Melissa Gaboriau Auf der Maur (; born March 17, 1972) is a Canadian musician. She acted in How to Make the Cruelest Month (1998), Beyond Borders (2003), and Collaborator (2011). As part of her 2009 multidisciplinary project Out of Our Minds—which produced an album, a single, a film and a comic book—Auf der Maur acted as a film and record producer, working alongside her husband, filmmaker Tony Stone. Stone and Auf der Maur are the creative directors and owners of Basilica Hudson, an arts and performance center in Hudson, New York.
VH1 placed Auf der Maur at number 68 on its list of 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll in 2007 and her solo albums have received favorable reviews.
Early life
Auf der Maur was born in Montreal, Quebec, to journalist and politician Nick Auf der Maur and journalist and literary translator Linda Gaboriau. Auf der Maur's father's family was Swiss-German and her mother's was mixed European-American. Gaboriau was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. As a result, she holds dual Canadian–American citizenship. Auf der Maur's surname translates to English as "on the wall", as "maur" is German for "wall" (die Mauer). She has stated that her grandmother, Theresia Schaelin-Auf der Maur, was "always pounding my heritage down my throat—reminding me that I'm the last one in North America to further the name".
Auf der Maur did not meet her father until she was three years old. A portion of Auf der Maur's childhood was spent living in "a circus caravan in Wales, a red post-office box truck in Morocco, and a hut in Kenya" with her mother. During her time in Kenya, she contracted three bouts of malaria and returned to Montreal.
In Montreal, Auf der Maur attended the Fine Arts Core Education (FACE) School and Moving in New Directions (MIND) High School—both of which are schools of alternative education. At FACE, she was a member of the classical choir and at MIND, she was "part of the small English elite", where she formed friendships with Leonard Cohens daughter Lorca and Rufus Wainwright. During the performance, Auf der Maur's roommate heckled the band between songs and threw a beer bottle onstage while the band was performing, leading to "a strangling fist fight" between him and Corgan. Auf der Maur explained:
Auf der Maur and Corgan became pen pals. Following months of no contact, Auf der Maur sent a letter to Corgan requesting that Tinker open for The Smashing Pumpkins during their next tour date in Montreal. Corgan accepted her request and Tinker performed the largest show of their career, to 2,500 people, opening for The Smashing Pumpkins at Métropolis on November 30, 1993. Corgan, Auf der Maur recalled, "patted me on the back. He said, 'You're a really good bass player. You're going to be in my band one day.' It felt like a dream come true – exactly the kind of confidence boost I needed." The group continued to release music until 1996, when Auf der Maur accepted Courtney Loves invitation to become the bassist for the alternative rock band Hole, a job she initially declined: