Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [163]
ELIZABETH DAVIS-SIMPSON I remember Andy from the Gits telling us, “Don’t be mad at Stefanie.” That was really wise, because I never would have thought, I’m going to be angry at this person, but then you do reach a point where there is some anger. I tried to take his advice and fight that anger.
JAMES BURDYSHAW I was pissed at her. Two months before Stefanie died, I spent the night at her place. I was just gonna sleep on the couch, and she asked me to come in her room. At that point, I had given up everything except beer and pot. That night she swore up and down that she wasn’t using and she was through with it. She even picked up a copy of Rolling Stone and said, “That motherfucker lied! He’s a liar!” Talking about Kurt Cobain saying he wasn’t using. She knew. Probably ’cause she was gettin’ it from the same fuckin’ source.
After that conversation, I saw her at the Off Ramp and she wouldn’t talk to me. I said, “Hey,” and she looked at me and then she looked away. Then she was talkin’ to somebody who I knew was into drugs. I was like, Oh, my fucking God.
SELENE VIGIL-WILK Stefanie had been drinking, and if you’re on your back and throw up and you’re so fucking out of it … Yeah, she choked. It wasn’t like, bam, she shot heroin and OD’d, but that was part of what killed her. I learned not to judge people around situations like that. People who didn’t know us assumed things. They’d say things they had no business saying. Stefanie wasn’t a junkie.
RON RUDZITIS Love Battery and 7 Year Bitch were close friends. Stefanie wasn’t really known as a druggie. I think she was on the fringes, messing with stuff. It’s usually those people who OD ’cause they don’t have a big resistance. I think I was into it at that point, but I’d never done it with her. Everyone was pretty damn private about it. It was pretty taboo back then, especially after Andy Wood passed away.
LORI BARBERO It was sad, too, that when she died, we were on tour. I didn’t get back to go to the funeral.
Her drug issues? We never really talked about it. It was kinda like, What can I do? We don’t even live in the same city, and that’s when we were touring hard. And I was trying to take care of Kat 24/7. I was fightin’ demons in my own band. Kat was a demon. A demon with a demon. Taking care of one is more than enough. I don’t know how many times we had to go to the consulate to get a new passport for Kat. I had to keep an eye on her ’cause she liked to kinda get screwed up at night and she’d do this thing where she’d shriek at the top of her voice and smash a glass so she could get attention. Between her and Courtney, it was kinda like, Who can get the most attention all the time? They were both exotic dancers. I don’t know where the hell “exotic” comes from, but you know, they both had a need for attention.
BARBARA DOLLARHIDE PRITCHARD (C/Z Records public relations and marketing director) Before Stefanie passed, I wasn’t dealing with the major media. They didn’t care that much about us. But when that happened, all of the sudden they did. To have media zero in because of that kind of an incident—that was a frustrating period.
ROISIN DUNNE I was furious when I read that Rolling Stone article. The first line was about Stefanie, but it wasn’t about her, it was about her death. I was like, You’ve never written about this woman in the entire existence of this magazine and now all of a sudden you choose to put her name in there based on her heroin overdose?
MATT DRESDNER Once Stefanie died, there was one less personality to rally around. With these clone bands trying to get signed and what seemed