Long-held rumours of a reunion have proven to be true, with the news today that Courtney Love is once again getting together the Celebrity Skin lineup of Hole.
Featuring Love, Melissa Auf Der Maur, Eric Erlandson and Patty Schemel, the band are reportedly planning on releasing a new single, Wedding Day, in May to coincide with a UK tour.
“I started playing with Patty and Melissa and Eric, just to see how that was,” Love told The Quietus. “We already played like three or four times in the last week.” The four musicians last recorded together on 1998’s Celebrity Skin, and disbanded in 2002.
According to Rolling Stone, just before New Year’s, Love posted a photo of her embracing guitarist Eric Erlandson on Facebook and tagged bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur. The photo’s caption read, “2014 is going to be a very interesting year.”
Schemel reportedly left the band in 1998 over differences with producer Michael Beinhorn during the recording of Celebrity Skin. She was replaced with Journey’s Deen Castronovo, but is still credited as drummer on the record.
The group appeared together for the first time since Schemel’s departure in 2011 at the premiere of the documentary Hit So Hard, which told Schemel’s life story. Rolling Stone reports, it was in 2012 that these four musicians played their first songs together in 15 years at an after party for the documentary.
Celebrity Skin was Hole’s most commercially successful album selling 1.4 million in the US and achieving Platinum in Australia. The album was in fact the band’s first studio release to feature bassist Melissa Auf der Maur following the death of former bassist Kristen Pfaff in June 1994.
Hole actually reformed in 2009 and released Nobody’s Daughter, though Courtney Love was the only former member of the band to feature on the record.
