Hole was an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1989. It was founded by singer Courtney Love and guitarist Eric Erlandson. It had several different bassists and drummers, the most prolific being drummer Patty Schemel, and bassists Kristen Pfaff (d. 1994) and Melissa Auf der Maur. Hole released a total of four studio albums between two incarnations spanning the 1990s and early-2010s and became one of the most commercially successful rock bands in history fronted by a woman.
Influenced by Los Angeles' punk rock scene, the band's debut album, Pretty on the Inside (1991), was produced by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, and attracted critical interest from British and American alternative press. Their second album, Live Through This, released in 1994 by DGC Records, combined elements of punk, grunge, and pop rock music, and was widely acclaimed, reaching platinum status within a year of its release. Their third album, Celebrity Skin (1998), marked a notable departure from their earlier punk influences, boasting a more commercially viable sound; the album sold around 2 million copies worldwide, and earned them significant critical acclaim.
They disbanded in 2002, and the members individually pursued other projects. Eight years later in 2010, Hole was reformed by Love with new members, despite Erlandson's claim that the reformation breached a mutual contract he had with her. The reformed band released the album Nobody's Daughter (2010), which was conceived as Love's second solo album. In 2013, Love retired the Hole name, releasing new material and touring as a solo artist.
Hole received several accolades, including four Grammy Award nominations. They were also commercially successful, selling over three million records in the United States alone, and had a far-reaching influence on contemporary female artists. Music and feminist scholars have also recognized the band as the most high-profile musical group of the 1990s to discuss gender issues in their songs, due to Love's aggressive and violent lyrical content, which often addressed themes of body image, abuse, and sexual exploitation.
Background
Hole formed after Eric Erlandson responded to an advertisement placed by Courtney Love in The Recycler in the summer of 1989. The advertisement read: "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black, Sonic Youth, and Fleetwood Mac." Erlandson recalled of their first meeting: "We met at this coffee shop, and I saw her and I thought 'Oh, God. Oh, no, What am I getting myself into?' She grabbed me and started talking, and she's like 'I know you're the right one', and I hadn't even opened my mouth yet." In retrospect, Love said that Erlandson "had a Thurston [Moore] quality about him" and was an "intensely weird, good guitarist". In his 2012 book, Letters to Kurt, Erlandson revealed that he and Love had a sexual relationship during their first year together in the band, which Love also confirmed.
Love had been living a nomadic life prior, immersing herself in numerous music scenes and living in various cities along the West Coast. After unsuccessful attempts at forming bands in San Francisco (where she was briefly a member of Faith No More) and Portland, Love relocated to Los Angeles, where she found work as an actress in two Alex Cox films (Sid and Nancy and Straight to Hell). Erlandson, a Los Angeles native and a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, was working as an accountant for Capitol Records at the time he met Love.
Love originally wanted to name the band Sweet Baby Crystal Powered by God, but opted for the name Hole instead. During an interview on Later... with Jools Holland, she claimed the name for the band was partly inspired by a quote from Euripides' Medea that read: "There is a hole that pierces right through me." She also cited a conversation with her mother as the primary inspiration for the band's name, in which her mother told her that she couldn't live her life "with a hole running through her". Love also acknowledged the "obvious" genital reference in the band's name, alluding to the vagina.