightening teenage premonitions to the “rise of the digital soul-sucking monster” that is the modern world, his book reads like an epitaph to the last great wave of creative freedom.

“The ’90s were the last time we believed the situation was getting better,” he says. “Our generation, particularly instinctive, musically sensitive beings, has experienced the very painful birth canal of the 21st century.” Her hands move to surround not only the Love-Cobains and the dead and ruined members of the Hole, but also her mentor Billy Corgan, her ex Dave Grohl, and minor players in her story like Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor.

“We were simultaneously grieving for those we loved and those we had lost, and also fear: a warning that this would end badly. We would all be bought and consumed by these tentacles that were watching to suck us in. We were the last gasp of a counterculture.” [pleading]’Please, please, please don’t steal our souls! Don’t stop us from being free-willed, freakish, wild beings!’”

Freaky-wild was the default for the young artist growing up in Montreal between a “dreamy frontline feminist” mother and a “beatnik poet” father. These were civic-minded journalists and intellectuals who, although mostly estranged from each other, were hugely influential on the worldview of generations of cosmic hippies.

Auf der Maur’s book chronicles the excitement of the fledgling alt-rock era in Montreal, where a visit from Corgan’s fledgling band the Smashing Pumpkins rekindled his sense of the liberating power of creative community. But as a healthy, happy, and loved child of Canada, he would bring a clear perspective to America’s grunge revolution, its terribly damaged players, and what it all meant.

“The people who were of interest to the youth of the moment were people who were tortured. The question is: What was the pain of our generation?” he asks, still confused. “Mental instability, drug addiction, neglectful families, absent parents… What horror!”

Thank the Devil for rock’n’roll. “For example, Courtney could have died at home from drugs, or she could have been on stage trying to get through all this hell.” However shocking and repulsive her behavior on the road is, Auf der Maur’s admiration for the rock widow’s strength and endurance is the key to her book.

“I had very clear things to keep track of, and one of them was the reframing of Courtney’s nobility and her true, obvious genius,” he says. “No one in their right mind could deny her strength and talent. To this day, no other woman could literally throw herself into such a crowd with this much hatred and scrutiny and knowing that people actually wanted her dead.”

“This is power,” he says. “I saw that too, and I still see in this woman that I am closer than ever.” His departure from Hole in 1999 was followed by many years of silence, but Auf der Maur recently sang on Love’s upcoming album. “I needed space to heal; she had to be a destroyed drug addict, grieve, and disappear. Now the real reward was that she wasn’t dead. I witnessed her survive.”

He is less enthusiastic about another, more visible survivor, Love’s nemesis. Auf der Maur split from former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl just as his new band, Foo Fighters, was taking off by “playing the power game” the corporate rock juggernaut needed.

“I was in love with Dave,” she says. “I was someone who cared about his soul. I didn’t care about his success. When I broke up with him, I was scared for him because I could see his ambition. I don’t think Dave is balanced. I think he’s a good person who probably lost his way a few times because of his fame and all the things that push people into that. It’s a vicious cycle, and I think he’s a victim of that. I think he paid a price.”

In 2000, Auf der Maur joined “fairy godmother” Corgan to play bass on the Smashing Pumpkins’ world tour. He released a solo album in 2004 and another in 2010, but neither of these are mentioned in his book.

“I needed to feel the pristine power of music, and since I wasn’t part of a group of very dysfunctional families, I needed to feel that it appealed to my own desires and inspired my own. So for me, being a solo artist was a way to elevate myself musically and thoroughly enjoy being in the studio with collaborators.”

She says she quit music altogether 15 years ago “because of motherhood.” “You know, if I was truly going to live earthly life to the fullest and have the opportunity to carry a child and motherhood is the greatest magical means of creation… I knew I wanted to transform in this life.”

Along with her husband, filmmaker Tony Stone, she currently runs Basilica Hudson, a multidisciplinary arts and performance venue in New York City. As tree cats Bella Chai and Babushka purr to Bubbles in the Siberian forest under the setting sun, everyone in their world seems happy. But he can still conjure up a potent punk rock rage on behalf of his 14-year-old daughter.

“I’m angry! I mean, I love life. I love planet Earth. I love my cats. I love people. I love music. I’m not happy with what’s happening. The capitalist system has consumed, destroyed and controls our moments, our love and the way our children experience each other, the way our children experience music.

“I’m very upset. We knew this was happening. I really think we warned everyone. And I’m upset that we couldn’t stop it.”

Even Good Girls Cry Out now via Allen & Unwin.

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