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I mean, it was twisted. I felt like an alien visitor. It was all horribly wrong.

PATTY SCHEMEL Courtney has a reputation of not being a nice person. It depends on the situation, though. She’s completely self-absorbed. And all that anger that she has is just one big cover-up, because, really, she’s just kind of a scared person. I was not threatening to her. I’m not interested in her husband—I’m gay. I’m a drummer. I’m not going to wear the same dress she’s wearing. We came from the same place musically. That’s why we got along.

ERIC ERLANDSON In our Western society, Courtney’s known and she’s an archetype—it’s like she’s this destroyer woman, kind of like a Medusa type. People tend to not like that type of woman, not realizing that we all have that inside us, and the more you hate it on the outside, the more you activate it inside. Deep down inside, she’s just a person with a soul, with her own karma, with her own life and her own experiences, and we don’t understand what that is and where she came from. You watch Behind the Music and think, Oh, now I know her. But you don’t know shit.

GRANT ALDEN One of the things I said when I had been asked about the manner of Kurt’s death is that I knew the coroner, Nik Hartshorne, and Nik knew me, and Nik knew I had a kind of bully pulpit at my disposal. We never talked about it, and Nik’s been dead a long time now, but I absolutely believe that if there had been something wrong with the way Kurt died, Nik would have come to me. By “something wrong” I mean: Did Courtney kill him? Did he really commit suicide? All that bullshit. No. If there had been any irregularities, I am morally convinced that Nik would have raised total hell.

ERIC ERLANDSON A lot of people I know, who I wouldn’t expect to say this, ask me, “Did Courtney kill Kurt?” They actually ask me that, because they’ve watched the movie Kurt & Courtney. I’m like, “Wow, I thought I knew you, but since you just asked me that question, I don’t really know you anymore.” I presume that people would see beyond this problematic documentary. I was in the proximity of Courtney in L.A. at the time, so I don’t think she killed him or had him killed. It’s pretty clear what really happened.

Also, everybody thinks that Kurt wrote our album Live Through This. I treat that like a conspiracy theory, too. I was there for most of the writing of that album, and so I just laugh when people say that. Though Courtney didn’t help matters by dragging him in the studio and making him mumble over a couple songs.

PATTY SCHEMEL Right after Kurt died, I went into rehab for the first time and tried to sort everything out. When I got out, Hole’s bassist, Kristen Pfaff, calls me up and says, “I’m going back to Minneapolis.” We would trade records all the time and she was like, “I have your Live Skull record, do you want to come over?” I remember saying, “I can’t make it.” I didn’t want to go over there because I was too worried that I might end up getting high. Kristen was using when I was using, but we would try to keep it secret from each other. So I sent my friend to go over and grab my stuff and give Kristen her stuff.

Then I got a phone call that Kristen had OD’d and died, and that was crazy. Crazy. I ended up staying clean for a while, but it didn’t last very long.

ERIC ERLANDSON Our album had come out the week after Kurt’s death. But Courtney was not in any shape to do anything, so everything was kind of crazy for a couple months. Just as things were starting to mellow out a little bit, Kristen died and there was that tailspin again. With Kurt it was like, Fuck the album, fuck the band, it’s over, it doesn’t matter. But when Kristen died, it spurred a feeling of, We have to get out of here and go on the road and support this album. The album was so connected to the whole situation, with the lyrics and when it came out and the fact it was called Live Through This.

PATTY SCHEMEL Through Billy Corgan we found Melissa Auf der Maur to play bass, and she stepped into this really