"Courtney's not a solo artist, she's a member of a band. I'm definitely here to prove that, because I've been here with her the whole time!" Some people would baulk at the prospect of being in the same room as Courtney Love, America's biggest bad girl of Rock - let alone operate in a band with her.
Guitarist Eric Erlandson does it every day. He and Love formed Hole together six years ago. The soft-spoken, gangly Los Angeles dweller is a man of mystery, but this is not through his own elusiveness. Let's face it - Erlandson, bassist Melissa Auf der Maur and drummer Patty Schemel could shag farm animals in the middle of Trafalgar Square while juggling human heads, and Hole fans would probably come up and ask them where Courtney is.
This is a shame, because Hole are a very good band and Erlandson ain't no opinion-starved puppet. He has a big hand in the song-writing. Remember that? The music?!
Considering the traumatic hurdles that Hole have jumped in the last three years, including the heroin OD death of bassist Kristen Pfaff, he also sounds pretty well composed. The title of last year's album 'Live Through This' could not have been more prophetic...
Erlandson grew up in a large Catholic family, the second youngest of seven kids. "I was very anti-Hendrix and anti-Beatles," he smiles, "because all of my brothers and sisters were hippies from the late '60's or '70's. I rebelled against them, as you do when you're a kid." Erlandson's now a Buddhist, along with Love. They meditate together occasionally. But did young Eric end up riddled with the usual Catholic guilt? "Yeah, a little, but I was lucky to have parents who weren't too severe. They never told me I'd go to Hell if I masturbated!"
Erlandson's musical tastes began with the '70's Pop, mainly because his siblings hated ABBA. He was then drawn to the "sex and swagger" of Hard Rock, grabbing a guitar when he was 13. One of Erlandson's faves were Kiss - yet when Hole formed years later, they claimed to be a reaction to Cock Rock. "Yeah," he nods, "but by that time, everyone realized that Kiss was just a joke! When you were a kid it was like, 'Oh wow! Big Rock stars!'. But I soon realized that I was more interested in lyrics with deeper meaning than just 'party all night'."
Erlandson went through a Prog Rock period and he confesses to smoking too much pot then before tuning into underground noise like Sonic Youth and Big Black. In the late '80's, he started looking for bandmates. "I knew I wanted to play with a female singer. Everything else seemed stale at the time. It was just 'hair' bands in LA, and I'd already gone through that period!" He met Courtney Love through newspaper ads in the summer of '89, while working for Capitol Records. "My ad said I was looking for people into Big Black, The Butthole Surfers...anything I could think of that would throw people off. I ended up meeting everyone in LA who had heard those bands! Finally I saw this one ad that Courtney placed. She threw something like ABBA in there, alongside Fleetwood Mac and The Stooges, Sonic Youth...I called her, then she called me back and talked my ear off! We met at a restaurant and I knew right away it was her, even though I didn't know anything about her past career in film (Love had small roles in 'Straight To Hell' and 'Sid & Nancy'). I felt her presence. I thought she might just be another one of these people in LA who was just a big talker," he admits. "But I decided to stick it out because I liked her voice."
"We rehearsed about a month later. It was Courtney and her next door neighbor Lisa on bass, with no drummer. I stood there playing whatever noise I could think of, and they were strumming their guitars, screaming at the top of their lungs. I thought 'Wow, this is gonna be interesting!'." Love and Erlandson had a lot in common. "We definitely related on a guitar level, but she was also fighting the snobbery of the Indie scene. In Minneapolis you had to be cool and like Big Black. You had to know the title of every Sonic Youth song! We were into these bands, but we hated the Indie idea that you couldn't do anything mainstream. At first, we couldn't get shows because no one would take us seriously. So we started reacting to that, saying, 'Fuck that shit, we can be as big as any Indie band!'." It was Love who provided the band's name. "I always thought it would get in the way," Erlandson recalls. "At the time, 'Hole' had sexual undertones. But Courtney had the name right from the beginning, and she was determined to use it."
Hole's first gig came swiftly, to say the least: "Courtney always jumps ahead and books everything in advance. We only had three songs! At the time, we had three guitar players, which was an idea we were stuck on for a while. It was...really raw, that's all I can say!" It's obvious unusual for one male to be among females in a band...
"At the time it was, but now it's not at all. There's the Breeders, Elastica, Bikini Kill...there's a lot more 'mixed' bands now. Actually, the novelty of it was a hindrance. To me, it wasn't any big deal. I related to those three women more than if they'd been three guys, probably. I liked the way they played differently to guys. Every time we played a show, guys'd come up and make a big deal about it, or pull me to one side, thinking I was the manager! They'd say a lot of sexist stuff." How many times were you asked if you were sleeping with Courtney?
"Never!" he chuckles. "And that's funny because Courtney and I did go out for a year and a half! It's weird that nobody asked, but we kept it pretty tight. Courtney usually got asked if she'd slept with the head of the Sub Pop (Hole's second record label)! Like, did we get the deal because she fucked him or sucked him, or something?! If it was an all-guy band, no one would have asked if our success was based on how many people I'd boned!" Luckily, Erlandson and Love remained friends after they ceased to be an item. "We're a rare breed! I don't recommend for anybody to go out with someone they're in a band with, but it's one of those things that just happens sometimes. You work together and end up sleeping together. It's a part of life, but the problem is that continuing afterwards is really, really hard. We both hate and love each other now, because we know each other so well. If my ego had got in the way when Courtney met Kurt, we wouldn't have lasted."
Ah yes, when Courtney Love met Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain. Their marriage in February '92 forged the most fascinating rock 'n' roll couple since, well, Sid 'n' Nancy. The media circus began and still hasn't stopped. Probably never will. Recall Erlandson: "When we first started working on this last album, the circus had definitely gotten out of hand. It was frustrating, but I ignored it as much as I could. I was just concentrating on writing songs." In '92, Hole signed a hefty deal with Geffen Records, the home of Nirvana. "This was the time when 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was blowing up," reminds Erlandson. "All these bands from the Indie world started getting signed. Things were kinda crazy, and I was worried it was all gonna fall apart. Our bass player and drummer left, so it was just me and Courtney again." At least, until Patty Schemel and Kristen Pfaff came onto the scene, in early '93.
"I'd been handling the auditions because Courtney was pregnant, although she was still rehearsing. Right after she had the baby (Frances Bean Cobain) we started rehearsing again and wrote some more songs. Everything came together when we found Kristen. Up until then, the media just revolved around Kurt and Courtney, and the band got put aside. I was really pushing hard for us to go in the studio to make a good album and be a band again."
There are those, of course, who reckon Hole were signed on the back of Nirvana. "Every band got signed on the back of the Nirvana connection!" defends Erlandson. "But if we didn't have any songs, and if we hadn't been working our asses off for three years before already, we wouldn't have got signed. No way! We had our own following, and our first album ('Pretty On The Inside', '91) had sold as well as Nirvana's first ('Bleach'). We had our own thing going, and we would've been signed, whether Kurt and Courtney were going out or not. Before they even started, we were already heading in that direction. But it was obviously an added bonus for Geffen. Like, 'Kurt's Wife's Band'!"
Courtney Love is often seen as a shameless attention-seeker. There are rumors that she even starts a lot of Courtney Love rumors herself. Does she really hunger for media coverage, or was she swept into all this unwittingly? "It's a bit of both," considers Erlandson. "She's a personality with things to say - and everybody wants to hear, even if it's a load of crap! She definitely is a media voyeur, though. She watches everything, and attracts a lot of stuff herself. Everybody's different. Some people are obsessed with being a celebrity and some aren't." Is Courtney obsessed? "No, I don't think so, but she is interested in the media machinery. A lot of people want fame, but usually it destroys them, unless they learn how to deal with it. I've been around Courtney in her personal and band lives long enough to know that fame is something you should want! All of a sudden, you're not free anymore."
How does Erlandson handle celebrity? "I don't feel that I'm any different, as long as I concentrate on the fact that I work in this band, and that's the only reason why anybody wants to talk to me! That brings you back down to earth. I want to be successful - I'm not afraid to admit that. But I also like to go out and be normal."
After Kurt Cobain was found dead on April 8 last year, Hole wasted little time in continuing. Erlandson: "A lot of people thought it was crass of us to go back out on tour so soon after Kurt, but it was really the only thing to do. We had to plunge straight back in and get on with it." Nine weeks later, Kristen Pfaff died of a heroin overdose - a drug long connected with Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain. There's not a lot Erlandson can say on the subject, besides, "I guess several of the big bands had their own tragedies. The Beatles, The Stones...not that I'm trying to compare us to them." What's his stance on drugs? "I don't have one," he shrugs. "I'm just against abuse of any drug, which remember also means caffeine and cigarettes. Love suffered an overdose in June - allegedly caused by medication. Ask if Courtney is free of heroin these days, and he'll politely tell you it's her own business. He's evasive on the subject of a ruck at the beginning of America's Lollapalooza festival. Courtney allegedly punched Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna in the face. "That was all blown out of proportion," Erlandson claims. "There was just a bit of tension at the start of the tour. Everything's fine now. Everyone's getting along again." Why the bad feeling? Erlandson ain't saying. So has he ever wanted to quit all this mayhem and form a bar band? "Sure!" he laughs. "A few times. But when Hole play clubs I get a taste of that anyway."
On August 25, Hole will play the Reading Festival - an event with a special place in Erlandson's heart. Expect more news-worthy rucks - maybe between Love and Mudhoney, or Love and ex-boyfriend Billy Corgan of Reading headliners Smashing Pumpkins! "Finally now, after us touring for a year, I think the focus has finally started to shift to the music and the band," says Erlandson rather optimistically. "Other stuff besides Courtney's attraction! I hope we're over the worst, anyway." Does Eric Erlandson really believe that Hole can settle down and become 'just' a band?
"It's possible..." he begins. Then a pause. Reality bites. "Then again, maybe not!"