MELISSA AUF DER MAUR: Just Another Love Child of Mother Technology
Melissa Auf der Maur is as exhausted as a new mother, and just as proud. Reclining in her hotel suite, her body language belies a hint of fatigue, while her facial expression remains wide-eyed and wired. In the midst of a ragged promotional tour for her three-pronged project, Out of Our Minds, her enthusiasm for this union of solo album, graphic novel, and short film is both infectious and fatalistic.
Primarily known as a bassist for prominent alt rock groups like Hole and Smashing Pumpkins, many music fans don’t realize that this Montréal native was actually a twenty-two-year-old photography major when she was plucked from obscurity and recruited into rock and roll stardom.
For the next ten years, Auf der Maur became frustratingly familiar with the condescending policies and politics of major record labels.
By the late 1990s, these “Rock Boxes”, as she lovingly describes them, had begun to crumble under the pressure of technological innovation. But this was fine by Auf der Maur, who saw these changes as a reflection of her own desires for artistic revolution.
For Auf der Maur, this motivational attitude extends far beyond the performing or visual arts. In fact, her entire Out of Our Minds project is firmly rooted in a personal exploration of the artists and their environment. “On a global level”, she asserts, her hazel eyes suddenly sharp with conviction, “That’s what everyone has to do—Get their s**t together. Do research. Work harder. Find solutions. And admit that the world will someday come to an end, just like you and I will.”
“There are lots of representations in the film of the inner world and Mother Nature,” she says. “When we started the film, I told Tony Stone the story, and said ‘I want to have a timeless woman who travels through time on a hunt for the heart’. Then after spending months and months in the woods, we kind of realized that the timeless woman was the woods.”
Standing in as the haunted figure, Auf der Maur weaves herself through three overlapping storylines: First, in a modern day motor vehicle crash; second, a shaman-like witch from the Viking conquests; and third, as the representation of a beating heart in the bloody and broken trunk of a withering tree.
According to Auf der Maur, Out of Our Minds really took on a life of its own once she and Stone got into these particular woods. The land on which they filmed also had a certain resonance for the duo, as the 50 acre lot was originally purchased by Stone’s father back in 1959, “in case the world was going to end”.
As the Out of Our Minds album began to take shape, Auf der Maur realized that the original lyric behind the project, “Travel out of our minds/ into our hearts standing by” became more than a line from a song, but a manifesto that summed up her creative ambitions. It was a resonant reminder of her purpose as both an artist and as a human being to always put quality and integrity above easy solutions and financial gain.
So maybe Auf der Maur does have a reason to sit back and relax. She’s created a three-part project that has blossomed outside of the Rock Box, and pushed the limits of her creativity. She has done Mother Technology proud.
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