Courtney Love

Courtney Love
Courtney Love on stage in July, 2007.
Background information
Birth name	Courtney Michelle Harrison
Also known as	Courtney Michelle Love, Courtney Michelle Cobain, Courtney Love Cobain, Love Michelle Harrison, Courtney Michelle Menely, Coco Rodriguez
Born	July 9, 1964 (1964-07-09) (age 45) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Genre(s)	Alternative rock Grunge
Occupation(s)	Singer, songwriter, music producer, film producer, actress,
Instrument(s)	Vocals, Guitar, Bass Guitar,
Years active	1983–present
Label(s)	Sympathy for the Record Industry Caroline DGC / Geffen Universal Music Virgin Custard Records
Associated acts	Hole Babes in Toyland Pagan Babies Faith No More
Website	CourtneyLove.com

Courtney Michelle Love^[1] (born Courtney Michelle Harrison on July 9, 1964) is an American rock musician and actress.^[2][3] Love is known as lead singer, songwriter and lyricist for the alternative rock band Hole and for her two-year marriage to Nirvana singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain. Rolling Stone called Love “the most controversial woman in the history of rock”.^[4]

Life and career

Early life

Courtney Michelle Harrison was born in San Francisco, California to a family of Irish and Jewish descent.^[5][6] Love’s family broke up soon after her birth. During a child custody case following her parents’ divorce, her mother and one of her friends presented letters implying her father had given the child, then three, LSD.^[7] Harrison denies this allegation^[8] and has passed polygraph tests; however, these allegations led to full custody being awarded to Love’s mother.

Love spent a troubled childhood with her mother Linda Carroll, as she married and divorced three times, and settled in hippie communes in Oregon, and schools including Nelson College for Girls in New Zealand where she boarded.^[9] Before arriving in New Zealand, Love had been left in the United States with Shirley, a friend of her mother's, a therapist, while her mother, the new husband and her half-sisters settled in New Zealand without her. Shortly after reuniting with her family in New Zealand, Love was sent to the boarding school in Nelson.^[7]

While in boarding school, Love wrote poetry, joined a Bay City Rollers fan club, and, at 12, applied to join the Mickey Mouse Club;^[10] she was rejected after reading a poem by Sylvia Plath at the audition.^[11]

At 16, Love traveled around the U.S., England and the Republic of Ireland, living on a trust fund established for her by her mother’s adoptive parents.^[12] In England, she moved into the Toxteth, Liverpool, home of musician Julian Cope, of The Teardrop Explodes, and became a regular at rock shows. In his autobiography Head-On, Cope refers to her as “the adolescent”.^[13][14]

Eventually, she went to Portland, Oregon, still pursuing music. She worked as a stripper.^[15] Love’s first rock boyfriend was Rozz Rezabek of the Portland band, Theatre of Sheep, while she was still underage. Though the two wrote each other love letters, Love said he did not take her virginity; she claims her first sexual encounter was a one-night stand with a man named Michael Mooney.

Early musical career

Love began her music career with a brief stint as lead singer of Faith No More. Keyboardist Roddy Bottum described the band as “democratic”, saying that Love’s dominating personality did not fit in. The two have remained friends, working together in 2005 on a track for the film Adam & Steve.

At 22, Love moved to Portland, then to Los Angeles in 1987 with musician Kat Bjelland, beginning a period in which she formed bands with Bjelland only to be ousted from each. The pair first formed a band in Los Angeles, with Jennifer Finch, called Sugar Baby Doll (alternately Sugar Babylon).^[16] Love and Bjelland began to dress alike, wearing dirty Babydoll dresses, plastic hair clips, ripped stockings and overdone, smeared makeup. An argument between the two raged over who had come up with their style, later dubbed Kinderwhore. Love claimed she took the style from Christina Amphlett of 1980s Australian rock group, Divinyls^[17]

Love and Bjelland formed a band called The Pagan Babies in San Francisco, with Deidre Schletter on drums and Janis Tanaka on bass.^[18] The band recorded a demo of four tracks, then ejected Love and renamed themselves Italian Whorenuns. Lastly, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Bjelland started her longest-running band, Babes in Toyland. Love played bass but was kicked out of this group as well.^[19] Love had more success as an actress, appearing as Gretchen, a friend of Nancy Spungen in Alex Cox’s Sid Vicious biopic Sid and Nancy in 1986, and in Cox’s spaghetti-western, Straight to Hell in 1987, as well as small television roles.

In 1989, Love taught herself to play guitar and set out to form her own band. She placed an ad in f Flipside, to which Eric Erlandson replied. Love and Erlandson founded Hole and are the only two constant members through the band’s history. The group made their first gig in November 1989, after three months of rehearsal, and made singles on the Long Beach, California, independent label Sympathy for the Record Industry. The debut album Pretty on the Inside was in early 1991 on Caroline Records, produced by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Don Fleming of the band Gumball. It sold well for an independent release and received favorable reviews in the British alternative music press.^[20] During this period, she befriended many figures in the alternative rock scene, including Michael Stipe of R.E.M. and Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins (whom she briefly dated).^[21]

Marriage

Love met Kurt Cobain on January 12, 1990, in Portland’s Satyricon club^[22] before fame hit, when the two led underground rock bands.^[23] Love made advances but Cobain was evasive. Early in their courtship Cobain broke off dates and ignored Love’s advances because he wasn’t sure he wanted to consummate their relationship. Cobain noted, "I was determined to be a bachelor for a few months [...] But I knew that I liked Courtney so much right away that it was a really hard struggle to stay away from her for so many months."^[24]

Love lived a block from the Los Angeles apartment the band used while recording their second album, Nevermind. Love stopped by often, saying, "We bonded over pharmaceuticals."^[25] They met again in May 1991 at a Butthole Surfers concert. In November 1991, touring Europe at the same time, they became a couple.

Love and Cobain married on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii, on February 24, 1992. Love wore a satin and lace dress once owned by the actress Frances Farmer, and Cobain wore green pajamas, because he’d been "too lazy to put on a tux". Six months later, on August 18, the couple’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was born.

On April 8, 1994, four days before Hole’s album Live Through This, Cobain was found in his Seattle, Washington home, killed by a self-inflicted shotgun wound to his head. Two days later, fans assembled at a memorial service in Seattle. During the memorial, a recording was played of Love reading suicide note, as she felt portions were addressed to his fans. Love interrupted the note frequently to express anger and sorrow, telling Cobain that if he hated it so much, he should just “quit being a rock star”. Love asked everyone to call Cobain an “asshole”; on the recording, the crowd obeys. Finally, Love implored fans not to listen to Cobain’s final words, “it’s better to burn out than fade away,” from Neil Young’s “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)”. Seattle police closed Cobain’s case as a suicide.

Live Through This tour (1994)

Hole was struck by tragedy again when bassist Kristen Pfaff died of an apparent heroin overdose on June 16, 1994, two months after Cobain's death and the new album.^[26] A few months later, Love told MTV’s Kurt Loder, "You know ... people go back to work. This is what I do. I gotta make a living." Love recruited 22-year-old bassist Melissa Auf der Maur on Corgan’s recommendation to fill in for Pfaff, and took Hole on the road, appearing at the Reading Festival in England. The band’s performance was written up by broadcaster John Peel in The Guardian:

Courtney’s first appearance backstage certainly caught the attention. Swaying wildly and with lipstick smeared on her face, hands and, I think, her back, as well as on the collar of her dress, the singer would have drawn whistles of astonishment in Bedlam. After a brief word with supporters at the foot of the stage, she reeled away, knocking over a wastebin, and disappeared. Minutes later she was onstage giving a performance which verged on the heroic...Love steered her band through a set which dared you to pity either her recent history or that of the band...the band teetered on the edge of chaos, generating a tension which I cannot remember having felt before from any stage.^[27]

Meanwhile, Live Through This was a commercial and critical success. Rolling Stone, Spin and the Village Voice declared it “Album of the Year”, and by November the record was certified gold. By April 1995, it went platinum. Hole embarked on a tour opening for Nine Inch Nails.^[28]

Celebrity Skin era (1998–2000)

Love received acclaim as Larry Flynt’s wife, Althea, in Miloš Forman’s 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt, opposite Woody Harrelson as Flynt. She received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Drama and a New York Film Critics Circle Award for best supporting actress. During this time she began dating Edward Norton, a relationship which after four years would become her longest. The two were engaged but broke up.^[29]

In 1998, Hole released Celebrity Skin. Rolling Stone gave the album four out of five stars, saying “the album teems with sonic knockouts that make you see all sorts of stars. It’s accessible, fiery and intimate—often at the same time. Here is a basic guitar record that’s anything but basic.”^[30] Celebrity Skin went on to go multi-platinum, and topped “Best of Year” lists at Spin, the Village Voice, and other periodicals.^[31] Erlandson was still the lead guitarist, and now there were Melissa Auf der Maur’s backup vocals and bass, but drummer Patty Schemel was replaced by a session drummer during the recording.^[32]

Love and Fender’s low-price Squier brand created her line of guitars, Vista Venus^[33] (as Cobain did in 1994, doing the design of his Fender Jag-Stang). The instrument featured a shape inspired by Mercury, Stratocaster and Rickenbacker’s solidbodies and had a single-coil and a humbucker pickup. In an early 1999 interview, Love said about the Venus: “I wanted a guitar that sounded really warm and pop, but which required just one box to go dirty (...) And something that could also be your first band guitar. I didn’t want it all teched out. I wanted it real simple, with just one pickup switch. Because I think that cultural revolutions are in the hands of guitar players”. She also declared, “my Venus is better than the Jag-Stang”.^[34] The Squier Vista Venus model is currently discontinued, as is the Jag-Stang as of 2006.

Hole toured Australia in 1999 to support the album, then the U.S. on a tour with Marilyn Manson. The two bands mocked each other on stage.^[35] Hole dropped off the tour, citing the obligation to pay 50% of Manson’s staging costs as a reason. The singers of both bands told MTV there was no animosity and they were happy to end the tour. Hole finished the year’s dates with Imperial Teen opening.^[36]

In May 2000, Love spoke in New York at the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference, criticizing the major American record labels. The speech was reproduced on the news site Salon.com.^[37] Love accused the labels of a corrupt system of recording contracts to make the labels millions, while the band “may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.”

With Hole in disarray, Love began a “punk rock femme supergroup” called Bastard during autumn 2001, enlisting Schemel, Veruca Salt frontwoman Louise Post, and bassist Gina Crosley, whom Post recommended. Though a demo was completed, the project never reached fruition: conflicts between Love and Crosley, then between Love and replacement bassist Corey Parks from Nashville Pussy, led to the group’s demise.^[38][39] On May 24, 2002, Hole announced their breakup amid continuing litigation with Universal Music Group.

Health, Drug Abuse and Legal Issues

In 1992, unknowingly carrying Kurt Cobain’s child, Love admitted taking heroin and other drugs. This led to media questioning whether Frances was born addicted to drugs. Several specialists deemed the pair unsuitable parents, and Cobain and Love fought for custody of their daughter. After several months, both were granted full custody. Since 1996, Love has faced numerous legal disputes, trials and jail terms.

In his 2008 memoir, Life with My Sister Madonna, Christopher Ciccone recounts that Love claimed to be using cocaine for the first time with him in 1997 at a reception at Donatella Versace's home in New York after the memorial service for Gianni Versace.

On October 2, 2003, Love was arrested in Los Angeles while breaking windows to enter her boyfriend, manager and producer Jim Barber’s home. Barber did not press charges (Love says she had paid for the home), but the police charged her with being under the influence of a controlled substance.^[40] Released on bail, four hours later Love was treated for an accidental overdose of Oxycontin.^[41] Eight days later, on October 10, Frances Bean was taken by the L. A. County Department of Children and Family Services and placed with Cobain’s mother, Wendy O’Connor.^[42] Authorities ordered a 72-hour hospital evaluation of Love’s health, but she walked from the facility, claiming she was ready to head to rehab. When Love didn’t attend, her lawyer said he may move to have the police department’s toxicology reports re-examined. In public appearances, Love protested her arrest, denying charges and describing the drugs found on her as “one expired Percocet and one Ambien”. The police, however, alleged possession of Oxycontin and Hydrocodone without prescription.^[43]

In 2003, Love denied felony drug charges related to possession of painkillers. In February 2004, an arrest warrant was issued for Love after she failed to appear at a preliminary hearing. The warrant was rescinded when she appeared in court on February 18. She released her first solo album, America’s Sweetheart, eight days earlier. The album was a commercial flop. Spin called it a “jawdropping act of artistic will”, Rolling Stone that, “for people who enjoy watching celebrities fall apart, America’s Sweetheart should be more fun than an Osbournes marathon.” The record was re-recorded and finished while Love was either fresh from or still undergoing drug rehab, and in its first three months sold about 86,000 according to Nielsen Soundscan.^[44] During this period, an estimated $20 million belonging to Love and her daughter was apparently siphoned off in a case still being investigated by the FBI.^[45] “It was my hell time. I was doing cocaine and had incredible financial trouble. $20 million was stolen from us and at the time I couldn’t do the math very well. So I took this drug to help me. It turned out the crazy math was real. The FBI looked at the paperwork and saw $1.2 million to the UK, $180,000 to Nice. It was the former boyfriend and the two assistants. They had power of attorney and they purchased property. They started in about 2000 without me knowing and I got more out of it. I think they thought she will die. In fact I should not be alive after what I went through in the [Letterman] Period.”^[46]

After a state-enforced rehabilitation program and probation, Love regained custody of her daughter in January 2005. Child welfare authorities alluded to drug addiction when responding to the press, although they didn’t comment directly.^[47][48]

On August 19, 2005, Love admitted using drugs in violation of her probation. She was ordered into a 28-day treatment program by a judge who said “my belief was that you need to go to the county jail.” This program was also violated, and on September 21 she was sentenced to six months in lock down rehab.^[49]

Love was released from house arrest on February 3, 2006, and said: “I would just like to thank the court for allowing me these 90 days... [It] helped me deal with a very gnarly drug problem, which is behind me... I’ve just been playing guitar and taking care of my daughter. I want to [take this opportunity] to let the community know I’m doing great... I’ve been really inspired and have remained inspired.”^[50] On July 2, 2007 she traveled to Europe with her band.

Pictures of an emaciated Love in August 2007 raised concern for her health. Love claimed she "had to take care of my eating disorder."^[51] When more photos of Love appearing to be in ill health emerged in June 2008^[52], a U.S. website wrote an "Open Letter to Courtney Love," pleading with the mother of Frances Bean to "wake up."^[53] Love admitted being suicidal following the theft of Cobain's ashes in her possession.^[54] On October 2, 2008, Love's publicist told Gigwise.com that Cobain's ashes “were never taken” and that the story had been “erroneously reported ”[1].

America’s Sweetheart (2001–2004)

In early 2004, as she had completed her first batch of songs, Love asked ex-Hole drummer Samantha Maloney to fly to France (after drummer Patty Schemel departed for the second time) and add drums to Love’s solo debut, America’s Sweetheart. Returning to the States, Maloney was put in charge of assembling Love’s live band. After auditions, Maloney reconnected with guitarist Radio Sloan, found guitarist Lisa Leveridge, bassist Dvin Kirakosian,^[55] and the four women formed the core of Love’s backing band. Violinist Emilie Autumn later joined the band.^[56] After playing with the band for a few weeks Love decided to call her new band “The Chelsea” after Maloney’s previous endeavour.

2005–present

See also: Nobodies Daughter and Dirty Blonde

In June 2005, three months after release from drug rehabilitation, Love started recording her second solo LP, Nobodies Daughter. An anti-cocaine song entitled “Loser Dust”, as well as other new songs (“My Bedroom Walls”, “Pacific Coast Highway”, “Sunset Marquis”) were written during rehab.^[50] Former 4 Non Blondes singer Linda Perry is producing the record, which features the writing and recording collaboration of Billy Corgan.

Some of this album (for release in 2009)^[57]) was on the Internet in 2006. The Return of Courtney Love, a documentary about making Nobodies Daughter, was filmed, written and produced by Will Yapp and aired on the British television network More4 on September 27, resulted in distribution of clips of some of its songs. The first entire song for downloading was a rough acoustic of “Never Go Hungry Again”, recorded during an interview for The Times in November.^[58] Incomplete audio clips of the song “Samantha” originating from an interview with NPR.org were also distributed on the Internet in May 2007.^[59]

In October 2006, Love published a memoire, Dirty Blonde. Also in 2006, she reportedly sold 25% of Nirvana’s catalog for $50 million. Love claims $20 million was embezzled from her by members of her entourage, leaving her "on the verge of applying for food stamps."^[60][61]

Love’s new band consists of:

• Patricia “Pato” Vidal (Bass)^[62]
• Schoo Fisher (Drums, formerly of Ozric Tentacles)^[63] (Also identified as "Stu" in a video interview on MySpace)^[64]
• Micko Larkin (Guitar, formerly of Larrikin Love)^[65]
• Bethia Beadman (Keyboards and Background Vocals)^[63]

She also collaborated with DJ Milky and Ai Yazawa to make the manga Princess Ai.

On June 1, 2007, Love made her stage comeback in a Linda Perry show at House of Blues in Los Angeles. With Perry and the producer’s backup band, she performed “Nobody’s Daughter”, “Sunset Marquis”, “Pacific Coast Highway” and “Letter to God”. On July 23, 2007, Love added the first song, "Dirty Girls", to her MySpace page, followed by a piano-and-vocal demo of “Sunset Marquis”, and in July 2008 with "Letter to God".

Love said in April 2007 that “I’m going to have a Christie’s auction,” to hock the bulk of Cobain’s belongings with a portion going to charity.^[66]

Christopher Scott, an art and fashion photographer, referred to Love as one of his muses. Also, she has worked with photographer David LaChapelle, appearing on the cover of his book 'Heaven to Hell' depicting the pieta.

On July 19, 2008, Love posted a letter on her Myspace page alleging that musician Ryan Adams had stolen $850,000 from her accounts to finance his 'Rock N Roll' album. She claims to have discovered this only recently due to problems keeping track of credit cards and accounts. ^[67]

London & Co. filed a lawsuit against Love on July 22, 2008, claiming she sold Nirvana's publishing catalog without paying a share of the profits. The catalog was sold for $19.5 million and according to an oral contract with Love, she was to share 5 percent of her or her company The End of Music's, earnings. London & Co. is seeking $975,000, which would have been its share of the sale.^[68][69]

Family history

Love’s mother Linda Carroll was adopted by an Italian-American couple at birth, retaining no contact with her birth father or her birth mother, whom she discovered was the children’s writer Paula Fox. Carroll's autobiography Her Mother’s Daughter, in 2006, told of her relationship with both adoptive mother and elder daughter.^[70]

Conflicting news began to appear in August 2003 regarding Love’s family tree, some remarking that Love’s mother had taken DNA tests that proved that Carroll’s father was Marlon Brando. The reports implied this disclosure would appear in Carroll’s memoire. Later that month, Carroll’s publisher, Doubleday, told the New York Daily News, “There was nothing in Linda Carroll’s book proposal about Marlon Brando, nor will there be anything in the book about him. I’ve spoken to her and she has told me that there is no truth to the suggestion that she is related to Marlon Brando.”^[71][72]

Awards

1997 Best Personal Style(female) Fashion awards

Discography

Main article: Courtney Love discography

Studio albums

• America's Sweetheart (2004)
• Nobodies Daughter (2009)

Filmography

• Sid and Nancy (1986)
• Straight to Hell (1987)
• Tapeheads (1988)
• 1991: The Year Punk Broke (1992/Documentary)
• Tank Girl (1995/Executive music coordinator)
• Basquiat (1996)
• Feeling Minnesota (1996)
• The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)
• Not Bad for a Girl (1996/Documentary/Co-Producer)
• Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen’s (1997/Documentary)
• Kurt & Courtney (1998/Documentary)
• Clara Bow: Discovering the It Girl (1999/Documentary/Narrator)
• 200 Cigarettes (1999)
• Man on the Moon (1999)
• Beat (2000)
• Bounce: Behind the Velvet Rope (2000/Documentary)
• Julie Johnson (2001)
• Last Party 2000 (2001/Documentary)
• Trapped (2002)
• Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003/Documentary)
• (This Is Known As) The Blues Scale (2004/Documentary)
• Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula (2005/Short Film)

References

External links

• Official Courtney Love Site
• Official Courtney Love Myspace
• Courtney Love at the Internet Movie Database
• Courtney Love Interview (2006) on her book Dirty Blonde by AOL Books
• Court TV Coverage
• Satellites of Love (Spin Magazine 1996)