Hole's Eric Erlandson Publishing Book on Kurt Cobain

[JamesG]

He Lived Through This, Now Hole Co-Founder Offers His Letters to Kurt
By DAVE ITZKOFF
Feb. 27, 2012


Nearly 20 years after the death of Kurt Cobain, the Nirvana frontman and uneasy pioneer of grunge rock, a key member of Hole — the band led by Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love — has written a book reflecting on Cobain’s suicide and the emotional turmoil that it caused. But the author of this book isn’t Ms. Love.

Eric Erlandson, the guitarist who founded Hole with Ms. Love and helped create hit albums like 'Pretty on the Inside' and 'Live Through This', will publish a book of his reflections on rock ‘n’ roll, drug abuse and the loss of Cobain called Letters to Kurt.

Presented as 52 chapters of prose, poetry and free association, it will be released on April 8 by Akashic Books, the publisher said. The date comes three days after the 18th anniversary of Cobain’s death.







Mr. Erlandson said Monday in a telephone interview that Letters to Kurt was a project that he had been wrestling with for several years but had only recently emerged in this form, after he began and then abandoned a more straightforward nonfiction narrative about his life.

“It just wasn’t feeling right to write a memoir-style book and this one just came out of me a couple years ago,” he said. “It felt like the right way to go, but at the same time, I had a lot of hesitation. At some point it just started to click and I started to honor it.”







Mr. Erlandson, who has had disputes with Ms. Love over control of Hole since the band’s initial dissolution in 2002, and who did not take part in a 2010 reunion album, 'Nobody’s Daughter', said he had not spoken with her about Letters to Kurt.

“Up until September of last year, October, she was asking me to play with her,” he said. “But I felt like there was no transformation in our relationship at all. So that kind of worked its way into the book. I never mentioned to her that I had written the book, and I’m sure she’s heard of it now.”



Nonetheless, Mr. Erlandson said he expected that some chapters of Letters to Kurt would be misconstrued as being directed against Ms. Love.

“There’s one piece that it seems like it’s all about her,” he said, “but then when I read it back I go, ‘Oh, I’m talking about my mom.’”







Mr. Erlandson said his book-writing experience had encouraged him to work on new music again, and though he remains friendly with his former Hole colleagues Patty Schemel and Melissa Auf der Maur, a reunion of that classic lineup seemed unlikely.

“I’m just not thinking that way,” he said.



The more pressing matter, Mr. Erlandson said, was his mental preparation for a coming book tour, and getting comfortable with sharing a private side of himself to audiences who know him best as a rock ‘n’ roll star.

“I’ve had all these fantasies of, like, the way we used to bring kids up onstage, and throw a guitar around their neck and let them play the shows,” he said. “I was just thinking maybe I could grab somebody in the book store and make them read the piece.”

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/20...tters-to-kurt/