Canadian musician Melissa Auf Der Maur says she wanted to settle down "into a cool art scene" in Montreal with Dave Grohl when they were "madly in love" more than two decades ago.
The former Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bassist reflected on their 1999 to 2001 relationship during a conversation on Fierce: Women in Music.
Auf Der Maur said she and Grohl were both “obsessed, committed to rock music” and “non-drug addict, technically happy highly functioning people.”
She explained: “We also really recognized the turning point we were both at as ’90s musicians that were very close in age, that started very young in our small cool hometowns in Montreal and DC. We had a very similar group that we came from… we weren’t like starving to be rock stars. We came from very integrity-based music scenes in our cool cities.”
Auf Der Maur said they eventually split because Grohl – who had already been married and divorced – had different plans.
“I wanted to retreat from the ginormous corporate hell that our music scene had become, and he was not finished yet and had some more proving or ambitions or business to do,” she explained.
“It was purely like, ‘I love you and I want you to go do what you wanna do and you love me and you want me to go do [the same]’ And it was simple and very clear.”
Auf Der Mar, 51, is married to filmmaker Tony Stone, with whom she has a daughter. Grohl, 54, has three daughters with Jordyn Blum, who he married in 2003.