A conversation with Courtney Love from 2013

The alt-rock icon shares her thoughts on aging, rap music, and playing cover-band gigs for tech bros

Oct 17, 2024

Welcome to stübermania, where I dig into my box of dust-covered interview cassettes from the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s to present bygone conversations with your favourite alterna/indie semi-stars. This is a newsletter in three parts: The Openers (links to recent writings, playlist updates, and/or other musical musings), The Headliner (your featured interview of the week), and Encores (random yet related links).

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THE OPENERS

Notes on this week’s additions to the stübermania 2024 playlist:
- Panda Bear & Cindy Lee, “Defense”: Two modern masters of transmuting classic pop sounds into alien frequencies team up for a… shockingly straight-forward sing-along that, with a little less reverb and a little more distortion, could almost pass for a quality Weezer jam.
- Sunnsetter, “I ACTUALLY DON’T WANNA DIE”: Andrew McLeod’s mercurial project can veer wildly from wood-cabin folk rock to interstellar noise, but this single from the upcoming Heaven Hang Over Me (out Nov. 15), sways gently between those two extremes, wrapping its raw, scab-picking lyricism in stargazing guitars like a space-bound Bright Eyes.
- Christopher Owens, “This Is My Guitar”: The new album from the former Girls frontman (I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair, out tomorrow) is shaping up to be the indie comeback story of the year, and while his turbulent recent history pushes the concept of “suffering for your art” to uncomfortable extremes, I can’t think of any other artist this side of Elliott Smith who’s been so adept at processing a world of pain into pure pop beauty.
- Chat Pile, “Masc”: The Oklahoma City sludgemongers embrace melody and groove without diminishing their essential uglienss, harking back to that brief mid-’90s golden age when the post-Nirvana major-label spoils trickled down to the bellicose likes of Helmet, Melvins and Steel Pole Bathtub.
- Lambrini Girls, “Big Dick Energy”: Gives the term “cock rock” a whole new meaning.

Click here for the Apple Music version.

THE HEADLINER:
A conversation with Courtney Love

The date: July 10, 2013

Location: Phoner—I was at the Eye Weekly office in Toronto; Courtney was in New York

Album being promoted: None.

The context: This interview for Eye Weekly was held a week before the Toronto date of Courtney’s 2013 summer tour, which was intended to be a prelude to a new solo album and a memoir scheduled for release later that year. It was one of those highly regimented 10-minute phoners where the publicist came in exactly at the 9:59 mark to kick me off the call, but I feel like I got a lifetime supply of Courtneyosity—the salty hot takes, the rapid-fire namedrops, the encyclopedic music knowledge—out of the conversation. This interview happened the day after Courtney’s 49th birthday, so the obvious first question was…

How did you celebrate your birthday?

I went to The Carlye with somebody I’m dating, I went to the Met, I went to the Punk: Chaos to Couture show, which was weird, and then I went to work at the studio and then I went out to my friend’s nightclub and had a small cake, because I’m trying to lose weight.

Do birthdays mean a lot to you, or do you adhere to the Seinfeld philosophy that they just mean you haven’t died in the past 12 months?

I don’t even like them—I mean, other people’s, yes. I don’t really make a big thing out of mine. And now that Frances is 21, I don’t really have to make a big deal about her Christmas anymore. Holidays aren’t my bag. I like Halloween.

Does the thought of turning 50 excite you or mortify you?

I’m not mortified about it! I look really good for my age, and I know it. It’s irrelevant to me.

So this tour is called the “I’m Still Alive” tour…

No, I said that to [Rolling Stone reporter] Steve Baltin, who I’ve known for a million years, and then he dubbed it that. I did not call it that, that’s not its official name. I think it’s cute, it’s funny, but no, that’s not what’s on the itinerary by any means. It’s just a small tour that we booked under the premise that we were going to have to this single out at this time, but then I really thought about it, and since my book is coming out at Christmas on HarperCollins, and they’re making a big deal out of it, it’s a really good time for the record company to put the record out then.

Who’s putting out the record?

I don’t want to say, but I will say that there’s one label that, out of the four alternative records that have been No. 1 records in the States this year—which are Fall Out Boy, Queens of the Stone Age, Vampire Weekend, and another one—they have three of those. They really know what they’re doing. It’s a consortium of a lot of indies that were purchased by one person, or by one company… I have talked to Universal, and I have talked to Warner Brothers, but I really don’t see the point, at this point, right now. I’ve only had two Top 40 crossover songs, and neither have been No. 1, and I’m not in No Doubt, so I’m still alternative rock, and that’s the genre that people tend to put me in.

How do you feel now that the lines between indie rock and mainstream pop have become more blurred?

I don’t really care about that as much as I care about the fact that rap… there hasn’t been a correction. It’s just gotten so, so, so much bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger—it’s like, at some point, I thought, “Well, there has to be a correction here—there has to be a wave of this, and then it’ll calm down.” Pop is fine, I like pop, it’s whatever, it’s always been there. But with rap, it’s just like, “For god’s sake, you guys, really you’ve had your day in the sun now for 20 years—move over!”

Some rappers might argue that rock ‘n’ rollers had their day in the sun for 30 years before them...

I think that’s a really weak argument! Because rap isn’t rock ‘n’ roll; it’s actually the opposite. It expresses certain things. On paper, I like it; in real life, though… I have a lot of rapper friends. I’m great friends with Russell Simmons, I’m okay friends with Jay-Z, I think Kanye’s kind of a giggler… I’m friends with Eve. But at the same time, “It’s like, god, you guys: really? Wow…” I don’t get it. But that’s fine.

What did you think of the Jay-Z/JT song that quotes “Smells Like Teen Spirit”?

It was fine. He paid enough for it.

When Celebrity Skin came out, you described it was part Rumours, part Hex Enduction Hour. What’s the magic formula for the new record?

I’d say, right now, it’s part Stooges, part Fleetwood Mac—that’s always there—and maybe a little bit part Exile on Main Street. I haven’t figured out the formula yet. I haven’t heard everything mixed either. It’s very dirty, yeah.

I heard you wrote this album in the Hamptons…

I just wrote two songs in Montauk, which isn’t really the Hamptons—it’s the cool part of the Hamptons.

So it’s the Williamsburg of the Hamptons?

Yes, if you will. Really, actually. But it’s beautiful, it’s really nice. It’s the Malibu of the Hamptons, with more hippies. Rich hippies.

What was the impetus for writing your memoir now?

It’s been on and off for four years. I made the deal four years ago, but I wanted it out at Christmas, because what I’m willing to talk about in it is fine. I have a co-writer now, so I’m not doing it all completely on my own. The book that I think I get the most inspiration from is not really that highbrow, it’s actually middle-brow, which is Russell Brand’s My Booky Wook—I think that’s great, whether it was ghosted or not. This isn’t ghosted, I have a co-writer whose name will probably be on it—this is the deal I made—but I can barely get through Keith’s book, I’ve never finished it. It’s not every single thing, but it’s a lot.

What cover songs are you doing on this tour?

It changes, because I get bored of covers really quick. I did a Leonard Cohen cover the other night. I did a weird Stones cover that was kind of industrial the other night. I did “Kerosene,” this Big Black cover the other night that I made much shorter. I did a Birthday Party cover the other night, I did a Nick Cave cover the other night… it just depends on my mood.

So you’re getting back to your ‘80s post-punk roots.

That seems to be my pattern, I suppose. I don’t think I’ll be doing any PJ Harvey or Breeders covers—that would be ridiculous. I did “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue”—the Chocolate Watchband version, which I haven’t done in 10 years—the other night. It just depends… ‘60s punk—that’s what I like the most.

Does playing covers fuel your own songwriting?

Always. Because I give it my own touch. I would never do a cover immaculately. There’s this band that Dave Navarro and Matt Sorum are in sometimes called Camp Freddy, and they do all these corporate gigs and when they play, they play the songs absolutely impeccably. Sometimes I play with them, and I just sing “Sympathy for the Devil” or “All the Young Dudes,” and it’s exact—which I would never, ever do. They make a fortune doing that, those corporate gigs. And I’ve actually done two corporate gigs now, and it’s a really good way to make money, but you’re looking at, like, some guy who invented some app, and the models he hired to come to his party. It’s just lonely tech guys. It’s cute.

That’s the future of rock ‘n’ roll in 2013?

We’re certainly not making any money from royalties. We have to think of other ways to pay our rent. Or some people have mortgages. I have rent.

ENCORES

So it’s been over 11 years since I did this interview, and that new solo record Courtney was talking about still hasn’t come out. Around this time last year, Courtney turned up on TikTok to post some snippets of new songs, suggesting the album’s release was imminent, but her account has since gone dark.
The aforementioned memoir has also yet to see the light of day. In the summer of 2022, Courtney took to Instagram to declare she had completed it after a decade of writing, however, it appears she’s deleted that account, too.