FLIPSIDE, ISSUE #68, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1990 Hole are: (l to r above) Eric - guitar Caroline - drums Jill - bass Courtney Love - guitar/vocals It hasn't taken Hole long to become a much anticipated attraction here in L.A. Their live sets are full of intesnity and release, a satisfying performance that keeps you coming back again and again. Hole are also long time scene veterans, and there's no way to avoid finding them on any day of the week, constantly flyering and promoting their work. I'm sure they won't stop until they've infected the entire planet. Interviewed at the Jabberjaw by Al and Gus photos by Al Gus: So tell us the Hole concept? Courtney: The Hole concept? Wow, that’s a pretty vague question to start off with! Gus: Okay, what version of the band is this one? Courtney: Me, I guess I did kinda start it with my neighbour girl. Then Eric came around and then the neighbour girl kinda went crazy. Then I found this guy who used to be in GG Allin’s band. And we got Caroline...it’s always been me, Eric and Caroline. Then Jill. So this is like the second version. I met Caroline at a Gwar show. Caroline: She walked up to me and said, "Do you play drums?" Courtney: Because she was watching Dee from L7. Perceptive of me, wasn’t it? Caroline: Yes, Courtney. Courtney: I moved here from another place, from another band that we don’t want to talk about [Faith No More], determined to start my own band. Not my band, but a band, a good band. Not a bad band as opposed to some bands I’ve been in. Then I found the most talented hot people that could make a good band. Al: Are you a native Californian? Caroline: Me and Eric are from San Pedro. Jill is from Covina. Al: Where are you from Courtney? Courtney: Portland, and San Francisco pretty much. Al: As far as this being the second Hole.... Caroline: That first band was a completely different band, it really was. It was a false hole. There were two other members that...the song writing completely changed from that point on. Eric: We’re a real group where everybody affects the band, it’s not just one person. Caroline: It’s not like one person’s mood swing affects the band... Courtney: THAT’S RIGHT! Ha ha... Al: What else makes this the real Hole? Courtney: Well, we all like Neil Young...and we all part out hair in the middle unless we have bangs. Al: Who makes up your flyers? Courtney: I’ve been making them, why? Al: I was wondering where you get a lot of the little quotes that you put on them? Courtney: Some of them are my little poems, some are like the last one was a Henry Miller thing, different stuff. Al: Is that inspiration for lyrics as well? Courtney: One thing about this band is that we are heavily into lyrics. That is the most important thing to me. I used to be in a band that is now a gigantic heavy metal band, who shall go nameless. I used to write lyrics for that band when I was 16 and they wouldn’t even look at them. That was bogus. Lyrics are important. I think you should have something to say. Al: Is there a general theme that runs through them? Courtney: I’ve been writing most of the lyrics - I wouldn’t feel very comfortable singing somebody else’s lyrics unless they are by Fleetwood Mac, but basically...I don’t write about guys or anything... Caroline: They seem to be personal, or sometimes traumatic experiences. Courtney: Deep emotional lies. You know when you have a lot of angst, you tend to think that your angst is a very special angst and you give up of your angst. Gus: Do you all write the music? Courtney: Yes, the last song we wrote we all wrote, the song before that two of us wrote. Eric: In the beginning Courtney and I would write most of the music and the words, and since Jill has been in the band we’ve been jamming more and... Courtney: The ball is rolling, the community, the unity is there. Al: What are some new songs that you’ve been writing? Courtney: We just wrote a song called "Dick Nail." It’s about different kinds of, it’s an anti-misogynism anthem. It has averse about incest, it has a verse about - okay, it’s a male-bashing song! No, it’s not... Caroline: It sounds like the rationale for a gang bang sometimes, the excuses... Courtney: The words to the song are very simple, they’re like, you know in rape cases how people say "she liked it" or "she was asking for it" or "look at how she was dressed." A lot of times in rape cases people don’t even go to jail because the woman was wearing a fucking miniskirt! Caroline: They’re exactly like the witch trials, you have to prove that you are completely, immaculately, virginly pure or else you are asking for it. Al: What’s another song... Courtney: I wrote a song about my best friend. We write songs about each other. Al: But we can’t know who it’s about, right? Courtney: No! Because it’s like in the context of our band - we have a press kit, 5 little pieces of press and each one of them mentions Sonic Youth, or another band, or... I think it’s a bad thing to continue that, name dropping, being associated with other bands. As if there’s not room for enough - I want every fucking girl in the world to pick up a guitar and start screaming. I’m totally fucking into it. I’m not into the competition, or calling it menstrual grunge, or saying there’s this influx of bands with pissed-off girls in them because now there’s five of them. Okay, all of a sudden there’s an influx, there’s too many when there’s 8000 bands with guys screaming. But that’s fine. Jill: It’s still like if it’s a girl then they’ve got to say it, like why do you have to say it’s a girl or a guy? They have to sell that "girl" thing... Courtney: Fuck that girl thing! Eric: I wasn’t searching out to play with just girls. Courtney: I don’t go out to look for just girls, you try going to English Acid and going up to a guy in leather pants and saying, "Will you drum in a band with me?" They fucking laugh at you. So transcend the whole experience of the feminine aspect. I read this in a Limey paper, I thought it was a really good quote about how men have to dress up like women to sing really emotional issues in heavy metal. Like what is Poison? They’re drag queens, they dress up like women therefore they get to confront emotional issues. The whole feminization of men in heavy metal speaks for itself. Well scratch that because we want to transcend this whole "chick" thing. Fuck this chick thing. The whole thing with music is that it is cathartic, and if it wasn’t cathartic then I wouldn’t want to play it. When I was a teenager and I was in different bands it wasn’t as cathartic for me, but now shit travels through me and out of me, for me, and I think for all of us - shit travels out of us and into you. And that makes us feel better about our shit because we can share it. Al: So for someone who has never seen you, what kind of shit are you sharing? Courtney: Okay, like "Retard Girl," that’s our single. It’s about getting picked on in school, anyone who’s ever been picked on in a big way, or a small way. I just got this vibe one day about how when I was in school I was really shy and sort of picked on, and I swore that I would never pick on people who were picked on. I pick on people that nobody else picks on. People think that song is making fun of some retarded girl but it’s about me! About that feeling of alienation. I was so quiet. I was the quietest person and I got picked on but I CHANGED MY WAYS! Eric: We’re all little misfits... Al: The single is out with Sympathy, right? Courtney: Yes. Sympathy for the Record Industry is the coolest record label in America! What I really like about Sympathy is the guy that runs it, John, is totally sincere and totally honest in his dealings, and is unambitious. He says when he has to get someone to answer the phones then he’s quitting. That’s a weird level to deal with because when you live in Hollywood you have to deal with schmucky insincere people - it’s really refreshing. He never questions the gender for a second or even talks about it. Al: Will we see more vinyl in the near future? Courtney: We’re doing another single. We’re doing a cover of "Both Sides Now" and "Dick Nail" and a song called "Sweet Crystal Powered By God" which was inspired by Don Bolles. There was this biker cover band in Calavaras County called Sweet Crystal and their singer got saved by Jesus, so they changed their name to Sweet Crystal Powered By God. But that’s not what the song is about, it’s about a girl who goes on a murder rampage. Al: Let’s talk about your name and how it sums up what you’re all about? Courtney: Okay, the name, it came from my mom. She’s like a therapist and I said "I had a really fucked childhood" and she said "Well, Courtney, you can’t walk around with a big hole inside yourself about it." Then I realized that a lot of different kinds of anger and stuff came from my hole, this hole that needs to be fed - that angst inside a person is like their hole...Like when you feel that human emptiness and you have to feed it...We’re trying not to be obscene, we’re trying not to be gross. We’re trying not to be anything, we’re just a vapor of fucking hell that passes through your hole and out the other side, and if it leaves a fucking impression then it’s fucking great. Al: When you were a kid was there any traumatic situation that may have led you to be in a rock band? Courtney: Start with day one and keep going. The exact moment of my birth and onward. I had a guitar from the beginning and I always wanted to be in a band. The whole concept of life just hit me one day. Jill: I met this hippie that had a bass and I didn’t know much about hippies. I was into punk rock at the time. Now I’m a hippie. I sold my 10 speed and got this bass and fell in love, and it’s the only thing that I know and want to do, and I’ll probably be in a jazz band doing comedy when I’m sixty. Eric: It was a combination of two experiences. One was waking up one morning in some pantyhose and having my mom look at me with this disgusting look - being disgusted that I was even alive, disgusted that I would do such a thing to myself during the night on top of my bunk bed without my little brother even knowing it. It was a combination of that and walking on the beach one day down in San Pedro, walking along the tide pools and I found a dead body. I thought they were filming a movie, it was this body which was pure white, it had been thrashed around for a few days in the water, hitting the rocks. I walked up close to it and "oh my God!" Al: And that made you pick up the guitar? Eric: Yeah, that and the pantyhose thing, then I saw Kiss and saw Aerosmith and it was all over. I don’t know. I had to be a rock star. Caroline: I didn’t start talking until I was 4 or 5 years old because my sister did all the talking. I didn’t want people to see me talk because I thought my mouth looked real funny. Then I thought I was a ghost that was invisible, but I was also 5’10" in sixth grade, so that really didn’t cut it. But to this day I’ve always had the power to be invisible. I can completely avoid cops. I can be drinking, doing 75 miles an hour in the fast lane, and cops will pull beside me, look at me, and keep going. It’s really weird. So I always thought I was a ghost. I also always thought I was ignored so badly that I wanted attention. I wanted to affect people. Then I saw Karen Carpenter play drums on TV and I was so impressed that it was for me. Then on a cruise ship to Catalina there was this band called the Icebreakers on the cruise ship, and they were whacking coconuts and had Hawaiian shirts and were acting really silly and they had a girl drummer. So after that I knew I had to play drums and it went from there. Al: Were you in a band before this one? Caroline: Yeah, I was in the Omelettes. I replaced Janet from the Love Dolls. Courtney: Pat Smear turned me onto the Carpenters. Karen has a really pure and beautiful voice and it soothed all of America for almost a decade. But Stevie and Lindsey really represent the true California sound that we are looking for. Al: You were in some other bands too, right, Jill? Jill: Yeah, I played with the Superheoines and I played with Sylvia Juncosa. Courtney: Me and Jennifer from L7 and Kat from Babes in Toyland had a band together that was chee-zee! Cheezee! It was fucking chamber music! It was hysterical. If the tapes ever come out I’ll kill myself. I was in...a couple of other bands...The general consensus of this band is that Mary lied about Jesus. Al: In what respect? Courtney: Weeee are prettttty sure... that it wasn’t immaculate conception. - - - - - - - - - - - - -