Today, 32 years ago, Kristen Pfaff, best known as the bassist for alternative rock band Hole, was found dead in her bathtub due to a heroin overdose at age 26. She died two months after Kurt Cobain, who was a close friend as well as the husband of Hole’s frontwoman, Courtney Love.
Pfaff was born to Janet Pfaff and her first husband in Buffalo, New York. Her parents divorced when she was a child, and her mother remarried to Norman Pfaff, who adopted Kristen and gave her his surname. She studied classical piano and cello.
Prior to Hole, Pfaff was the bassist and backing vocalist for Minneapolis-based band Janitor Joe.
The growing Minneapolis scene was beginning to attract music press attention in 1993. Amphetamine Reptile released a tour single, “Stinker”, and Janitor Joe began to tour nationally. It was on one such tour in California that year that Pfaff was scouted by Eric Erlandson and Courtney Love of Hole, who were at the time looking for a new bassist. Love invited Pfaff to play with Hole; Pfaff declined and returned to Minneapolis, but Erlandson and Love continued to pursue her.
Pfaff, initially reluctant to leave Minneapolis and join Hole, reconsidered after advice from her father, Norman.
In 1993, Pfaff moved to Seattle, Washington, to work with the other members of Hole on Live Through This, the major-label follow-up to Pretty on the Inside. The band’s new line-up—Love, Erlandson, Pfaff, and Patty Schemel on drums—entered the studio in early 1993 to begin rehearsals. “That’s when we took off,” Eric Erlandson said of Pfaff joining. “All of a sudden we became a real band.” A year after joining Hole, she was found dead in her apartment.
This specific performance was part of the band’s national tour following the release of their debut album, Big Metal Birds. Shortly after this period in 1993, Kristen Pfaff left Janitor Joe to join the band Hole, contributing to their critically acclaimed album Live Through This before her passing in 1994.
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