ENCORE

MAY 1994 ISSUE

COURTNEY

LOVE ARRIVES.

EVENTUALLY.

To celebrate SPIN’s upcoming 25th anniversary, in May 2010, we’ll be looking back at key stories from the magazine’s archives. In February 1994, novelist Dennis Cooper visited Courtney Love at her home in Seattle, shortly before the release of Hole’s Live Through This. His mission: to float the contrarian theory that the lightning-rod singer was not the monster earlier pieces such as Vanity Fair’s notorious shooting-up-while-pregnant story portrayed her to be, but rather a misunderstood wife and mom. The week before the issue hit stands—and the album hit stores—Kurt Cobain killed himself in that very home.

Dennis Cooper (writer) “She was tough at the beginning, very careful, just trying to figure out whether I was on her side. She wanted to convince me that everyone was wrong about her

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and Kurt, that they were more like Ozzie and Harriet—they were in love, everything was great, he was gonna be home any minute, he’d love to meet me. There was no sense of trauma. When he died and the story came out, I was embarrassed—I felt like I’d been played. But my goal was to portray her positively because I did like her, and I did like her work, and I wanted to counteract that image everyone had of her.”

Jeffrey Thurnher (photographer) “The three bandmates showed up for the shoot on time, which I believe was noon. Courtney called around 4:00 to say she was gonna do her hair and makeup at home and was busy feeding the baby. An hour later, we hear her doing an interview at the local radio station. By the time she showed up, it was midnight. She was a mess.”

Cooper “Maybe she was just working me by talking a lot about literature and philosophy because those were things I was interested in. I had this impression of her as being a well-read, intellectual person, and she just doesn’t use that kind of image anymore. Sometimes I wonder what the hell happened.”

Thurnher “It’s 3 A.M., you’re staring at a white wall in a studio like, ‘Do something.’ She wanted to take her clothes off. She didn’t see herself as a beauty queen. The tiara was satire, but this was before she became everything she was against. As a photographer, you recognize when you catch a special moment no one else is gonna get, but the other thing that comes to mind is ‘I’m a dead man.’ I’m 100 percent sure she had no PR people there, which never happens today. She did it and was just like, ‘Fuck ’em.’ ”

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEFFREY THURNHER