Courtney Love was the latest guest on Billy Corgan‘s The Magnificent Others podcast, and a lot of tea was spilled among the two old frenemies turned friends again. One of the conversations involved some harsh words about Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon.
The pair started talking about “indie gatekeepers,” and Gordon and her ex-husband, Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore, came up.
“I barely know Thurston, but he was never a gatekeeper,” said Corgan. “But his partner was the worst.”
Love then chimed in, “She was the worst, and she kind of still is, ” with Corgan adding, “Oh she’s still rockin’ the gatekeeping.”
After a brief exchange about how Kim’s memoir, Girl in a Band, had some disparaging remarks about both Love and Corgan, as well as Lana Del Rey, Love continued, “[Kim] was really horrible in the ’90s. I remember being in Holland, hanging out with you [Corgan], and they were so mean.”
To which Corgan recalled, “Yes, I came into their dressing room because we were all playing this festival — Kurt [Cobain] was playing, Nine Inch Nails was playing, [The Pixies’] Black Francis was playing, Urge Overkill was there… I was a fan [of Sonic Youth], and I came in to pay my respects, and she treated me so rudely by her, and that was the beginning of the horrible relationship.”
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As mentioned, Gordon didn’t have kind words to say about Love and Corgan in her 2015 book, writing, “I have a low tolerance for manipulative, egomaniacal behavior, and usually have to remind myself that the person might be mentally ill… Courtney asked us for advice about her ‘secret affair’ with Billy Corgan. I thought, Ewwww, at even the mention of Billy Corgan, whom nobody liked because he was such a crybaby, and Smashing Pumpkins took themselves way too seriously and were in no way punk rock.”
Turning back to the new conversation between Love and Corgan, at one point the Hole frontwoman struggled to remember her late husband Kurt Cobain’s lyrics to Nirvana‘s “Heart-Shaped Box,” before noting, “‘Hey, wait, I got a new complaint/ Forever in debt to your priceless advice’ … that’s about Kim. That’s literally about Kim. He was so mad at her. Kurt’s whole thing was… he hid his light under a bushel for Bleach, because, one, Seattle, which he wasn’t from, two, Kim Gordon.”
She continued, “When I first saw Nirvana in Portland, Oregon, there was … Jason Everman [who played in Nirvana and Soundgarden]. And he had long hair like a Soundgarden guy. And I watched Kurt at a little club called Satyricon turn his Fender all the way down. I saw it. I’m not stupid. I saw it and that’s what led to me and him having an interaction. I was like, ‘You fake guitar player… I get it.’ Right. But that was the Seattle element. And I didn’t know till I hung out with him about the Kim…. I know I was scarred by Kim. So scarred that I had to write her a letter kissing her ass to get… you don’t go for the husband, the cool husband. You go for the wife. And she produced my first album to her eternal regret.”
As far as the Nirvana lyric, for years many had thought that the song was about Love, but Courtney is suggesting that Cobain was actually expressing his disenchantment with Gordon’s influence over him, as Sonic Youth played a part in getting Nirvana signed to DGC Records.
Courtney then went on to say, “Let me cap this conversation. I’ve got the best story. It’s really quick. So when Thurston and Kim got divorced — cuz you know their daughter is in Chicago at school. Don’t know if you know that. Kim sold all of Thurston’s vinyl for a vast amount of money behind his back to pay for her kid’s college education. It is one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard. Let’s move on because these people are dicks, were dicks. I mean one was a dick.”
Watch the full conversation between Courtney Love and Billy Corgan below.
