Courtney Love faces a number of problems. Firstly, she's not feeling well. Secondly, her biological family wants to see her perform live. That's not happening, she says. And lastly, she's in Seattle right now, and who knows what kind of can of worms that can open. But at the same time and at this point in her career, Love understands how necessary it is to ward off all possible distractions ahead of a show.
Fortunately for us, the mercurial singer harbors no grudges towards Anaheim, where she'll be playing this Saturday night. This is proving to be a fruitful period for Love. She has her first batch of new music coming out at the end of the year along with her long awaited autobiography.
After a few minutes of venting about her family and feeling much better, Love is in great spirits and we finally get down to business.
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OC Weekly (Daniel Kohn): So, what's going on?
Courtney Love: I have a book and music coming out around Christmas. We're going to tour again. I have two film scripts that got sent to me for the first time in about 10 years. I got offered two parts in two reasonably good features, like high-end. That came out of the blue, which was amazing. I was going to do this TV thing but I kiboshed it. In terms of reality TV it wasn't gross, I'm not saying what it was, but it was wrong and I can't do it.
Getting asked to do those two feature roles must have been nice.
They've both come within the last month, which is insane.
Are you excited to get back on-screen?
One of them I fell on the floor screaming and crying. It was a miracle. I don't know what happened.
Why did you decide to put the book out this year as opposed to any other year before? Why was the timing right?
I've been saying that I've been going to put it out for three years and now Harper Collins is being really bitchy and it's time to put it out. Also, it's a really good time for books right now and when it comes out, I can put the music out with it. It's so much more of a guarantee that the music will get marketed and heard.
What do topics do you touch on in the book?
Well there's a life map that my editor printed out. It's always good if you're a well known person to start from when you were well known and work back. That way the childhood chapters aren't super, super long. When you read a book like that you want to get to the good stuff. The thing is my childhood is so crazy that it is kind of the big stuff. Basically, there's a lot of high end stuff in there and low end stuff in there. There's everything from horrible environments that teenagers shouldn't be in San Francisco in the '80s to going out with a duke and an earl. It's everything.
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Was it hard reliving some of those memories?
It was when I was doing it by myself, but I got a co-writer and it made it a lot easier.
Is this your first time playing Anaheim?
No, I've played there once. I also played there with Camp Freddy (the cover band featuring several rock luminaries) there once and I went to rehab in Laguna.
If you're going to rehab, you might as well be in Laguna, right?
Right! And it worked too. You know, art therapy.
Speaking of which, you were recently in the news for something you said to Amanda Bynes on Twitter. Being that you offered her advice and she's gotten into trouble again, do you feel any impetus to reach out to her again?
No. There's something there that's beyond my capacity. Originally it was a tweet that was like “chill out dude.” I thought she was being a mess but I think there's something that's a little bit deeper than I can deal with on a social network without trying to be cold. I now know that her parents are very normal and she's got plenty of money and owns a lot of property and she's fine. They can sort her out and I'm not getting pulled into it. I thought it was a drug problem. If it's a drug problem I can help. If it's something a little bit deeper than that, I'm not qualified to do that.
What can we expect from your set?
You can look forward to seeing rocking and I've taken to wearing leather pants. If you're a good audience, I'll play a really long time!
Courtney Love performs tomorrow night, 8 p.m. at the City National Grove of Anaheim. For tickets and more information, click here.
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Daniel Kohn is a writer based in Southern California. With bylines in an assortment of outlets, Kohn primarily specializes in music with other interests ranging from sports to food. As a transplant, Kohn loves the beautiful weather and is glad he no longer has to deal with brutal winters. If you see him, say hi and of course, he’s always willing to down a beer or two…if you’re paying.