Patty Schemel Had to Lose it All
⤏ IN CONVERSATION WITH ALANA HOPE LEVINSON
⤏ PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAY SPEZZANO
Patty Schemel contains multitudes. On the surface, she leads the calm, balanced life of a 55-year-old living in Eagle Rock; she teaches 3 to 6 year olds at a Waldorf-inspired school and spends her free time painting and making drum tracks on Ableton. It’s hard to imagine that in the 90s this same woman was the drummer for Hole; and was partying so out of control she got kicked out of the band. As chronicled in her memoir (and documentary) Hit So Hard — called “one of the realest books about being an addict in a band” by Pitchfork — Patty has experienced the full range of the human experience. She went multi-platinum with Live Through This and came out publicly in Rolling Stone in 1995, only to later spend years on the street unhoused with a heroin and crack addiction. Though most people want to talk about her chaotic and destructive glory years being a rockstar, Patty’s most interesting takeaways come from everything that came after. Having now been sober since 2005, the lesbian icon talks to Junior High about how she got into music, the role community plays in her creative practice, and why it’s still important to carve out space for girls in the arts.
ALANA HOPE LEVINSON: Tell me a little bit about how you grew up — both like in terms of your family and your interest in music.
PATTY SCHEMEL: I grew up in Marysville, Washington, which is pretty small. Both my parents were from Brooklyn and they moved to the Northwest. I was always interested in music and I remember when I was a kid, my mom would listen to eight tracks in the car and it was always like, Linda Ronstadt. This is seventies!
I really liked Kiss. It seemed like a lot of people from the Northwest that were my peers grew up loving Kiss. I mean, the guys in the Melvins — Buzz [Osborne] and Dale [Crover] — loved Kiss, and Kurt [Cobain] loved Kiss, too. I loved Van Halen. It was straight up rock, you know? It was seventies and eighties rock. I was able to tune into this Canadian radio station on my boombox and there was a great show called New Waves who played Siouxsie and the Banshees, early punk. I started listening to different kinds of music and it blew my mind. Because it was different. The lyrics were honest and about different things, not just about chicks and stuff.
I started playing drums when I was 11. I stopped playing that rock that I heard on the radio. Instead, I'd make cassettes every night of all these new bands. I’d plug in my headphones and play along.
AHL: I wanna talk more about how you got into drums then, given that there weren’t tons of visible female drummers at the time.
PS: I needed to release all this energy; I felt kind of angry and not okay in my body, totally awkward and didn't like crowds. Sports felt good because I could throw myself into them aggressively. But I was not very welcome in the sports I wanted to be in. I couldn't be on the baseball team because no girls were allowed. One day a band came to school and I saw the drummer and I felt so connected to them hitting the drum — that physicality. And there are no rules about music. You can't tell a girl she can't play an instrument. I felt really connected to drums because of the the release and creating something out of the feeling.
In music, I saw people dressing differently and expressing themselves in ways that were new. I felt very connected to that. David Bowie wearing a dress on SNL and Joan Jett and The Runaways and The Go-Go’s were huge because Gina Schock was their drummer. It wasn’t novelty; she was a great drummer and super cool. There weren’t as many female drummers as there are today, but I sought them out. I was so relieved when I discovered them. I thought, Oh, okay. I'm not so different.
AHL: Once you started drumming, how did you foster a sense of community? How important was that during those early days coming up as a drummer?
PS: The guys at school that played drums were okay, but they were all about rock and stuff. I didn't feel connected at all. There were maybe three other people at my school that were into punk, so we stuck together. We went to shows in Seattle and we started a band. We started playing at Johnson's Recreation Center. Dan, the singer in my band was an amazing artist, so he made all the flyers. We would play at parties and stuff. It was like…networking. We went and played at a party and then another guy in a band saw me and said, “Hey, do you wanna be in our band?” And then I was in that band. It just started to move along.
AHL: It’s crazy now to think about doing all that when there’s no Instagram, no bands to follow and message. How did we even know about shows?
PS: Flyers, flyers, flyers. There were flyers everywhere. And everybody in bands were friends, so we'd hear about shows that way. A mall record would be having a festival so we’d go to Olympia and see all these bands and buy their cassettes. It was really about finding the label that you liked, and then you listening to everything on it.
AHL: So is that how you ultimately became friends with Kurt Cobain?
PS: Yeah, that was through going to shows in Olympia. I met Dylan Carlson first. He was in Earth with my friend from high school, Dave [Harwell]. Then when my band was in Seattle, we had a show and Nirvana played, too. That's how it went back then, you know?
“there ARE no rules about music. You can't tell a girl she can't play an instrument.”
AHL: Thinking back to that whole era — around the time you made Live Through This with Hole — I am curious, do you think that’s the best drumming you ever did or does it annoy you that you have to always talk about it?
PS: Yeah. I do remember fondly that sort of excitement of playing those songs but I also remember always feeling like I had to prove myself. I would go into things with this sort of aggression.
AHL: How much of that chip on your shoulder was real, and how much was the distortion in thinking caused by alcoholism?
PS: I was always doing some sort of chemistry experiment. I've drank too much already and I have to play this, so I better even it out with something. It was a lot of that. Some things were sober that I recorded and some things weren't. Sometimes I’d think, 'what if I was like a normal person and approached it the way Matt Cameron approached playing drums in Sound Garden?
But there were circumstances, Courtney saying, “Patty, let's go to New York for Saturday Night Live because Nirvana's playing; let's just leave the studio.” And if she says it, then it's okay, so we do it. We leave in middle of recording basic tracks and we are wasted. We get drunk on the way back too, and then show up back at the studio and have to get it together. I was not behaving professionally, but I'm 25-years-old, you know?
I've done all the things. It’s been awhile, but maybe all that energy — that danger and craziness and addiction — created what that record is.
AHL: That's really interesting; even though you're admitting addiction led to the creation of an incredible album, with your book you really don't glorify it the way a lot of rock stars do. It feeds into the illusion many people have that they can’t make good art without drinking or doing drugs.
PS: One of my favorite artists, Jean Cocteau, was a heroin addict and he wrote so many times in his books that art is shit and nothing is brilliant when you’re a mess and on drugs. It's just not honest. Some people would disagree, that's fine.
AHL: After Live Through This, you were fired from the band and subsequently hit rock bottom, living on the street and doing sex work to afford drugs. How much of that was that tied to the creative disappointment and rejection of leaving Hole?
PS: It had to get there for me; it was either that or death. All the insecurities of I'm not good enough felt better when I was high. And when the actual fear came true and I was kicked off the record, there was nothing else to do but drugs. I was just gutted and emptied out of any sense of who I was or self-esteem. I had to — that cliche — lose it all.
Then, I went to rehab, got sober, moved into a sober living, and got a job with the other ladies I shared a house with. I’m working at the job and after a while the boss gives me the keys to the establishment because he trusts me. Really? I’m a thief. And then I get my first paycheck and I’m able to have it in my wallet for 10 minutes and not use it to score. Little by little, I rebuilt my life from there. Having someone tell me “good job” without it having anything to do with drums felt good and validating. I worked hard sweeping out this shop. I still work hard today.
“I was just gutted and emptied out of any sense of who I was or self-esteem. I had to — that cliche — lose it all.”
AHL: So you built up self-esteem outside of drumming, but how did you go back to it eventually?
PS: A couple of years after I got sober, my brother — who's a guitar player and is in a band called Death Valley Girls — and I would get together and write songs. It was fun, we’d have no rules. I started playing a little bit again and played in a couple bands and regained confidence. I played in Juliet Lewis's band and in a show with Pink. There was this whole new discovery of different kinds of music and what happens in the business. It was totally different than being in Hole and it was kind of cool.
AHL: How did it feel to be playing drums again? Did it feel different than it did when you were using?
PS: It did because I made sure I had prepared. I did all the things you need to do to take care of yourself. Literally like, just eating right. Have a meal and practice. And I had people to reach out to if I felt scared or insecure. It’s okay to ask for help and I felt like I had support.
AHL: How has having a recovery community helped your creative process?
PS: [Community] makes me take more chances with what I do and what I make. If something feels a little uneasy to me, or it doesn't feel good, I won't do it. I don't want to get involved with something isn't a safe place to be for me.
AHL: Let’s talk about how you were a pioneer as a female rockstar coming out as gay in the nineties.
PS: People were shocked that I was gay, they would argue about it. I couldn’t make it to my high school reunion because I was on tour, but my friend said people came up to him and they were like, “Did you hear about Patty?” The shocking news wasn’t that I was in [the world-famous band] Hole, but that I was a lesbian.
AHL: How much do you think the music scene has changed since then, in terms on inclusivity in creative spaces?
PS: It’s amazing that there are groups like Rock Camp For Girls, where you can be seen as a girl and as a creative person and feel valued and heard. I've heard so many other female musicians my age say, “I wish there was a program like that when I was a kid!” Because we all remember that feeling of going into the drum shop and having some loser guy try to mansplain. Or they would look at my brother and say, “What can I help you with?”
It’s so important to support [programs like Rock Camp For Girls] and that's why I love being a part of them. We gotta start somewhere and you can't just put band-aids on stuff. I don't really feel like much has been done since the riot girls in the nineties. That movement was a part of making girls and women respected in music and in the world. Where is that now?
It planted some seeds for women to take on ideas and create and make themselves heard. We need those movements, we need to bust out and create them.