Patty Schemel Was Introduced to Bacardi and The Clash in the Same Moment

Drummers have different styles. Patty Schemel’s drumming has always been tight and precise but she plays hard and heavy, big thick beats that powered songs like “Miss World” and “Violet”. Her substance use was also hard and heavy, keeping pace with or exceeding the consumption of her peers in the Seattle music scene of the 90’s and of her band’s leader and frontwoman, Courtney Love. It started with alcohol and worked up to heroin and crack. In our interview with Patty, she details her career ascent and her substance descent and she sheds light on substance dependency. Even though her band was headlining festivals, even though she had lost her close friend, Kurt Cobain, to drugs and suicide, even though her band’s bassist, Kristen Pfaff, died of an overdose, she just kept using. And she kept using after being fired from the band and having 22 attempts at sobriety. But the 23rd time was the charm. Patty is sober, the author of the memoir Hit So Hard and subject of a documentary of the same name, and telling her story.

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