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. 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 say anything about someone else's abuse when I'm doing it too."