Billy Corgan on the Return of Rock, Standing By Marilyn Manson & Outlasting His Haters - BUZZFEED INC

Billy Corgan is a revitalized rock star. Revitalized? Okay, so now I'm already pissed off. All right, let's go. If you knew how valuable the Smashing Pumpkins actually were in 1995, you wouldn't be talking about me that way. Smasher Pumpkin! But if I run out and tell everybody that for the last 25 years, you get treated like a fucking idiot. I remember doing an interview. It was a typical kind of contentious interview from like 15 years ago. And I stopped the guy because I could see where he was going. And I said, look, you've got to understand, I think I'm one of the greatest artists in the world. You don't, so every word that comes out of my mouth, you think I're insane. You want a politically correct answer? No, I want the real answer. Welcome to the New York Times Podcast, your vast ocean of weekly culture chat. I'm John Caramonica. I'm the critic. I'm Joe Coscarelli, and I'm The Reporter. And I'm William Patrick Corrigan, and I am the itinerant... Is that a word? It is now. I'mtheincorrigable rockstar, and i'm on PopCast. We're gonna find out exactly how incorrigible over the course of the next 90 minutes. Yeah, thanks so much for joining us. I'm gonna shock you by not playing a contrarian today. No. What? Interview's over. I'M GONNA GO OFF BRAND, YEAH. INTERVIEW'S OVER. CUT! billy corgan is a revitalized rock star revitalized okay so now i'm already i knew that would get you going an emergent podcaster a cat magazine star a wrestling empresario go to hell go to hill for about 40 years billy cargan has been the front man and creative engine of smashing pumpkins one of the actually the smashing pumpkins the joke doesn't land without the the okay say more smashing pumpkins it makes it more like a verb right yeah the smashing pumpkins is like english use the word smash yes yes okay all right pumpkin all right all right the smashing pumpkin's helped lead the alt-rock revolution of the 1990s selling tens of millions of copies of albums like melancholy and the infinite sadness siamese Dream, and Adore. Songs like 1979, Tonight Tonight, and Bullet with Butterfly Wings, have persevered through generations and now fuel a whole new wave of Pumpkin's fandom with Gen Z on TikTok. I want to talk to you about this. In particular, Corgan even recently popped out with olivia rodrigo and somber a reunited version of the band is currently on the rats in a cage tour celebrating 30 plus years of melancholy corgan also hosts the magnificent others podcast on youtube and all podcast networks i'm a competitor yes okay while we're here subscribe to popcast on youtube if you haven't press that You got to say smash that like. Smash that like, the smashing likes. And if you've not yet subscribed to the New York Times, now is a perfect time to do so. If you download the app, your first month is free, no paywall. Billy Corgan, thanks for coming over. Thank you for having me. From video podcast to a different video. Yeah, I'm all stressed out from the whole video thing. I just, I can't follow it. So like, can you walk across the street? Can you look in the distance like Bono? You know, it's like I was lost. Was that the instruction, like Bonno? No, whenever anyone asks us, we used to call it the U2 shot back in the day, you know? The photographer would invariably ask you to look off in the distance and we're like, oh, you want the Bono shot. Okay, so I was alluding to this. I showed up at the Barclays Center last night. You're talking about the revitalized part? Yeah, like I'd heard tell of the Gen Z fans of the Smashing Pumpkins and 90s alt-rock in general. You know, I've seen the Shoegaze revival happen. On TikTok and Spotify and Bandcamp and SoundCloud, this broad umbrella of rock sounds. Like now people think the Smashing Pumpkins and Beach House are like from the same scene or something, you know? Yeah, which is nice if you think about it. Yeah. So when did you notice that this was happening and how have you either embraced it or rejected it? Yeah, I feel like 15 years ago, people kept telling me, oh, guitar's coming back. and then i you know two years would go by and be like guitar is coming back so after i heard it so many times i just thought okay it's never coming back pop the pop hegemonic thing is never going to go away taylor's going to rule over all of us until the end of time yes and then about five years ago you just felt this like and suddenly it's like it was about the guitar again and what were the sort of triggering events i would be in la and listen to k-rock which is the you know you know the classic old station like it is the it is the one that's embraced us and probably more than any other station set our north star there were years i would listen and i would listen to seven songs in a row and not hear a single guitar line yeah it was all synthy and then all of a sudden it's just like here come the guitars or you're watching an nfl game and and they're playing our music playing nirvana it's like suddenly it was just back in the air What do you make of it? Do you think generationally younger folks are being offered—were being offered less of that and sort of started seeking something out in opposition to what they were being offered? That's a great question, and I don't have a good answer. I have a theory, which is— I love a theory. It got so inorganic for so long that you just need the sound of something that feels like commensurate to the way you're feeling as a kid. And I'm 59 years old, so I can only imagine, I have young kids, but I can Only imagine what it's like for a teenager to feel the classic disassociative aspects of being a teenager and then add to that social media and all that additional pressure. it's like what in the in the cosmology of music represents that that angst and and i think our generation for whatever reason is the closest thing that they can kind of dial in yeah that's my theory but it doesn't it doesn'T apply all the way across the board it's LIKE you brought up the shoegaze revival you know there's such a dreamy aspect yes it's aggressive but it's kind of this dreamy thing so why are they suddenly attracted to those sounds too so i'm not quite sure with shoegaze sometimes i think younger people seem to embrace it as almost like soundtrack music to their own lives it feels like it it is pre it's pre-written to be the soundtrack for some of the that was my attraction so i yeah i i vibe with that but i mean that was My Attraction 30 years ago you felt like you were in a movie you're walking down the street well the first time i heard my valentine it was like this is the soundtrack to the movie i want to live in yeah i remember being at smart studios with butch vig when the ep came out before uh the famous album loveless and we were like what is this this is so magical like what are they doing we were trying to theorize like trying to understand what they were doing on a production level that's how alan mold ended up mixing siamese dream because i was like i want that guy but not everything gets rescued from the dustbins of history like why the pumpkins in particular you want a politically correct answer no i want the real actually like no i prefer because we Wrote great fucking songs. And we were told at some point in the early 2000s that those types of songs with those types of themes were no longer relevant and off they went. That it was too complicated. The Cure had the same problem. I've been friends with Robert for many years, and we would sit there somewhere in the earlier 2000s over, you know, a Chinese meal and lament, like what the hell happened like this emotionally resonant music is just it just seems like it's been shoved aside by like like sociopathic influencers with like kind of one note music like what The Fuck happened and I'm not saying you're talking about pop at that time well it's all of it because look and I've been very critical of of let's call it the uh pitchfork generation when they sold out alternative ethos for pop uh domination in essence celebrating rihanna as an alternative star and wiping suzy off the map that to me was the great betrayal of the alternative ethos so suddenly all the things that make alternative music so beautiful the messiness the uncomfortability the the dissonance the out of tune guitars it was like no that's just too messy. We don't have time for that anymore. We want this perfect world where it all adds up to a perfect synth line. And then a lot of good music came out. I liked the music, but I was like, how do we not fit into this anymore? And we had music that set that music up. So it wasn't like we had no lineage. And it was just suddenly like the DNA helix was cut off. And again, I kept hearing, oh, it's going to come back. It's goingto come back to the point where you start thinking well i guess i gotta flip the page i started literally comparing the guitar in interviews to the saxophone yeah sure and not an unreasonable thing to do especially like you know there was a period where that was the dominant musical instrument in pop music yeah and yet you're a hook writer like you have these big choruses you you were writing you're quite you're quite a good pop songwriter smash singles well thank you but what where did that come from in you when you finish this other thought because i do think it's really valuable yeah which is like so why after 20 or so years of like like it's just gone and then all of a sudden it's like boom the deftones start to get massive and by the way not in the traditional you know they had a big album with seven singles and then now they're big i mean they just got bigger and bigger and bigger and just the through line of like chino being like this is what we do yeah we're not bending to chino's credit he didn't bend i i started bending around because i was like i gotta find something to do here yeah i made a very heavily synth record called seer which i like and people really highly regard and you know you got the old fan base going you know where the fuck are the guitars and i'm like show me where the guitar is in the culture and i'll give you guitars if you can look back at that time period let's say before the guitar started to go away if we can look at the 90s for a second sure the rise of hip-hop is coming broadly speaking mtv is starting to embrace it yes there's a stretch of time i would say mid to late 90s where rock like guitar rock and hip-pop were cohabitating as parallel subcultures that were breaking out to broader yes obviously that changed in the 2000s but in the 90S did you regard what was happening in hip hop as something that you were sympathetic to that you're like i under i see what's happening here and i i just i i saw it as the same value system so just in parallel space absolutely and i loved a lot of the music to me public enemy is still one of the greatest bands of all time i love the records i love those guys uh flavor flay was just at my show you know a couple months ago i I mean, totally radical, like coming from the street, the sound of fucking urgency and violence and passion. I'm like, give me more of it. So, yeah. And in the 90s, like the death row stuff, the bad boy stuff, like where you see that? Because it starts to get shinier. Yeah, 96, 97, 98. They lost me when it got to be kind of kabuki. Like, you know, it's no secret that a lot of those guys love the movie Scarface. yeah sure sure it became too performative for me it was too almost like character work in a way i'm not a big fan of overly like being on stage and being performative is fine but like the music on some level i i still want real yeah and that it started to feel like it was going away i just felt like it became like a caricature of a character of a caricatur and you can make the same criticisms of rocks i'm nicht singling out hip-hop that's where they lost me so like so for example when it started going like this way and i started thinking this is not really my thing and then along comes like dmx and i was like oh my god that's pike dude give me dm x is like are you kidding me yeah i can listen to that guy all day long you want to talk about like like straight down the barrel sure give it to me like i want to feel that so given that as you go from the 90s in the 2000s and the cultural primacy of hip hop and trl pop and things like that sort of supplant the centrality of rock were you on high skepticism were you sort of like this is not simply a rejection of rock but it's a rejection of some value system oh you mean did i see it as like is it a cultural sea change in your mind it did feel that way than a musical sea change yes i mean my first rationalization was okay music is cyclical here comes pop boy bands uh you know when i talked to top executives in the labels late 90s early 2000s they were literally like rock bands are too expensive to record we're making so much money on hip-hop cheaper we know they're not going to last in the business we're literally exploiting them i mean they would just tell me this i'll write and they still are sure not my fight to fight but so it was kind of being sold to me is like look the business is on a downturn we're making more money on these people you guys are too complicated da da da so it was like kind of like okay so there's that aspect of it but then when when this this pop dominance thing came over it took a long time for me to process what that was in hindsight I my opinion is it totally dovetailed with social media you think okay well and this is why I'm so critical of the pitchfork class because a pop star right Let's just, you know, not singling out anybody. A pop star is genetically made to take advantage of every fashion, perfume, endorsement. You know what I mean? They're a vehicle for many things. Well, perfect for social media. Yeah, sure. Okay. Your general kid who comes out of a basement like Kurt Cobain is not socially engineered to be thinking about the perfume cross endorsement- There was an undercurrent of indie rock becoming indie-ish pop rock at the time, too. Yeah, you've spoken about the value system. Well, no, but I'm saying like from the White Shapes and the AAS, Modest Mouse being a major label band, The Shins doing a McDonald's commercial, et cetera. But you're old enough to remember when Pitchfork suddenly decided it was okay to sell your song to a commercial. Well, the bands decided it Was Okay first. Okay. But I'm saying is before that you would have been hung up on a cross as a sellout. The number one word of the 90s was authenticity. My favorite word because who was defining it? Usually upper middle class white people from the East Coast telling me who grew up in a fucking basement what authenticity was. So that sellout to me was part of that what you're talking about. yes so bedroom rock i once referred to a band at at south by southwest as laptop rock and the audience gasped name names you can look it up on youtube all right the fact that i referred to a band in a positive way as laptop work was like and it's like no no i'm not being dismissive it makes sense we're in a digital culture now you want a music that's pastorally relating to the experience you're having because your your mind is bifurcated and all this other shit that you're doing. You're on your phone, you're on your laptop. So yes, it's like Brian Eno, music for airports. It's like starts to become ambient. So I saw all these kind of divergent things happening, but why rock kind of fell off like this cliff. That's an interesting thing that I don't have a great answer for. But do you feel like, was it a decline or was it a rejection? Both. Which precipitated the other? Great question. um i don't know because it it did seem like gen y if gen i gen y follows gen x they just didn't seem to be as interested in the same stuff that me and courtney were interested in yeah and my first thought was like well that makes sense they're just rejecting what came before yeah but then it just seemed to go like it's dissipated the energy didn't seem historically consistent does it make sense but something i often think about is in the 80s and 90s especially When we think about how the media covered rock music, I think the media typically over-indexed on coverage of rock music because many of the people in the music media were essentially middle-aged white guys who were primarily into rock and not that into pop and not that into hip-hop. They grew up in the 60s and 70s, album era. If you don't mind me interjecting, are you leading to – because I watched some of the flack when you guys did your top songwriter list. Oh, yeah. Is this – Shout out to the boys. But is this – are you leaning into this kind of reassessment of value? Is that kind of what you're leaning into? I'm sort of, I think where I'm going is, was the popularity and centrality of American rock music in the 80s and 90s something of a historical accident precipitated by oversaturated media coverage? I often think of when SoundScan came into play, which was in 93, 92, something like that, 94. The week before SoundScam came into Play, the number one album in the country is R.E.M. The week, the first week of SoundSgan, it turns out the actual number one album inthe country is N.W.A. It's more reflective of true popular taste and not a bunch of people calling up record stores and record store guys being like, yeah, we're selling a bunch R. E.M.'s albums. i think there's a so the question is was rock actually over inflated at that time i think that's a reasonable argument i wouldn't argue against your your theorem um but there felt like there were other things happening so i it's like it's a yes but not it doesn't answer the whole question sure sure but then you guys were also packaged as something to be sold by corporations as as a broader group sort of flattening the underground right the our band could be your life stuff into you know sonic youth being on a major label yeah but i think you got to be careful with that because it takes a particular skill set to sell that many records that many people and that's why he's talking about songs yeah okay so answer the hook so i was a sonic youth fan until kim garden started going after me right but you wouldn't say sonic youth had any songs okay not any hooks and by the way that's one of the reasons i like them yeah okayso it's not a it's not a diss, but we wrote songs in the, in the classic tradition of songwriting. And the fact that my opera is out doing sold out business shows you that I'm more in the tradition of the great American songbook than I am in the traditional of, of, you know, New York art bands, you knows, playing CBGBs, you now 88. Do you think you should have been on the songwriters list? You can make an argument for it, but I'm not a, how can I put it? When I see like who they put in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I usually don't disagree. You know what I mean? It's not like I'm like, oh, they don't deserve to go. Like there's a lot of cases to be made for a lot of people. Sure. I wouldn't necessarily go against some of the people you put on the list, but I can make argument in an intellectual way how other people would maybe be more worthy. Who would you have taken off and just to be clear i'm not gonna i'm not gonna say that we did not make the list on our own we made the list no i got a broader yeah i know but i i would i'm saying i yeah we just we just put ourselves forward to be yeah i'm Not I'm not a person who wants to argue against somebody's bona fides you know what i mean um yeah although you have been in the past yeah various but but that's that's the that guy's dead i'm curious about that no no but i want to i want to sure linger on that for a minute sure i wonder if you feel like you've mellowed i i spoke to you in 2018 uh on the cusp of a reunion for for the pumpkins yes i don't know for the revitalization yeah i don'T know how many reunions you would say you've had we never called it a reunion so you know sure uh you you were bringing back some original band members at the time well you gotta you gotta remember just to set this up yep when i was the only member left in the band circa 2012 every promoter in the world would say to me you know if you'd only get your original band back you'd be in a better place so i got three quarters of my original bandback and then they were like they were then they just changed the rules they kept moving the goal line on me oh you're not playing enough hits oh you know what i mean so when you met me at that point sure i was pretty much uh you know ready for a fight because i'd been hearing for six eight ten years that what i had didn't qualify and by the way this is in the downtime of the guitar times right sure so anyway that's the setup on what you're where you're going and you were a bit defensive ticket sales were a little soft at the at the start of that we spoke about no no you gotta you gotta give that some context okay the ticket sales Were a Little Soft because I got into this public scrum with our ex bassist Darcy sure and and the because it's clickbait the media ran with it and turned into this thing like oh the pumpkins drama's back and and instead of a story about the band re you know recongealing around you know uh making peace the story became oh the band's fighting again not my story but no no no no yes so so i'm saying is we walked right back in you know unwittingly we walked right back into like oh we're back into this like let's call it the 90s version of the drama when we had just made peace james and i didn't talk like literally have one conversation for 16 years right so you broke up in the year 2000 yes and a lot of people when writing the obituary of the band said you know they give up trying to fight with trl essentially the the teeny pop no by the way that was a joke no but i'm saying but the but the rock writers took it seriously this idea that well i can't i can speak for their idiocy but i mean i made it i made a joke i mean shout out to neil strauss yeah i by the way the joke came out of my mouth okay i went on i went on tammy's show on k-rock on may 23rd i don't know i remember this day may 23 2000 and i said the band's gonna break up at the end of the year and she said why and she was a huge fan and a big supporter behind the scenes and i jokingly said because i'm tired of fighting britney spears the meta joke i was making was i see where this is going and and you all are idiots if you're going to throw your lot in with the pop people you're going to learn now the money people made a lot of money but i i would argue it's a cultural you know uh degradation sure the overall net effect of where pop went brought the musical conversation down well this and this brings me to my question which is eight years on from the last time we spoke here you are on stage with Olivia Rodrigo and here you are on stage with Sombra as I mentioned Youngblood I gotta say that's the one to me where I'm like Billy Corgan's not supposed to like Youngbloodyoungblood is doing cosplay of your life your old youth uh you know whatever respect to Youngbloode and his fans but I I would not take you for someone who would you could just as easily be suing Olivia Rodrigue over the fact that the cure sounds a little like disarm but here you are supporting and i wonder if you can talk not only about how you've come to ally with those artists but also just your general softening if you want to call it that i don't see it as a softening just you know so tell me how you see it yeah surprisingly there's something happening in pop now that I couldn't have anticipated, which is that as they're reaching around the ether to try to evolve pop for their time, which they should, they're reaching for us. And I'm talking about the collective alt voice. There's something about what we have that they go, you know what, there's something fresh here. And so, because I resonate that they're paying respect to kind of, let's call it the OG vibe that we still have that isn't gone. And now I respect that because and I want to make a point about when I was saying about the degradation of the cultural musical conversation with the rise of this early 2000s pop hegemony thing. I love pop from the 60s. I love hop from the 70s. I love pot from the 80s, not so much in the 90s, but that's because I was in that kind of contrarian mind. Right. I used to joke, you know, I know it was me versus Janet Jackson until I met Janet Jackson. and it was the loveliest, most beautiful woman, right? So it was hard to, like, I couldn't personalize it anymore. And I just interviewed Jimmy Jam the other day. It was amazing. I mean, those are geniuses. Yeah, they're literal. No, listen, listen. Now I get it. But at the time, it was like. Jimmy Jam on our list. It was, at the same time, 88, I'm watching MTV. I'm like, I'm going to shove all you people out of the way. And we did it. You know what I mean? So there was a mentality there. But pop music, historically, I mean going back to the earliest days of pop music. 30s 20s it was always a celebration of an amalgam and suddenly pop music became this like this kind of royal class and they were being held up by the pitchforks of the world when you say that was later that was late but also when you're saying i know you guys live in this world but i'm talking about i'm talking about my general kind of sure but when you stay celebration of an amalgame you mean that it could embrace a variety of different formats under one big umbrella then they got pulled out i'm gonna give you a little bit of a nerd thing for a second motown uh made custom eqs and i have two of them they may only made eight so from the 60s i have these and the reason they made those is because they used to have a department at motown that would study records coming out of the uk and try to match the kick drum frequencies right who were they listening to the Beatles sure you understand so the Beatles were influencing Motown Motown it was influenced the Beatles you stop that cross-pollination look what you got you got the same fucking song in the same key Rick Beato is a great uh you know probably the number one music youtuber Rick did not a fan of ours yeah okay I know that's all right you've seen probably I think I saw some of it it's allright um we like it's okay you're invited on the show yeah Rick holler come on uh but uh rick did this thing recently i can't remember i'm paraphrasing but it was something like uh 80 percent of the top uh the number one song for the last number of years didn't even have a key change he was his mind was blown he's like what happened to the the complexity of uh barry gibb or dynamics or or gamble and huff like what the fuck happened to music yeah we're down to like pom-pom chants so this brings us back to olivia rodrigo she's she's motown and you're the beatles is what you're saying in this in this analogy she's so smart okay she's super savvy i don't know her much but she's figured out that the way to break free is to be free you know what i mean she's like bring me all these influences she's not afraid she's not afraid to make an imperfect song she's not afraid to have one vocal slightly out of tune she's broken free and she's being rewarded because pop stars should be as authentic in their game as rock stars are authentic in their game when it became wholly inauthentic and nobody was willing to raise the human cry including the pitchfork class i was like i'm out fuck all you people fuck allyoupeople out i'm outs you have i mean you brought so what that's the guy you met sure you brought a pitchfork a lot it seems to occupy a fairly large don't do or it's a good stand-in don't just stand no no don't don't that i don't even know what i'm doing i'm bigger i haven't even done it yet okay i'll let you finish but i see i see what you're doing and i don't like but i but i wonder is it about something that was written about your band specifically or is it a mentality because a couple of things that you've said in my mind refer to different eras of the site than maybe the earliest pitchfork but i wonder but does that say you guys live in that world i don't live in no no i know but i'm wondering like the history of it neither of us have ever written for pitch it's a stand-in it's very rare it's standing it's stand-ins for the hipster writer class which by the way i fought all through the 90s yes the evolution of that class in the early 2000s was suddenly like okay alternative music isn't shiny or bright enough and we're going to get a lot more clicks with rihanna and now we're gonna hold rihann up as an alternative star and we're going to give her all the the the glow of alternative and street culture without without the same i don't want to talk about pitchfork but i would just say quibble with this they were they were also championing bands at the same time whose careers were made off of that same tree i don' t i prefer and by the way yeah and by those cases who did who did they hold up as a vision of mockery okay the guy sitting right here okay okay In the cultural turnover, which is to be expected, they turned everything that I stood for into a negative. So that, I think, is interesting. I think you're putting your finger on something. Is there something about the new class of young people getting into the band who are coming at it without the historical baggage of knowing, oh, I'm supposed to like Nirvana and Sonic Youth more than the Pumpkins because Billy was too pop and cared too much. and wore funny outfits at the center of it. Now you see me nodding my head? Now you're vibing on what I'm saying. I'm younger than John. We're a different generation, as John knows. That's to remind me. When I was learning about bands, even on the internet, downloading music, file sharing. How old are you? I'm 38. I was still inheriting the baggage of narratives. I knew which Clash album I was supposed to like. I knew what band was cool. what band was their rival that was less cool, et cetera, et cetera. I think Gen Z and younger, when they discover things, usually they're criticized for being a historical. Yes. You benefit. Is that accurate? Well, I think you need to point out, number one, it's the decline of the gatekeeper class. And I'm laughing over their bodies as they float by in the river because they did it to themselves they did it to themselves they wrote themselves right down into a hole did i answer your questions i would expect you to say okay kid you want to come see the smashing pumpkins sit through two hours of me playing whatever the i want and then you can hear the song you put on your tiktok instead you open with some of your biggest hits of all time you play 1979 first you play tonight tonight ninth is it magnanimous or is it like fine here um it's a long answer i don't know if you got a comfortable couch okay time you have to understand that there was a period in my life where i played a different set list every night there was appeared in my life where we literally went on stage with no set list and i would call songs to the band and we would play whatever we want at the very height of the band this is the original lineup including darcy i think we could play 60 songs so we would play any number of 60 songs there were concerts in the 90s when 1979 was a huge hit we didn't even play the song it didn't ever cross our mind like we had to play it you were a little churlish but that's such a broad the how can i put it all right but are you referring to the way i ran my set list you the way around my world just continue because i'm sorry for yeah but i'm saying is what i'm trying to say to you is is like if you really want to understand when i'm trying to get across to you i'm taking you inside the engine room with the way i operate if you want to get into the public persona part of it that's like a different that's like a difference yeah that's what i'm saying is like don't don't blur the paint here because because if you really want an answer i'm going to give you an answer go ahead okay there was a moment in my life where i was being rewarded for being completely anarchic as an artist, not as a MTV guy, okay? And at some point, that all goes away, okay, and then you got people younger than you holding you up as a vision of mockery. Here's what not to do. Mocking, bullying, laughing, holding you to concepts and ethos that you don't even have, and you're supposed to, like, go along with this world, and why they're holding up pop people is if they're Jesus walking on water. And you're like, I'm a guy with crooked teeth. Like, what the fuck do you want me to do? By the way, I's still one of the best songwriters in the world. I'm still in my thirties and forties. I still have a lot of road ahead of me. No one is laying out, and it's a brutal business, but no one's laying out a path for me. Not a critic, not a fan, not a record company. So I've got to figure it out. I made the decision to go solo. It didn't really click, but I didn't take it seriously. And that's on me. Okay. I get back together with the band. Me and Jimmy last for two years. He leaves again. Jimmy doesn't want me to continue with the ban. I'm like, fuck that. I'm going to continue With the band and I go back to the ground route and I start releasing music that I feel and I start beta testing. Okay, well, who am I going to be in the 21st century? Meanwhile, as I'm trying to beta test it out, the fans are hating what I'm doing the critics are excoriating me to the point where like i think i can't even tell you the last time rolling stone even reviewed one of my records i mean i've fallen off the fucking cultural cliff right would you agree with that yes okay the music business by and large is basically telling me behind the scenes your only value is to be an oldies artist nostalgia only right okay i remember doing an interview one time with a guy from uh time out new york and uh the guy was kind of arguing with me it was a typical kind of contentious interview from like 15 years ago and i stopped the guy because i could see where he's going i said look you gotta understand i think i'm one of the greatest artists in the world you don't so every word that comes in my mouth you think i'M INSANE i sound like a crazy person to you so what am i supposed to do am i i'm not supposed to be myself i'm NOT supposed to believe what I believe in. And by the way, nobody's believing in me either. So you're not wrong if you have that judgment of me, if you're going with like, let's call it the prevailing taste. Thank you. Yeah. So I've got to go deep, deep within and say, do I even care? Do I want to continue? Do you want to throw myself off a roof and just get it over with? Because this is terrible. This is not fun. He sincerely thought that. So, you got to understand, draw, yes, you got a draw a straight line from a guy who was standing on an arena stage in the prime of his youth, killing it, winning. 1979, Bully with Butterfly Wings, Mayonnaise. I mean, we were doing so many different types of music and they were great songs. They weren't just like cultural little touchstone moments. They were real songs within the tradition of great song. So if you go to ground and you build yourself back up and guys like you come along and want a box, it's like, fuck off because you don't really understand where I'm coming from. I understand where you're coming from, but you don't understand where I'm coming from. I'm in it to win it, meaning I'm going to go all the way down. I mean, they're going to do it. I don't know all the down to the ground, or I'm gonna go all the way back up. So when you see that to the core of your question, I've made peace with the whole thing. I made peace with it. I didn't make peace with you. I didn t make peace with them. I made peace with it How did you do that personally? How did you pull yourself back out and up? Did any of the critiques affect what you believed about yourself. No. You never felt of lesser value. No, no. So how did you convince the world then? See, that's the wrong opinion. You cannot convince anybody of anything. I'm a big believer in the law of attraction. You have to be it. And if you can figure it out, they'll come. It's field of dreams. And I just kept telling myself, you figured it out once, you can figure out again. And, and trust me, I'm not that strong a person. You have those moments where you think maybe I've lost it. I've loss my nerve or I just can't do what I do anymore. And then you just have to keep thinking, I, I felt the same way when I was 18 in the bedroom and my own father was a musician said, you can't it. You believed in something that's just, it's, it, it it's ephemeral. It's hard to explain. You, I call it going to ground. You just have go to ground and have to just rebuild the house and i kept telling people like that people would say to me what are you what are you doing i'm like i'm ripping the whole thing down i'm whipping the whole thing down and rebuilding it so when i'm putting those bad analogy of the day when i'M putting those bricks back into place it's like okay i'm cool with 1979 i'm COOL with this this makes sense to me it makes sense to me so when I'm playing it i'm i'm back representing what i believe in It isn't kowtowing to the pressure. The pressure was there the whole time. In fact, recently some guy was going after me. It might have been like maybe Andy from Rolling Stone or something. It was fun. It wasn't, you know, a fight. But it was like, you Know, Now You're Playing a Lot of Hits. And I said, I don't remember you giving. He was giving me shit. I think it was Andy. But somebody was giving Me shit for playing the hits. And I Said, I Don't Remember You Giving Me Credit When I Wasn't Playing the Hits uh-huh fair enough you understand yeah when i was doing three hour sets where i did what the fuck i wanted to do nobody was writing the long review he's a bold artist i didn't like it but still he's got courage there was it was like he's an idiot it's like you understand well maybe it's just holding it holding you to your own standard then asking about playing hits now versus then it's not about whether i liked it then or i like it more now it's about what you wanted and i considered you an artist who wanted to do whatever he wanted so conceding anything to the audience feels like a shift but here's where i quibble with what you're saying if i'd gotten proper credit when i did what i did then your version of it and mine would match but i didn't get credit when I did what I did if you want to hold Siamese dream over my head 30 years later, okay, well, let's go back to the three-star Rolling Stone review calling it a derivative piece of shit. Do you understand? We wrote, I wrote one of the greatest albums of my generation. We didn't get credit for it. We sold records, but we didn't give credit. So if you don't get the credit, and then 20 years later somebody like you or you comes along and goes, hey, by the way, here's your North Star. Here's your little sun you're supposed to sit under. You're like, fuck off, because you don't know what it really means, not only to me, but to them. So when the audience comes now and is resonating on the same frequency, albeit in a different way, or you have somebody like Olivia or Sombra who goes, I get it. But from their version, you're like right. We're on the Same Wavelength again. I'm a critic by trade. Anytime I've received pushback, I find myself saying, if you, the artist, feel that the work is successful, that's more meaningful than whether I think it's successful. i think you have the added benefit of you can go to any critic of that era and say here's my 10 million here'smy diamond plaque or my platinum plaques and whatever honestly meaningless though this is a sincere question for you and also for all artists why is that less meaningful than a bad review in rolling stone you're missing the point i think please i think i'm trying to make go for it the value of my band in our time meaning the 90s which is what most people tend to focus on and I understand why, if that was not properly assessed in the time and it still hasn't been properly assessed, then we're not having the same conversation. We're still basically, so, and I'm not trying to personalize it, but if you, let's say it's you, if you come at me a certain way, you're still dealing with the context that I don't recognize. I don'T recognize it as gospel. Right. The first principles of are not the same. Okay. This feels like the hootie. Let me say something which will sound a bit touchy-feely, but I mean it for the sake of the conversation we're having. Yeah, yeah, of course. And I'm asking you both a question. Sure. Do you feel my work in the aggregate has ever been properly understood? By who? By the media? Do you mean by fans? I think by fans, certainly. By fans, 100%. I think the media and critics, I think, the top layer, however much percent of that you want to talk about, Do you have a lot of music that no one day-to-day gives a shit about except your super fans? A thousand percent. Do you think that music is as good as the music that is recognized? I think in time it will be viewed not with the same commercial value, but in the same artistic values. And I think you see it when these young artists are showing up. That's what I'm saying. You're resonating the right vibe. The vibe is what people pay for. we all want to use metrics like how many how many clicks yeah but his history shows you that that is not the the the ultimate value the real value of music is finally being discovered in this new coming age and and we're getting out of the old rock critic version of like this is what's important yeah this album sucks yeah i agree and you think and you feel that in 1995 rock critics as a group made Smashing Pumpkins and you feel uncool we got horrible reviews but in your mind when you woke up in the morning in those days were you like I gotta fight these guys and these magazines and these zines a bunch of schlubby fucking guys not untrue I would agree in many cases but it feels like it's still they're still hovering you're totally misreading my mind on that tell me then i'm what i'm trying to re-narrative no no if you understand what i'M doing i'M trying to explain to you the way i view the world in in language that you understand sure okay if you want to understand the language i speak i don't think about critics i don'T even read reviews but you just talking about being reviewed poorly listen we're talking about 30 years here sure okay so when i'm talking about reviews in the 90s i'm not i haven't read read a review for 15 years. I don't live in that world. I don't even read fan comments. I tell my publicist, don't send me anything. I do not read anything. Every day when I woke up in Europe doing the opera, the reviews are incredible. I do not go, oh, finally, I can read one. I did not read anything. It is not even in my thing. So what I am trying to say, I am try to give you a language you understand so you can interface with the way I view the world because it is the language you speak. It's not a big part of my thing, i would say it's been a big part of your thing in settings like these it's been a part of your thing to spar like that about because i want to show critics matter i don't want to personally against you but i want to show that generally speaking your classes are fucking hypocrites yeah i agree you don't understand because you don' t like them either and again i'm not trying to personalize it's fine because it's a nice conversation what i'm saying is you the general lot of you don''t really believe what you pretend to believe and the street level value of a truly authentic and organic musician who came up from the ground is a lot more valuable than people who live in ivory towers truly understand. In this section of the conversation, in a lot of the older interviews that I was reading leading up to us talking with you, I hear a lot of Kanye in you. I feel like there's some interesting... Isn't it the other way around? I come first. And by the way, when we were making Melancholy, Kanye was literally working one block down the street at the gap so tell me when you saw him moving through the world i mean you i imagine seeing how he moved through the road in the mid to late 2000s into the 2010s did you look at him and say that's an artist navigating his fame and his creativity similar to how i feel that i and what was in the water there yeah i'll personalize it even more please before kanye blew up and i've only i only ever had one conversation with kanye he called me on the phone once we had a nice like a 15 minute chat um didn't know him back then heard him blowing up in chicago first of course when i first saw his game i thought is he was was he influenced by the way i did this shit because it was the same game like you saw it on him pick fights do crazy shit very um you know because that game the way i call it is this cognitive dissonance game yeah you went on InfoWars first. Sure. But by creating the cognitive distance conversation, you have to choose. You understand? So when I ask you a question like, has my work been fairly assessed by your critical class? It forced you to make a decision of my value. So as an artist, that's what I saw Kanye doing. It was like, I'm going to pick the fight and make you decide whether or not I'm a genius or not, whether I'm an idiot or not. That's what that game is. And I wonder if he got that game for me, but maybe it was just in the water. There's a, there, you gave a quote around the breakup where you said, you know, I'd, I either want to be on top of the world or I want to be Alex Chilton. I don't want tobe in between, but it seems like you've settled somewhere in between. Well, well, nobody wanted me to be Alex Chilton. So I just went back to being the other guy because, because there is that part of my personality. You know,I don't know if you know our record Pisces Iscariot, but I oftentimes say it was like a b-sides record i have to say that's the more true version of the band and you know a lot of the songs i wrote like one day and recorded them i mean you know whether it's guided by voices i had that capability to just be a kind of a make it up as you go along and make some beautiful music that even surprises me but for whatever reason that part of the whole thing kind of fell apart along the way you know you you told me almost a decade ago that you're the second greatest heel in rock and roll history after lou reed yeah what happened was that past tense what happened to that version of you why'd you why did you retire his number it's in the rafters it got boring it got boring yeah it got bored yeah and what about personally did your your father of young children you you have a family you know was there anything that was happening outside of the smashing pumpkins universe that allowed you to say yes i don't want to play the heel anymore i'm glad I'm glad you brought that up because I had a unique thing happen when my son was born. He's 10 years old, about to turn 11. And I remember looking at him and at that point in my life, so that would be 10, 10, so 2016. So things were still kind of funky. It's before James came back. And, and I remember look at him. And I'm thinking like, am I going to do the same thing to him that my father did to me and talk about what used to be and what happened and who I was like, puff myself up. Like, you know, daddy used to Be this guy. and I was like no I've got to I've got to like reanimate myself so that when he looks he sees me on the biggest stages of the world and he's proud of me not for who I was but who for who I am so that like clarified for me in a way that I did not anticipate I just had to get more serious about music again because music was very difficult for me and those in those weird years in the 2000 ish times because it felt like the enemy and and again being bullied a lot didn't help um i think we're a little bit more sensitive these days to mental health of artists yeah a lot of my generation are gone and and you know i and and and i'm not a person who asks for sympathy i realize that's a sucker's game but nobody can argue that i was i was bullied a lot i mean i was definitely bullied a while were there things happening in that era that felt parallel to the relationship that you did have with your father especially vis-a-vis music like the feedback that you would get at home from your father and then the feedback you were getting in the world later on did you see common common uh themes between those two things i think that uh i'll tell you a story um when when when i when i gave my father the gish album which was our first album he said something really snide about it but it really hurt me so when we were finished making saimi's dream he called me at home and said can you send me the cd and i was like i just don't want to deal with this so i waited like three weeks or something and he called again said did you send it i didn't get it and i thought okay i sent it to him and about a week later he called me and it was like one of those like oh god here we go because i just knew i was going to get it and there was this really i was like okay so what'd you think there's this really long pause and he goes i don't know the person who made this record and i said daddy i've been here the whole time. So if you understand, let's call it the emotional undertow of all this talk about media and stuff like that, I feel I've been here the whole time. Like Prince said, don't call it a comeback. I've Been Here the Whole Time. I feel like truly am a significant artist who's contributed a lot. I'd been all over the map. I know I'm unusual in that. I'm definitely an outlier. I've maybe had one of the most unusual careers in the history of pop and rock. And I don't think that's an oversell from a wrestling point of view. So it feels good to be back. It feels good to be rolling. But the journey has been very, very rough. Would the criticism not have hit as hard if you had received more embrace from your father about what you were doing musically? Well, this is the key. See, I think this is the key to why I'm having success now, because I think having a family finally gave me that sense that I could fail in public and I was going to be okay. If your whole life is predicated on winning or losing and it's all out there, well, what does that turn you into? It turns you into a weirdo. It's like, because that's all you do. You know what I mean? How did you avoid along the way the pitfalls of your peers, whether it's succumbing to mental health issues through drugs and alcohol or any other form of self-sabotage? Well, I'm lucky and I don't have a very strong constitution So I could never party like a lot of my bandmates or my parents, my parent. So, and Courtney always jokes and says, that's the one thing you had over our generation is you didn't have the, you, she had a funny quote. It was like, you were always snobby because you didn'T need the drugs like we did or something. This is Courtney Love. Yeah, that'S Courtney Love, yeah. I don'T know. I just I remember thinking in my late 20s when I sort of pivoted into a door and made the decision that I needed to have a wider musical thing than just be the rock guy and you know we took a lot of guff for that um that I didn't want to and I remember think and I want to say it was because of somebody I really love but I remember Thinking I don't want To Be Like Them Writing Lame Songs When I'm 50 so at 28 I made the 30 I made The Decision That I Was Going To Break Down My musical languaging so that i would maintain my my songwriting integrity into my into my elder life and i'm and i think that's the key of of all of this is like i made the decision that i was gonna i was going to go out strong not so all these things kind of came together in unexpected ways i didn't expect to be married and expect to have children i thought all that all those ships had sailed you're talking about uh folks of your era that you're in touch with and feel kinship with you had uh you want me to tell you who i'm not in kinsship or no you had a birthday party not that long ago. Marilyn Manson was at your birthday party. You know, Marilyn Mansons has been the subject of a number of accusations of domestic violence and sexual misconduct. I wonder how you think of your personal relationships with people who you've known over many years who are on the receiving ends of allegations of that form. And how do you make determinations of the degree to which they should be in your life and you should be In their lives? Yeah, I think it's a valid question, and I think that ultimately, as a Christian person, you have to stand by your friends, but that doesn't mean you don't have an opinion, and that doesn'T mean you're not critical. In his case, and i'm not here to adjudicate it, but the DA looked at the case for five years. In some cases, I knew personal things behind the scenes that are not in the public sphere. I personally didn't feel that he was guilty of the things he was being charged with and ultimately the fact that the DA didn't pursue. So basically, the person that I knew and the way it all kind of went down, even though it was an elongated process, was commensurate with the person that I new. You know, I mean, it's like it all kinda lined up. But I wasn't there. I can't be there for everything. But, I guess it's one of those things where I don't want the world to tell me who my friends are and who I should associate with. That's politically, socially. And in Brian's case, you know, we have a relationship that goes back close to 30 years. The other thing that people should know, and it gets lost in the gloss here, is Manson's wife, Lindsay, is a twin, and her twin is Ashley, and Ashley's married to James Eha of the Pumpkins. So Manson's basically a part of our family. Right. It goes deep. Yeah. There's a deeper set of relationships there. Plus I knew Manson parents. So I think anybody in that situation struggles with the accusations, the seriousness of the accusations. But again, I also knew the inside baseball of the case. I knew certain people who were involved. And so you make those evaluations. At the end of the day, I feel I made the right determination. But if things had come out, like people would ask me privately, well, what happens if that? And I'd say, if if if he's guilty or anybody in that situation is guilty, they should go to jail. So there are people from the glory days who you have or would cut off based on. I don't like the word cut off because again, I'm a Christian. So, so, um, you know, there is, there is a longstanding tradition in American life of rehabilitation and forgiveness and forgiveness. And you see it where, I mean, it, it blows my mind where you see people, uh, there was the Lindsay, Lindsay Clancy case recently where the husband forgave the wife for murdering the three children. I mean, that's a, I can't imagine that decision. So I'm not saying I have any moral supremacy here. I'm saying it's a case by case basis, but I don't like the idea of there's this kind of witch mob thing bothers me. I think, I think we all struggle with how to go through life and make those determinations. Uh, my father went to jail three separate times. My father stole from me. My sister-in-law, who's an incredible person, asked me repeatedly, because obviously she's married to my brother, askedme repeatedly, how can you guys forgive your father? How do you forgive your father?" And I would say, he's her father. Yeah, but he did this and he did this. And it'd be like, trust me, it's not an easy thing. So I think in all these cases, it requires thoughtful prayer and meditation to ask, what's the right thing to do? Has your faith become much more important to you in this phase of life? I think my faith, it's the only reason I'm still sitting here. I mean, I've come close to killing myself about three separate times, and I'll make light of that. It was very haunting for me, those periods of my life. And faith is what got me through those periods in my life, had to find something greater than myself and um and i know i know many people feel the same they need something um to hold on to and i respect that um because people you know being out as a religious person people want to argue about god and yeah you know it's like it's kind of like it's so personal um you know what what was the elton john and and john lennon song uh whatever get you through the night you know were those low periods connected to professional issues or the ups and downs of being a public person and and it's kind of it's all in all of the above you know um i was not prepared for public life you know my my childhood of systemic abuse you know left me very vulnerable to criticism and pressure. And once I faced it, I was like, I don't know how to deal with this. Hence the disassociation, which started kind of less overtly in Siamese dream times, sort of 93, but by, you know, then here comes this, this character, um, many iterations later. When was the last time you felt that low? That low? Yeah. Well, you said three different times when you were really, yeah, probably about, probably around the same period I met my wife, which should have been around 2012. I mean, it was like, it was rock bottom. Yeah. And I know many people go through this thing of, it's like hunting. It's like you're hunted. And, and, and I can say no amount of fame, no amount of money, no mount of gold. You look and you go, well, that ain't helping me. You know what I mean? So God or faith or a belief that there's a greater purpose in life is the only thing service is also something that really works and family for you seemingly well i didn't ever have that you know i'm saying but when but when you built it yeah you built that well in this later all credit to my wife because she gave me something that i i say to my life sometimes when we're having these kind of conversations because she'll see me struggling with certain aspects of family life and i'm like you gotta understand i never had this it's not like this is a recreation of something i never have this building this is the first time i ever had this everything i had it was like a mess. So this is really weird for me. Like, you know, you sit down and nobody's yelling. You're not worried about, you're just like, you are at home. So having that rootedness, you know allowed me the strength to go, okay, I think I can get back in the game here and play it in a different way you know when when we talked 2018 yeah yeah that was like kind of the midpoint of figuring it back out you know um i think we had one or two babies at that point and it was kind of like okay like i'm doing this like you know james is coming back like okay like we're gonna we're going to settle these old wounds and dust ourselves off and and recommit to what we believe in. Is it helpful at all in your relationship that you two are of different generations? Well, that gets into, I don't want to make all the feminists mad. We don't have to do age gap discourse. No, it's not that. I guess what I'm trying to say is I think that a lot of women born in the 90s, given the societal changes, given the correct and proper rise of feminism as a kind of way to balance properly a lot of things. You know, I don't have to explain. Everybody understands what I'm saying. But because so many women of our generation were going through that without a lot help and coming out of a lot of abuse it was harder to put those pieces together if you're broken and they're broken so you couldn't connect with women of your generation for whom it was hard way of feminism it was nothing wrong with them it was it was like you know what's the old thing two wrongs don't make a right you know you know i met a lot of broken women along the way i mean i was shocked at the stories that i would hear about what they'd been through and of course in in in many women's cases and involved, you know, things that I don't want to talk about. So it's like, you know, my case, it was mostly physical and mental stuff. So how do you, what manual do you have? And then, oh, by the way, you know, MTV, you know, it's like, it was hard for me to put those pieces together. And so when I met my wife and having that gap, she just wasn't affected by those same politics. She just had a different version. She was born into the aftermath of them. Sure. And had a different sense of self-confidence. And then, you know, her youth was an advantage because she hadn't been wounded like so many people are because you just go through life and you get wounded. So I had the advantage of somebody who was really open to love and the possibility and for whatever reason, just decided not to judge me for who I was, particularly in that moment. It's beautiful. Yeah. No, I mean, I'm the luckiest guy in the world. And I don't mean this in the a material sense because i mean in the spiritual sense to have the band mostly intact to have things going so well to have a great family to have successful businesses with the tea house and the wrestling company and it's like it's the greatest period of my life i missed tea impresario in my open and yes you did i got wrestling impresario but i forgot about adam zozo.com wow creamy sumptuous cool i want to get to your new life as a podcaster and what precipitated that shift i think you are big on mystique you like being a theatrical cool rock star on stage which is the opposite of being a podcaster but I think the the way station are you saying you guys aren't cool I am saying that we're not as cool as uh wearing a floor-length skirt uh in front of 20,000 people you know we have different uh self-conception which I think close watchers of this show maybe have picked up on uh over time um but I thing the waystation on your way to podcaster was flirting in this heel era with being a political commentator and I wonder how you look back on that moment in your public life and how it then became you being Bill Maher Jr.? I would argue with the Bill Mahr Jr. thing. I know. That was a joke. We'll get there. Thank you for explaining that was a jokes. The political part of my life, which was short-lived, my real sense, which left my body at some point, was I felt this coming technocracy and I felt I needed to make an argument for free speech. We've all done the thing where we get a new app and we just scroll down and say, I agree. You know, we didn't realize that we were, and now we've accepted it. We all know we're being spied on every minute of every day. And in some cases you can make an argument. It's not a bad thing. But at that point it was really freaking me out. So I felt like only the alternative news community, what do you call it? Conspiracy land was the only people talking about the things that I was concerned about. So, I kind of fell into that groove for a hot minute um but i think that had a role in dragging down your musical legacy in that moment in the mid well maybe for you no no not for me personally i don't i don' t care yeah i don''t care uh but i thing you were getting a lot of rock websites the people who should have been pro billy corgan saying here he goes again on info wars alex jones thinks sandy hook was fake yeah here he goes sounding like he's voting for donald trump even if he isn't actually which you know you told me you hadn't voted in 20 years uh i still haven't voted so do you think that that side of your heel turn or your heel performance had a negative impact on your musical legacy you could argue that but i don't think i think it's ultimately irrelevant and i and i'll I assume you're going to ask me why. I think it's irrelevant because I think what we've seen in the last 20 years is a reshuffling of values because as we've all struggled with the coming digital culture, it's like, what does this all mean? This idea that we're all just living in a constant marketing, you know what I mean? It's like politics is marketing, music is marketing. We were talking about marketing a few minutes ago. Chaotic good. So I think it was all of us kind of struggling there in a particular moment, and in my case, struggling with, like, what do we do with all this information? Do we hold on to these old things, or do we accept that there's this new world coming and all this stuff? And I think we're still in that fight. In my case I just decided to check out of the political sphere because I'm not very good at it, and I think the political spirit and the cultural sphere are intrinsically tied. Was it Andrew Breitbart who said politics is downstream for culture? It's like a famous quote. I think that predates Andrew. We'll do a fact check. Sure. But I'm saying it's this idea that now, like, I mean, even the politicians started leaning into. Yeah, of course. So do you. But when you look back on that specific run, do you think I was effective at getting my message out or do you Think I think you're I think your mistake. I think you're mistaken. I wasn't it wasn't. It wasn't about messaging. It was just about kind of what do I do with this? Like who? What should I do? And it was maybe a misappropriation of my value and what i told bill maher recently when i was on his club random show was that i ultimately realized my best way to affect what i believed in politically and socially was through my music because that's what i'm good at um i would argue the opposite slightly which is that it also kept you relevant and it as i was alluding to set the stage for this turn of you as podcaster And I will say, I think you're a very good interviewer and very much unlike your public persona when you're listening to another person. OK, so let's play a game. Which is the real version of me? See, well, you laugh because that's what I'm saying. It's funny, right? No, no. But but but but again, I guess my contention to the extent that that was a serious question. and you're asking for a serious answer is that the correct answer is both because we are all constantly negotiating our public selves and you are making choices. That's it, that's it. Yeah, of course. So when you talk about the political thing there for a few years, kind of dabbling in that, whether it hurt me, I found something, let's use that as an example because I think let's just use it as a microcosm of a much bigger conversation. It's amazing in this world when you do something that doesn't make any sense, that you shouldn't do, But if it resonates with people as having some core heart or authenticity. Why podcasting? You started your show under the Bill Maher umbrella, which I mentioned. Do you like it? Is it fun for you? Do you feel like it's additive to the Billy Corgan universe as a public figure? I don't think about it like that. How do you think about It? I think, um, Bill, Bill was interested in me kind of joining what became a now a defunct podcast network. And, um. And they said, what do you want to do? And I said, I really just want to interview whoever I want to review about it, whatever I want interview them about. And he said, great. They were totally behind that. So I jumped in with both feet with this idea of, um... having a different type of conversation, obviously mostly with artists, but like talking about what artists actually go through, not the media version, which I understand I've had a thousand interviews this way. I understand why people like you think the way you think about people like me. But as you can see, sometimes from my podcast, I understand more so how the artist views it from the inside out. So I wanted to try to create that backstage conversation so to let people in and show that there's a different kind of thing that happens between artists. Do you think that interviews of this nature are, I don't want to say dishonest, but by design are unable to access your truth? I think a lot of good stuff has come out of this interview, so I don'T have a problem. I mean, like in a macro sense. In a macro sense, I think you're looking towards the sun, but the sun's there and you're still looking over there. What I would say to you, and I mean this in all Christian benevolence, I think you and many other people like you will ultimately realize that the sun is the only thing that truly matters if you want to take it from a spiritual point of view only love matters as it pertains to artists um i think the true value of artists is still being reassessed which sounds like a mind-blowing concept as we've had 150 years of artistic review yeah right i mean is that fair I mean, OK. You would think after 150 years, we'd really understand the true value of music. And I think we're still coming around to it. Yeah. So back to the fracas about like the, you know, your top songwriter list. Those are good discussions to have. And all we wanted to do was start a discussion. Oh, you started a discussion? I did. Thank you. But the point is, but the point ist, is those are discussions that should have been had 20, 30, 40 years ago. them but but but ultimately there are every era comes with its blinders and perhaps the smashing pumpkins discourse had to exist somehow outside of those blinders in its moment i would argue that in the aggregate we we collectively the we have benefited from being the outsider yeah our our revival has a lot to do with our outsider status sure the great news is now you can't stop us because we're whole and we have organic energy it's not it's not because some guy wrote an article who would you find most kinship with from that era from the 80s 90s who do you find yourself still in active conversation with i think chino from deftones and the band uh mike hem who i'm very close to huge yeah clear line you know the great story there is they actually decided to start the band at our concert in i think 97 they literally turned each other into concert so this is what we want to do yep i talked to mikey way you know at least once a week i i still think jerry cantrell is one of the great songwriters of our generation i still venerate jerry i think he's amazing and your reunion with courtney was received rapturously i know you guys have had your ups and downs over the years but mostly ups i don't know you tell me uh it's been in a good place now for about six years okay uh and and her appearance on your show oh yeah yeah yeah i you know what's funny is we we have so much to talk about we only got to like 91 yeah you could do a whole podcast in just the two of you do like a 10 part series shooting the shit yeah yeah yeah uh all right before we get into our lightning round i want to ask you one piece of pumpkins we're gonna keep going but i have one super smashing pumpkins fan in my life and he wants to know what happened to the final show he was like there were cameras there people were recording in HD. Should I explain to this audience that's not deep on this knowledge what we're talking about? Yes. When the Smashing Pumpkins played a final show, in quotations, in December 2nd, 2000, we did a 38-song set. The concert was over four hours. It was recorded and filmed at the Metro in Chicago. So it only held 1,000 people, which you can imagine the compression on that show was incredible. It got worldwide play that we were breaking up. And I've never released the show so so that's so so it's become this fan saw that you know are they ever going to release the final show yeah where is it what are you waiting for it's in the archives yeah why not um it just hasn't felt timely i mean i think we just released the machina box set which was a reformation of the machina one and machina two famously we did one album i put out the second album the first band that ever big band that put an album out for free on the internet became a kind of a viral i guess you would call it at the time pre and rainbows i call i called the uh i called the record company and said we really should put the record together and they told me to fuck off so when i did the deal with uh then whoever virgin records um 15 20 years ago i said when we finally do the reissue we'll put it all together so i guess in the last year we put out the box set of what is now machina so it feels now that the machina album is out now putting out the live show that marks the end of the era makes more sense that's the last grail the final grail oh there's a lot of grails that's one of them yeah yeah no it's cool i mean it's uh it's it's funny because it's like since the band's reformed it had eight years of success with the three of us i mean i think it's it's a it's weird to put out a last show but but it is it is a legendary show all right let's do a couple lightning round questions 52 cards in the popcast deck each one corresponds to a pre-written question in our popcast questionnaire uh let fate guide you what do you got show the camera eight of diamonds all right eight of diamond are you a numerology guy are we gonna read into your pulse here uh eight is infinity true okay uh speaking of infinite uh what is your weekly phone screen time or daily do you even know uh it's it's not great but i'm mostly on youtube what are you watching on youtube your own interview I have to say that I'm a big fan of getting the subscription for YouTube because you don't have to deal with commercials. Yeah, okay. Great. Mostly. I'm not a big fans of the algorithm because it's recommending a bunch of stuff I don't want to watch. But I do find it sort of works for my lifestyle where I have 10 minutes. Like, you know, okay, sound check's in 15 minutes. Oh, good, I'm going to watch the highlights of the NFL game I missed or something. You're a Bears fan. Well, I am a Bears fan, but, you know, we have the greatest— first of all, you have the biggest offensive coordinator in football right now and a great head coach. They're getting by with an injured quarterback. It's very impressive. The Bears have won with three different quarterbacks this year. And think about this. At the time we're taping, going forward, Caleb Williams is still hurt. He can basically pick the quarterback who's better for the team that they're facing. I can't think of any— They're going platoon style. In the entire history of the NFL, I can't think of a situation where the star quarterback is out and you have two backups you can decide are better for the opponent that is mind-blowing to me as a fan incredible I got John's like if you say so if you said I don't know I don'T know football but that sounds amazing just a music critic yeah all right pull another card all right what do we got six of spades six of Spades the devil's number that's a good this is a good one i actually don't know if anybody's pulled this um in what ways are you still immature i think this entire interview no no but i actually this is i'm actually i'm fighting with you about words you just spent the last five or six minutes talking about incredibly serious things about finding revitalization in your personal self in your spirituality and your family what are you still working on oh wait rephrase that question what am i still working i'm still working in myself and yourself yeah yeah where's your immaturity you don't have to want you don'T have to enjoy i guess you donT have to work on it yeah it can just be there oh i see well yeah well i think uh i think i think many people struggle if you're if you want a spiritual life and you're so committed to your material life and your family life it's hard to find time to stop and be grateful yeah and i've started this thing uh i get i don't talk about it much but i have a lot of anxiety so on time especially with the show we're doing right now it's 30 songs i think i sing 28 of the 30 so it's just constant anxiety and i'll be on stage and i'd be like and i'm like i literally have to stop and say thank you like thank you thank you like like just stop mid-show you're still you're stealing oh absolutely absolutely it doesn't you hear a lot of people say i go out there and i forget the world you know it's like it's it it falls away well you know we we talked earlier about you know this kind of contentious thing that i did for a while uh a long time um evolving into a place of gratitude like i'm so happy to be here this is so great thank you um i respect and appreciate my bandmates for their faith in me I know it's not easy. I've taken them on some incredible journeys, some rides, to just stop and say, thank you, God. I oftentimes think of my parents who are both passed away. I think of my ancestors. I'm just like, I'm so grateful. I guess I'm hijacking this thing for a second, but what I've been trying to say this entire interview is, there's still this scared, nervous kid in there who's really talented and and didn't get the support that he needed somehow found this thing called indie rock yeah alt rock wasn't accepted by that community as he was got very unhappy about that and have been picking fights off ever since somehow in amongst all that tumult and all that uncertainty we found something that still has value and we've proven our value over time. So there's a reward there, but kind of like the avatar thing, there's still the little kid that's going, it's not quite accurate. You understand? It's not an inauthentic journey because it's always been authentic to wherever I was. So if I was mad, I was mad or I was playing mad through the character or something. Right. But the real foundational root is, um, and I'll tell you a story and I've told it a few times. Um, and I think it's this, if you want one rose bud on me, I'm hijacking the interview. No, keep going. Okay. You're just hitting your stride, honestly. Yeah. Okay, good. When I was seven years old, they did a test in class. It was a very interesting test. They played three tones and your job, you had a little piece of paper, was to say whether the middle tone was higher, lower, or the same. 120 tones, 20 things. you're seven years old. I mean, just to concentrate on her. So I did it. A week later, they called my parents into the office, my father and my stepmother. And they said, your son's a musical savant. We think, but he got the highest score in the history of Illinois. And it's so high. We Think It's Impossible. And we think that maybe he guessed. in essence it's such an aberration so do we have your permission to test them again and they put me back in the same room by myself now they redid it again i got a higher score so they came back and they said okay we're convinced your son's a musical savant and and okay great so then that one day they call me in the office a few days later and they go it was a piece of paper and it had like saxophones and drums and and they said circle the one that you want to learn and i circled the saxophone the the redundant instrument of the 50s and um and uh and they said great take this piece of paper home give it to your dad and then we'll sign you up for these classes and um and uh i took the piece ofpaper home to my dad and he looked at and he went 220 fucking dollars for this toward the paper i'm through in the garbage so many years later so I never got any musical education which is why I can't read music many years Later I told my father that story and he's like I don't remember that and my father used to say to me it's good you had such a hard life because it made you a better rock star and I swear to God this is not a joke this is all before what's happened recently I used say to my father, daddy, if I didn't go through that, first of all, it's fucked up what you're saying. You're saying it's good I got the shit kicked out of me, so maybe a better rock star. But second, I said, daddy for all you know, given my ability, I would have been writing symphonies. So when I'm standing on the stage years after I told him that with the lyric opera playing my songs, 60-piece orchestra, 40-piece choir with a world-class conductor rearranging my songs with a sold-out crowd in my hometown and people weeping. Okay, that's the full circle of my life. All the stuff that we're talking about is very interesting. I'm obviously very interested in it, but it's not really who I am. So when you watch the podcast or you see these moments of revelation engineer that's who i really am so excoriate me if you want for playing the game wrong i played it right sometimes played it wrong sometimes but at the end of the day my real journey is not that journey my real journée is why did i do all that jimmy chamberlain from the pumpkin says we did it for survival we had nothing so we chose a lane that we could win at and we did so we're kind of still in the lane so what you see up there is a band making peace with the lane that мы chose but that wasn't really true that's why i say there's something like if you listen to pisces it's scary that's the real smashing pumpkins not the band that goes fuck how do we deal with mtv right how do i how do you please our label and if you think and ifyou think all the other alternative bands weren't dealing with the same forces oh sure so that whole authenticity stuff was always a canard because it was a canary it was trust me everybody puts their finger in their wind goes oh they like this grunge shit you ever see the clip of alice in chains when they're a metal band you ever see the clip of me playing shredding in a basement playing iron maiden like when i'm 17 trying to be eva malmsteen we're all different people we just got swept up into something beautiful and thank god we wrote great songs because at least that's the testament to the thing that came out of it pull one more card all right then we'll eat a snack it's so dangerous i know that's why we like it two of spades all right you got a soft one all right we gotta go out a little softer we've been on a journey what's your favorite underrated iphone app or god forbid you have an android let me take another question fuck your question what a dumb question I told you some are dumb four of spades come on give me a good one I mean this is the whole this is like the whole interview what self doubt did you face on the way to startup it's like the full thing that's actually the headline what self-doubt billy corgan faced on the way to startup can i just pick a different question yeah sure all right you can answer that in the original way no no no you're just gonna grab one yeah that's against i like that there's no rules there's no rules that's like like now you're coming around to it we make that we make the rules like you said there's the public version of pop can i interrupt one thing though yeah i i before i came and did this interview with you i listened to an interview that you guys had done Yeah. Where you were talking about dealing with clickbait culture and, you know, kind of evolving your perspective of how to be in this sphere and working with major artists knowing, well, you're going to get clicks and working in that ecosystem. So we're having the same conversation. You understand? it's all these title forces and it's like it's very interesting to kind of look in retrospectively and say well why did you make that decision why do you do what you did yeah my podcast what i try to do is like try to get like let's call it the true forces that animate the artist not the performative well you know i was listening to sonic youth and uh you know the way thirst and hit the guitar you know I just thought there's room for me you know well yeah but i one thing I would say as people who sit here and interview many people both on this couch and the many years prior to having a couch to interview people on is you you you elevated to a couch well yes we do we leveled up but many people who said in your chair wish to not go down those roads regardless of who the interlocutor is and maybe it's like why though can I tell you why I think from your perspective because the business model is still is still not designed to be rewarded for that maybe or perhaps they have not done the hard looks in the mirror that you were doing and not everybody i mean look you know your peers okay come on watch i do and okay i hear what you're saying yeah real quick okay have you or have you not had private conversations with artists where they reveal parts of themselves or show you part of themselves that you wish you could of course give the public but it's just, they're not going to give it because they're not going give it. Of course. OK. I think we've done all we possibly can to push them into showing as much of themselves as possible. Once the artists realize that their true value is going to be celebrated in the public sphere, this realm would open up. But that's what I actually think. I think, especially in this moment, when everything is fake, every interview is choreographed and rehearsed. Again, this is some of our talking points probably in the interview that you listened to. I did. I heard that, yeah. Is it the one where we're sitting on the floor? I just listened to it. Or semaphore. Or semophore, yeah, yeah- Shout out to Ben Smith. Shout out in order to die. But I think what we're finding is actually artists in particular are received most positively when they let the guard down and speak as their true selves. And I think it's actually the bullshit that people are- Tired of. Most mad about. Fatigued of. Yeah, and I think- That's what we think. Yeah, and I think that that's part of why, in particular, the artist-on-artist interview is such a relic of—is such a marker of this moment where it's like, oh, now I'm getting the real them. They feel a little bit—no chip on their shoulder. They can let their guard down a little. And I think the version of the artist you're trying to get is the same version of The Artist that we're trying get. Yeah, I would just argue I have the inside baseball more than you do because— But we have some because we have many decades of experience. No, disrespect. And honestly, you you ask questions I would not ask because it's ultimately it's too probative. Sure. Yeah. And I think the thing sometimes when I try to say if people give me compliments when the interview is over and the camera's off, I try to say I try not to ask you the five questions you don't want to be asked. But and we try to ask the five question. I got that. Luckily, you only asked two. But I also think as far as like how you as an individual wish to present to the camera and to the public, in my mind, the optimal outcome is some combination of how you came in feeling you wanted to present and what we maybe brought out of you that you weren't expecting to present yes that to me is optimal sure the only thing i would add to that and this is totally a self uh aggrandizing no not self-aggrandizing self uh what is it when it's it's to your benefit self- aggrandize no no no it's like more about yourself uh it's self-interested self-interest that's what i was trying to say um I had a moment of revelation when I met Britney Spears. I only met Britney Spears one time. Same. It was actually at a party with, Bono was there and Chateau Marmont and we were all at the same party. What year, roughly? It was when she was at her absolute white hot peak. Like 2001-ish. That sounds about right. Yeah, it sounds about right, yeah. I mean, we're talking like peak, peak Britney. I mean there she was like exactly as she looked on the video and up to that point and I was kind of grumpy about pop you know we joked about that before um and I thought what I kept what I kept saying about Britney was she reminded me of the girl next door or I would say she's the hot girl next store but I don't get why they want the hot girl nextdoor instead of the hottest girl in the world. Does it make sense? Sure. I love old movies. Yeah. But I do think that was the sell was. OK, well, what I'm saying is to contrast 1930s Hollywood with 2001 L.A., why did the public suddenly want the hot girl next door as opposed to the hottest girl in the world? Because I grew up on old Hollywood. So old Hollywood was like you want Gene Turney, you want Lauren Bacall. They are like smoking 10 out of 10s because I went to school with a lot of girls who were hot like britney and britney's beautiful i'm not so i'm getting to that point so there's no no diss and britney but she's not a model you know what i mean and she never presented herself as that no comment all right you continue i don't i i'm just saying i don' t uh that we're not co-signing what you're saying about uh ranking or not ranking are you worried about are you worried about getting in trouble i'm juste saying this is you speaking and i just want to see where you're going are you distancing yourself no i just i'm distancing myself okay i want to see where you're going for me are you worried about what i'm saying no no i just want to know but i want i i would like you to unfurl you can say whatever you want yeah i want you to unfurling all right i'm suspicious now so when i actually met britney talked to her for a second shook her hand i thought uh i get it if if if britney represents every hot girl next door follow my analogy even if it makes you uncomfortable why did the world pick her because there's only one britney it gave me an it doesn't make it makes sense the way i'm translating it no continue why is the world still fascinated in britney because she's fascinating you felt that in that moment i was like she's not an archetype it's thank you i was reducing her to oh, she's this or she's that. We make the mistake and you make the mistake, and you were worried I was making the mistake, that you're saying, oh, you're just this. No, what I'm saying is the public owes you. So the reason I'm even telling you this story is, and where I'm trying to make a point about where I think the conversation is evolving and you're suggesting that you're trying to evolve it there with me, is that the true value is understanding why you, not the old version of like, you're so great. No, it's a helix of combinations that for whatever reason, now, if I want to make it spiritual, which I often do, okay, you don't have to, but for whatever region, genetic lottery, right person, right time, the zeitgeist, it doesn't matter. Why you at that moment? Yes. And I think that's where the music critical class has missed. So that's my point. If you knew how valuable the Smashing Pumpkins actually were in 1995, you wouldn't be talking about me that way. But if I run out and tell everybody that for the last 25 years, you get treated like a fucking idiot because you sound like, you know, you would say stuff like that. he'd be like you're just bitter it's like well not in the way you think you know i mean like don't mistake the bitterness the bitterness is because you're a fucking dummy it's not you're missing the true value here do you think that others were doing to you in the 90s what you had done to brittany that's exactly my point there you go actually a big point there yeah half the half the reviews of the band live in the90s was he doesn't look like a rock star what am i doing here did someone really write i disagree yeah i read it 20 times that's not very good and you always know it's going to be a bad review when they mention that i have no hair in the first okay can i say on behalf of criticism chrome domed uh well chrome you know it'S a nice shiny palette nice adjective what i will say on the behalf of critics bengali uh if that's if that was this the core of a criticism of the band as a critic i can say that that is not a very effective criticism of a band and you guys could have done better if that's what you were trying to do yeah but that's all i'm trying to say to you is like i had to learn even from my own perspective and britney was the was the beautiful cipher in that yeah in showing me that i completely missed the boat so from that point on then i then i looked at everyone that came down the line with the perspective of like why her or why him yep it had nothing to do with whether i cared yeah i had to understand what the public was telling me about the zeitgeist yeah understood uh billy corgan we're down to chocolate let's eat a snack a snack of your true choice in that we did not have it well three hours let's be fair because we're having a very honest conversation your snack corner was extremely disappointing particularly to a vegan yeah vegan gluten-free we had an outsource we we had some plain pumpkin seeds for you you didn't bite uh pepita pepitas yes um uh alice is i guess is the pepito like the poor man you know pumpkin seed or something i don't know we were we robbed the ability to find out look i don' t know anything about did you eat any of this stuff when you were young oh yeah okay i grew up in chicago yeah yeah No, of course. Are you kidding? They're not great. I mean, Kool-Aid, pizza. I mean. Yeah, okay. Italian beef. We got. Italian beef, that's actually our show. This is called Hugh. Is this called Hugh? Is that how you pronounce it? Don't know. Very good brand though, I will say. Okay, so this is salty dark chocolate, organic, 70% vegan, paleo, no refined sugar, no cane sugar, anything that makes it taste good. No fun. Literally sounds miserable. No fun? Sounds genuinely miserable. Oh, yeah, we're going to share. Yeah, we'll all going to eat it. We're all going read it. We're going read out of 10. Oh, I see, I seen. This is a chocolate bar. I just want to say, while we eat this snack, from this angle, you look exactly like Bill Burr. I thought this was a bit. I always thought this Was a bit, you guys being maybe brothers. You had a promiscuous father. You were told maybe you had a brother named Bill. By the way, that's all true. Somewhere out there. I know. And I always was like, all right, these guys are, this is a great, they're working us. You know, this Is good. DNA test? You're not interested? I've called for it. He won't do it? He's never given an answer. I mean, what if you just, like, pluck an eyebrow next time you hang with him? You have him backstage, he drinks from your mug. And just run to the lab. It is uncanny from the angle that I have on you right now. Have you met Bill Burr? No, but I've seen his podcast. You believe it to be true. Do you think Bill Burer is your half-brother? I couldn't rule it out. That's what's hard, because he looks so much like my father. Right. That's the freaky part. Yeah. If you've ever met anyone in life. I'm freaked out. If he wasn't Bill Burr. Or your dad. If he was Bill Burry, he was just some guy on the street. I'd be like, oh my God, that guy looks like my dad. Like to the point where you're like, are you related to me? And by the way, as I go through life, sometimes like in Europe, people will recognize me not for who I am in the world. They think I'm related to them. It's happened to me. They're like. Are you my cousin? Or how do I know? So it happens. There are, you know. So maybe you're not scared, but you're Not scared to find out. No. But do you think he's scared? I would love to be part of Bill's fortune. Do you think he's, do you know, do you, do you mean he's scared to find out? No, Bill's not scared of anything. I didn't think so. Except the DNA test, apparently. No, no. All right, so this is, we don't need to put that in. All right. This is dark chocolate. I do want to say, you love dark chocolate? I hate dark chocolate, You like milk chocolate? I know, milk chocolate is better than dark chocolate I'm sorry, I have the palate of a six year old. You're a heathen. I don't like any chocolate. see dark chocolate is like you gotta like i know it but it's like that's also a narrative it's that's like being like you got like sonic it's the same thing like the cigar you're telling me i gotta like fucking free jazz you know i don't i don' have to like it and i know but it' s like you don't have to it it does it's not a moral value in liking it i like this i i it's better than i thought it would be it's bigger than i though yeah you know why because of the salt right the salt really i don't strong and buy chocolate it's not my thing i'm a gummies person weed gummy or just gummy uh gummy gummy i'm like sour patch kids uh okay but this this is i get this what people underestimate about vegan treats sure is because they don't uh oftentimes rely on typical sugar they have to be better tasting that sounds like in the marketing deck yeah we've tried vegan snacks before it's not true it's a respectful someone owns a vegan cafe i'm telling you vegans all right we're gonna we're going to pull up to your vegan cafe you can um look the salt hits first it kind of makes me forget momentarily chocolate yeah and then i'm like no this is dark chocolate i think it's delicious it's five it's fine i'd have a square of it after dinner and feel very refined and let me reveal they sponsor podcasts no in amongst my many pursuits We're trying to make our own chocolate lime. Okay. Now we're making news. Now we can do this. So Willy Wonk is next on my bucket list. Mr. Beast. And then we can go deep into my pathology, why I wanted to make chocolate. Billy Corgan. Great. What a time. Thank you. It was really a pleasure. Great talk. That's our show. Every episode of Popcast is at nytimes.com slash popcast. We're at youtube.com. Slash popcast where you should like and smash the like button. That's absolutely right. Instagram, TikTok at popcast will be back next week. Credits and link in bio.