Born in a suburb of Buffalo, New York, Kristen Pfaff would go to catholic school where she
learned cello and piano at a young age.
Her parents would divorce when she was young, but her mother would remarry and she would
have a younger half brother.
School mates of Pfaff who attended the same catholic school as her described her to the
buffalo news as and i quote “bright, happy, always peppy," Not only that but she excelled
in school achieving good grades and getting scholarships.
She would attend Boston College and do an exchange program in the Netherlands.
It was ffter from returning overseas she would study English and literature at the university
of Minnesota starting in 1988.
It was while she was a student at the University of Minnesota, she was an important figure
in the development of the University radio station called Radio K. There’s even a clip
of her on YouTube hosting a show if you guys are interested.
Her father would tell the buffalo news "That's when Kristen's life really changed.
She learned to play bass and wanted to be in a band."
She soon quit school and took up bass and started playing in a 3 piece called Janitor
Joe that was part of the Minneapolis music scene.
Janitor Joe played angst ridden and loud music and that caught the attention of local indie
label AmRep who signed the band and put out their debut record Big Metal Birds in 1992.
It was while on tour with Janitor Joe that Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson attended one
of their gigs.
At this point in time Hole was without a bassist and needed one for their upcoming European
Tour in 1993.
Erlandson would tell Spin Magazine “I found Kristen in L.A. and said, “Come with me
to meet Courtney [Love] and Patty [Schemel] when you get to Seattle.”
She joined the band, she moved to Seattle, and that’s when all the songs came to life,
literally.
She was the star of her band and so she was bringing that to Hole and that created sparks
in everybody; we all saw an even greater potential than before.
Patty Schemel (pronounced at 0:20 mark here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTdVsAnNLyg)
would add to Spin “Her playing was heavy, and she was knowledgeable, and she had command
of her instrument.
When she played, that was it: We knew.”
It was during that European tour that the band debuted material that was going to make
their next record and the response was overwhelmingly positive.
Sean Slade who worked on Hole’s second record Live Through This as an engineer and producer
would recall to spin how once he heard the demos from the band he noticed that with the
addition of Pfaff the band sounded more musical.
The band would travel to Atlanta in October of 1993 to record the album.
Jim Merlis, a rep from Geffen Records, the band’s label would tell the buffalo news
“"Kristen was really excited about making a record with Hole.
She was so enthusiastic.
She couldn't wait to start touring."
It was during the recording sessions for live through this that Erlandson and Pfaff were
involved in a romantic relationship.
In the book It was also speculated that peer pressure from her bandmates and friends in
seattle led her to start using heroin.
Schemel would tell Spin: Kristen became Eric’s girlfriend, so they were tight.
… Then there was me and my addiction with alcohol and drugs.
Kristen and I would get together, and we were always trying to keep the amount of drugs
we were doing secret.
“Don’t tell Eric.”
There were so many secrets.
We were all frustrated, and we all had a lot of downtime.
And so to deal with that, there was a lot of “hanging out.”
I was frustrated.
I wanted to play.
I wanted to record.
Erlandson would add in the same interview that during the making of the album he and
Pfafff had broken up and there was noticable tension while recording the album
But it wasn’t just Erlandson and Pfaff who had tension between them as the bassist started
to butt heads with frontwoman Courtney Love.
Pfaff while new to the band was outspoken about musical ideas and that apparently rubbed
Courtney Love the wrong way.
Another factor contributing to Love’s resentment towards Pfaff at least according to the book
Love and Death the murder of Kurt Cobain, was that the bassist had struck up a friendship
with Courtney Love’s husband Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.
Pfaff and Cobain bonded over books and music and Cobain even gave Pfaff a copy of the novel
Perfume.
While some have speculated the pair had a romantic relationship, Pfaff’s brother denies
this was the case.
Regardless, Cobain and Pfaff’s friendship angered Love with the frontwoman she would
start acting out against Pfaff with a friend of the bassist Kathy Hewitt revealing in same
book “Courtney yelled at Kristen all the time.
She wanted to make sure Kristen knew who was boss.
I think Kristen was afraid of Courtney.
She thought she was out of control.
” By early 1994 according to Pfaff’s mother
who told the buffalo news, her daughter suffered a near fatal overdose.
It was around this time Pfaff headed back to Minneapolis and awaited Hole’s tour to
start for their new album.
However those plans would be halted when on April 8 of 1994 news of Kurt Cobain’s death
shocked the world.
The news hit Pfaff particularly hard with her mother recalling in the same book “She
was devastated.
She lost someone she really respected.
They had a lot in common.
It was a big wakeup call for her.
Kristen stopped doing drugs the day Kurt Died.”
Within a week of Cobain dying Hole’s second record Live Through This was released.
Some have questioned the timing of the album’s release.
. The day after Cobain’s death made the news, Kristen checked herself into a rehabilitation
clinic in Minneapolis.
The following month she would speak to a local newspaper where she seemed to indicate she
was done with Seattle and happy to be back home revealing “I’m really having a great
time, doing the things I’m doing now here, getting back to friends ,playing music together,
which i really missed.
I couldn’t get going in seattle because the local music scene was so stagnant.
There’s a lot more going on in minneapolis.”
Contributing to her decision to leave Seattle was Hole’s inactivity, dealing with courtney
love and getting away from the city's drug scene.
Back in Minneapolis, Pfaff would rejoin her old group Janitor Joe and embark on a short
tour of Europe in May of 1994.
Pfaff for her part planned on visiting seattle once more in june of 94 to pick up the remainder
of her belongings from her apartment.
Her mother would have a bad feeling about her daughter’s trip to seattle, so much
so she asked her cousin Michael who was a security guard to accompany Kristen.
Unfortunately due to Janitor Joe’s european tour being extended an additional week, it
resulted in her Seattle was also postponed and Michael could no longer accompany her.
Pfaff would reach out to a friend of hers from the local minneapolis music scene named
Paul Erickson to come with her to Seattle to help her move.
They would arrive in seattle on june 15, 1994 and would pack up her belongings in a u-haul
truck that they would drive back to minneapolis.
Erickson had volunteered to sleep in the u-haul truck to guard Pfaff’s possession as theft
was a huge problem in the area.
That night Pfaff had called one of her Janitor Joe bandmates who recalled that Kristen seemed
in a really good mood and happy to be done with seattle.
At 8:30 PM Erickson recalled seeing Pfaff’s ex-bandmate Eric Erlandson enter the apartment
and leave a half hour later.
It was following Erlandson leaving that Erickson went to go check on Pfaff and while the bathroom
door was locked he could hear her snoring, something which was normal as her father would
recall that she frequently fell asleep in the bathtub.
The next morning Erickson got up and went to get Pfaff so they could hit the road, but
upon entering her apartment he noticed the bathroom door was still locked and heard no
response on the other side.
He would break down the door and find Pfaff unresponsive in the bathtub sitting in few
inches of water.
He would call the 911 and by the time emergency services arrived she was declared dead.
The police who investigated the death claimed to have found a cosmetic bag with drug paraphanelia
. Her death came as a shock to her parents and
friends who couldn’t make sense of the news.
ALl of them tell stories of a musician who was happy to be done with seattle and content
with life back home in minneapolis.
Why return to drugs after being clean and happy?
Her death was declared an overdose and Kristen would pass away at the age of 27 joining the
infamous 27 club along with Kurt Cobain..
Kristen’s mother though never accepted the police’s explanation for her daughter’s
death and pushed for the authorities to investigate her daughter’s as a homicide but the police
would claim there was no evidence of foul play.
One of the other pieces of evidence found at the crime scene was Kristen’s journal
which had the pages ripped out.
Perhaps one of the strangest part of the stories is that the coroner Nikolas Hartshorne
who conducted the autopsy was a close personal friend of Courtney Love and also did the autopsy
for Kurt Cobain.
Kristen’s mother would be quoted as saying in the book i referenced earlier “it concerns
me and my family greatly that Dr. Hartshorne did the autopsy.
I’ve heard all about his close friendship with Courtney and it’s a conflict of interest.
It scares me.
I don’t want to accuse anybody of anything, but i have my concerns.
It was a sentiment shared by her father who told the buffalo news "It's important for
me to let the people in Buffalo know my daughter was not a drug addict," "She had a problem
and had been experimenting and she was very upset with herself and determined to get off
drugs.
Now she's dead, it's just a terrible tragedy."
"It's my understanding at the present time my daughter was not using drugs, adding "After
Kurt died, I think Kristen had had enough of Hole," "I don't know if she would be alive
today, had Kurt Cobain not killed himself.
But Kristen wanted to play and needed to play."’
A representative from the band’s label Geffen Records would tell Buffalo News a similar
sentiment revealing "She wanted to move out of Seattle.
She told me she was tired of all the drugs going on there and needed to get away from
it,"
Pfaff’s death happened on june 16, 1994.
It didn’t get a lot of attention as according to the book i reference earlier a week prior
to kristen’s death a seattle police officer was killed, . The officer named Antonio Terry
was killed in the middle of the night driving home in an unmarked car.
He would stop to help who he though were stranded motorists, but they ended being criminals
who opened fire on the Terry fatally wounding him.
Te He would be the first police officer killed in the line of duty in washginton state in
nearly 7 years so obviously it garnered a lot of media coverage.It would be coincidental
that when the authors pulled Kurt Cobain’s police file when they reviewed his missing
person’s report filed before his body was found, Antonio Terry who worked in the narcotics
division was listed on the file.
Courtney love woul be interviewed by rolling stone in late 1994 where she was asked abut
her reaction to pfaff’s death revealing I didn’t process it, man.
The only time I processed it was when I spoke with her mother.
I could not extend in words . . . to lose your child.
I had to go over there and get Eric away from the body.
Kristen was his lover for a really long time.
He’d already broken down bathroom door after bathroom door for her.
He’d kicked in drug dealers’ doors.
Love would also go on to reveal that following pfaff’s death she contemplated breaking
up Hole.
Eric Erlandson meanwhile would release a book called Letters to Kurt in 2012.
He would open about Kristen Pfaff’s death saying “I admit, I made some stupid mistakes
with some people, and people are dead because of my stupid mistakes.
That’s what I want to say.
And I want to use that, so that other people don’t make the same mistakes that I made,
and other people start understanding.
I get emotional about this.
We’ve all lost people.”
In October of 1994 Pfaff would be inducted into the buffalo hall of fame.
Her mother Janet would accept on behalf of her daughter.
When Hole hit the road with new bassist Melissa Auf Der Mauer they dedicate their first show
back to Pfaff and their 1997 compilation record was dedicated to her.