{"id":355220,"date":"2026-03-30T13:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T13:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/355220\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T13:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T13:28:10","slug":"it-was-not-cool-i-had-to-say-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/355220\/","title":{"rendered":"“It was not cool I had to say no\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melissa Auf der Maur<\/a> has looked back at not being allowed to join Elastica<\/a>, and said that it was \u201cnot cool\u201d that she had to turn their offer down.<\/p>\n

The Hole<\/a> bassist recalled the offer during a new interview with NME as part of the Does Rock N\u2019 Roll Kill Braincells?! series,<\/a> when she put her knowledge of her time in the music industry to the test, and was asked if she remembered details from throughout the years.<\/p>\n

During the interview, she was asked to correctly identify the Britpop band she was invited to join as a bassist, to which she correctly answered Elastica.<\/p>\n

She was invited to join the band after their bassist, Annie Holland, struggled with heroin withdrawal, and it seemed briefly like she was going to perform with them at Lollapalooza<\/a>, until Hole\u2019s management intervened.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very cool offer, but not cool that I had to say no! We \u2013 women in rock \u2013 were rooting, and starving, for each other,\u201d Auf der Maur told NME, going on to explain why Elastica stood out to her at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Elastica came out with that British post-punk attitude combined with pop catchiness, they were an exciting anomaly,\u201d she explained. \u201cEveryone thinks the \u201890s is the time of women, but they didn\u2019t all last and there wasn\u2019t a lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn that Lollapalooza bill, sure, there\u2019s one female bass player in Sonic Youth<\/a> [Kim Gordon<\/a>] and a female bass player in Beck<\/a>, but it was still a boy\u2019s world. So Elastica was so exciting because they came in and replaced the queen of all warrior power, Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor<\/a>, who had left.\u201d<\/p>\n

When reminded that Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor only agreed to play Lollapalooza because she was a fan of Hole, Auf der Maur said: \u201cIt takes one to know one, and those warrior goddesses [O\u2019Connor and Love] were both misunderstood \u2013 and they knew it as it was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out the full NME interview here<\/a>, where the bassist also talks about turning down a cameo in The Simpsons, working with Rufus Wainwright<\/a>, cameos on Top Of The Pops and more.<\/p>\n

The bassist announced a new memoir, Even The Good Girls Will Cry<\/a>, at the end of 2025, and it was released on March 17. It is described as a \u201cpart coming-of-age autobiography, part travel diary, part psychedelic scrapbook\u201d and will also feature rare photos from throughout her career.<\/p>\n

As for music and live shows, Hole\u2019s classic line-up \u2013with Auf Der Maur, Courtney Love<\/a>, Eric Erlandson and drummer Patty Schemel \u2013 has been on hiatus since 2002, but did return between 2009 and 2012 with some different members.<\/p>\n

Since then, Love has frequently teased and denied a possible full comeback, and earlier this month sparked fresh speculation by sharing a mysterious video online<\/a>. In that clip, Hole\u2019s 1998 hit \u2018Malibu\u2019 played in the background of a post featuring Auf der Maur, and in the caption, Love wrote: \u201cSo do we tell the kids about the tour?\u201d<\/p>\n

Later that week, Love clarified the meaning behind the teaser<\/a>, saying that there would be \u201cno Hole reunion\u201d, but instead she and Auf der Maur would be \u201cplaying some shows, new songs\u201d together. More details are expected to be announced shortly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melissa Auf der Maur has looked back at not being allowed to join Elastica, and said that it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[43726,156,20083,157,111,139,69,1629],"class_list":{"0":"post-355220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-britpop","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-grunge","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-rock"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}