Quotes By Melissa

"And I'm proud to say that I've matured enough to at least be able to function on a day-to-day basis."

"Is Courtney Love as messed up as the media plays her out to be?
I think the media is pretty messed up in itself. The media likes to dwell on problems and difficulties. Of course the media amplifies the problems of individuals, especially celebrities or troubled celebrities. Courtney is just a complete freak of nature. She is a force within herself. She is one of the funniest, one of the smartest people I know. She is a survivor who will never be stopped by anyone. She is a force of nature, like Niagara Falls. She just lives and lives loud. She is essentially a sister to me, I would never speak badly about her, because she is the one who invited me into her world and took a chance on me as an inexperienced young Canadian musician, and she created a really big space for me in her world, and I spent five years of my life with her and she is someone I have a lot of respect for, but of course I want her to be happy, and it sounds like she is going through hard times and I wish her the best to get through it. "

"We're definitely friends. I'm not gonna talk about that 'cause all I talk about is rock on Much Music."
When asked about her supposed relationship with Andrew W.K.

"I can maintain an okay diet, I learned how to use a cell phone, I sorta know how to use a computer."

"I'm the noisescaper and documentarian. I push it along with noise. Does that sound too abstract?"

"My experience with Hole was a formidable lesson of life, which has made me stronger, which enabled me to see the world, to meet heaps of people, to earn my living well and to travel first class."

"I definitely relate more to a particular genre of heavy, male music, but it happens to be a heavy male music that is very feminine from my perspective, such as Queens Of The Stone Age and Smashing Pumpkins. Those are two heavy bands that have very feminine sides. All of us are half men and half women we have just as much masculine as feminine, so I would definitely describe the new project as me wrestling with those two sides."

"Essentially, it's a sweet song about an underdog - or underdeer, if you will - plagued with a bright-red nose. Some would call him special, others would call him freaky! So it's a heart-warming humanitarian song about a being that has to learn how to embrace the thing that makes him cool and silly at the same time—and doesn't he eventually get rewarded for it? Great! He is cute as hell, and I'd like to hug him. Throw in a little 'Silent Night' outro to pull the heartstrings with the ultimate soaring melody and chord progression. A choir at your front door would be the best way to experience it. Although I have never had that, I did sing it in my children's choir and loved it!"
- Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer, Melissa's addition to the 'Holiday Mix Tape', Orange County Weekly.

"This one is about having sex... on christmas eve"
- Introducing 'Use Once And Destroy'

"I sold my life to Capitol Records; it sucks."

"It's kind of a non-relationship, I have not spoken to her since my last show with Hole at Edgefest in Vancouver back in July of 99. But I'm sure we'll run into each other eventually...and laugh."
- About Courtney Love

"It was perfect for me to get out there and be Ozzy and not think about chord changes."
-About singing in 'Hand Of Doom'.

"Because Sharon Osbourne was managing the Pumpkins when I joined the group, I found myself at the Osbourne's residence, with Ozzy pouring me tea while I negotiated my salary. He's a sweetheart and they're fun people, but I don't know about the show -- it's kinda warped."
- Melissa on 'The Osbournes'

"I love jeans in summertime. I rarely get hot, unless I'm performing at an outdoor concert. So I pair jeans with tiny, clingy tops from my friend Molly Stern's line, M.R.S. Or if I want to wear a skirt, I have tons of denim skirts in rotation. My favorite? My Marc Jacobs mini."
-Melissa in Vogue magazine, May 2002 in a show on what Vogue's "favorite urban women" wear during the summer. Thanks to Lisa for mailing this to me!

"I'm Ozzy."

"I would rather be living in Victorian times. in my living room i have turn-of-the-centu will hangings from French castles and a mannequin with a turn-of-the-century hoop skirt on it. All my paintings are of Victorian towns or houses, and i gaze into them and pretend I'm there. I also collect grand-piano shawls; they're kind of like bedspreads but they're incredible velvet, intricate things, The best way to hang them on the wall is with a thin piece of wood and a really delicate tack on each end. I have all of this in my house, and meanwhile I play in a really big, modern rock band (Hole at the time).
-On life's little guilty pleasures. Thanks Lisett.

"I mean, the way I see it is, every penny I've ever made through music is free money."

"Cafe S'Antropol in Montreal is the most incredible health-food and fancy fruit ice cream-cake place. It's right around the corner from the house i've grew up. It's an incredible, total hippie commune restaurant that i've gone to for soy sundaes since i was two. It's a run by crazy hippies in an old house decorated like a tea room -a wacky place.
-On what's cookin'? Thanks Lisett.

Interviewer: "I was expecting you to go into photography."
Melissa: "Just because I do one thing it doesn't mean I am stopping any other thing. I do many things simultaneously."
Billy: "You know we own all your photos?"
Melissa: "Yeah right. Good point. yeah I am still doing that and I am still making up songs in my head and on my answering machine and playing wonderful bass in this band."
Billy: "She makes these really creepy dolls."
James: "There's all these pins in mine."
Billy: "Some sort of Canadian hoodoo, up north there".

"It's as if I've been in two marriages at this point and I don't plan on getting married again, no. I will date people, maybe."
-About being in Hole and then Smashing Pumpkins.

"We bring on the light after they've dragged out the dark. It's two different worlds, so I can't see how one could make the other look bad. Theirs is black and ours is white."
-About touring with Marilyn Manson.

"Their live show was very dramatic. You got Korn, then Manson, and then we're like, "Good morning! Wake up, the sun's down, and we're singing pop songs."
-About touring with Marilyn Manson

"I must've been a rastafarian in a previous life. They think their hair is an extension of themselves, and every time I get mine cut, I cry. My mother is a big Bob Marley fan. Maybe that explains it.

"God, this is going to be so polished, so anal."
-Melissa's initial thoughts on Celebrity Skin

"Actually, I do have some at home, packed away in my mum's basement. My grandmother is a very good yodeler."
Melissa when asked if she has a lederhosen, due to the swiss origin of her name

"My father's funeral was the biggest day of my life. It was almost like a rock concert, in that I gave the eulogy in front of 3,000 people and on TV and on the radio. It was the most intimate and the most public thing that I have ever done, and the second I got up to speak it was just me and my father. That was the most inspirational moment of my life, the most pure moment I've ever had. As a creative person I will always refer to that moment."

"Eight years ago, my aspirations musically were maybe to do a nice van tour of Canada and maybe a lo-fi van tour of Europe,"

"She's pretty protective of her space. She lives in a bigger bubble than most. I'm still excited to see every band, mingle like a maniac and go to after-show parties. Courtney's a little bit more grown-up."
-On Courtney Love

"I'm glad I spent a chapter of my life there to really get to know the ugly beauty of the American dream."
-Living in Los Angeles has made Melissa appreciate Canada all the more.

"The bass is the mother of all instruments."

"I get so into it. The only time I ever feel the same way is when I'm having sex; it's the epitome of unifying with something."
-Melissa on playing bass

"Well, Chris's bass playing, I'd take that as a snack between lunch and dinner. But the rest of him, that's my after-dinner indulgence." Let it be stated as fact on this day November 3, 1998: I think Melissa Auf der Maur is the sweetest woman in the entire world.
-Melissa when asked who would win in a bass-off, her or Chris Murphy from Sloan.

"It gave me goose bumps. it dared to be so withdrawn and trance-like for so long ... I loved it."
-Melissa on PJ Harvey's performance at the Wiltern Theatre.

"I don't know, other than just great songs and one day they'll be on the oldies station and classic rock, that sounds great to me."
-Melissa on the Smashing Pumpkins' musical legacy.

"Oh, God yeah, we just toured Japan last month. That's another really, really diehard kind of fanatical Pumpkins place...And the tears, and the following to the airport, and the girls begging for it not to end, it was pretty intense. Yes, there's definitely an air of like, 'It's coming to an end and goodbye and thank you for being there.'"
-Melissa on the Smashing Pumpkins split-up and the fans' reaction to that.

"Everything seemed so dramatic and classy," says Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur. "We generally hide behind lots of aggression. Well, no, noise. Now it seemed like we were trying to mature. I felt like I should wear a velvet dress."
-Melissa on playing MTV Unplugged with Hole.

"I'm so excited about celebrating Canada Day here. I've even got Maple Leaf flags to drape over our amps."
-Melissa about playing in Canada with Hole.

"I don't actually have a tattoo of a Canadian flag, but I feel like I do," she says. "I have to make a Canadian reference about everything.
Jim Carrey? He's Canadian. I'm the obsessive reminder that Canada is the place to be."

"A crash course in be a great bass player, not a fucked-up art bass player."
-Melissa on her remedial-listening homework(Black Uhuru, Motown, the Led Zeppelin catalog)for Celebrity Skin

"I do fuck, but i don't say fuck"
-Melissa after Courtney tries to get the audience to get Melissa to say fuck

"Canadian red-head, believes in aliens or other worlds. Likes sexy rock music. You must be able to take acid and not freak out."
-Personal ad

"He's not so huggable, but I love him."
-On Billy Corgan

"If you were marooned on a desert island without food, which member of Hole would you choose to eat first?"
"I hear Eric (Erlandson) has a big penis. He could do without it. Or Courtney's muscular thigh.

"I was just considering to start playing bass, and when I saw D'arcy playing those Gish songs, with these wacked out, kinda trippy guys, I just thought: I want to be this girl."

"I have 2 million more peole in my life than I used to. And I photograph all of them. I've been taking close-ups of the fans at every single show. Imagine in 30 years what you'll be able to learn from an entire book of just the front of a crowd at a Marilyn Manson show. You can see our fans. I did it in Australia too, when they were waiting backstage or outside in the alleyways. These beautiful, beautiful young girls gushing with love for me. I put out my camera and they feed my camera with these incredible reactions to whatever they think we are."

"I have to point out that I was born on St. Patrick's day and that both my parents have black hair and that I came out redheaded and pale. I mean I have lots of Irish in my blood, so it makes sense, but the redhead gene is a completely schizophrenic, chaotic DNA thing that makes no sense at all. they just come up whenever. there's no predicting it. scientists can't pin it down. so it's always been kind of a big hang up of mine. when I was a kid, I thought it was gross. and I was like, "i wanna be like everyone else. Please take away this red hair." but then throughout the years, I realized it was special. Someone gave me— I think a makeup artist —this scientific explanation that our pigment is fucked up and something we have reacts weird to the sun so freckles are the reaction. sometimes if I'm on mushrooms or something and I look in the mirror, I look green and I feel like there's major yellow. the moral of the story is that supposedly redheads have a wider color spectrum in their skin. there's green, blue, purple and brown in my skin so supposedly we can wear more colors than most people."