Olivia Rodrigo Told Melissa Auf der Maur’s Daughter She Owes Her Career to Hole: ‘Without Your Mother, None of This Would Have Happened’

As far as Olivia Rodrigo is concerned, if it wasn’t for former Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur she wouldn’t be the superstar she is today. In an interview with NME for the British magazine’s Does Rock N’ Roll Kill Braincells?! series, Auf Der Maur was asked if she could see Hole’s influence on the music of today, and she shared a life-affirming moment she had with the “Vampire” singer.

“When I got my daughter tickets to see Olivia Rodrigo for her 13th birthday, we got invited backstage,” said Auf der Maur, who played bass in Hole from 1994-1999 and recently released her rock ‘n’ roll memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry. “Olivia Rodrigo said to my daughter: ‘Without your mother, none of this would have happened’. That’s when it locked in for me that there are direct correlations.”

Rodrigo has never been shy about the huge influence 1990s and early 2000s rock and pop had on her style, often citing fellow female artists such as Alanis Morissette, Avril Lavigne, Lorde, Taylor Swift, Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Fiona Apple, as well as the Smashing Pumpkins — who Auf Der Maur joined from 1999-2007 — and Fleetwood Mac as inspirations.

Auf der Maur added that she has noticed that Rodrigo’s albums, the Billboard 200 album chart-topping Sour (2021) and Guts (2023), have a very explicit “’90s influence in both the songwriting and production. And of course her debut album, ‘Sour”s cover has a nod to Hole’s ‘Live Through This’, with the beauty queen. But having that said to my daughter in front of me was one of the proudest moments of my life.”

And while Auf der Maur, 54, had nothing but nice things to day about Rodrigo, 23, at the time of Sour‘s release, hot-tempered Hole singer Courtney Love accused the Olivia of “stealing an original idea” from her in reference to the sad prom queen-styled promo photos for Rodrigo’s Sour Prom Concert Film that Love said looked a lot like the cover art for her band’s 1994 classic LP Live Through This. Rodrigo responded to Love’s “spot the difference!” Instagram quip with the fangirl comment, “love u and live through this sooooo much.”