Melissa faces the music

Auf der Maur: 'The reason I chose to make this record is I wanted to change my life with music, and I wanted to face a challenge. Anything I'm afraid to do, I've gotta do, face my fears'

From: Montreal Gazette, 2004-05-06
Date added: 2004-05-10

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When you're travelling the world with a rock 'n' roll band, homesickness is an occupational hazard. And if you're from Montreal, homesickness probably brings with it a craving for poutine.

Rock bassist and local hero Melissa Auf der Maur will tell you that. Two weeks ago, the globetrotting veteran of Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins arrived fresh from a gruelling tour of Europe, where she was promoting her first solo album, Auf der Maur - and wasted no time hitting the restaurants.

"In the past 10 years, I've been going home to Los Angeles or New York after the big tours," said Auf der Maur, who divides her time between here and New York City. "This was the first time I went home to Montreal, and it was so exciting. There's a love that I have for that city - and within the first 24 hours, I had had my favourite meal at my favourite Vietnamese restaurant, and then a poutine within the next 12 hours."

Auf der Maur was on the phone from Columbus, Ohio, where she was finishing the first week of a North American tour that brings her here tonight, opening for the Offspring at the Metropolis. Her five-piece band includes three guitarists: Steve Durand, her former bandmate in Tinker, Kim Pryor and Josh Johnson, who also doubles on keyboards. Rimouski-born drummer Julien Blais makes up the rhythm section with Auf der Maur. "I'm real excited to have a Quebecois in the band," she said.

With the exception of a couple of warm-up shows here last December, this is the first time her name will be on the marquee in her home town. "It's new, kind of terrifying - but the reason I chose to make this record is I wanted to change my life with music, and I wanted to face a challenge. Anything I'm afraid to do, I've gotta do, face my fears," she said.

But Auf der Maur's not exactly being thrust into final exams without having been to the (real) school of rock.

"I'm not as shy as I used to be. When I was singing in choirs in high school, God, I was so shy! And I could have never imagined that I would be coming back 10, 15 years later fronting my own band," she said.

"I think my years in Hole and the Pumpkins really forced me to shed my shyness."

Auf der Maur's confidence has also benefited from her decision to finance the project herself and not to let anyone else take the reins on the new album. "In the last two years of putting together this album and being the creative captain of the ship, I gained the confidence and creative focus I needed to feel comfortable getting up there and playing these songs," she said.

In many ways, her comfort level with being in the public eye grew before groups like Jane's Addiction, Kyuss and future employers the Smashing Pumpkins inspired her to pick up her first bass. Her late father, onetime Gazette columnist and Montreal politician/ boulevardier Nick Auf der Maur, made her known to Gazette readers well before she was in her teens.

"When I think The Gazette, I think my father," she said. "I grew up in that newspaper." And her dad is one topic she clearly loves talking about.

"Being a public person, he had a real passion for communicating his values, his ideas and his opinions to people. Maybe that's what he passed on to me. It's just second nature for me to want to reach out to strangers and, in my world, to talk about my love of music," she said.

"I grew up listening to my mother's record collection, with the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, but my father was much more old-fashioned. He'd say, 'No good music was made after 1920.' He was never really part of his generation. He wasn't a hippie or a bohemian, although he was a beatnik and a poet. He was a leftist and alternative-type politician, but really he was just kind of a timeless character. That's what made him an interesting father and an interesting friend to the city. His character is what we miss the most," Auf der Maur said.

Auf der Maur's growing celebrity over the years hasn't changed a thing with her old friends, she said. "In Montreal, I pretty much have the friends I went to elementary school and high school with. Our dynamic never changes. It's very consistent," she said. "Most of them are musicians. Musicians are impressed with music, not with success," she said.

Although a one-off recording project with James Iha, Evan Dando and Ryan Adams - tentatively called The F---ing Virgins - could be revived next year, Auf der Maur is clearly focused on her new album and tour, with some Montreal club dates being planned for the summer.

"I know the Offspring show is sold out, and maybe people who want to see me in a more intimate setting won't get an opportunity to do so this time," Auf der Maur said. "But my heart's very much in Montreal, and the priority is to share my joy of music with Montrealers. If I don't see you at the show, I'll see you at the poutine place down the line."

Auf der Maur opens for the Offspring at the Metropolis tonight. The concert is sold out. The band's self-titled album is due in stores June 1.

Melissa's Montreal

Club: "When I'm travelling, or in New York, I'm more likely to be a night life person, but I'll always like Foufounes Electriques - Canada's CBGBs."

Bar: "Anywhere on St. Laurent. Casa del Popolo and La Sala Rossa are two blocks from my house, and that's obviously very cozy and comfortable, and they've always got some good music going on there - but my favourite bars in Montreal are those unpopular old-man bars. There's an amazing one on east Laurier - the Brasserie Laurier - that's just a handful of French-Canadian old men watching sports. My favourite bars all over the world are those untouched, undiscovered old-man bars."

Restaurant: "It's called Au 14 Prince Arthur and that's the address. The same Vietnamese couple has been running that restaurant since, probably, the 1980s. I've been going there since I was about 16. And there are good poutine places everywhere in Montreal. There's a great one across from the Brasserie Laurier. I don't know what it's called. I just know it as the 24-hour poutine place."

Bands: Voivod, the Stills, the Dears.

Shopping: Second-hand clothes stores, particularly a place called Twist Encore on St. Laurent and Duluth.

Landmark: The angel at the base of Mount Royal. "When I close my eyes and picture Montreal, I see that angel waving."

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2004

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