Ask Melissa Auf der Maur to speak about her hometown and before you finish your question she will begin an animated monologue that sometimes goes in three different directions at once. Her enthusiasm is the same charisma you will see and hear in other local artists when discussing Montreal. Everyone seems eager to tell their story of the city, to stress the importance of its history and their gratefulness for the role it played in their artistic development. She begins by giving me her ideas on what forms the crux of the city’s spirit,

“Quebec and Montreal [are] all about culture, I’m pretty sure you’ve picked up on that by that now. There’s the spirit of the French Canadians who worked so hard to preserve culture, they inspire the entire city. Everyone preserves their culture like crazy here so there’s always these amazing multicultural/arts festivals happening. It’s a very unique city in the way it preserves and nurtures and celebrates and glorifies the diversity of culture within the arts.”

As we discuss one of these arts events, the Pop Montreal festival, a six-day rock spectacle showcasing local and international acts, I mention the trepidation we had in piecing together the Montreal music section. In particular, how a rather famous band like the Arcade Fire wound up not being included. Melissa concurred with this choice but from a community perspective not musicianship perspective,

“The Arcade Fire is not a big Montreal band. It’s a phenomenon outside of Montreal, of course. It represents the spirit and sound of the [scene], but they don’t. Montreal is very hands on, if you see the person and you know the person, then they’re a part of the community.”

In Melissa’s words, it seems that to Montrealers, simply having a good band is not enough. In a city full of people striving to preserve their culture, giving back or being involved in your city is priority. As she discusses her own decision to leave the city in 1994 when Billy Corgan asked her to join Hole, her words seem to connote an underlying fear that perhaps she was betraying the city in some way. While she ultimately deciding that leaving was the right thing to do, she feels fortunate that her friends from God Speed You Black Emperor kept the community thriving.

“Leaving Montreal was a very fucking tough decision to me...I could have stayed and had an amazing life in arts and culture but I wouldn’t have been able to see the world and that was crucial.

“All those God Speed people were just creating that spirit and that sound and that ideology right as I left in 1994 and I am so proud of them and what they have done in the last decade. To me, they are carrying on the torch of what the real foundation of what makes Montreal special is, which is people coming from abroad who chose to be unique and to preserve uniqueness, promote uniqueness and to promote, most of all, community. They’re old fashioned. It’s all about preserving the old world and these guys have taken over. I trust them to be the people to carry on the flame for that generation of immigrants who are dying now.”

She continues on detailing what returning to Montreal has been like for her, “I just moved back here after ten years in the states, perfectly timed right as the United States is unfortunately being dragged down in spirit by the fucking, terrible government. It was finally time for me to get out of there but it was also perfectly timed in that I had been gone long enough that coming back was rediscovering it as a new place and rediscovering it at its peak. It’s at an unbelievable peak right now, regardless of the outside attention. The reason it’s at its peak right now is [we] finally got a little bit of money into the art world here and we finally were able to show the rest of the world what it was about. It’s just feeding itself. Now that there’s a little tiny bit more supported income, people are fluorishing.”

As we shift gears and begin to talk about her new album, I mention I interviewed her former bandmate Billy Corgan and that he had kind things to say about her. Without missing a beat, she traces her relationship with Billy back to Montreal,

“I met him right here when I was 19. I met him at Montreal’s version of CBGB, which is the Foufounes Electrique. The translation is the Electric Asshole. That’s an important part of Montreal. You know the way the punk rock scene in New York is embodied in CBGB? Well, the punk scene in Montreal is embodied in this club. That’s where I saw Nirvana right before “Nevermind” exploded. “

“There are still complete punk rockers, you know, homeless punk rock teenagers, basically sleeping in the hallways of the place. It’s incredible. It’s one of the most colorful, exciting places here.

“Anyway, when Smashing Pumpkins played their first show ever in Montreal for $1 in front of twenty people, I was one of the $1 payers to see this new band who had a 12” on SubPop. And the reason why Billy and I met was...there were twenty people in the audience, half of whom were blown away by this band who were basically playing to an arena but in a tiny punk rock club.”

The other half, one can assume, were not. Among them, her roommate, “Bruce, my roommate at the time, who was one of the drummers in God Speed You Black Emperor was offended by Billy’s arrogance and threw a beer bottle at him and said, ‘Drop the fucking attitude man!’ And they got in a fistfight! At the end of the night, I went and apologized on behalf of Montreal, Canada to Billy Corgan!” As she states this she kind of chuckles at the hilarity of the scene and adds, “We were pen pals ever since and I ended up joining his band ten years later. How creepy!”

We taper off and begin discussing her album but throughout our conversation I think, that if it is possible to be indebted to a city, then Auf der Maur seems indebted to hers. Through her narratives it becomes clear that every aspect of her life right now seems woven through the constant thread of this place whose shops and clubs and characters have left indelible marks on her life. No wonder she moved back when she decided to work on album that would challenge her more than ever, “I really want to grow as a writer and moving back to Montreal was to become a better writer, to really find my voice.”