Melissa Auf der Maur, a bassist, spent brief periods with Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins—two leading alternative-rock acts of the 1990s—before starting her own solo work early in the 21st century. She was born March 17, 1972, in Montreal, Canada, where her mother Linda Gaboriau ranked among the city’s earliest female rock radio DJs; Auf der Maur began performing by playing bass in local groups, among them Tinker.
An unforeseen onstage bottle incident redirected her path. Accompanying friends to an early Smashing Pumpkins concert during one of the band’s initial Canadian runs, she chose to apologize personally to frontman Billy Corgan after a companion hurled a bottle toward the stage; the exchange sparked an immediate friendship.
By 1994, when Corgan learned that his acquaintance Courtney Love needed a bassist following Kristen Pfaff’s drug-related death, he recommended Auf der Maur. She accepted the role, left Tinker (which later recorded briefly with its remaining members), and joined Hole for the world tour supporting the band’s breakthrough album Live Through This. Corgan then arranged her participation on Ric Ocasek’s 1997 solo album Troublizing, which he also produced; after a short U.S. tour on which she sang “Drive” nightly in place of Ben Orr, she returned to Hole to complete the group’s third studio album, Celebrity Skin, issued in 1998, with Corgan listed as consultant.
Once that tour ended, Corgan again reached out, this time recruiting her for the Smashing Pumpkins after the band had parted ways with founding bassist D’Arcy under unclear circumstances. Her tenure proved short: following the release of 2000’s MACHINA/The Machines of God and Friends and Enemies of Modern Music (the latter never formally issued by the label), the Pumpkins disbanded.
In the aftermath Auf der Maur stayed active through several side efforts, among them handling lead vocals for the Black Sabbath tribute band Hand of Doom and joining the all-star project the Virgins alongside former Pumpkin James Iha, with rumored participants including Ryan Adams and Evan Dando. Summer 2004 brought the release of her self-titled solo debut, Auf der Maur. Produced by Chris Goss, the album included guest appearances by Jordon Zadorozny of Blinker the Star, Tinker’s Steve Durand, Tomahawk’s John Stanier, James Iha, Hole’s Eric Erlandson, Rocket from the Crypt’s Atom Willard, Fu Manchu’s Brant Bjork, and Queens of the Stone Age’s Nick Oliveri and Josh Homme.
