Melissa Auf der Maur at One Ninety Four

Melissa Auf der Maur in Conversation

One Ninety Four, 10 April 2026

Ever since it was announced that Melissa Auf der Maur, who I first became familiar with when she joined Hole in the mid 90s, had written a memoir, I was super excited. So I couldn't pass up the opportunity to hear her read from her book, Even The Good Girls Will Cry, and hear her thoughts on her fascinating life in music, for this talk held as an outstore event for Rough Trade.

I had never been to One Ninety Four before so it was a bit of a mystery how big or what this event would be like. Fortunately though when I arrived a small queue had started forming so at least I knew I was in the right place. There was also a small camera crew filming and interviewing a few people about how they came to be fans of Melissa Auf der Maur, so I have no idea if it was just for social media or a documentary. Thankfully they didn't come near me though, although listening to them it did feel like I may have been one of the few who had actually seen her play live.

It turns out One Ninety Four is primarily a restaurant and we were directed to the larger downstairs area where there was a small stage and chairs had been put out in front. Weirdly the film crew took their places right at the front despite now not filming, which felt a little unfair as the rest of us had queued and there was no reason really for them being front row, but I did at least get a second row seat.

Tonight Auf der Maur was being interviewed by acclaimed journalist Sophie Gilbert, who despite being from London, now works as a senior editor at The Atlantic over in the States. I assume she may be back over this side of the pond promoting her own book, Girl On Girl, which I haven't read but certainly sounds interesting, as apparently it's a feminist take on 1990s and 2000s pop culture, the backlash to feminism during those years and how it pitted women against each other. She definitely seems an appropriate choice although another event was also announced for the next day in London, this time time with Auf der Maur being interviewed by Stephanie Phillips of Big Joanie, which I'm sure would have been interesting too.

After being introduced by Gilbert, Auf der Maur arrived looking very boho chic, wearing a gorgeous autumn coloured dress, a blue coat with a long white scarf and, of course, her fabulous red hair looking as striking as ever. She began by standing by a microphone that had been set up at the front of the stage and read small portions of her book, mainly focusing on how she was asked to join Hole and meeting Courtney Love for the first time. It was great to hear it read by her and she did it well, with a lot of confidence. You could immediately tell she was a natural for the stage.

Then she sat down to be interviewed by Gilbert, while photos taken by Auf der Maur were shown behind them on the screen. It turns out these photos will be published as a book later this year and eventually we were shown the cover, which appears to be called My '90s Rock Photographs, and had a photo of Auf der Maur with Hole on the front, Courtney Love looking suitably disheveled.

Gilbert asked her if she had asked the people featured in the book if it was okay she wrote about them, and she said she didn't seek permission but she did let "every major character in the book, Billy Corgan, Courtney Love, Dave Grohl, the bigger names, I just made sure that a couple of years ago, I reached out to each one of them personally just to say, by the way I'm writing my memoir, and I'm going to say everything. And literally, thumbs up, they trust me. Because if there's one thing those people know about me, I'm not in this for glory, money, fame. Actually that's why I almost didn't do this: I don't want that, I want authentic connection with my reason for being here, and that's arts, culture and humans. So I think that's why they generally just trusted me."

She also spoke about meeting Billy Corgan and how he recommended her for Hole, after Kristin Pfaff died (her death coming just weeks after Kurt Cobain), and how initially she didn't want to join the band, as she had her own band Tinker. But she was persuaded to get on a plane to meet Courtney Love and when she walked into the situation she realised this was a group of people who were in great pain and she just wanted to help them. Her first gig (amazingly only about her seventh ever gig ever) was in front of thousands of people at the Reading Festival. 

She also spoke a good bit about the demonisation of Courtney Love and how terrible the press were to her particularly back in the 1990s. She said she thought Love was ahead of her time and heaped praise on her. She also said that Courtney could be frustrating, "she is very complex" she told us, laughing, but said their relationship was better than it ever was, despite the fact that they didn't actually speak for about 15 years, and that they were in regular contact now (in fact Love posted a photo of them together a couple of days after: Auf der Mauf had obviously gone to visit her old friend) and she had actually worked with her on Love's new album which will be out later this year. 

After this Gilbert threw it out to the audience to ask questions. There was one about the initial Celebrity Skin recording sessions and if they would ever see the light of day. To be honest I can't remember if she answered this completely but she did say that some of these recordings did actually end up on the record. 

Someone who ran an indie label asked her about how they can compete with big organizations in this digital age and she spoke at length about how to do things at a grassroots level, which she herself does with the arts and performance venue, Basilica Hudson, that she runs with her husband. Earlier she had spoken at length about the 1990s being the last "analogue" decade and gave her thoughts on how now social media, algorithms and the global hold of capitalism billionaires are shaping our lives and stifling creativity. It was both a very punk rock and socialist way of thinking and it made me happy she seemed to care about these things in such a sympathetic way. 

Finally there was a question (I can't remember the specifics, I'm sorry), which led to her speaking about strange visions she has had throughout her life, even though she was brought up in a household that was very practical minded and no way religious (her parents were actually journalists while she was growing up, her mother a staunch feminist) and that aged 18 she had an ominous dream where a strange figure whispered the words to her "Even the good girls will cry" which gave her the name of the book (the title before, she said, was very bad which made me wonder what it was!), the dream also told her that music would be her life. I've yet to read the book (which we only received at the event), but I'm interested to see if she delves into this more but I did get the feeling she was holding back a little so not to appear too out there.

After this there was a book signing, and I told her I had seen Hole many times in the 90s and how much they meant to me, so in response she wrote "Hole loves you" on my copy, which was rather sweet. She came across as a very nice, lovely person, I must say.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable evening and it was great to see how well Auf der Maur is doing now. She has a teenage daughter who for years didn't even know that she was once a rock star. When other kids (whose parents had seen her play back in the day) told her, she came home from school one day and asked "why did you stop playing music?" and sulked that she would be a lot cooler now if she had continued. But I don't know, Melissa Auf der Maur, who I looked up to when I was younger and yearned to be like, still seems impossibly cool to me.