Night Watch / Tom Scanlon
Melissa Auf der Maur: Bassist takes the lead

PHIL POYNTER Singing lead is "terrifying," says bassist Melissa Auf der Maur of the new role she has taken on. She comes to Graceland Wednesday.

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A skinny, red-haired teenager from Montreal took a Greyhound bus to Seattle in 1990, lured — like many aspiring musicians — by the bubbling rock scene.

"Anything that had a Sub Pop label on it, I would buy," recalls Melissa Auf der Maur. In addition to record shopping, she went to as many shows as she could, soaking in the music community.

She went back to Canada, started a band called Tinker — which would open for Love Battery, her very favorite Sub Pop band. A few years later, after getting connected to Billy Corgan and other members of the music world, she got a call from Seattle. Hole's original bass player, Kristen Pfaff, had died of an overdose, and Courtney Love — newly widowed herself — was recruiting replacements to continue the band.

She spent some time at Love's home and was quickly offered the job as Hole's bass player, to tour with the new "Live Through This" album.

"My first answer was no thank you, mainly because I liked my life in Montreal and my band there," Auf der Maur said the other day, from a tour break in Manhattan. "Then it became very clear it was a life opportunity, less to do with the music than life. The opportunity to travel the world and make music my life, play music every single day and not have to have that day job. It was an incredible opportunity."

After five years touring with Love and company, Hole disintegrated — and Auf der Maur landed with Corgan's Smashing Pumpkins.

Concert preview Auf der Maur, with Kane Hodder and the Jet City Fix, 9 p.m. Wednesday, Graceland, 109 Eastlake Ave. E., Seattle; 99 cents (www.ticketswest.com or 800-325-SEAT; information, www.gracelandseattle.com).

Now, after playing with two of the best alt/grunge bands of the past decade (and making a guest appearance on Ryan Adams' "Rock N Roll"), Auf der Maur has her very own band, simply called Auf der Maur, and with a self-titled debut on Capitol Records. The bass player/lead singer is quick to point out that Capitol came into the game after she had recorded the album.

"My record was made in complete utopia. I protected every idealistic notion, spent every penny that went into it and then found a big scary record company to help me put it out."

Released on June 1, her Sabbath-influenced (Auf der Maur has been in a Black Sabbath cover band), hard-rocking — but refined, with singer-songwriter elements — debut solo album has been winning some nice praise:

"Auf der Maur proves she was lurking in the shadows for far too long," proclaimed the Village Voice. Q magazine called it "the first essential album of 2004."

Rolling Stone was not as kind: "Unfortunately, like most side-person projects, the spirit is willful but the songs are weak."

Auf der Maur is getting a bit of airplay for the single "Followed the Waves," a title that might summarize the feeling of the album. "I wanted to make a record that reflected my musical journey, my community, my kindred spirits that come from the same place," she says of putting together a supporting cast that included members of Queens of the Stone Age (Josh Homme), Kyuss (Homme and Brandt Bjork), Hole (Eric Erlandson), the Smashing Pumpkins (James Iha), and her original Montreal band Tinker (Steve Durand). Only Durand will join her on the tour, which comes to Seattle on Wednesday at 9 p.m. for a 99-cent, radio-sponsored show (www.gracelandseattle.com) at Graceland (which was the Off Ramp when Auf der Maur first visited).

Though she went on a brief European tour, this will be one of her first U.S. shows singing lead. "It's terrifying," she says flatly. "It's still something I have to grow into." She has to remind herself not to go into bass-player-grooving-in-the-background mode. "It's really frustrating, and it drives me crazy — the second I'm not singing I pull away from the mike."

One wonders if she learned anything from Love about leading a band.

"I learned a lot from her because she's a very intelligent, interesting person. If you're in that kind of intense relationship being in a band is like being married. ... But it was life experiences vs. showmanship. I'm a very different kind of person and singer than Courtney. We have more in common in our love of rock music, and representing women on a male-dominated landscape."

She did add that she thinks she took with her "a lot of Courtney's honesty. ... Both Billy (Corgan) and Courtney, they know who they are, they know what they want; I respect that. But I sing totally different, I'm a choir-trained girly-girl from Canada who always thought I wasn't angry enough and didn't scream enough ... I have no screaming techniques, and I was in bands with screamers."

While there are exceptions, like the Breeders' Kim Deal, it's almost a rule that bass players don't get to sing and lead bands. Auf der Maur has given this subject some thought.

"I could go on for hours about it psychologically, the personality (of bass players). Bass is the bottom part, singing is the top part; it's like tapping your head and rubbing your stomach. ... Logically I could have moved over to (play) guitar, but my identity is so wrapped up in bass — and I can't stand someone else playing bass.

"I like to represent underdogs: redhead, bass player or Canadian."

Also playing

• Psychedelic indie rock band Califone — the people who brought you Red Red Meat — plays from its new album, "Heron King Blues" at the Tractor Tavern on Saturday at 9 p.m. ($10).

• In the middle of another tour, gritty industrial rockers KMFDM work in a hometown show at the Fenix at 10 tonight, playing from "WWIII" ($12).

• Detroit hardcore rappers D12 — associates of Eminem — roll into the Showbox with Slum Village at 10 tonight ($35).

• Omar Torrez, a longtime Seattle guitarman now living in L.A., brings his highly skilled flamenco-rock act to the Triple Door at 7:30 and 10 tonight ($16).

Tom Scanlon: tscanlon@seattletimes.com.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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