Film festival favorite Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death of Patty Schemel, a documentary about out Hole drummer Patty Schemel’s life and struggle with addiction, lands in theaters April 13th.
The film, helmed by gay director P. David Ebersole, transports viewers back 20 years to the hey-day of grunge with its use of archival video of Schemel, Hole front woman Courtney Love and Love’s husband, the darling of grunge, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain.
SheWired’s sibling site Out.com caught up with Schemel to ask her about being a documentary subject and also about being an out lesbian during that era:
Out: This is an intense film. What are you hoping people take away from it?
Schemel: I talk about growing up feeling like a freak because I was discovering I was gay. I talk about finding David Bowie and Klaus Nomi and Patti Smith and them being these little beacons of light for me. I found myself and I found this sense of self in music. That phrase, "It gets better" -- well, it does. Because I felt like a freak, that propelled me further.
It got better? That whole scene seemed really straight.
Bands like Dickless were cool, but Mudhoney and Soundgarden were like boys’ clubs. When Kurt [Cobain] came along, he said -- through his music and the way he spoke about things -- that freaks are cool. He said that being gay is cool, and that made the climate even better for us.
Check out the trailer for Hit So Hard!
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