Courtney Love Wrote Letters of Apology Over Springsteen Diss
Courtney Love wants a little forgiveness for her recent rant against saxophones in rock music and, by proxy, Bruce Springsteen. “Unfortunately, there was my slip of the tongue, which was just a stupid thing blown way out of context,” she recently told Pitchfork. “I had to write apology letters. I can’t go pissing off big rock stars who I like, who are nice to me.”
In a video Love posted in April that has since been taken down, she said, “My Springsteen problem is just that saxophones don’t belong in rock & roll. They just don’t belong.” In the video, she also offered, “I don’t think he sits around listening to Hole records, do you?”
Love also discussed her relationship with the former members of Nirvana, whom she saw at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction for the band. Prior to the event, Love had had a contentious relationship with Dave Grohl, but the two were able to put their issues aside at the ceremony. “On my way to the bathroom, I saw Grohl, and Grohl saw me, and he came up to me first – which really pissed me off, because I was going to go up to him first,” she said with a laugh. “I wanted to beat him to the punch. I was like, ‘All right, no matter what happens, we’re not going to be bitches.’ That was my attitude going in, and obviously his. Not much else needs to be said. We just both knew it was time to let it go, and we were ready to do it.
“It’s been 20 years – we didn’t even talk at the funeral,” she continued. “None of us. And so, 20 years of me getting Yoko-bashed, and Dave bashing, and me bashing and making it worse, all that shit. The legal stuff, the trial. We just buried it. It was really deep. It brings tears to my eyes to even talk about it. There were certain lawyers who called me tearfully and said it was the most moving moment of the night. There were some hecklers who booed me, which was weird and off and scary. I ignored it. I just looked at who was onstage and was like, ‘Ah, fuck it.'”
Regarding Nirvana’s reunion at the event, which featured four female singers tackling some of the group’s biggest hits, Love said she thought the whole thing seemed “sexist” at first, “and a little bit ghettoizing.” There weren’t any high profile males who wanted to do it. But in the end, she was happy with it – especially Kim Gordon’s rendition of “Aneurysm.” ” Kim gave the punkest performance, the one that Kurt would’ve approved of the most,” Love said. “It was the punkest thing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has ever seen.”
Regarding Hole, the perennially mercurial Love said that the reunion she teased earlier this year is now “next year’s concern.” She reported that she has hung out, sat down, met and jammed with her former bandmates, but that there are “caveats.” Without going into specifics, she mentioned that all the members are vegan and that no one does drugs. Among the musicians who worked on Celebrity Skin, only Love smokes and both she and bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur drink “red wine”; drummer Patti Schemel is sober. Beyond health concerns, Love added, “I’d like to make sure that [my current guitarist] Micko [Larkin] stays along for that ride, because we’re going to need an extra person if we do it anyway.”
She said she also wants to try to commit to something larger with her former bandmates if everyone can get on the same page. “If we can get two killer songs together and then look at an album. . . I can’t live on the oldies circuit,” she said. Love blamed herself for waiting too long to decide to do an album and find a manager she and the other musicians could agree on. “We all get along great,” she said. “There are bands who reunite and hate each others’ guts.”
And beyond the reunion, Love offered a look into Kurt Cobain’s record collection, which she said she would never sell. “This collection starts at age six and ends at age 27 – it’s like his soul in vinyl,” she said. “Yes, there’s AC/DC, some Black Sabbath, the expected stuff. But it’s mostly novelty records like Dr. Demento, and true indie of that period. Maybe we can eventually make an app out of it.”