Melissa Auf der Maur

Durand assumed guitar duties and Auf der Maur began playing bass, using a Fender Precision Bass that her father had purchased for her 21st birthday.

The duo recruited a second guitarist, Jordon Zadorozny, and a drummer and began performing at Montreal venues.

Melissa Gaboriau Auf der Maur (born March 17, 1972) is a Canadian musician.

Auf der Maur and Gaboriau married in 1978 when Melissa was six years old.

The couple divorced in 1979 after which Auf der Maur traveled worldwide with her mother.

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 Cohen's daughter Lorca and Rufus Wainwright.

At a Smashing Pumpkins performance at Les Foufounes Électriques in 1991, Auf der Maur had become friends with vocalist and guitarist Billy Corgan.

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:

"My friend Bruce [Cawdron], who later became the drummer in Godspeed You! Black Emperor, was there and he whispered, 'God, this guy has attitude. They're acting like they're playing an arena. And he then threw a bottle at Billy and shouted, 'Drop the fucking attitude!' Bill dived off the stage, put his hands around Bruce's neck, and they started fighting. I thought, 'Great. You just ruined the show.' I went up to Billy afterwards and said, 'I'd like to apologise on behalf of Montreal. You are my new favourite band.'"

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.

Auf der Maur began performing in 1993 after forming the indie rock band Tinker while she was a student at Concordia University.

During her time as a DJ at Bifteck, Auf der Maur met fellow Concordia University student Steve Durand, with whom she formed Tinker in November 1993.

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."

She was recruited as the bassist for the American alternative rock band Hole in the summer of 1994 and is included on several Hole releases, including the album Celebrity Skin (1998).

At school, she became interested in photography and subsequently attended Concordia University, from which she majored in photography in 1994.

At Concordia at age 19, Auf der Maur began working part-time as a DJ at Bifteck, a well-known rock club, where she met several musicians including Steve Durand.

Tinker had a brief recording career, releasing two 7-inch singles, "Realalie" and "Green Machine", on the independent record label Bear Records in 1994.

She has acted in How to Make the Cruelest Month (1998), Beyond Borders (2003) and Collaborator (2011).

Following her departure from Hole in 1999, Auf der Maur briefly joined The Smashing Pumpkins as a touring member for its 2000 tour and began her solo career; her debut studio album Auf der Maur was released in 2004 on Capitol Records and Out of Our Minds, her second studio album, was released in 2010 on her own independent record label, PHI–MAdM Music.

She has also collaborated with Indochine, Rufus Wainwright, Ric Ocasek and Neverending White Lights.

Auf der Maur is also a photographer and occasional actress.

Her photographs have been included in National Geographic and exhibited at Sotheby's.

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.

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" was derived from the German word 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.

Gaboriau called Nick Auf der Maur after her daughter began questioning her about her father's identity.

Reflecting on the encounter, Auf der Maur said "[my father] realised my mother Linda was the love of his life because she'd offered the gift of this child without any demands. He fell madly in love with her [and] pursued her for two years".

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.