“Olivia Rodrigo said to my daughter, Without your mother, none of this would have happened.” Melissa Auf der Maur, one of the unsung heroes of ’90s rock, is finally getting her flowers

Former Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf der Maur is everywhere right now, promoting her acclaimed ’90s memoir, Even The Good Girls Will Cry. And the book, described by Louder as unique, frank and fearless, revisiting and contextualising a decade n which the world changed to an almost unrecognisable extent” is only act one of Auf der Maur’s plans for 2026.

On September 8, Auf der Maur will release a new photo book, My ’90s Rock Photographs, described as “a photographic love letter to the last analogue decade”, featuring an extensive curatorial selection of more than 200 photographs taken when she was young artist living at the heart of the ’90s alt. rock music scene. That same month, an exhibition of the bassist’s photographs will open at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, and will later tour the world. The exhibition will also feature previously unheard ’90s solo demos from Auf der Maur, as well as brand new instrumentals.

“The exhibition will be up for a year, and then it will travel internationally,” the 54-year-old musician tells Louder. “The It’s a very large exhibit, and one room is an ode to my bass and the fans, and it’s called the Bass Room, and I’m building a sonic score to the installation. So I’ve actually been in the studio, and I’m returning to music, but in a very bass forward way. It will be an hour long piece that goes throughout the exhibit, an audio journey.

“I’m really excited about it, because I think it’s the way that I’m going to ease myself back into sound. I need to come back in through the innocence place. I wrote this book, to be able to reconnect with that girl at 19 who was spending 24/7 obsessed with music, I need her to teach me how to get back there.”

Auf der Maur may not have released a solo record since 2010’s Out Of Our Minds, but her contributions to the music world have not gone unnoticed by a new generation of stars.

“When I got my daughter tickets to see Olivia Rodrigo for her 13th birthday [in 2024], we got invited backstage,” she says in a new interview with NME. “Olivia Rodrigo said to my daughter, ‘Without your mother, none of this would have happened’. That’s when it locked in for me that there are direct correlations.

In Olivia Rodrigo’s records, I notice the ’90s influence in both the songwriting and production, and of course her debut album, Sour’s cover has a nod to Hole’s Live Through This with the beauty queen. But having that said to my daughter in front of me was one of the proudest moments of my life.”

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Auf der Maur has also lined up speaking engagements in the UK, US and native Canada to discuss Even The Good Girls Will Cry.

Her tour begins tonight, March 30, in Montreal, Canada. Full details and tickets are available on her website.