Venue: Later with Jools Holland
Location: London, England
Hole Lineup: Courtney Love (Guitar/Vocals), Eric Erlandson (Guitar), Melissa Auf der Maur (Bass/Background Vocals), and Patty Schemel (Drums).
This transcript includes Courtney’s interview with Jools Holland.
JH: We’re very fortunate indeed, because all the way from Seattle, they will be opening the show. I give you, Hole, ladies and gentlemen!
Courtney is sitting on Patty’s drum riser. She gets up and walks to the mic.
CL: Now? Oh, you mean this second. Alright, I’m sorry! Alright.
-DOLL PARTS
Courtney goes back to Patty’s drum riser and sits down again.
JH: ?? ladies and gentlemen. Hole will be back for more a little bit later and I shall be talking to Courtney Love for the first time on British television a little bit later.
(Break)
JH: Thank you very much to The Mavericks. Now I’m very fortunate that we have Courtney Love with us. Courtney, it’s very good to have you on the show. The first question, I love your group, where does the name Hole come from?
CL: Um, well, it doesn’t come from the obvious source. Actually, it’s English 101, Euripides Medea, uh, when she, uh, when she kills the bride and her own child…
JH: Uh huh. Yep.
CL: She says, uh, in the Norton’s Anthology, ’cause The New York Times research said she says ‘There’s the hole that pierces my soul’, but my mother’s this kind of crap new age…well, my mother, excuse me…my mother’s this new age psychologist and she said, I said, you know what, I had this terrible childhood and she said, ‘Well, you can’t have a hole running through you all the time, Courtney.’
JH: Hole. Thus, Hole. The hole in the spirit.
CL: Yeah and then, you know, the, uh, the genital reference, you know, go ahead and…
JH: Make it if you will.
CL: If you want. Yeah, I don’t care.
JH: Now, I read that you first got into music because of the music…the English music you heard at reform school, is that true?
CL: Yeah. Well, yeah, this guy had, it was an intern, he came back from Britain and he brought me a Squeeze record (Laughs).
JH: Not very hard.
CL: And uh, and uh, a Sex Pistols record and uh, a Pretenders record.
JH: And what ones got played?
CL: Well, actually I liked, uh, I didn’t…The Sex Pistols scared me, so it’s Pretenders and Squeeze.
JH: Yeah, cool. That’s the correct answer.
CL: Well, I’m not trying to kiss your butt, I’m just telling you! I didn’t know.
JH: No, no, no, I was in…??
CL: I didn’t know, you know, what was, like, you know, it was like hip to be Johnny Rotten or something.
JH: Neither did we. It was a mystery to us. It’s a complete mystery to us now. I think in a moment we’re going to see a clip of the bands you liked, but when did you first come to England?
CL: In 1981, uh, or around 1982. I was fourteen a half, turning fifteen.
JH: And why did you come over?
CL: Um, well, uh, I have this real father who’s an insane person, but he claimed that he was um, doing lectures at Trinity when really he was doing talk shows about The Grateful Dead, who he managed for about a minute. So he said that he could get me into Trinity in Dublin, so I took two, audited two semesters there and I started taking photos for Hot Press and I met uh, Julian Cope one night and uh, and uh, and uh…these crazy things happened and he said ‘Come live at my house’ and he gave me the keys.
JH: Nice man.
CL: Kind of a crazy, nice man. A wonderful man. No, I truly love him.
JH: We haven’t got any footage of him, but we have got some footage of a band that you do like…
CL: It’s my roommate actually, Pete Defreitas from the Bunnymen, who’s gone from this plane and he’s probably much happier…I don’t think this plane’s too happy…and, um, and, uh he was my roommate.
JH: Well, have a look at this and see what you think. This is Echo & the Bunnymen in 1981.
A clip of Echo & the Bunnymen is played.
JH: I liked that. Ian McCulloch is great, isn’t he? What is it that you loved about him?
CL: Well, he hated me, but he likes me now, ’cause uh, ’cause uh, ’cause I kiss their butts so much. Um, we were in the car, me and Kurt, my husband, and um, The Back of Love was on the radio and he goes ‘God, this music you liked, it was so romantic’ and then all of a sudden he got really into it and uh, and I played him like Psychedelic Furs and Teardrop and the Bunnymen and he’d been weaned on sort of Black Flag and Black Sabbath and stuff and he got very into it.
JH: It was an eye opener for him, so to speak.
CL: Very much. Very much so – and I think that, you know, having seen them about 8,000 times and Nirvana about 90,000 times.
JH: Did you learn anything from them? Did you?
CL: Abso…everything, I ripped off every stage move from him and Julian and Kurt, pretty much.
JH: That’s very good. Now, you’ve, uh…your next LP, let me just ask you this, before we move on. Your next LP, I read that you’d thought up, you’d thought up a title, now tell me what it was?
CL: Celebrity Skin.
JH: Celebrity Skin. Tell me about that.
CL: ‘Cause I touched a lot of it.
JH: Yeah.
Courtney touches him.
JH: That’s my coat.
CL: Oh.
JH: Well, in that case, and what…tell me what Celebrity…tell me about Celebrity Skin…I read…there was something I read about…
CL: Well, there was this real loser band in L.A. called Celebrity Skin. They were, like, totally horrifying, and then there’s this magazine called Celebrity Skin, it’s like a nudie magazine of, uh, famous people that have, like, maybe a nipple out or you know, something else out…women generally, no women exclusively, and it’s a bootleg, so I could have the name. The other one was Use Once & Destroy, but uh, that was just applying to one sick relationship that was quite quick, so I decided to forget about that.
JH: Well, let’s, uh, move along then, I think, and thank you very much for coming. You’re gonna do some more at the end, the big finish, which we’re looking forward to, now then, we’ll have you right out in a minute, but in the mean time…
CL: Alright, Jools.
JH: Look, I’m back to literally reality.
CL: You damn fool, you.
JH: Oh, you call me that, but I like that – and now a link to reality, because it is reality. The camera’s there and please welcome, with the song, Reality, Dionne Farris.
(Break)
JH: We cast our minds back to 1962. The Crystals recorded a Goffin and King song called, When He Hit Me, It Felt Like a Kiss. Phil Spector thought that was a bit too racy and a bit too provocative perhaps for the time. Hole do not feel the same and they’re now going to perform it for us. Please welcome, Hole, ladies and gentlemen!
CL: We dedicate this song to, uh, Marianne and uh, Julian and, uh, his family, and uh, Mary Shelley can go to hell.
-HE HIT ME (AND IT FELT LIKE A KISS)
JH: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Hole. Fantastic. And I think that almost…that almost brings us…fantastic. That almost brings us to end of this, ?? who knows what else, but now this week, let’s finish, uh, where we started. Please welcome, to finish off the show, Hole, ladies and gentlemen.
CL: This is a song about a jerk. I hexed him and now he’s losing his hair.
-VIOLET/TOUCH THE SKY
The closing credits play over the end of the song.