Rolling Stone, December 1993 "COURTNEY LOVE BY KIM NEELY".

Thank you Amanda for Typing this article up for me!!

Courtney Love isn’t the type to shun notoriety, but for the past few years, the outspoken vocalist has been a household name for all the wrong reasons. Back in 1991, Love was simply known as a rising talent. But just as the momentum behind her band Hole was peaking, Love made what was, in hindsight, a fairly bad career move: She married Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Almost instantly, gossip about Love’s relationship with her superstar spouse overshadowed her career. The furor reached the boiling point in September 1992, when a now-infamous Vanity Fair article alleged that Love took heroin after she was pregnant with her daughter, Frances Bean - an accusation Love denies vehemently - causing a firestorm of controversy.

This year seems to have been more to Love’s liking. Frances Bean is now 15 months old and a rosy-cheeked charmer; motherhood clearly agrees with Love; and she and her band (guitarist Eric Erlandson, bassist Kirsten Pfaff and drummer Patty Schemel) are putting the finishing touches on their major-label debut, aptly titled Live Through This. Calling just before the start of a tour with the Lemonheads, Love was funny, impressively savvy and unfailingly direct.

What did 1993 represent for you?

Was Vanity Fair this year? No, that was last year. This year was good! It was about being leveled by something and finding a higher ground. It was about trying to find ideal songs in myself with the kind of competition I’m up against in my own house. This year has really been about growth. and I’m a mother, and it’s great. I don’t care if that’s a cliché. It really is great.

How has that changed you?

That’s such a personal question. There’s some kind of mother blood that just makes you want to buy firearms when you have a child. She’s like this perfection, this utter purity that’s uncorrupted by anything. and if somebody were to fuck with my child, I would not hesitate to kill them. I’ll answer anything, but on every level that that question operates, it’s just too personal. It’s too deep.

Ok. Let’s talk about the new album. How is it most different from “Pretty on the Inside”?

It’s so different that there should have been a record in between. I didn’t want a punk-rock record - I did that. So it’s very melodic, and there are a lot more harmonies. And you know, because our songwriting is so different, it’s hard to deal with. We played on Halloween, and all these weird purists showed up. Total fans, but every time we’d go into one of our pop songs, they’d start chanting, “Don’t do it! Sellout!” Girls were throwing riot grrrl zines at me and stuff. I was like “Uh, I’m really glad you’re here, girls, but check it out: I can write a bridge now.” I mean, I’m glad people don’t expect much from me, but I wish they had an inkling that I had an inkling of how to write.

You’ve taken a lot of flak in the press, but do you think that’s the case with fans?

This bugs me, because I can count on one hand the fallacious pieces that have been written about me. It isn’t “the press”. It was one article. It’s the result of one woman’s interpretation of my character, whatever her fucked-up agenda might have been.

But there has been a tendency for the press to focus more on your marriage than on your music, and there’ve been insinuations that you married Kurt to boost your career.

Well, that surprised me. There’s nothing in my past to indicate that I’ve gone out with anything but losers - that’s my pattern, anyway. So it was a nice surprise that my husband turned out to be successful, but it wasn’t something that I counted on.

The past few years have been uphill for you. Did any of that seep into the new lyrics?

This record is not as personal. You know, when women say, “Well, I play music, and it’s cathartic,” that applies to me to a degree, but I just wanted to write a good rock record. I would love to write a couple of great rock songs in my life, like Chrissie Hynde did. If you write something that will transcend a long period of time and make people feel a certain way, there’s really nothing like that.

It seems important to you to leave a mark.

Yeah, I mean, what was that Walt Whitman quote, about when you die, leaving a fertile patch of grass and a happy child? When you’re dying and your life is flashing before your eyes, you’re gonna be thinking about the great things that you did, the horrible things that you did and the emotional impact that someone had on you and that you had on someone else. Those are the things that are relevant. To have some sort of emotional impact that transcends your time, that’s great. As long as you don’t mess it up by being undignified when you’re old.

What do you think you’ll be like when you’re old?

I hope I’ll be dignified. I know I won’t be pathetically addicted to any kind of bullshit. I’d like to have a good brood of children and a good garden, and I’d like to grow great hybrid roses and have a lot of dogs and cats and have a goddamn nice house! I don’t think I want to be sitting on a porch drinking whiskey and singing the blues [laughs]. Knowing me, I’d probably end up at a bar, asking some guy to get me another martini. Still bleaching my hair at 59.

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