“Zero idea! ‘Not Sonic Youth’ is my answer!” [Laughs]

WRONG. Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox.

“Cute! I’ll look it up.”

How do you look back at that album?

“The thing that sat so heavy with me with ‘Celebrity Skin’ was the loss of Patty [Schemel] after an incoming ghost drummer caused her to leave, and the breaking of our spirit. Since I’ve written the book and shed tears about how it was a loss of innocence for me, I actually have more appreciation for the record and can see it’s a great album that I’m proud of.

“Even its overly produced nature sounds great by today’s standards. It’s rich with human playing, with tiny tweaks by early versions of Pro Tools. It’s ageing well. When I met Billie Eilish and Finneas with my daughter, Finneas told me ‘Celebrity Skin’ is a big influence on new producers – in that it sounds both perfect, but also real. All those years of unresolved sadness around the machine and the loss of Patty didn’t allow me to see the beauty in the record. Now I do, and I recommend people go listen to it.”

Will Hole ever reform?

“I have no idea. If there’s one thing I know about Courtney and Hole, it’s that it’s as mysterious as romantic love. You can’t force, organise, or plan these things. What I do know is I’ve always said no for many years, and it wasn’t until the Evil Empire in the US that I began to contemplate where Hole, and Courtney’s fearless feminism, and our generation, could maybe add to this dire dialogue in the US. Some of my interest in returning to Hole in any shape or form is because the world needs that kind of power, rebellion, and intelligence.

“Courtney’s one of the most well-read and intelligent humans I’ve ever spent a significant chapter of my life with.”

Which makes it (grimly) funny that when Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson dared Courtney to pour a bag of Skittles over Kathleen Hanna’s head backstage at Lollapalooza (which ignited a notorious feud), you claim the Bikini Kill frontwoman responded by haughtily screaming “I challenge you to a feminist debate in any college in America! And I. Will. Win.” Did people underestimate Courtney?

“It did seem ridiculous in the moment. [Laughs] People underestimated Courtney – and they still do. They underestimated her will to live, her intelligence, but also her pain. Where was the compassion in understanding how hard this woman was fighting just to be alive with her kind of traumatic life even before Kurt? So give me a break! A lot of my book is trying to highlight compassion for complicated people.”

[embedded content]