and played music with her brother Larry, who played guitar. As a teenager, Schemel came out as a lesbian to her family. "When I realized I was a lesbian, it was weird," Schemel reflected. "Thank god for punk and rock music. You could be whoever you wanted." Musically, Schemel's early influences included Echo & the Bunnymen, AC/DC and Wire, among other punk rock bands. Schemel recalled being one of a small number of peers in her high school who had a shared interest in punk rock music. At age fifteen formed her first band, The Milkbones. She and her brother Larry subsequently formed the Seattle punk band Sybil, which was renamed Kill Sybil due to the artist of the same name. 1987–1991: Early projects In 1987, she joined Doll Squad, an all-female punk rock band from Seattle. Along with bassist Annette Billesbach, lead guitarist Cathy Watson, rhythm guitarist Helen Halloran and vocalist Mara Dralle, Schemel was one of the original members of Doll Squad before their 2008 reunion. The band was initially active from 1987 to 1989 gaining an indie following in Seattle, playing alongside Nirvana, and releasing one self-released demo tape. Between Kill Sybil and Doll Squad, Schemel played drums for Everett, Washington-based band The Primitives with poet Raegan Butcher and local performers Danny Darst and Tommy Suzuki. 1992–1997: Hole Schemel was considered by Kurt Cobain as Nirvana's drummer after the departure of their drummer, Chad Channing. Cobain had been a fan of Schemel's former band Sybil, which had also been based in Seattle. However, after Dave Grohl's audition, Schemel became Cobain's second choice, and he and Schemel developed a close friendship. After the departure of Hole's original drummer Caroline Rue, frontwoman Courtney Love recruited Schemel at the suggestion of Cobain; after an audition in Los Angeles which impressed Love and guitarist Eric Erlandson, Schemel was asked to join the band in 1992 and she quit her job in Microsoft's warehouse fulfillment center. Schemel's first work with Hole was the recording of their fourth single, "Beautiful Son", on which she also played guitar on the b-side "20 Years in the Dakota", with Love playing bass. During this period, Schemel had developed an addiction to heroin, and refused to be part of close friend Kurt Cobain's drug intervention in March 1994, claiming that doing so would be hypocrisy, as she "was strung out [...] how dare I go there and