She is the most controversial woman in the history of rock. She is reviled as often, and as deeply, as she is revered. Courtney Love - the electric diva of bad girls; a cranky, eccentric, brilliant pain in the butt. She's a buddhist, a stage-diver, a fighter who throws fists up close and verbs at 20 paces. Even Love's critics acknowledge the incendiary power of her singing, her songwriting talent and her charisma.

Courtney Love was born in San Francisco in 1964, the daughter of intellectual hippies. Her turbulent childhood was spent shuttling between Oregon and New Zealand. Starting as a wild teen, Love immersed herself in the punk scenes of London, Minneapolis, Seattle and beyond. In the mid-'80's, she plunged into acting, appearing in two Alex Cox films, "Sid and Nancy" (1986) and "Straight To Hell" (1987). She dipped in and out of jobs stripping in dance clubs before running an ad in a Los Angeles newspaper, in 1989, for a band she would call Hole.

When Love began dating Kurt Cobain, in 1991, Hole's first album, "Pretty On The Inside," was selling twice as well as Nirvana's debut, "Bleach." By 1992, however, Nirvana's second album, "Nevermind," had stormed the charts; Cobain and Love were married; and the tsunami of fame that swallowed Cobain swamped the pair, for the next two years, in media scandals over their drug use. Hole's second album, "Live Through This," was released in April 1994, only a week after Cobain's self-inflicted shotgun death at the couple's Seattle home. Shortly thereafter, Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff died of an overdose. Following months of grieving, Love replaced Pfaff with Melissa Auf der Maur and took Hole on tour. The band's volcanic performances established Love as a major force in rock.

By 1996, Love had put rock & roll on hold and returned to the movies, giving a critic-wowing performance in "The People Vs. Larry Flynt." While writing songs for Hole's long-delayed third album, Love locked in on more film roles. The once-chubby grunge babydoll now eats "movie-star food" and works out with a personal trainer; she's been trans-Vogued to high glamour.

As she talked from her home in Los Angeles, Love's staffers rushed in and out with messages while her and Cobain's daughter, Frances Bean, played avant-mayhem on the piano.
 
 

Why did you want to be in rock & roll in the first place?

Because it was like an endurance sport that was open field. I always loved pop music and didn't really know why girls didn't participate in it more aggressively. Nobody ever told me the reason for that, because there isn't one.
 

What was your first gig like?

It depends which one, because there were lots of configurations - everything from standing up with a bunch of drag queens and lip-synching, to open-mike poetry. My first gig where I had a bunch of songs and a real band was with L7 at [the underground punk club] Raji's in L.A. It was very cathartic. I had no fear.
 

No fear at all?

No. Because what else was I going to do?
 

What were the assumptions about women in rock when you started out?

I didn't really know. It's a 50-year-old art form, basically. So the contrivances it seeks to impose on people are so thin and transparent that they can basically be ignored. They're worthless, because they shift and they turn with the tide of popular culture, which moves along very fast. It doesn't take much of a brain to figure out that popular culture is something one person can change. So if, at the time when I started, women appropriating guitars was seen as, say, dykey - and I use that term with some respect - or like a man's job, it was only because [the music's] history, from black blues guys to skinny white English guys to Americans, had been so short. So I never saw a concrete idea of what that was supposed to be. For me, rock & roll was about ousider status. The interpreters, the wonderful Julie Londons and all the other women who sang other people's crafted songs - that was a different genre. Whereas picking up a guitar is kind of like picking up a baseball bat. But there's no difference in the physical challenge at all, despite what [revisionist feminist thinker] Camille Paglia says.
 

Did her criticisms of you hurt?

None ever hurts me. It's not designed to hurt me. I'm too critical to get pissed off if someone someone criticizes me. I've always made music that I'd want to criticize.

The truth is, I'm a secret Camille Paglia fan. Her criticism of me is probably the only criticism I ever actually paid attention to - if only to argue about it in my head. At least she's astute. But in terms of rock & roll, she just got it wrong. She applies all her wacky feminist theories to tribal dance music, and she doesn't understand Led Zeppelin or where it comes from. The only thing she understands about Led Zeppelin is their big dicks in their pants and their sexual celebrations. She doesn't doesn't get that it's also about these really great songs and this whole other poetic dimension. She doesn't understand Leonard Cohen. She doesn't understand folk music, frankly. And if you don't understand folk music, you can't understand rock & roll.
 

What, to you, is the perfect pop song?

There are so many of them. I remember the first song that made me cry was Dylan's "Visions of Johanna," and obviously I liked "Suzanne" [and all the other] Leonard Cohen songs that were truly great. But then there were great, great pop songs like "All By Myself," by Eric Carmen, and old Raspberries songs. I remember wonderful Beach Boys songs - "California Girls." Yesterday I heard "All My Love," by Led Zeppelin, and it made me cry. I'm totally skipping great Joni Mitchell songs and great Patti Smith songs. So it changes. Actually, you know what? If I had to pick, I'd say "Waterloo," by Abba, is probably the most perfect pop song.
 

Now that you've become more prominent in film, how do you compare it to rock & roll?

I had a very serious director look at me the other day and go, "My, you're such a fine actress. So popular music - what do you see in that? Don't you find that lifestyle confining?" I said, "Well, yes, on one hand I do - and on another hand there's an elevation to popular music that is the sound of a summer spilling out of someone's car and the moment you break up with somebody and the moment you first get sex, and it is as impenetrable a memory in someone's brain as a great still from Gone With the Wind."
 

Do you think there were advantages to being a woman when you started out?

Well, I wouldn't want to be the other thing.
 

Do you respond positively or negatively to the term "feminist"?

I'm a militant feminist. So I would say I respond positively to it. Because it's my definition. It's my word, and it's my mouth the words are coming out of. It's my language that I'm speaking, and I'm very positive about that word.
 

Were your musical inspirations male or female?

Generally I sought the female most of my life. I looked for female protagonists in everything. My first record was a Joan Baez record my parents gave me. [And there were] Julie London and Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette and Joni Mitchell - the seminals. When I heard my first Patti Smith record, Horses, it was like, the ticket's right here in my hand; I can write it. It's a free zone.
 

Who's your most important female role model?

It changes all the time. It's like the 12 signs of the zodiac. What mood are you in? Are you in a Bette Davis mood? Are you in a Stevie Nicks mood? They're like goddesses. You use archetypes from popular culture the way Greeks used god and goddesses.
 

At what point did you become aware that it was "different for girls" in the world of rock & roll?

It's not! It's not! Who says that? Does Jann Wenner say that? Is that a rule? It's a load of shit! Fuck that! It's a lie. That question lessens me and makes me defensive. Like any frontier, there's going to be all sorts of doors to kick down and all sorts of people to kick in the head and all sorts of people to clang bells in their ears and wake them up and stomp on them and be warriors and move along. That's just life. That's American life at its finest. And I appreciate it. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be an American and yell at Jann Wenner freely in his own magazine.
 

Ok, now we're going to get deeper into this one: Is rock & roll more or less sexist than society at large?

No! Keep going. I like shouting. Rock & roll is no more sexist than stupid bourgeois society is. Everyone's in need of this big kick in the head.
 

Is there a different sexual vibe for women on the road?

Well, there kind of is. Just because there's a different sexuality, biologically. I'm famous for spouting about my touring with Nine Inch Nails, which was one of the most atrocious things, as a feminist, I've ever seen. The usage of young adolescent girls. And the thing is, on one level [the girls are] participating and they're playing a game, which is like, "You're the Antichrist and I'm the Whore of Babylon; let's play this sex-bondage-dress-up game." And that's fine. That's part of the culture. But what bothered me [on that tour] was when tertiary figures, like crew members, were involved with the kind of really gross shit that shouldn't have happened. That was really immoral and wrong.
 

Were there differences between male and female groupies?

There certainly wasn't a line of 16-year-old boys in little bondage outfits waiting for me, OK? But interestingly-- interestingly-- there was a line of 16-year-old girls in little bondage outfits waiting for me. I just wanted to spank them and give them all guitars and tell them to go start bands. It's a bummer that girls have to respond to rock artists sexually rather than like, "Wow, me too." Guys come backstage and they're like, "Dude, like wow, what kind of guitar is that?" And they ask really stupid, pretentious questions. Which is fine.

But that was years ago. By now there's been this Lilith tour, which made a hell of a lot more money than Lollapalooza, thank God. And basically what that says is we have commercial power, and that's what defines any Darwinian enterprise. In this society, commerce is what defines power. And since we have the dollar now, there doesn't have to be that kind of abuse. But you know what? There doesn't have to be this lack of fun [either]. When I bitched about what happened on the Nine Inch Nails tour, I got turned into this prudish Miss Havisham kind of character. And that's hardly true. It's hardly an archetype I would have expected. But I guess compared to that situation, I was Miss Havisham. So, whatever.
 

What advice would you give to young female musicians starting out?

Learn how to write really good songs. I think it's a meritocracy. It's based on talent. And so there's no greater and more delicious luxury than being a lady rock star. I've seen all the occupations now. I've seen the highest levels of the occupations and the lowest levels of the occupations and, hands down, there's just no more delicious job. And it takes guts. But so does anything. Anything takes guts. And anything takes throwing off what everyone tells you is the right thing to do and following what you're supposed to do. All that blah-blah-blah, Horatio Alger kind of stuff we've heard our whole lives.
 

Do you feel like a role model for younger musicians?

Do I feel like one? Do I walk around and make tea and say, "Boy, am I a real role model today?" I came around at a time when a lot of women, like Exene Cervenka and Patti Smith and Lydia Lunch, had percolated more underground than overground. And I came along with my shiny blonde head and mainstreamed that a little bit. I've metamorphosized and moved on and changed a lot of precepts in my life, but in the pinnacle of my most rock starriness, I probably was a part of this archetype. And that is almost a Greek archetype, almost like Artemis: that very free androgynous archetype. Amazonian. Not butch. This has never been about butch for me. And that's an important distinction because...
 

One is an emulation of a masculine form.

Right, and this entire line of questioning has basically been me throwing up a flare whenever the idea appears that I have to emulate some slight time line of history in this form. And I do not. I do not have to emulate that. I can be as much of a woman as I want, and bring as much elegance and grace and sexuality that is from my womanhood to this form. I do not need to emulate this other gender.

One of the tools and energies that I used was rage -- sexual rage. And sometimes that would be misconstrued: "Oh, people give her shit, but all she's doing is acting like Jim Morrison." No! I'm not acting like a male rock star. I'm not following that. I'm following something that hasn't really occurred. Deal with it, because it is not coming from the collective of images of masculinity.
 

Did you feel competitive with other women artists?

Yeah, totally. There's something wrong with that? Hello? Were you supposed to deny being competitive? There are two ways to be competitive: There's the snarky, icky, vile way to be competitive, which denial creates, and then there's the celebratory way of being competitive, which I fortunately have always been. It's not more masculine, but it's more logic-based, which is: "Hey, guess what? If I win, I'm going to shake your hand, and if you win, you're going to shake my hand, and we'll both be close to each other but I'll kick your ass next time."

I did an interview with Stevie Nicks and I asked her, "Did you ever have any rivals?" She said no, and I was like, "Boy, you missed a fun thing." Because it is fun to have a rival. When I sit down with Billy Corgan [Love has been working with Corgan on her upcoming album], and I bring him an arrangement and he makes it better, and I leave and feel shitty because he's made it better, and so I take apart everything he's done because there's no way I'm goin to let him win -- that's a great feeling. That's just a great tension to have and hold. It doesn't mean I don't adore him and his talent, and it doesn't mean that he hasn't helped me a lot. It just means I'm going to better myself.
 

Do you find it easier to work with men or with women in the studio?

I've always preferred to stay with women artists because there weren't a lot [of them], so I wanted to propagate the idea. Just because it's more challenging and fun. It's not really about gender difference; it's about time, it's about chronology. Boys did this first, fine, [but] that doesn't mean I can't do it better because I did it second. I inadvertently spent a lot of my time playing with a man [Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson], whom I have learned to adore, but it took me a long time. 'Cause with a girl it's easier to say, "That sucks," you know? And with a boy you just feel like you're maybe offending his ego a little too much.
 

What are some examples of double standards for male and female musicians?

If they existed, I deconstructed them.
 

Have you been taken advantage of because of your gender?

I'm accountable for me. Any circumstances of my gender, I just change them. And if I'm the one that changed certain things, then bully for me; if someone else changed them before me, then good for them; and if someone changes it after me, when they saw what happened to me, then good for them. It's a continuum; it moves forward, and it has history, and it has a past and a present and a future.
 

What does rock & roll allow you to do or be that no other medium would?

Well, it allows me to speak my mind, and it allows me to manifest my own destiny. It certainly allows me to perform - it allows me to tap into a collective, that is, I think, a really beautiful and potent thing. And I think it gives you an incredible voice to speak your truth. It gave me a voice; it gave me power.
 

What advice have you ignored that you're glad you did in retrospect?

People who were really concerned about their credibility and who were really cynical, trying to shoot themselves in their own feet by almost purposely not writing good songs; [people] trying to oppress me and not allow my natural instinct for pop to emerge. I've been around a lot of people like that, most of my music career, because I've always been around the smart ones. And the smart ones have the biggest division between selling out and integrity - the biggest torture between what is the pledge to their art and what is the pledge to the Man. So at a certain point in the last two years, I've just departed completely from playing into the idea that I have to sound crappy to do what I want.
 

How does one age gracefully in rock?

Ah, well, now there's a question. I don't know. It's not about catering to teenage simplicity and the beauty and the grandeur of being a teenager when you're not a teenager anymore.
 

How do you deal with the demands that pop culture and the business make on you to maintain an image of youth and beauty?

Um... I still haven't resolved that question. I don't know. My thinking is so convoluted and strange, and it's not on par with the way it's supposed to be. I mean, somebody wrote, "How can she rock in a Versace gown?" Well, easy - let me show you. You can do what you want. Wear what you want. If you're great it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you've got the biggest hips in the world. It just doesn't matter. And if you're beautiful, it helps. And if you're not, it hurts a little. But who cares?
 

I hear that you recently attended your first-ever boxing match, and that it was the Holyfield-Tyson bite fight. What did you think of the women's fight on that same bill?

They were the biggest fuck-you of all: "I don't care about my face." That's brilliant. But I enjoyed Holyfield/Tyson more because the fighting was harsher and the energy more extreme. So it wasn't about gender. I thought the female boxing was still in its subversive, seminal stage. I mean, pink - pink satin shorts, and lots of blood on them - that's pretty punk rock. But it's not good fighting yet. It's kind of like, "They're loud and they've got the chords, but the songs aren't there yet." It's the same exact thing. Maybe it will grow. There have always been female gladiators of some sort.