A conversation with Melissa Auf der Maur about Ozzy Osbourne from 2002
Remembering Ozzy by remembering a time when the Hole/Smashing Pumpkins bass queen proved her metal mettle by fronting a Black Sabbath tribute band
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 (and the occasional classic-rock icon). 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
It’s hard to imagine a world without Ozzy Osbourne in it, but here we are. Even though Black Sabbath were the heaviest band of their era and still crush massively to this day, the thing that always set them apart for me is the fear and vulnerability embedded in Ozzy’s voice—he always sounded like someone who was as traumatized being in Black Sabbath as we were listening to them. (“Paranoid” may be a perennial Camaro-revving classic, but who else was singing about mental health like that in 1970?) My go-to Ozzy jam is this beast from 1975’s still-underrated Sabotage, the album that marked the beginning of the end of the band’s imperial phase, but Ozzy still had enough left in the tank to deliver an all-timer performance:
For more on Ozzy, we aired this in-depth Ozzy eulogy on Commotion with Danko Jones, Melissa Vincent, Niko Stratis, and guest host Eli Glasner paying their respects:
Also at Commotion, I produced this segment on Steve Miller cancelling his summer tour due to extreme-heat concerns, Bonnaroo’s flood-mitigation efforts after getting washed out last month, and the existential threat of climate change on the outdoor-concert industry, featuring commentary from Variety’s Jem Aswad (beginning at the 12:42 mark):
Notes on this week’s additions to the stübermania 2025 jukebox:
Cory Hanson, “On the Rocks”: Don’t sleep on the Wand frontman’s new solo record, I Love People (out today), a sublime, sundazed collection of elegantly wasted piano ballads and countrified power-pop. This standout falls firmly in the latter camp—if your favourite Sloan song is “The Lines You Amend,” there’s an empty barstool here with your name on it. (Read my Apple Music notes on the album here.)
Fortunato Durutti Marinetti, “A Perfect Pair”: Another album out today worthy of your undivided attention is Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter, the fourth release from this Turin-born/Toronto-based art-pop auteur. I’ll have a lot more to say about this album in a soon-to-be-published review; for now, you can luxuriate in its most irresistible single, which suggests Yo La Tengo cutting an ‘80s sophistipop record.
No Joy, “My Crud Princess”: The queen of kitchen-sink shoegaze offers another transcendental teaser from Bugland (out Aug. 8) that strikes the perfect balance of hazy and hooky.
The Dirty Nil, “Rock N’ Roll Band”: In which the Dundas, Ontario lifers dispense invaluable advice to aspiring garage bands everywhere—spare yourself a lifetime of misery and quit now. (The band’s fifth album, The Lash, is out today.)
WondaGurl and late year, “SERENDIPITY”: I’m not sure what’s more surprising: The fact that Brampton’s most decorated beatmaker—who counts Jay-Z, Drake, and Rihanna as clients—hadn’t released her own artist album until today, or that some of its tracks (like this collab with L.A. duo late year) would sound right at home on a Leaf Label laptop-tronica compilation from 2002.
THE HEADLINER:
A conversation with Melissa Auf der Maur
The date: June 17, 2002
Publication: Eye Weekly
Location: I was at the Eye Weekly office in Toronto; Melissa was calling in from New York City
Project being promoted: Auf der Maur’s Black Sabbath tribute band, Hand of Doom
The context: I never got to interview Ozzy Osbourne, but I have interviewed someone who’s sung numerous Black Sabbath songs in front of paying crowds. In the period between leaving the Smashing Pumpkins in 2000 and releasing her debut solo album in 2004, Montreal alt-rock bass icon Melissa Auf der Maur trained herself for the role of frontwoman by playing the auburn-haired Ozzy in a Black Sabbath tribute band called Hand of Doom, whose repertoire stuck primarily to the early-‘70s oeuvre (with the occasional cloven-hoof dip into the Dio era).
I’m resurfacing this interview now for obvious reasons, and I feel like Melissa’s reverential assessment of Ozzy provides a perfect encapsulation of what made him unique, beyond his dual/duelling reputations as heavy-metal madman and reality-TV dad. I couldn’t find the original recording of my conversation with Melissa, so I’m reprinting the resultant article that appeared in the June 27, 2002 edition of Eye Weekly:
*****
Even with a career blessed by good fortune and golden opportunities, Melissa Auf Der Maur can’t believe her luck this time.
Last winter, the former Montreal indie-scenester-turned-Hole-bassist-turned-Smashing Pumpkin was engaging in a time-honoured tradition that any lover of demonically heavy rock indulges in from time to time: she was chilling with some friends, listening to some Sabbath, doing some Ozzy impressions, and joking about starting a cover band. Except she’s actually gone through with it, dropping the bass and putting on the white jumpsuit (with fringes, of course) to front her very own all-Sabbath, all-the-time tribute act, Hand of Doom.
And in the six months that have passed since Hand of Doom’s inception, Auf Der Maur’s source of inspiration has been transformed from Prince of Darkness into America’s favourite prime-time TV papa. Talk about your perfect timing—not just because Hand of Doom stands to ride the wave of post-Osbournes Sabbath-chic, but because now, more than ever, the children of America need a reminder that the guy on TV cleaning up dog shit for cheap laughs used to be the most evil motherfucker in rock.
“He's sooo not evil!” Auf Der Maur snaps back in defence. “His lyrics are so romantic and beautiful and sad. Ozzy is so special. That guy was anti-war, anti-heroin and pro-let’s-be-mystical-and-believe-in-fairies. His music and lyrics are so good that we do it as true to the originals as possible. There’s a certain tongue-in-cheek silliness that goes along with it, because of course, we’re not Black Sabbath. But we do love it, so it’s very serious—this is not a joke. It’s a celebration of the extreme parts of it—I have fringes on my arms, therefore I pretend I have wings!—but it’s all in love and respect for that man.”
But if some headbangers find the idea of a woman playing Ozzy to be heavy-metal sacrilege, that’s the point. If Hand of Doom has any agenda, it’s to have fun with metal’s inherent irony—i.e., for all their phallocentric, testosterone-overloaded posturing, most hard-rock shriekers sorta, well, sing like girls.
“Ozzy sings in the range of a woman,” Auf Der Maur confirms. “I can sing his exact range without changing a key. I’d love to do a mini-documentary film of us touring the Ontario and Quebec cover-band circuit, rolling into those crazy truck-stop clubs and get the reaction from the truckers of me singing as a woman being Ozzy, when there’s definitely skeptics out there that wouldn’t think I could do it justice.”
But more than an opportunity to prove her metal mettle, Hand of Doom allows Auf Der Maur to play music for pure pleasure and nothing else, a luxury not always available when she was playing bass for two of the biggest, most-scrutinized bands of the ‘90s. “All music will only be fun from here on out in my life,” she says, and while she’s hyped about Hand of Doom’s upcoming live album, she’s absolutely ecstatic when talking about her upcoming solo album, Auf Der Maur, featuring new recordings of songs she’s laid down on her four-track over the past eight years.
Her list of collaborators for the record (which will be released once Auf Der Maur decides on a label) looks like the work of a kid in a hard-rock candy store: Queens of the Stone Age main-men Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri; Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha (who’s also appeared with Hand of Doom as “Ronnie James Iha”); drummers John Stanier (Helmet/Tomahawk), Atom Willard (Rocket from the Crypt) and Brant Bjork (Kyuss/Fu Manchu); Montreal mates Steve Durand and Jordan Zadorozny; and her “dream producer,” Kyuss/Masters of Reality mastermind Chris Goss.
“In 1991, Kyuss and Smashing Pumpkins each put out a record that changed my life: Blues for the Red Sun and Gish made me want to play rock music,” Auf Der Maur says. “And to work with people from those records was a dream come true. This record means more to me than anything I’ve ever done.
"Ultimately, the point of my life is to make sure music never gets to a place where it’s lost its magic. I loved being in Hole—that was a very crucial part of making me who I am—and playing in the Pumpkins was incredible, but I was never able to write a lot of songs or even play with friends. Those guys were kinda friends, but it was like, 'Join my band first,’ then they’re friends. Billy Corgan was an old friend, but it was still his band. The idea of me being able to play my songs with my friends seems like more fun. I feel like I’m a kid again, doing what I was trying to do when I was 20 in Montreal with my band there. I’m just starting over.”
ENCORES
Melissa would go on to release two alt-metallish solo albums, 2004’s Auf Der Maur and 2010’s Out of Our Minds, but over the past decade, she’s indulged her love of loud music as co-curator of the experimental-music festival Basilica Soundscape, held each September in her Hudson Valley homebase. (Check out this year’s line-up.)
For more on Melissa’s journey from alt-rock star to small-town arts facilitator, check out her episode on Geddy Lee’s Paramount+ reality series, Are Bass Players Human Too? Here’s a brief teaser:
This is a free newsletter, but if you really like what you see, please consider a donation via paid subscription, or visit my PWYC tip jar!