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| Axl Rose, watch your back �HOLE are out to destroy cock rock and you�re Spandex Enemy Number One. MANDI JAMES meets the three �babes� and a boy out to inject glamour, aggressive sexuality and an entirely feminine perspective into the dying flesh of rock �n� roll. Chocs away: PETER WALSH NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS December 14 1991 �I got in this f---ing huge fight with Rick Rubin once. I had dinner with him and we got in this huge argument because basically he was saying �I have more interest in seeing a Japanese band emulate Western Metal music than I have in seeing a woman play guitar�. He was trying to get me to name one band that didn�t have roadies who got blowjobs for backstage passes, making out that women�s only role in music is to be groupies. He was basically saying chicks can�t rock. Spitting the last sentence out in disgust, Courtney Love, lead singer and guiding light of grunge group Hole, grinds her cigarette out in the ashtray like she wishes it was her fist in his face. Rick Rubin isn�t just a sexist and a chauvinist, the man�s a fool. �Chicks� are the future of rock �n� roll. Take Hole, three �babes� and a boy, they�ve resuscitated rock �n� roll in its final death throes, dealt it a swift kick in the bollocks for all that self-indulgent white male posturing and given music back its glamour, danger and dynamism. Hole are on a mission. To destroy cock rock as we know it. They�re taking no prisoners, showing no mercy. �We wanna destroy the Metal establishment�, growls Courtney. �We wanna destroy that kind of rock. It needs to be started up again, definitely. We wanna destroy that �groupies and roadies� syndrome, death to boring white men strutting about in spandex trousers. It�s become a parody of a parody. Time to die. �I actually have this five-point plan to destroy rock music,� confides Courtney. �No, I can�t tell you what it is, it�s a secret and I keep it next to my pot-bellied pig and my goat in my bedroom at home, but you�ll find out in time. One of my big goals though, y�know, is to get Axl wearing one of our shirts, for somebody who thinks Axl is cool to tell him we�re cool, to get him to wear our shirt out everywhere and for him to not even realize he�s wearing the shirt of the enemy. I wanna kill rock star; he doesn�t even know it, but he�s my target.� MOST PLACES they go, Hole attract attention. Today it�s in an East End pub that�s obviously not seen a woman inside its four walls since the year dot. Woodbines hang from gaping gobs, pints of bitter are poised mid-air momentarily as the barflies try to take in what�s just walked through the door. Eyes flit from the stud in Caroline�s chin, to the ladder in Jill�s tights and over to check out Eric, gangling and grinning, to see what the competition�s like. �People have real difficulty just accepting us at face value,� says Courtney, nodding over at the landlord who�s poised ready for action if Hole decide to smash the joint. �We�re real easy going people, but to him we�re trashy sluts, to the music papers I�m a cross between Kim Gordon and Angus Young. I�m a cross between Madonna and Lydia Lunch�� �Hey, I was called �a stunted Suzi Quatro�, how do you think that makes you feel � no f---ing way, man,� drawls Jill plaintively, still smarting from a casual but cruel observation. People have a hard time sussing Hole out, dealing with their entirely female perspective, their obsessive emotional earthquakes. In the world according to Courtney Love, paranoia, rage, instability and humiliation are recurring themes, totally trashing the usual girly group trappings of �he loves me, he loves me not�. Lyrics have been picked clean by voyeuristic vultures hungry to get to the bottom of her twisted perspective, whilst songs such as �Teenage Whore� have been taken as read and revered as some sort of Catholic confessional. Dream on boys, Courtney�s not about to start prostituting her personality for the sake of a rhyming couplet. �Women�s roles and positions have evolved slowly it�s kinda hard for intellectual music journalists to conceive the idea of female grunge,� opines Courtney. �Most journalists assume my lyrics are instantly autobiographical, y�know all that �I slashed my wrists a million times, I�ve been in jail ten years, I have incurable syphilis�. But to harp on about the truth behind what I say and sing is really dumb. All of a sudden I have this �role� whereas if I was a man I�d just be a songwriter, I wouldn�t have a f---ing role at all. I�d be Black Francis writing about Mars, I�d be J Mascis writing about apathy, but because it�s me out there doing it, that means I�ve had to live every inch.� �I had Ridlin as a child, which is like this drug for hyperactive kids, some of us turned out really quiet, some have turned out really manic, I�m lucky, I�m one of the manic ones. My energy all gets channeled into things like paranoia, desperation, friendlessness � ha ha!� Hyperactive child, teenage delinquent, actress, stripper and once singer for Faith No More, Courtney�s crammed more trouble and strife into her 24 years than most of us manage in a lifetime. �Y�know, frankly, I am quite f___ed up,� states Courtney, leaning across the table conspiratorially. �Sometimes I really hate being in a band because sometimes I just wanna have babies, honestly! I just wanna move to a small north west town and breed. It just hits me once in a while. I�m constantly fighting with myself, sometimes I wanna kill rock stars, sometimes I wanna look like an old bag lady and sometimes I wanna bleach my roots.� TURNING THE tables and thriving in adverse circumstances is Hole�s forte, the worse the situation the better they perform. Live, Hole are confrontational and in-you-face, a startling mixture of aggressive sexuality and total trauma. They live to make drama out of a crisis. When Courtney climaxed Hole�s first UK performance by repeatedly dashing her Rickenbacker�s brains out, it didn�t seem ham-fisted or contrived, it was a fitting end to a violent evening. �Yeah, the first woman in England to smash my guitar onstage. I found out later, as if I was thinking while I was doing it. It was a six hundred dollar guitar and I just hated life so much, I hated that guitar, it had to die. As if I�m gonna stop and think about it. I just did it and God, it felt good. �It�s funny y�know, but a lot of people try so hard to be desperately right-on with us, they have us down as this ideological, intellectual band and I�m like �Yeah we trashed our dressing room, we broke everything, we tore the sinks off the walls�. Well, we didn�t, we kinda broke stuff and it was fun. But you tell some people that and they get really offended, they�re like �why?�. Well, why the f--- not, because pleasure must burn, because anarchy in the UK, because Jill�s gonna shave her head tomorrow. Who cares why?� Girls just wanna have fun, right? If there�s a lesson to be learned from Hole it�s about gaining control in hopeless situations, losing your mind momentarily, exorcising ghosts from an ugly past and daring anyone to mess with you ever again. Ironically becoming embroiled in the corporate industry of pop music, Hole have entered a world dominated mostly by men and closed minds. Courtney can scream and holler all she likes, shag her lovers senseless then smash them in the face, deliver vitriolic rants about destroying rock music, but there�s little she can do to escape her latest role. F---ed up sex symbol with a heart that�s cold. �What can I do?� she shrugs. �I�m not gonna lose an inch of my femininity, but I�m not gonna give an inch either. When I go meet corporate people I try to look as shitty as I can, I never wear make-up. It�s like if you can�t deal with me like this then f--- you, you don�t work with me. I also have to deal with certain kinds of guys that go after me after seeing our band. They�re either masochists who wanna be beaten, or real macho guys who�re gonna tame me, but the kind of guys I like are like Eric or like Thurston Moore. Men who are feminized in a certain way, not like house husbands or John Lennon or anything like that, but cool men who aren�t weak. �Y�know it makes me real mad when people say it�s a man�s world, it never was. How can it be when women have the babies? I never, ever in my life felt like it was a man�s world. Men harbor this illusion that they�re in control, that�s good, let them have that- we can use that to manipulate.� AS Courtney rises to leave, she flashes the landlord, who�s still hovering, a sarcastic smile, then turns round to remind me once more why Hole ever existed in the first place. �We�re seriously out to destroy rock music, I swear to God. Burnt! Charred! Nothing left. We�re the enemy, Axl with our shirt, it�s gonna be great. We�re never ever not going to be a threat, I�ll always be the enemy.� |