Original subtitles

(bass guitar bellows)

(Melissa vocalizes)

(Melissa): I don't know what's gonna happen.

(bass reverberating)

Need anything else?

(director): Nope!

(theme song)

(Geddy): I'm Geddy Lee.

Bass player in the band Rush for almost five decades.

But also, a bird photographer,

a wine collector, baseball aficionado, you know, a nerd!

Which got me wondering whether

my fellow bass folk are more than just the shadowy figures

we see skulking around the stage.

I wanna know, "Are Bass Players Human Too?"

(goat bleats)

(soft string music)

This is Hudson, New York,

in the throes of a colourful autumn.

We're 120 miles from the Big Apple,

along the mighty Hudson River.

It's a charming, leafy community

full of old buildings like this one.

It may look like something out of a horror movie,

but this converted schoolhouse

is where I'm meeting today's guest,

fellow Canadian bassist, Melissa Auf der Maur.

Hello?

Hmm, am I in the right place?

Are there any humans about?

Is there a Canadian bass player around here somewhere?

Bingo.

- That's right.

Canadian, bass player,

that's what I am, and redhead. - Canadian bass player.

Hey, hey. (Melissa chuckles)

I've always wanted to meet Melissa.

She's a fellow Canadian bassist to have played

with two of the biggest bands of the 90s.

(* Celebrity Skin by Hole)

* Oh, make me over

* I'm all I wanna be

(Geddy): Melissa was born and raised in Montreal.

She'd only played a handful of shows with her first band,

Tinker, before being hand-picked by Courtney Love

to be the new bassist for Hole.

- Isn't Melissa just the best girl rockstar in the world?

Clap. (crowd applauds, cheers)

(Geddy): Thrust into one of the most controversial bands on the planet,

Melissa spent the next few years in a whirlwind

of grunge celebrity, before splitting in 1999

to join another legendary band.

- Hi, we're the Backstreet Boys.

(Geddy): Uh, that's The Smashing Pumpkins.

- You want me to do it again? (director): Yes.

(* The Everlasting Gaze by The Smashing Pumpkins)

* You know I'm not dead *

(Geddy): After touring the world with Smashing Pumpkins,

Melissa embarked on a solo career.

But just over a decade ago,

she moved to beautiful Hudson to start a family.

Her musical life has been pretty quiet since.

Which begs the question: what exactly has she been up to?

(bass bellows)

(crowd cheering)

Uh, thank you for letting me into your life.

I've been fortunate that

as I've gotten older, I've finally started to meet

more people that I wanna meet. - Mm-hmm.

- You're definitely one of them. - Okay, good.

- How would you describe the bass

and its role in a band? - Yeah. The role.

(gentle guitar music)

My first honour as a bass player is I won Bass Player of the Year

for the Gibson Guitar Awards in the late 90s.

In the car on the way, I wrote down of,

"The bass is the mother of all instruments

and that she is the one you can't live without

but you sometimes don't notice is there."

- Hmm. - And it's the glue that's...

actually the one that's moving you and you're feeling the most.

There is a bit of a peacekeeping component that is

sweet and sensitive to others.

(Melissa laughs) - Oh, isn't that great.

And then, very Canadian. - Yes.

- But I love the fact that you use the word glue.

Because that's a word I use. - Yeah.

- Our job is to make each other sound better. - Yeah.

- And feel more cohesive.

- I ended up having a weird destiny in music

where I kept on being the replacement bass player.

Granted, in Hole, I definitely was

an integral part of the sound and the chemistry of the music. (Geddy): Yeah.

- Whereas in The Smashing Pumpkins, the rules were stated,

"No mistakes, no days off, and you can't get sick."

And I obliged.

* As you sleep, torn I am

* Weighted down patiently **

(Geddy): Although a Smashing Pumpkins soundtrack

is completely appropriate for Halloween in Hudson,

let's go with something a little different.

(static crackles)

(eerie classical music)

Ah, better.

Melissa's taking me on a tour of the town she loves so much,

which became her home by a fluke of geography.

(Melissa): My husband's from New York City and I'm from Montreal,

and this was our geographical compromise.

I had no idea that I'd hit the jackpot.

This area is so beautiful for Halloween, always.

- I think we timed this visit perfectly. - I know.

- It's all this beautiful, autumnal vibe. - Yeah.

You see that lighthouse in the middle of the river?

- Do you see that? - Oh. Okay, yeah, yeah.

- That is most certainly beautifully haunted by like,

all the former lighthouse people. I love that. - Wow.

Uh, let's give the haunted lighthouse a pass and check out

another eerie-looking place.

(crow caws)

Olana, the eccentric estate of landscape painter

Frederic Church.

Look at this structure. (Melissa): I know.

- My God. That's fantastic.

It is such a confluence of styles.

There's this Byzantine vibe to it. - Yep.

- And this Venetian balcony. - Yep.

(**)

- He was sort of the Andy Warhol of the time.

- Oh, really? - Frederic Church.

Very, very progressive.

He moved ponds, he created views.

- He was a bit of a showman. - Yes, I believe so.

(chuckling): Yes. - He was very rock'n'roll.

Of course, the dude was rock'n'roll.

I mean, look at that 'stache.

(soft acoustic music)

So, Melissa and I have something in common besides the bass.

We're both avid photographers.

She's exhibited her work around the world, while me,

I'm just a bird nerd.

For me, it was one of the great distractions

that took me out of rock'n'roll,

out of work mode, into nature.

- Mm-hmm. - And before I knew it,

I was an amateur bird photographer.

(camera shutter snaps)

What, you're surprised I take bird photographs?

Hey, I'm the guy who once sang a song about the politics of trees.

(* The Trees by Rush)

- That makes you cool in my books. I'm into it.

I wish I had a photo nature, but mine is so the opposite.

I ended up taking my love of photography on the road

when I joined the rock bands.

I had foot switches and timers.

I could spend my whole sound check lining up all my cameras.

So, I like, photographed constantly.

- I love this. You had foot switches... - Yes.

- ...so that you could take pictures during a show. - Yes, yes.

- While you performed. - I have tons of pictures of me playing.

- Oh, that is just great! - So, the reoccurring perspectives are

the bass player on the stage,

making eye contact with the audience.

Then, there was the bass player photographing the band leader,

Billy or Courtney, from behind.

- During the show. - Yeah. Right now,

I'm sitting in this like, wealth of analog film that I can now

create a new story and I'm working on a book to tell a story.

- I'm gonna be the first in line for that book. - Oh, good! Yeah.

(soft acoustic music)

(Geddy): Back in 2010, Melissa made a bold decision,

one that profoundly impacted her relationship with music.

- So, I walked off stage, and moved upstate,

and became a mother at the same time.

I even did the craziest thing of all, which I don't recommend

to a lifelong musician bass player,

is I decided to stop making music.

- Hmm. - Which was even weirder.

But I had been making music my entire life.

I had never known a life without music.

And I wanna know what another kind of life is.

But the hardest thing, a decade in, is realizing that

removing my instrument and removing my relationship to

the frequency of playing on a regular level,

that was... that was bad. That actually is.

- It hurt. - That's why I'm excited to touch my bass with you.

(laughing)

(Geddy): She's barely picked up her instrument in a decade.

But that's all about to change.

* And so *

(Geddy): So, yeah, Melissa and I are gonna jam out.

But where? Well, how about Basilica Hudson?

I like the windows.

A former industrial factory turned multimedia art centre,

owned and operated by Melissa and her husband, Tony.

- I didn't realize the bass player needed a factory,

but I was getting off the road and I--

- Every bass player needs a factory.

- But it was really in tandem with becoming a mother.

My idea was I could bring everything I loved

from touring around the world to a little factory.

(Geddy): The Basilica has played host to artists such as

The National and Rufus Wainwright.

But also, experimental music and performance art.

- This is the main hall, 6,000 square feet.

This is where we have our big music festivals and shows.

This is the north hall theatre.

You can have a contemporary dance performance in here,

or a poetry reading, with 50 to 60 to 80, and it's beautiful.

I'm gonna show you the hidden music studio.

- Wow, it smells like a studio. - Yes.

Um... - Amps have a smell.

- I have friends that come through and use it

to make their records.

And I'm just happy that I have it in my life,

a music-making little room.

(Geddy): And speaking of music making,

maybe it's time we got our ya-ya's out.

(bass guitars singing)

- Did you meet my new bass? - Yeah.

- You've met my old bass.

- This is your old bass.

I spent a lot of hours in the clubs

and the high schools of Ontario... (Melissa laughs)

...playing this kind of instrument.

So, tell me about your new love, the Guild Starfire.

- I wanted to experiment with a basic and standalone,

and have, like, an interesting world that doesn't have to worry

about where it fits in with the drummer and the guitar player.

(bass sings)

But it also has...

(feedback hums)

exciting feedback options.

(bass feedback echoing)

- Nice. (feedback stops)

- So, my idea is I'll be a solo bass player and just play alone!

I don't need a band.

- I like the feedback.

(train whistle toots in distance)

- The train! - And there it is.

The most evocative sound you'll ever hear.

- Always comes in at a good point and makes you pause.

(train horn bellows)

- But listen to how that sounds

in the Basilica. - I know. It's the best.

(train rumbling in distance)

She plays the building, the train.

(train horn echoes)

- Just awesome.

So, you come from a very different background musically

than I come from.

- I definitely was riding an arc of a movement

which is, get women on the stage of a male-dominated landscape.

That's pretty much the main reason I did it.

To the point that Hole, their actual... the band and the music

did not actually resonate with me.

But I felt a responsibility

that was very heavy in a weird way.

I mean, I replaced a bass player who died of a heroin overdose

two weeks after the singer's husband committed suicide.

- That's tough. - Yeah.

(crowd cheers)

My seventh show ever was in Hole at the Reading Festival,

and this was in front of 65,000 people, so I went

from 0 to 100 in a moment.

- How did you feel? Like,

were you crapping your pants or... - No.

- What was going on?

(* Asking for It by Hole)

(Melissa): I did not make one mistake on my first show.

The trick is to go simple.

When in doubt, simple.

* I will make you tell the truth **

(Melissa): This is like the secret joke 'cause I feel like

bass playing is so easy and that I...

(Geddy shushes) ...never tried very hard.

- Don't say that. (laughing)

(beep) Okay, that's...

that's incorrect.

The bass is really effin' hard.

Anyway, we finally got Melissa back making music.

Joyful, noisy music.

(basses singing)

(birds chirping)

As the sound of the Basilica dissipates,

we head to one of Melissa's favourite locations.

But along the way, our conversation

takes an unexpected turn.

- My whole life has evolved

around the questions of esoteric, mystical feelings.

I come from very secular, academic, intellectual,

radical 60s and 70s parents

who ran away from all concept of spirituality.

- Right. - I found myself growing up wondering, you know,

what is... is there these things? Strange...

(director): Melissa, we are on the walkie-talkie. Can you hear me?

- It's okay. - That's the voice of God. I think.

(classical music)

Maybe not the voice of God exactly,

just the voice of the director.

But either way, it's got me thinking about my own take

on the other worldly.

I see spirituality as

an incredibly personal choice. - Mm-hmm.

- At one point, I'm open to possibilities.

And the other point, I'm, uh, realistic

and scientific.

- I've always said that my father's death was my gateway

to my spiritual expansion, but as well, artistic expansion.

(Geddy): Melissa's dad, Nick Auf der Maur,

was a legendary Montreal writer and local politician,

whose life and death profoundly influenced her.

- I was 27. I was in Hole, we were making Celebrity Skin.

I had to fly home as he... my father was dying.

I had to turn priests away daily.

(chuckles) 'Cause my father absolutely

refused to have anything.

My question always was, why is he so against it?

When I gave my eulogy, I felt so profoundly connected

to the universe and to my father.

So, I've always seen death as a gateway, and like, I'm--

- But that is a super optimistic path you chose. - Right.

- As much of a rational person as I think I am,

I do move towards positive energy.

The nature of the universe is all well and good,

but first, a more earthly concern.

Uh, okay.

- Yup, exactly.

- How would you open the door of a Tesla? - Yes.

(curious classical music)

Conversation I really wanna go with you is

where this, you know,

this process of creation of music and this channel thing.

- I mean, when I think about playing... - Yeah.

- I see that as technical. I see that as a skill set.

- Yes. - But that's a very different thing than writing music.

Writing music, to me, uh,

is from a different part of your soul. - Exactly.

- And sometimes it's a struggle,

but sometimes, a song just comes out of you. - Flows. It's just...

- And it's like, where the fuck did that come from? - Yeah.

- You know? How did I write that song? Why was it so easy?

And the conditions just have to be perfect.

So, whether they're spiritual,

however you wanna try to explain it, they happen.

- I would, objectively speaking, declare you a very,

very spiritually connected wizard. - Ah.

- Witchy-poo man. Because... (Geddy laughs)

- Well. - I mean, there's no way you're not channelling the gods

through your mouth, your fingers, your bands.

- I don't know what to say. No one's ever called me a witchy-poo man before.

- Are you serious?

I mean, you're the most mystical.

- I've dressed as a wizard at times.

An invitation to a Halloween dinner with Melissa,

or anyone for that matter,

means I get to engage in one of my favourite activities.

Knock, knock. Anybody home?

(Geddy chuckles) - Welcome.

- Are you Michael? - Yes, I am.

- I'm Geddy. - Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you. I need to pick some wines

for dinner tonight. - Sure.

(Geddy): Well, one thing we do need is bubbly.

- Okay. We have a Dhondt-Grellet,

I don't know if you've had. - Ooh, Agrapart.

- Agrapart's amazing. - Love Agrapart.

Let's pull two of those.

We'll have one of these and a fine Burgundy. - Yeah.

- Let's do the Poulet. - Perfect.

And then, the other thing that I think you'll be fascinated by

as a wine lover, that is a-- - 16%.

- So, you need-- - So, that's a fighting wine. (laughs)

- Okay, so this looks good. - Okay, so we did pretty well.

Now... gentlemen, uh,

my wallet has gone missing. (production staff laughs)

So, I need the producer to pay for this wine.

(laughing)

There's a sucker born every minute.

So, great to meet you. - Yeah, I really do look forward

to hearing how like these. So, thank you for coming in.

- This was good fun.

(melancholic guitar music)

We're tucking into these fine bottles

while feasting back at the Basilica.

- Can I offer you one of these? - Please. Please do.

And we're joined by Melissa's husband, Tony.

Now Tony, do you play an instrument?

(overlapping chatter)

- Although, my first instrument I bought was a bass.

But then, I realized it was a little too hard

to keep rhythm.

- Atonal and arhythmic. (Tony): Yeah.

- Dude, that's a punk band.

(Tony and Melissa laugh)

(Geddy): Also present is their daughter, River.

Can I offer you some of these weird vegetables?

- Sure. (Melissa laughs)

- That's very open-minded of you.

And River's friend, Kestrel.

What about you, Kestrel, would you like some veg?

(laughing)

That's the answer I expect.

This is a theory, if you spin the wine clockwise,

it will smell and taste better.

If you spin it counterclockwise,

it will smell and taste worse. (Melissa): What?

- It's all about the phases of the moon and gravity.

- Okay.

- I'm a very rational person, generally.

(Melissa laughs)

But I kinda buy this.

I'm gonna toast the guest of my show.

Melissa, I would say you are supra-human. (Melissa): Supra-human.

- Even though you claim to have stopped playing bass,

you are so involved in this town and in art

that I think that's just a temporary thing, so...

- Thank you for being an inspiration to...

you know, return to parts of myself that I miss.

- You're what I call a shapeshifter.

- That's witchy.

Subtitling: difuze