When MELISSA AUF DER MAUR was here in good ole Blighty on tour recently, she had a chat with the guys over at SonicShocks. In the interview, she talks about her current album Out Of Our Minds and how it developed into a film and a comic.

“I like to diversify and experiment.”, she told them, “All my work is based on collaboration so there’s going to be a lot of people because it’s not me alone. On ‘Out of Our Minds’, not only do I work with various mixers, engineers and drummers, but I also worked with film makers and the film version of Out of Our Minds was a collaboration between me and a director. It’s the same with the comic book.

I went to art school my whole life from 6 years old until the day I joined Hole and I was playing music, performing in plays, painting and then I eventually took up photography.

It was actually a very big shock to my system when I became a full time bass player in a band but I was given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel and see the world with a big band and to become a better bass player, a better singer, a better performer and a better songwriter, so it became pretty consuming for almost 10 years.

I thought that it’s now or never that I go back to my original roots of visual and storytelling so I knew that this project would have to be more than an album. Luckily, as I was making it, technology was evolving. The fantasy film is shot on HD, fuelled on solar power, in the middle of the woods in nowhere. That couldn’t have happened even 5 years ago- that kind of technology didn’t exist…“

Melissa also spoke about her relationships with Billy Corgan and Courtney Love, discussing the last contact she had with the infamous grungers.

“With people like Billy and Courtney, they’re such epic relationships in my life that it’s like ex-wives and ex-husbands. You can’t strike up a casual friendship.

I went to Chicago and wrote a song with Billy right before he was doing the reunion. He didn’t know how he was going to do it at that point but I went to Chicago, stayed at his place, we wrote a song together and it was lovely and that was the last time I saw him. When we see each other it’s always fine and very meaningful- he actually gave me a beautiful 12 string guitar that I have all over my new record.

And then with Courtney, we are in touch a little more now because she got in touch with me last year to tell me about her reunion plans and we had a meeting about that. We had different ideas about the way it should be done but yeah, we’ve been in touch a little bit“.

You can read the full interview and get the complete low-down at this location.

‘Out Of Our Minds’ is available now at all good record stores. You can pick it up online HERE and at iTunes.

Head back tomorrow when we chat to Melissa about her bass playing career in our latest installment of Gear Nerd.