The Spinnerette frontwoman and wife of Josh Homme boasts serious rock credentials, having fronted The Distillers and played with Eagles Of Death Metal. She tells Clash of her ups and downs, from Olympic swimming to sleeping in a skip.
My most painful injury
“I once broke my nose diving into a pool.”
My most memorable trip
“The first time I moved to America in 1997. I was moving to LA as my boyfriend at the time [Tim Armstrong from Rancid] lived there. At first I found the city pretty vulgar and alienating, for a long time I felt really unadjusted there. It was scary, but the trip itself was really exciting, it was life-changing shit.”
The worst song I ever wrote
“‘Oh Serena’.”
My most impressive sporting feat
“Coming first in the swimming championships in Melbourne. Freestyle was my stroke. I always came first – I was training to become an Olympic swimmer, but then I discovered pot.”
The most dislikable celebrity I ever met
“Rosanna Arquette. We had a disagreement…”
The hardest I ever laughed
“Is with my sister. It’s really rare to find those people where you get hysterical, not the kind of laughter where people laugh because they’re just being nice, but the ones where you just laugh really hard – gutteral, deep, mutual laughter. I don’t know what it is, we just have that thing.”
The worst lie I ever told
“That Paul ‘Crocodile Dundee’ Hogan is my father. It was when I was about eight, and the film had just come out. I got away with it for a year before I got caught out in front of my mum. That’s how much I loved Crocodile Dundee.”
Best childhood memory
“Seeing Cyndi Lauper play when I was seven-years old. My dad took me to see her. That was the first show I’d ever seen in my life. She was this tiny little speck with orange hair and a pale blue dress trouncing around the stage, singing with that voice, I was totally mesmerised.”
My most shameful moment
“When I was fifteen I bought these really expensive suede pumps from this vintage store, and I went to have wine at this Italian restaurant – my girlfriend and I thought we were pretty fancy. And we got so fucking hammered that I lost my brand new shoes, and the only place we could find to sleep cos it was three o’clock in the morning was a hotel laundry-bin dumpster. There was blood and cum all over the sheets, it was gross.”
Life hasn’t gotten much better
“Than the moment that my daughter was born.”
The angriest I’ve ever been
“When I turned twelve.”
The most at peace I’ve ever felt
“Any time I hold my daughter, when I’m in my man’s arms.”
