Courtney Love and former Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur will perform at a Planned Parenthood benefit concert, held on March 14th at New York’s Town Hall.
Titled Bans Off My Body, the event was organized by Planned Parenthood and the Feminist Institute — a non-profit organization that collects and archives feminist art, humanities, politics and business. Jane’s Addiction’s Perry Farrell and his wife Etty Farrell will also perform, as well as singer-songwriter Rachael Yamagata, Joan as Police Woman and alt-rock band Betty.
Hole has been broken up since 2002, but Love recently teased a reunion in an Instagram post she’s since deleted. The benefit won’t include guitarist Eric Erlandson and drummer Patty Schemel, so it’s not a true reunion, but it still marks the first time Love and Auf der Maur have performed together since 2012. Auf der Maur replaced Kristen Pfaff on bass after she died in 1994; she played on 1998’s Celebrity Skin.
“I have had access to great, free women’s reproductive health care in my life and have also had none or very limited access to it for most of my teens and twenties, leading bands, writing music, being sexually active,” Love tells Rolling Stone.
“The restricted access almost killed me,” she continues. “There is no way, as an American woman who got through it miraculously healthy, that I’m going to let other women suffer. I hope this concert can help young women realize that vital information and education and medical help is out there for them, and we have to fight like hell to make sure that it remains that way. Women’s clinics and the law are under attack and we have to protect each other.”
Auf der Maur admits that she had already called Love about reuniting and that it all “lined up” when producer Hal Willner contacted both of them. “When the question is around women’s reproductive rights, the first thought I had as the former bass player of Hole was, ‘Time to get the band back together,’” she said. “I began to imagine Courtney and all of her complex feminist lyrics screaming at these old men who dared to judge what we should and should not have. I wanted to get back on stage supporting Hole’s legacy in being outspoken and fearless. We are both mothers of daughters, and as it was before, their rights and future generations’ women’s rights and freedoms are my inspiration.”
Tickets will go on sale on Thursday, February 20th at 10 a.m. ET. via Town Hall’s website.