Prior to Grohl, Patty Schemel was Kurt Cobain's choice as Nirvana's (new) drummer. She ended up playing in Hole and changed the band's trajectory with a power and determination that anchored the band's music on stage. Outside of life in the studio and on the road, Patty was also fighting a war that most fans never saw. She was a powerhouse drummer (just listen to 'Live Through This' if you have any doubt), but as with so many others from the Seattle music scene, also found the allure of hard drugs, which sadly led to her departure from music and a brutal stretch of homelessness, living on the streets of L.A. for over a year.
It's all laid out with unflinching honesty in the documentary 'Hit So Hard' from 2011 and the acclaimed memoir (from Da Capo Press) of the same name that followed.
Now over a decade living clean and sober, Patty is living a stable and happy life, is working on new craetive projects and is working in addiction recovery with homeless women from those same streets of Los Angeles.
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