Rock Chicks

by Alison Stieven-Taylor

  In 2006 Melissa and her partner Tammy Lynn Michaels celebrated the birth of twins. The next year she was awarded an Oscar for the song ‘I Need to Wake Up’ from Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

  SHERLY CROW

  No mistake

  When Sheryl Crow made her debut in 1993 many assumed she was another overnight sensation. The reality was less glamorous. Crow had slogged it out for the best part of a decade battling depression and earning a living as a backing singer before her lucky break.

  Born in 1962 in the bible belt of the American South in the small town of Kennett, Missouri, Sheryl was brought up by liberal parents in an environment surrounded by music. Her lawyer father played trumpet and her mother, a piano teacher, sang in a local swing band. At home Sheryl listened to the eclectic record collections of her parents and older siblings. James Taylor, Bessie Smith, Stan Kenton, Billie Holiday, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker and the Beatles were among her favourites. Sheryl learned the piano from the age of six and studied classical music at university. She made her living teaching music to handicapped children and singing advertising jingles.

  Taking a gamble, in 1986 she headed to LA to try her luck in the music industry. She landed a job as the back-up singer on Michael Jackson’s Bad tour. It was a role that seemed a great stepping stone for the young singer, but in reality she was burdened by constant sexual harassment. She channelled her experiences into songs, penning lyrics while she picked out tunes on her bass guitar.

  Coming off the eighteen-month world tour, Sheryl fell into a deep depression that lasted months. She has said that the thought of suicide kept her company every day for years. Finally she found a therapist who helped her through the mire. She dragged her body out of bed and back to work as a session singer. It was at one of these gigs that she met Hugh Padgham, a producer who led her to A&M Records.

  Signing to the label, she headed into the studio, but her first album didn’t have the cut-through the record company was looking for. It was shelved and A&M sent Sheryl back into the studio to try again.

  The result was Tuesday Night Music Club. The album took nearly twelve months to gain traction, but ended up turning multi-platinum—its success largely due to the single ‘All I Wanna Do’, which became an international number one hit. On the strength of the album, Sheryl picked up three Grammys in 1995, including record of the year.

  Tuesday Night Music Club came out of a collaborative forum that involved Sheryl and a few of her musician buddies. Meeting once a week to smoke, get drunk and jam, they wanted to create music in a relaxed and informal environment. Sheryl has said it took her as long to physically recover from the recording sessions as it did to make the record. They played hard, but it was great fun and the relaxed vibe translated to the album, on which Sheryl plays guitar and piano.

  Success propelled Sheryl into a realm where she associated with the likes of Bob Dylan and Joe Cocker. She sang on stage with Mick Jagger and toured with the Eagles on their massive US comeback tour. It was a total headspin for the singer who was as much a fan as a rising star.

  Sheryl’s musical style spans country, pop and rock—an eclectic collection of sounds that reflect her varied tastes and make her music universally accessible. She is a powerful songwriter and, although much of her material is autobiographical, it follows familiar themes.

  So far Sheryl has collected nine Grammys, released five studio albums—all of which have sold platinum or more—and clocked up numerous top ten hits, including ‘If It Makes You Happy’, ‘A Change Would Do You Good’ and ‘My Favourite Mistake’. She has produced much of her own material as well as tracks for Stevie Nicks, and collaborated with Kid Rock—their single ‘Picture’ was a number one hit in the US in 2003.

  After a string of unsuccessful romances with musicians—one of the downsides of being in rock music, she has said—Sheryl embarked on a relationship with champion cyclist Lance Armstrong. The pair intended to marry, but split up in 2006 after three years together.

  Not long after Sheryl was diagnosed with breast cancer, which forced her to cancel plans to tour that year. Having recovered from the illness, she has began a new phase in her life, adopting a two-week-old boy, whom she named Wyatt after her father.

  COURTNEY LOVE

  Through the Looking Glass

  Brush aside the publicity froth that surrounds her though and a much more complex picture unfolds. She is all of the above, and more—calculated, manipulative, obsessive and dangerous.

  Courtney Love is born of a twisted personality that is clearly crying for help. Anyone else would have been locked up and the key thrown away. But she became known at a time when fascination with celebrities was hitting fever pitch. She was obscene, loud, lewd and opinionated, flashing her large breasts and sneering profanities through a lipstick-smudged mouth. The public lapped up every fall from grace, and there were many—arrests, child custody battles, drugs, booze, brawls, even accusation of murder.

  Linda later said her daughter was bipolar, but it hadn’t been diagnosed. Courtney was just known as strange

  She was riveting to watch and at the same time made your eyes bleed.

  Born in 1964 in San Francisco, Love Michelle Harrison had an unorthodox upbringing. Her parents split when she was around five. Her mother Linda Carroll renamed her daughter Courtney and gained custody after accusing husband Hank Harrison of giving the child LSD. The charge was unproven but mud sticks.

  In the era of peace, love and stoned hippies, Courtney’s mother—a marriage guidance counsellor who has been married four times—moved from one relationship to another, shifting her growing brood (Courtney has four step-siblings) around various hippy communes in Oregon.

  There was something different about Courtney from the start. Linda took Courtney to a therapist at age two. ‘The first therapist I consulted said, “I don’t know what’s wrong, but I have a feeling it’s going to get worse and there’s not anything we can do”.’ In later years Courtney’s mother would say her daughter was bipolar, but when she was a tot the psychiatric profession hadn’t diagnosed it. She was just known as strange and hopelessly spoiled.

  Her mother’s transient lifestyle meant Courtney was in and out of different schools, homes, cities, even countries. In New Zealand at the age of ten she had her first encounter with prescription drugs. Because she was finding it hard to sleep and her behaviour was disrupting the entire household, Linda took her off to a doctor, who prescribed sedatives.

  Courtney was a wild child, constantly in trouble at school. Although academically very bright, her antics got her expelled and in trouble with the law for shoplifting. By the time she was around fifteen she was in reform school, where she was in constant strife for fighting, smashing doors and being her unruly self. Of her stint there, Courtney said, ‘I was semiotic about my delinquency. I studied it. I learned a lot. I’d grown up with no discipline and I learned a lot about denial. It did not have an adverse affect on me.’

  When Courtney was sixteen, Linda Carroll ‘emancipated’ her—a clever way of telling her she wasn’t welcome at home anymore.

  For the next couple of years Courtney moved from one foster family to another in between staying in state facilities. One family, the Rodriguezs, are still a part of her life. She doesn’t speak to either parent. ‘There’s actually a list in an American magazine of the worst celebrity parents ... two was my mother and number three was my father. I really got a raw deal.’

  Once she was of legal age Courtney took off to travel the world. She survived on a small trust fund from her grandparents and supplemented her income by stripping.

  She arrived in London around 1982. When masquerading as a music journalist to get into gigs, she came upon Julian Cope from Teardrop Explodes. Hanging out with Cope and his buddies, Courtney began to get a taste for the rock’n’roll life. But she was sending Cope nuts. At his wit’s end, he ran an advertisement
in a London newspaper: ‘Free us from Nancy Spungen-fixated heroin A-holes who cling to our greatest rock groups and suck out their brains.’ Even Courtney knew when she had worn out her welcome. She headed back to the States.

  She landed in Portland, Oregon, later that year. She hung out with various bands and occasionally wrote for the street press. She hooked up with Rozz Rezabek, the singer in pop group Theatre of Sheep, and the two embarked on an unhealthy, drug-fuelled relationship.

  Courtney’s musical aspirations began to surface, but she was unable to say what she wanted other than to be a rock star. She knew she could sing and she owned a guitar, which she carted around with her but didn’t play.

  Tired of being treated like a hanger-on by Rezabek, she took off for San Francisco at the invitation of Jennifer Finch, who would later turn up in riot grrrl band L7. Finch and Courtney prowled the traps, checking out the live music scene. But it wasn’t long before she grew restless again. Over the next few months she changed locations frequently—Taiwan, Hong Kong, Portland—before returning to San Francisco.

  In 1983 she made a conscious effort to get her musical act together, fronting the hardcore rock band Faith No More—an odd choice for someone into the new romantics and a fan of Duran Duran, Soft Cell and Spandau Ballet. Still, she threw herself into the role of hard-ass rocker, setting her hair on fire on stage and smashing bottles. But that stint only lasted about twelve months and, despondent, she returned to Portland.

  she threw herself into the role of hard-ass rocker, setting her hair on fire on stage and smashing bottles

  There she met Kat Bjelland who played guitar. They headed to San Francisco. With Jennifer Finch, the three formed Sugar Baby Doll in 1985. But infighting between Bjelland and Courtney ended the party before it began. The band folded long before they’d even thought about playing a gig.

  she was unable to articulate what she wanted to achieve other than to be a rock star

  Bored with San Francisco, Courtney took off for LA where Finch was working as a TV extra. Courtney went back to stripping, and began to entertain the idea of becoming an actress.

  Fixated with Nancy Spungen, the girlfriend and murder victim of Sid Vicious, she was ecstatic when she learned there was a film to be made about the pair. She auditioned for Sid & Nancy, reportedly breaking a painting over director Alex Cox’s head in order to stand out. She was given a bit part as Nancy’s best friend. During shooting in New York, Courtney spent time at the Chelsea Hotel where Spungen was murdered, absorbing every macabre piece of the tale and revelling in the tragedy of it all.

  Courtney spent time at the Chelsea Hotel where Spungen was murdered, absorbing every macabre piece of the tale and revelling in the tragedy of it all

  Returning to San Francisco, Courtney mended fences with Bjelland. Bjelland wanted to move to Minneapolis where her family was living. That suited Courtney, who had no ties. Babes in Toyland became their next band. But it wasn’t long before old tensions resurfaced and within months Courtney was ousted.

  Sid & Nancy was followed in 1987 by another Cox film, the forgettable Straight to Hell, a western comedy shot in Spain with Courtney in the lead. She focused on acting, forgetting about music while she tried to make her mark in LA. But there were prettier starlets, and much thinner ones. By her own admission, she was overweight and unattractive. She was a nobody in Tinseltown. For a consummate attention-seeker like Courtney that was an untenable position. She shelved the acting idea.

  For the next two years Courtney flitted around—to Minneapolis, where she and Bjelland had one more attempt at playing music together, Alaska, where she went to strip for three months, San Francisco and Seattle.

  Then she headed back to Portland and met Kurt Cobain after a Nirvana gig. No sparks flew between the two and she pushed him from her mind until Nirvana became demigods two years later.

  Back in LA, Jennifer Finch was now playing in L7. Courtney hung around, watching Finch live the life that she coveted, playing gigs around LA. To make ends meet, she went back to what she knew best—taking off her clothes. But she wasn’t the best stripper in town and was relegated to the day shift which the less attractive girls worked.

  Directionless and out of control, Courtney was all about pushing the limits. After getting wasted one night she ran off to Vegas to marry a friend of Finch’s, transvestite Falling James Moreland of the alternate band the Leaving Trains. The marriage was annulled shortly after.

  Finch’s success spurred Courtney on. She went back to her plan to be a rock star, running an ad in a local music rag for musicians to form a band. Courtney busied herself learning guitar while she waited for the responses to flood in. Guitarist Eric Erlandson answered the call. He and Courtney hit it off, professionally and personally. They formed Hole. It took a few months for the line-up to settle, with Jill Emery coming in on bass and Caroline Rue on drums.

  Hole had its first gig as a support to L7, after which they set about playing any club that would have them. In early 1990 Hole recorded the single, ‘Retard Girl’, on independent label Sympathy for the Record Industry. To promote the single they hit the road, playing in clubs across the US.

  Courtney admitted she set her sights on Cobain. She pursued him relentlessly

  The next year, Hole’s second single, ‘Dicknail’/‘Burn Black’ was released on Sub Pop Records. It was followed by the album, Pretty on the Inside, on Caroline Records, a strange mix of punk rock and wrist-slashing lyrics delivered in Courtney’s acid vocals that miraculously held a tune despite the angst and anger of her delivery. Produced by Sonic Youth’s bassist Kim Gordon and Don Fleming, the songs were raw, at times ranting, and full of rage against everyone and everything.

  Although the album wasn’t a hit in the States, the British lapped up this large—she’s nearly 178 centimetres—grossly made-up woman. She was like a giant baby doll with all the tragic self-indulgence of Bette Davis’s character in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. When Hole toured Britain as the support for Mudhoney, glowing reviews fuelled interest in the band. Melody Maker’s Everett True went into raptures over a Hole gig he’d seen in LA.

  On stage Courtney was a dynamo, capturing the audience’s attention and holding it in a vice-like grip for the duration. Dressed in baby-doll mini dresses that were strategically torn, exposing flesh and underwear, her tights ripped and tottering on heels, Courtney screamed her pain and the listener received her message in a series of blows to the brain. Her rouge-painted mouth sucked the audience in, her face a contorted river of sweating foundation and running mascara. She sang of rage and hate, angry sex and consuming self-interest. She was riveting, if painful, to watch.

  Back in the US the media were more interested in her flirtation with Kurt Cobain than in her music. Nirvana’s album Nevermind was released around the same time as Pretty. Whereas Hole’s effort hadn’t even made a blimp on the charts, Nevermind went on to sell in the millions. The attention around Nirvana catapulted Cobain, a shy, introspective songwriting genius, into the rock stratosphere, creating a new musical genre—grunge—in the process.

  Courtney has admitted she set her sights on Cobain once she realised he was important. She pursued him relentlessly. By the end of 1991 she was officially his girlfriend, enjoying all the hype and status that it brought. The other members of Nirvana hated her. She didn’t care comparing herself to Yoko Ono.

  she was way more dangerous than him. Deep in his soul Cobain was a musician—that’s all he wanted. He wanted to play his music

  Cobain ‘went on TV and said she was the best fuck in the world.’ Hot sex would explain the whirlwind pace of the romance. They started dating in October 1991. Four months later they were married and by August parents. What a headspin. Photos of Cobain at that time show a man in complete shock.

  Their relationship was one long cycle of arguments and escalating drug consumption. She reli
shed the darker moments when she and Cobain would dress in disguise and hit the streets in order to score. She was way more dangerous than he. Deep in his soul Cobain was a musician—that’s all he wanted. He didn’t want the fame and the fortune. He wanted to play his music.

  Courtney was all about the fame and the fortune. In those heady Nirvana days there was no shortage of money. Money for drugs, cigarettes, booze, whatever cravings the pregnant Courtney had. She had child protection services on her ass after a Vanity Fair article implied she was using heroin when pregnant. Frances was removed from her parents for a short time while her safety was assessed.

  Mrs Cobain was a slimmed-down version of the Pretty on the Inside Courtney. She wanted to stay skinny—and drugs and cigarettes help you do that. She appeared naked on the cover of Vogue, pregnant with cigarette in hand. ‘I want my anger to be valid and the only way to do that is to be fairly attractive.’

  Her attachment to Nirvana gave Courtney the leverage to get her band off the indie label and into the mainstream. Suddenly she was all over the media, talking up her ambitions and her love for the skinny, permanently exhausted-looking lead singer of Nirvana. Industry notables started to look at Hole in a different light. Maybe some of Nirvana’s magic would rub off.

  her association with Nirvana gave Courtney the leverage to get her band into the mainstream. The power of association was clear

  Madonna’s company Maverick was among those showing an interest in signing Hole. Courtney found herself the centre of attention, just where she liked to be, and in a bidding war. The power of association was clear. She chose to go with Nirvana’s label, and Hole began work on their second album, Live Through This. Many believe Cobain wrote much of the material on that album—and certainly it was a quantum leap over Pretty on the Inside.