Melissa Auf der Maur has looked back at not being allowed to join Elastica, and said that it was “not cool” that she had to turn their offer down.
The Hole bassist recalled the offer during a new interview with NME as part of the Does Rock N’ Roll Kill Braincells?! series, 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.
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.
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, until Hole’s management intervened.
“It was a very cool offer, but not cool that I had to say no! We – women in rock – were rooting, and starving, for each other,” Auf der Maur told NME, going on to explain why Elastica stood out to her at the time.
“When Elastica came out with that British post-punk attitude combined with pop catchiness, they were an exciting anomaly,” she explained. “Everyone thinks the ‘90s is the time of women, but they didn’t all last and there wasn’t a lot.
“On that Lollapalooza bill, sure, there’s one female bass player in Sonic Youth [Kim Gordon] and a female bass player in Beck, but it was still a boy’s world. So Elastica was so exciting because they came in and replaced the queen of all warrior power, Sinéad O’Connor, who had left.”
When reminded that Sinéad O’Connor only agreed to play Lollapalooza because she was a fan of Hole, Auf der Maur said: “It takes one to know one, and those warrior goddesses [O’Connor and Love] were both misunderstood – and they knew it as it was happening.”
Check out the full NME interview here, where the bassist also talks about turning down a cameo in The Simpsons, working with Rufus Wainwright, cameos on Top Of The Pops and more.
The bassist announced a new memoir, Even The Good Girls Will Cry, at the end of 2025, and it was released on March 17. It is described as a “part coming-of-age autobiography, part travel diary, part psychedelic scrapbook” and will also feature rare photos from throughout her career.
As for music and live shows, Hole’s classic line-up –with Auf Der Maur, Courtney Love, Eric Erlandson and drummer Patty Schemel – has been on hiatus since 2002, but did return between 2009 and 2012 with some different members.
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. In that clip, Hole’s 1998 hit ‘Malibu’ played in the background of a post featuring Auf der Maur, and in the caption, Love wrote: “So do we tell the kids about the tour?”
Later that week, Love clarified the meaning behind the teaser, saying that there would be “no Hole reunion”, but instead she and Auf der Maur would be “playing some shows, new songs” together. More details are expected to be announced shortly.
