Hole drummer Patty Schemel recounts being “˜Hit So Hard’ by addiction in film by UCLA alum
Courtesy of ROMY SUSKIN
By Ruiling Erica Zhang
April 19, 2012 12:33 a.m.
The year is 1994. Kurt Cobain committed suicide in April. Kristen Pfaff, bassist of the Courtney Love-fronted band Hole, was found dead by heroin overdose in June. Two months later, Hole was on tour for its second album, duly called “Live Through This.”
Half-naked on the stage, Love throws her usual wild antics. In the background, drummer Patty Schemel is keeping it all together with the beat. Her face, focused, shows no emotion.
It’s all filmed on an Hi8 (8mm video) camera given to Schemel, who decided to document the tour for herself. Eighteen years later, that footage is now a part of a documentary film on Schemel’s life called “Hit So Hard,”directed by UCLA alumnus P. David Ebersole.
The film opens Friday and chronicles Schemel’s life and career, including her struggle with drug and alcohol addiction and coming out as a lesbian.
The events of Cobain’s and Pfaff’s deaths are revisited, as well as the conflict-ridden recording of Hole’s third album “Celebrity Skin.” While Schemel is credited as the drummer, her part was in fact replaced by a ghost drummer. Schemel’s departure from Hole led to her subsequent relapse and ending up on the streets.
“It was pretty heavy when I was going through the footage ““ to come home every day after looking at hours of footage and go back in a time machine, and then go forward to my life that day,” Schemel said.
In the process of making the film, Schemel said her feelings of resentment and regret began to dissolve.
Interviews in the film with Love, Hole co-founder and guitarist Eric Erlandson, Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur and friends offer their other perspectives.
“I hadn’t really known how my bandmates, Melissa and Eric, had felt about that time in the studio and the difficulty. And to hear Eric say that was a mistake ““ that was huge,” Schemel said. “Because those weren’t the words that were going on in my mind through those years.”
Notable female drummers in musical history also offer commentary in the film, including Gina Schock of The Go-Go’s and Debbi Peterson of The Bangles.
The film also contains in-depth interviews with Schemel. A small film crew ensured all the interviews would be intimate and honest.
With the exception of some scenes, according to Ebersole, the crew consisted of just Ebersole, as the interviewer, and producer Todd Hughes, as the cameraman.
“We felt like this was such volatile personal information, that if we showed up with the 17-person crew and the (production assistant) running to get bagels, then it would just spoil the nature of what we wanted to have, which were conversations with people about their past,” Ebersole said.
The team has called it a “family operation.” Ebersole and Hughes are married to each other. The other producer, Christina Soletti, is Schemel’s wife.
The project was started five years ago when Schemel showed Ebersole her Hi8 tapes to get help preserving them. When the two went through the tapes together, Schemel would talk about the events surrounding that time. Ebersole said he started to realize Schemel had a story to tell.
Ebersole said he counts himself as a fan of Hole but not an insider to the grunge and riot grrrl scenes in the ’90s. Hughes was not familiar with the band before the film, but said that through working on the project, he has come to have a deep appreciation and respect for the music and the musicians.
Schemel said she is excited that the film has sparked dialogue on the topics of recovery and coming out for gay youth.
Still hitting hard on the drums, Schemel formed the band The Cold and Lovelywith Nicole Fiorentino, bassist of Smashing Pumpkins, and has recorded an album that will soon be released. She and Soletti have a 19-month-old daughter, and she runs her own dog care business in Silver Lake.
