Chelsea Wolfe | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Chelsea Wolfe joins Billy Corgan for a revealing conversation about witchcraft, Gnosticism, and why she was once “susceptible to cults.” She traces the roots of her unmistakable sound—from childhood night terrors and shadow figures during sleep paralysis to the private inner world where her music first took shape. Chelsea explains how outside influences kept her feeling small and creatively trapped, and what it took to reclaim her artistic identity. Billy revisits why the platinum-selling Adore was still considered a commercial disappointment, the Rick Rubin-produced song he removed from the album, and the price of choosing honesty over expectations. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:00Speaker 03

  I think the main thing is just people calling the music demonic or something, which is like, to me, is like such a basic thing to say.

• 1:09Billy Corgan?

  It's like, here but not here, seen but not seen?

• 1:12Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. Energy fields that are not just the physical. And then, also, it really comes back to like, sleep and dreams for me.

• 1:20Billy Corgan?

  It's a people's music voiced directly to the heart.

• 1:24Speaker 03

  I've always been like, a very intuitive person. And I've always just kind of felt like I could trust that.

• 1:29Billy Corgan?

  I love your guitar playing.

• 1:31Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:31Billy Corgan?

  I think you play so great.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  Oh my God, thank you.

• 1:34Billy Corgan?

  You strike me as so naturally adept at it.

• 1:37Speaker 03

  I used to be very susceptible to cults, honestly.

• 1:40Billy Corgan?

  Susceptible to cults, there you go. There's the headline.

• 1:46Billy Corgan?

  Chelsea Whoop, thank you for being here. Nice to see you today.

• 1:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, nice to see you too. Thank you for having me.

• 1:51Billy Corgan?

  Thank you. So let's start with the existential question of the day. Is an artist's journey the creation of a new self? Or is it finding the true self?

• 2:04Speaker 03

  I kind of like the new self answer, honestly.

• 2:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  I feel like you can find your true self in the new self.

• 2:10Billy Corgan?

  When you were young, did you feel like you knew yourself?

• 2:14Speaker 03

  Kind of, in the way that I've always been like, a very intuitive person. And I've always just kind of felt like I could trust that. So I don't know if it was like, very conscious, but I do think there was like, something intrinsic. Yeah.

• 2:27Billy Corgan?

  So how would you, how would you describe yourself as a kid?

• 2:31Speaker 03

  As a kid, I had a big imagination. I was kind of always off in daydream land, like, always creating something, whether it was like, a little village in like, a tree trunk, or writing poetry.

• 2:43Billy Corgan?

  Mm-hmm. Was this encouraged by your parents, this kind of creativity?

• 2:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, my parents were also both creative. My dad was a, like, a local musician. And my mom was, I mean, they were both like, working, working class, but in their free time, they were creating gardens and paintings and things.

• 3:02Billy Corgan?

  And at some point, they split, or just, but the point I'm asking is, did you kind of grow up in different, so there's the grandmother, there's mom and dad's house? Were you in the, like, rotating between these homes type of thing?

• 3:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I feel like I focused on my grandmother's house a lot, because that was like, the place where I felt most sort of nurtured as like, the creative daydreamer, you know?

• 3:25Billy Corgan?

  Do you think she figured it out early?

• 3:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, and she was also like, in a phase of her life where she was learning about like, naturopathic medicine and aromatherapy and things like that. So it was like, the perfect time for me as a kid to be sort of playing in these realms.

• 3:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. When your, when your parents split, was it a positive or a negative type of circumstance? I mean, I don't mean why they split, I'm saying, because I grew up in broken home situations, so it's like, everybody hated each other?

• 3:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of animosity and...

• 3:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, was that hard on you?

• 4:00Speaker 03

  I think so. I think I just sort of like, tuned it out in a way, like, went a little bit dissociated.

• 4:05Billy Corgan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:06Speaker 03

  But the going back and forth, and then like, the new families was, was tough for me.

• 4:10Billy Corgan?

  Do you think that, I hate when people tell me, oh, it's good you came from a bad situation, because it fostered your creativity?

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:17Billy Corgan?

  But did you feel that? Because I felt like I went internal as a way to deal with what I didn't want to deal with out here.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah.

• 4:25Billy Corgan?

  And there's a point of me asking all these questions, but in the setup of it all, did you, did it help inspire more internal kind of stuff for you, or?

• 4:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was already pretty internal and like, loved to just retreat to my bedroom and read, or whatever, so.

• 4:38Billy Corgan?

  You're not, you don't strike me as a big extrovert, so.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  No, definitely not.

• 4:44Billy Corgan?

  My whole life, all I've ever heard is, be quiet, you know what I mean?

• 4:49Billy Corgan?

  What was your, what was your dad's musical life like? I mean, he was just like, a local musician. Was he playing a lot, or was it like, weekend type of thing, or?

• 4:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was more like, weekend. He worked at the local grocery store as the, in the produce department, and then would have like, band rehearsals. My stepmom was in the band as well. And, yeah, they would open for like, bigger country acts that would come through the Sacramento area, like Tanya Tucker and stuff, so I got to go see some of those shows. So it was, it was cool to see him up on stage at a young age.

• 5:18Billy Corgan?

  Did you, were you inspired by the sort of the musical ambiance?

• 5:23Speaker 03

  I think so, yeah.

• 5:24Billy Corgan?

  If, if you know what I mean, but it's like, there's a cult, there's music, and then there's a culture around music.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 5:30Billy Corgan?

  Right? Did you, were you attracted to that musical life?

• 5:33Speaker 03

  I think so, yeah. Like, getting to go to these weird little places and, I don't know, be backstage for a moment or something.

• 5:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that.

• 5:46Billy Corgan?

  I know you're a pretty intuitive person, so when did, when did you sort of become aware of this, like, this other sentience, or kind of an outward sense of more to life than just like, what you're told? Or, it's hard to ask that question, but I think...

• 5:59Speaker 03

  I think that's interesting. I think it goes back to, again, like, time spent with my grandmother and sort of, yeah, like, thinking about energy fields that are not just the physical. And then, also, it really comes back to like, sleep and dreams for me, because I had a lot of issues with that when I was a kid, like night terrors and...

• 6:19Billy Corgan?

  I had the same, if you don't mind me asking about it.

• 6:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, totally. I mean, yeah, I have, I have the kind of sleep paralysis where it's like, there's like, shadow people in my room when I wake up. So I can move, but like, there's, these people are like, literally coming towards my face.

• 6:34Billy Corgan?

  Oh my goodness.

• 6:35Speaker 03

  And I had that even when I was a little kid.

• 6:36Billy Corgan?

  Do you still have it?

• 6:37Speaker 03

  I do sometimes, yeah. I'd pretty be out there the night, actually. Do you, do you, what's your kind of sleep paralysis?

• 6:43Billy Corgan?

  Uh, it was, it was when I was little, you know, I would just wake up and I couldn't move.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 6:49Billy Corgan?

  You know, and I was like, disassociated out of body.

• 6:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:53Billy Corgan?

  Like, I could see things, but I was in a different part of the room, but I was laying there. And, you know, when you're four years old, you don't know what the hell's going on.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:02Billy Corgan?

  So when I read that about you, I thought, well, that's interesting.

• 7:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it does kind of like, teach you about some in-between space, right? Don't you think?

• 7:10Billy Corgan?

  Sure, I mean, that's, I think that's the difficulty, is it's not something you can go have somebody say, oh, that's, it's like, you know, your knee is messed up. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, some people think you're crazy, some people think you're, you're hyperactive imagination.

• 7:26Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:29Billy Corgan?

  I guess I'm just trying to connect this idea of like, you know, because in my estimation, and this is my opinion, obviously, but the fully realized you as an artist, you know, there's a sort of a spectral quality to you. And it, and it's never felt forced to me. It doesn't feel like an act. It feels like it's somehow, it's something that you put together along the way. It didn't come, I'm not saying it didn't come naturally, because it's obviously the most natural thing in the world, to be yourself. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of affectation there. So in poking around, I was trying to think of some of the roots of that. Because there's a certain confidence in that that most people don't have.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah, I mean, that's a cool thing to hear from you.

• 8:11Billy Corgan?

  Well...

• 8:11Speaker 03

  I don't know how to respond, but...

• 8:12Billy Corgan?

  Wait till we get to page two, we'll see how it goes.

• 8:17Billy Corgan?

  I mean, everybody has their origin story, but like, when did you, when, when did music start to become your own? If that makes any sense?

• 8:23Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  I mean, I guess kind of early. Like, sorry to keep going back to like, when I was a kid, but...

• 8:31Billy Corgan?

  No, no, but that's the whole point.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:33Billy Corgan?

  I'm trying not, because, because there's a rootedness in what you do that I find fascinating. And I got it the first time I ever heard your music. It's like, I was, you know, the first thought is like, where does this come from?

• 8:43Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah, I mean, I started writing poetry, and then I asked my dad to sort of like, teach me some basics. Like, he had like, a Casio keyboard, as people did back then. And, yeah, I just kind of started learning a few chords, just some simple things to write songs, and would take the poetry that I was writing and make them into songs. And, I don't know, I guess coming into my own, though, probably not till my early twenties. And I was still kind of just, you know, making songs in my A-track, but I had enough friends that would hear me in my room, or whatever, and just be like, why aren't you playing shows? And once I started playing shows, I felt like it came to life.

• 9:19Billy Corgan?

  This is teen years, or later?

• 9:21Speaker 03

  This is like, early twenties, actually.

• 9:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:27Billy Corgan?

  Was there, at any point,

• 9:30Billy Corgan?

  was there another path in your mind like, well, if I'm not gonna do music, I'm gonna do blank?

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Not really. Well, because I went to college and stuff like right out of high school. I tried, like, I studied massage therapy, actually, first thing, then I like went to some community colleges and kind of tried to find my way. And I was like, I guess I'll give music a try.

• 9:52Billy Corgan?

  I see, I see.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess I figured I would figure it out later if it didn't work.

• 9:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I mean, it's like in the mind's eye, if you draw a straight line from like young precocious you to you as the artist, you know, that seems to be a straight line, but I know that's not how life always works.

• 10:09Billy Corgan?

  I wrote this and it's not a question, but I'm gonna say it because I want to get your reaction.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 10:14Billy Corgan?

  There's a quality to you, even as a person, I know you a little bit, but it's like here, but not here, seen, but not seen. Do you know what I mean by that?

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I think that's sort of my desire, you know, I don't really want to be seen.

• 10:31Speaker 03

  When I first started out, I was wearing like a Victorian morning veil.

• 10:33Billy Corgan?

  I heard, I heard that. I did not know that until I was doing my research.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Like, sometimes I'm like, I gotta bring it back because I.

• 10:39Billy Corgan?

  So is, is there a struggle between wanting to share but not reveal too much? And is there, or put it in your own language, is there, is there sort of a dialectic there that I, that would help me understand?

• 10:52Speaker 03

  For sure. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of it just comes down to being like a natural introvert, very kind of private person. I mean, that's kind of how I was raised, like, we don't talk about things.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  And then just as a performer, I don't know, I just find like the behind the scenes aspects of it all so much more natural and fun and interesting. I'm definitely in an era of like getting out of my comfort zone and that and being more seen.

• 11:17Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, we're getting, we're getting to that.

• 11:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:19Billy Corgan?

  So I'm trying to understand the progress on that. Because there's a sort of a natural ease that you have. And that's what I mean. It doesn't strike me as overly conscious, like, like I, if I was being self-critical, I think at times I'm way too conscious of what's happening. And it makes me at times, I think to people who are on, standing on the outside, it seems too calculating, but it's not as calculating as people might think. It's more just like, I'm assessing what I see and I'm just trying to make good decisions. And at some point, maybe those, the wires of those decisions become obvious or they're too, I don't know, too materialistic or something. But with you, it never strikes me. There's a grace there that I find hard to understand, but it's not because I think it's wrong. It's like, where does that come from?

• 12:04Speaker 03

  I don't know. I mean, I would say like currently it feels like just getting older and becoming more comfortable in your own skin.

• 12:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 12:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:16Billy Corgan?

  I saw this,

• 12:19Billy Corgan?

  we'll call it the album that shall not be named, the first one that's not out.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:25Billy Corgan?

  You can find it, the album that should not be named. But I saw this quote you said, and I thought it was really, really interesting because it was like what I was feeling. And I found this quote and I thought, okay, this is what I'm feeling. So I'm gonna spin it back to you. I think you said this in 2006.

• 12:38Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 12:40Billy Corgan?

  I was writing really personal stuff about my own life and I didn't feel comfortable at all. I didn't want my music, or I guess you said probably it, to be so much about myself. And I just had to find a new perspective.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I do think like the term diary, diary rock kind of like came to mind after I finished.

• 13:02Billy Corgan?

  I call it bad teen poetry, but yeah.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, it was just, it just felt like way too personal.

• 13:09Billy Corgan?

  Personal in the, in the, in the kind of the,

• 13:12Billy Corgan?

  like teen poetry sense, like it's too overt, no mystery.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, like it just felt like it was like a page from my diary, like literally put into a song or something and just wasn't, wasn't feeling that. So it's not that I found a new perspective. I think I just found like a more cryptic way to write about my personal life, you know?

• 13:31Billy Corgan?

  So, so, because, because then the first record, remind me the name, because I have it written down, but it's the.

• 13:39Speaker 03

  Like the one, oh, the Grime and the Glow, yeah.

• 13:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, Grime. But the Grind.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  I like that.

• 13:45Billy Corgan?

  But there's that period between the album that sort of isn't there at the 2006 time, and then 2010, you sort of emerged, seemed to kind of be fully hatched. You know what I mean? Like, there's the you that people fell in love with as an artist, like, at least I hear that.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it was because I like sort of went back to my, my roots of like what I liked to do.

• 14:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  Whereas that, which shall not be named was more like, it was very produced. It was very like, I just think I wasn't ready for that kind of, I don't know, sound.

• 14:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I think that's admirable because most people wouldn't make that choice. You know what I mean? They would,

• 14:26Billy Corgan?

  I think the hardest thing for people who are not in the music business, which is, it's always sounds like a slur coming out of my mouth, but, is the minute you're in it, you, you just start to feel these pressures. Do you feel that? I became, I speak for myself. It feels like as soon as I stepped through the door, I just felt there was always somebody kind of breathing on me to go this way or that way, or be less too loud here, too quiet here, you know? Did you, did you get that same type of?

• 14:54Speaker 03

  I don't know. I didn't have a lot of good guidance for many years, to be honest. So maybe a little bit of that would have been helpful for me.

• 15:02Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I see.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  Because I just felt like I was sort of like, always kind of figuring it out on my own or something and in a weird situation, but yeah.

• 15:11Billy Corgan?

  When did you, so in that 2006, 2010 time, when did you feel like, okay, this is what I want to do and I don't really care what, what people think? Like, I know that's the kiddie version of it, but like, when you, when did you were like, okay, this is what I'm really after?

• 15:29Speaker 03

  I mean, yeah, I think it was just about going back to sort of like demo versions and one take kind of things and capturing literal spaces. Like, I, I don't know, like, I don't know why exactly I knew to do that, but I just felt like that's how I really wanted to start. And if people liked that, then that would feel more like true to myself.

• 15:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, because in most, in most cases, if somebody does that, at least in my experience, it's, it's, it's, it's performative. Like in, in the mid 90s in Chicago, and there were different people, I don't need to name them, but it was like what's kind of like what people called lo-fi back then. Like, people started producing lo-fi and purpose. They were running things through cassette decks and downgrading the res.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 16:15Billy Corgan?

  So at the beginning of the digital age, you had a, almost like a knee jerk reaction where people went back to primitive sounds. And even Albini out of Chicago, you know, he was, he was sort of obsessed with like room tones, you know, blurriness in microphones where the whole, the whole world seemed to be going to greater clarity, greater digital presence.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:37Billy Corgan?

  There's a bit of a scene in Chicago and I was influenced by that. Adore was an album of mine that was somewhat influenced by this idea of like recasting, like more like a painting or something, like not all the colors need to be bright and perfect.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:52Billy Corgan?

  It's okay if they're blurry. It's okay if things are out of tune.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  I love Adore.

• 16:57Billy Corgan?

  Thank you. Yeah.

• 16:59Billy Corgan?

  Made, made it here in this crazy town, actually, most of it, yeah.

• 17:04Billy Corgan?

  So yeah, I'm just fascinated because it was, was that an intuitive process that you arrived at those kind of musical and emotional decisions?

• 17:15Billy Corgan?

  And I hate when people ask me the influence question, so I'm trying to ask it in a different way, but it's like, you're one of those artists, I feel like I don't hear the influences. I'm not saying there aren't any. I'm saying somehow, to me, the best artists are able to integrate influences, but somehow it sounds like them.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I think that was another thing I didn't like about that very first album that I didn't end up releasing was, I think my influences were very obvious. Like, my vocal inflections were very much me kind of just figuring out my own voice. I was taking on affectations of like, I don't know, Bjork or Patti Smith or PJ Harvey or Lindsey Buckingham. It's like, I was sort of using these other people's inflections.

• 17:56Billy Corgan?

  Okay, that makes sense to me.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  And I could hear it way too much. And like, I knew even back then.

• 18:00Billy Corgan?

  Well, I listened to some of the album that shall not be named and, I'm not saying you're wrong because you're right. Whatever you felt wasn't right there, you were right to walk away, but I still hear you, you know what I mean?

• 18:12Speaker 03

  Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely like a lot of me intrinsically on there for sure. But yeah, so I think, again, doing this sort of like more demo-y one take version was, was me trying to like find my true voice.

• 18:24Billy Corgan?

  And what was the, what was the, what was the response when it came out?

• 18:30Speaker 03

  I mean, there's, I think it was definitely like a slow burn. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not really sure.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  But I think like my second album was where I started to kind of feel like I was gaining somewhat of an audience where I could play a show and there would be people there.

• 18:50Billy Corgan?

  Do you feel, once you started attracting an audience and then what this name of the second album is, it's.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  Apocalypse.

• 18:57Billy Corgan?

  Apocalypse. I was going with asphyxia.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  Cool.

• 19:02Billy Corgan?

  Sorry.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  Asphyxiate me. Yeah.

• 19:06Billy Corgan?

  Exactly.

• 19:10Billy Corgan?

  But I wanted to ask one question before I get to that because, because that's, the second album seems to be where that's where like the world starts showing up for you.

• 19:19Billy Corgan?

  But.

• 19:21Billy Corgan?

  And I think it came off to thinking about you playing behind a veil. This idea of like, what does a performer owe the audience? Or what does a, what does a recording artist owe the audience?

• 19:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:31Billy Corgan?

  You seem to be kind of somewhat unaffected by that.

• 19:35Billy Corgan?

  But I'm not saying you're not, I'm, it does, I'm asking, are you? Maybe is the best question.

• 19:41Speaker 03

  I think I used to be more.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  I think now I'm like so overly conscious. Maybe it's a good thing, but I don't know, overly conscious about like, everyone's kind of struggling and I know like concerts are expensive. So I feel like I really want to like show up and put on a good show and. So yeah, I think I'm really conscious of that aspect now these days. But yeah, in the past I was kind of like, I don't know. I felt like I was still showing up with myself a lot, but it was, it was a little bit just like, if you like it, you like it. If you don't, that's okay.

• 20:11Billy Corgan?

  But do you feel, I'm asking, I guess more a period question, but do, do, did you feel or do you feel? How to put it in your, in your artistic infancy, for lack of a better way to put it. Did you feel you owe the audience anything?

• 20:24Speaker 03

  Oh. I don't know. I don't know if I've ever thought about that before, actually. What do you think about that?

• 20:32Billy Corgan?

  Well,

• 20:34Billy Corgan?

  I'm a bit of a contrarian by nature, which is not always a good, good idea.

• 20:40Billy Corgan?

  Here's my, here's my sense of it, because my father was a musician. And like you.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:47Billy Corgan?

  And my dad used to give me these kind of speeches about like, you know, you gotta put on a show.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 20:54Billy Corgan?

  And I thought, well, that didn't work for you. Because he'd come out of the sixties thing of like, hey, it's Friday night. And you act like it's Friday night, whether you give a shit or not.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 21:05Billy Corgan?

  But you know, grunge times was a bit like, we're just gonna kind of do our thing. But I was, I guess where I'm getting, and I think where you're asking me a great question is,

• 21:15Billy Corgan?

  my thought was,

• 21:19Billy Corgan?

  I'm gonna try to give you something authentic of me. And if you don't understand that, then you're gonna get this other side to my personality.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:28Billy Corgan?

  Which is more based in performance art.

• 21:33Billy Corgan?

  I think I have the woman's name right, Karen Finley, who's a very famous performance artist.

• 21:42Billy Corgan?

  There was the goth club in Chicago called Medusa's, which, thank God, was eighteen and over, where everything else was a bar in Chicago, twenty-one and over. And, you know, that's where I saw Ministry and, you know, on the third floor, you could go up there and they would play Husker Du and Cure videos. It was like, I was immersed in this incredible wax tracks. I'm sure you know wax tracks, you know, this incredible like, and then there was house music. I mean, it was such a melange of, of influences.

• 22:13Billy Corgan?

  Where am I going with all this? Anyway, so I was there one night and

• 22:19Billy Corgan?

  I'm pretty sure it was Karen Finley and she was in a glass case and covered in chocolate.

• 22:26Billy Corgan?

  And I remember walking by.

• 22:30Billy Corgan?

  And it was, you know, you're a kid, so you're walking everywhere, looking at the girls, whatever. So about the eighth time I walked past the woman in the glass case in chocolate, I finally said to my friend, like, what's the point of all that? And the friend said, well, if you're asking me, I think that's the point.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 22:49Billy Corgan?

  She's forcing you to kind of confront something or consider something that you otherwise wouldn't confront or consider. And so to try to answer your question with some sense of depth and, and, and kinship.

• 23:07Billy Corgan?

  In my mind,

• 23:10Billy Corgan?

  if the audience rejects your authentic self, then the audience needs to meet the exact opposite of your authentic self. In my case, it was what the French would call unenfant terrible. You know, the terrible infant. And because what I want to do is create cognitive dissonance in the audience.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:31Billy Corgan?

  I'm, I'm, I'm the believer that you should always give the performer the benefit of the doubt. Let them do their show and then decide, even if you wait 15 minutes. But, you know, a lot of the American public, they cross their arms and go, okay, show it to me. Or they read a review or they read something. So somehow you have to dispel the mythology of somebody else's creation. And my reaction to that, my reaction to the hipster community, my reaction to the pushback on my musical choices at a very young age, which turned out to be fairly accurate and pretty well voiced. But I got a lot of pushback was basically you and I'm gonna go scorched earth. So it's the opposite of feeling like you owe the audience something.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:17Billy Corgan?

  You're gonna get a show, but it's not gonna be the show that you think you're gonna get.

• 24:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I love that because people need that and they might not know they need that, but they do.

• 24:26Billy Corgan?

  Well, it gets into, you know,

• 24:32Billy Corgan?

  rock and roll is what, like 80 years old now? I mean, there's very little that's can be done at this point that hasn't already been done.

• 24:39Speaker 03

  For sure. Yeah.

• 24:40Billy Corgan?

  So it's the emotional cracks in between where there's a lot of unexplored territory.

• 24:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, that's good. That's very true.

• 24:48Billy Corgan?

  So

• 24:52Billy Corgan?

  using you as an example, what attracts me to you as an artist is somehow you achieve all the,

• 25:01Billy Corgan?

  all the beautiful electricity of, of a particular consciousness. But usually that consciousness is affiliated with people who spend a lot of time dressing in front of a mirror. It's performative goth. We're both loosely sort of thrown into goth umbrella.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. We're like internal goths.

• 25:20Billy Corgan?

  Sure. But, but goth is, has a, has a performative history and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's part of what I love about goth.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, me too.

• 25:29Billy Corgan?

  You know, Robert Smith is Robert Smith 24 hours a day. He doesn't like only, he's not only Robert Smith when he's on stage.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  True.

• 25:36Billy Corgan?

  If you've ever spent any time with Robert, I mean, he's Robert Smith all the time.

• 25:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:40Billy Corgan?

  So

• 25:43Billy Corgan?

  I love this idea that as much has been, has been explored musically, as much has been, been explored, you know, genre bending, there's still a lot of emotional gray space in there that you can get into that creates a level of discomfort, but people don't know what it is. In your case, and maybe discomfort is too strong a word, it's because I don't understand what I'm seeing. Because I cannot go, oh, it's that, or she's, she listened to this and so she became that. I, I don't, I have a harder time understanding the DNA. Now, my default position on that is, it's, it's because there's no comparable DNA because there's only one you.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 26:24Billy Corgan?

  Which really, for anybody listening, if you're an artist, that is the ultimate compliment. Because you, you, in this case, you, you have made yourself the thing. You know, they used to say the art is the thing, right? It's an old like sixties saying. So in this case, you are the thing. You've made yourself the thing, but it's not overly affected.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  Thank you. That's all I can say.

• 26:47Billy Corgan?

  So, so my whole curiosity is how do you get there? Because every time I tried to take steps in that direction, I felt like I got punched in the face and I shirked from it. But the good news is it brought out the fighter in me and it brought out the scorched earth guy. So.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:02Billy Corgan?

  But when you listen to say something like my album Adore, that's more in line with who I really am.

• 27:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. That, it feels like that.

• 27:09Billy Corgan?

  Okay, good.

• 27:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. I can love that album.

• 27:11Billy Corgan?

  I tell you all this because I want you to understand why I'm going on about all this.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  I appreciate it.

• 27:16Billy Corgan?

  Psycho babble.

• 27:19Billy Corgan?

  Okay. So back to hipsters.

• 27:23Billy Corgan?

  I'm gonna get the name right. Apocalypses. 2011. So here they come. Now they love you. You're great. You're amazing. Pitchfork. Right?

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Maybe, I don't know.

• 27:35Billy Corgan?

  It doesn't matter. I'm being, being glib. I'm saying is now you get these kind of warm winds of like, ah, we get it. You're great. You're amazing.

• 27:46Billy Corgan?

  Were you skeptical of that? How did you? Cause again, the shy part of you, I'm curious how you reacted to that type of attention.

• 27:56Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't remember getting like a whole lot of this sort of like, I don't know, online press or something like that. I think it was more, it felt good and right because it was more like I had been playing shows for a while and suddenly there was like actually people there and that, that felt good. Cause it was like, oh, there's bodies in the room. There's people that want to experience this and be here with me.

• 28:19Billy Corgan?

  Okay. Did you have anybody in your ear kind of saying, you know, if you go this direction, you can get here? Let's call it the professional advice.

• 28:29Speaker 03

  No, I mean, once again, I kind of wish that I did. And I, I actually feel like you tried to do that at one point.

• 28:36Billy Corgan?

  I did. I did.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  And I wish I would have taken that too, but I was just like, I don't know, I was in a very like sequestered situation for a long time.

• 28:44Billy Corgan?

  But see, that's what I'm saying is, sorry, I'm not defending myself, but, but what seemed so obvious to me probably wouldn't have been obvious to you if you'd arrived at those things organically. Does that make sense?

• 28:55Speaker 03

  I think so. He just threw my brain for a loop.

• 29:00Billy Corgan?

  I had to find those things by sort of fighting my way to get there.

• 29:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:04Billy Corgan?

  So without knowing you, but getting to know you a little bit at the time, it was kind of like, oh, if you want help with that, I know that staircase. And I think your response was like, whoa, this is, this is a bit intense. You know what I mean?

• 29:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just, I don't know.

• 29:21Billy Corgan?

  No, but that's totally fine because I think you've made a lot of wonderful choices.

• 29:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I feel like I definitely at some point, I wish that I would have like, chosen a road a little bit more or something. I think I've been like a little all over the place and it's.

• 29:39Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's what they call the Faustian bargain.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 29:41Billy Corgan?

  You know, I think in a way, and I'll get to that in a second. But I think in a way, you're finally kind of wrapping your head around that.

• 29:49Speaker 03

  Maybe sometimes I feel like I am, and then sometimes I feel like I'm, I think because like, sorry, go ahead.

• 29:54Billy Corgan?

  No, my first reaction when I heard your new record was like, oh, she's finally decided to take this on.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:59Billy Corgan?

  But your version of it.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true. I mean, I remember like,

• 30:04Speaker 03

  when I saw you in 2019 and we chatted a bit, you said something like, I think you're ready to have a hit. And I was so confused by that. And I was like, what, what does he mean? But now I'm like, I guess I understand. It's not that I'm trying to write a hit. It's just that I was like actively putting more care into like the craft of the songs and just, I don't know.

• 30:24Billy Corgan?

  Yes, I'm saying I would never, I would never tell you that those decisions were the wrong ones because it's ultimately, and this is gendered language in this wonderful world we live in, but it's more the, it's more the path of a craftsman. Or a crafts lady, right? But I'm saying is there's nothing wrong with that. Because the other path is always fraught with, you know, it's like The Hobbit. There's always going to be some dragon coming out of a cave somewhere. There's just, it's just the way it works.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:52Billy Corgan?

  Most artists, especially if they're, you know, grandiose, you know, they can't help the temptation to see what that feels like or what that looks like.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  I remember reading something about, I don't know if this is true or not, but like after you put a door out, you said, maybe you wished that you had sort of presented it to the world differently.

• 31:13Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:14Speaker 03

  Or something. So I don't know. I guess maybe you've had feelings like that before, like, wishing you would have sort of done something differently. I don't know.

• 31:22Billy Corgan?

  Yes. Because when, when we, in, in 1997, when we started making a door, we were coming off of Melancholy, which was huge success. We toured for over two years. It was everything you're supposed to do, magazine covers and all that stuff. So we did all that. And then, and then my mother died.

• 31:43Billy Corgan?

  I got a divorce. I was getting a divorce. And then we had, unfortunately, somebody who was touring with us pass away in a drug overdose. And it destroyed the band and that's all in, you know, Googleable. But so my response, particularly with my mother dying, was to, was to make something very personal. And the, the equation in my mind was if you can't make a truly honest album in this moment in your life, you never will.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, wow.

• 32:10Billy Corgan?

  But I also had in my back pocket, all the knowledge I, anybody would ever need to have on how to make hits, how to produce hits. And if I had allowed one hit song on the record, the whole story of the album would have been totally different. Now it's considered a classic by fans. It's certainly well regarded. But I, I took a, I took something off the table to sort of prove some kind of weird artistic point. And what it did is it, it made, it ensured that less people just heard the music.

• 32:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 32:39Billy Corgan?

  And there, in fact, there's a story where the, the, the management at the time, who was Metallica's management, so they were, you want to talk about like, you know, highway to hell, let's sell records, right? That those guys, they lived that. And that's why people hired them, including us. And they came out to hear a door in progress and they, they looked like they'd seen a ghost because they realized I was making a non-commercial record. So they said, do you mind if Rick Rubin comes over and listens to it? Rick came over. I knew Rick a little bit personally. He listened to it. His response was like, wow, man, like you're really out there. Because everybody thought I was on this other tangent. So we, we agreed to work with Rick. We made a song called Let Me Give The World To You.

• 33:24Billy Corgan?

  It was very like, if you want to, you can, we put it out at Point Point, but it's, if anybody imagines, it's like, if you think of like really clean Chili Peppers, like very clear vocals, very simple song, but beautiful song.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:36Billy Corgan?

  So we made like one of those. And, and then, you know, it was sequenced on the record, handed the record to the record company. And then they, they go, okay, yeah, we want to make that the first single. And my reaction, I went, I just spent a year of my life like bleeding on the page. And now I'm just going to sell the whole record out over one song and I took that song off.

• 34:02Speaker 03

  Yep. That's cool, honestly.

• 34:04Billy Corgan?

  Well, yeah, I don't, I think it's one of those things. But, but again, I'm, I'm arriving that, that process in reverse where you, you started in that process and you worked, worked it through. And again, I admire that because I realized that takes a greater form of strength. It's takes, it takes almost like a suicidal type of strength to do the other thing. It does. You have to be crazy. You have to be really crazy. That's why I always say the music business is full of sociopaths.

• 34:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:33Billy Corgan?

  Because you're really better off putting your finger in the wind and going, what are people doing this year? Oh, everyone's wearing blue. Okay, I'm wearing blue today. So to try to be an artist of great integrity at the top levels of the music business, again, the pejorative of the thing, it's very, very complicated.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 34:49Billy Corgan?

  And so I think it's beautiful that you've remained intact in that process because, because if you take in my advice in 2019 and even if I, I had nothing to do with, I said, just talk to this guy or this girl, they can help you get a hit or something like that. It might've been the worst thing that ever happened to you. You know what I mean? It might've, might've just, might've destroyed something in you that, that, that, only somebody who's taken your path can, can, like you may not even know how precious what you have is.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:21Billy Corgan?

  Because you've never lost it, you see?

• 35:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. This is like popping into my head, but I do feel like there was a point in my album His Fun, I wrote a song called 16 Psyche and like I, I felt like that could be not like a hit per se, but I knew that was a special song. But like the people I was working with at the time were like, it's too weird. No one's going to like it. And then over time, it's like become a favorite, like a fan favorite of shows. And, and so it's like, I know, I kind of knew that I was right with that one. So it's frustrating that like, I feel like I could have done more at a certain point, but then it was just like so negated that I lost a little bit of steam.

• 35:58Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I just, I, to me, when I got to know you a little bit, I just thought, wow, this, this, this voice and this talent, like, how is this not more? And more, again, more is not always, more is not always better.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:10Billy Corgan?

  More is not always more.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:12Billy Corgan?

  That's what I mean about the Faustian bargain, you know what I mean? You roll a certain type of dice.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  But I could have done more though, for sure. Yeah. But that's okay.

• 36:20Billy Corgan?

  Yes, but, but again, I think you, I think you finally have approached that on this recent record. I listened to it maybe like three weeks ago, before I knew I was going to talk to you today.

• 36:30Billy Corgan?

  Because I was curious and I was like, okay, she's finally taking this thing on. It's, I think it's cool.

• 36:41Billy Corgan?

  Do you?

• 36:44Billy Corgan?

  How, how can I put it?

• 36:50Billy Corgan?

  It's like all the pieces are together with you now. That's how I feel. Is that accurate?

• 36:58Speaker 03

  No, I feel like if you asked me on a different day, I might say a different answer. But like last night was like night one of a new tour. So my, my, I feel like a little

• 37:07Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  scattered right now. Like I'm, I'm trying to figure out what's working, what isn't, but um, so yeah, I don't know how to answer that. I'm sorry. Yeah.

• 37:15Billy Corgan?

  Maybe I'll ask it differently.

• 37:20Billy Corgan?

  Do you feel with what you started going back to being in a room by yourself with a, with an eight-track pass cam?

• 37:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:28Billy Corgan?

  I had the 688, not the 488 like you.

• 37:34Billy Corgan?

  That's actually how I wrote a lot of the early Pumpkin songs was on I had to task M A track that thing is that saved my life.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  It's great.

• 37:43Billy Corgan?

  But going back to that, you know, that solitary artist in a room writing songs and finding their voice, like literally, figuratively. Do you feel like, I don't know, the spiritual will be like self actualized or something? Do you feel it's all kind of manifest in you now?

• 38:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I feel like it's like coming back around where now I'm like, I want to, I don't know, it feels like a cycle, like the album that will not be named kind of reminds me of this new album. So now I'm like, okay, next album, I kind of want to go back into the room by myself with all the pedals and like make weirder music again or something like maybe this was like something that I needed to sort of actualize, like you said.

• 38:24Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  And then I can sort of go back into my cave.

• 38:27Billy Corgan?

  What do you, do you, do you feel like you're missing anything? And it could be, it can be anything. It could be personal satisfaction, happiness, like, is there anything in your feel that you feel like you're missing?

• 38:42Speaker 03

  On this album, more than ever, I like really put in the effort to not people please in the studio and to really like serve the music more than anyone's feelings or anything like that. But I still feel like I did the thing where sometimes I prioritized that, or maybe I just, I don't know, was still kind of doing so much of it myself that I got a little burnt out and looking back, I'm like, I should have changed that. So I still feel like that's something I want to work on is feeling like maybe someday I'll release an album that I don't wish I could change like immediately after releasing it.

• 39:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. What do you think that is? Is it because of the speed at which you work or?

• 39:21Speaker 03

  Maybe. I mean, I definitely had like, you know, access to studios, but it was like limited amounts of times. And maybe there was a bit of a rush or something.

• 39:29Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  I don't know. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's just never being satisfied fully with your work, but yeah.

• 39:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I just, I feel like you've come to, to like, the word is nadir, maybe it's like, it's a point of resolve. I don't know what that is, you know? Cause even just you kind of touching the hem of the skirt of, let's call it more. And I, I heard you talking somewhere today. I was poking around, but I saw where you said, like, you know, like more conventional concepts of songwriting, like choruses and and working on the songs, like saving the production till later. And you know, again, what would be a more conventional approach?

• 40:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:10Billy Corgan?

  Which for you is novel because

• 40:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:12Billy Corgan?

  your writing is essentially intuitive. At least that's my perception.

• 40:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was fun to like, actually think about writing a strong chorus and pushing things out of my comfort zone a little bit vocally.

• 40:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, once you accept the ABBA formula, right? Cause it's never going to get better than ABBA, right? Or the Beatles, whatever, pick your, pick your masterful pop. Once you kind of allow yourself to accept that there's kind of a, there's a hard wiring to pop construction.

• 40:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:38Billy Corgan?

  It's, it's actually kind of fun. It's, it's, it's like an interesting playground to be in.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 40:43Billy Corgan?

  So like when I was talking to you years ago about hit, that's my point is like,

• 40:47Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 40:48Billy Corgan?

  there's ways to do that without losing your soul.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah.

• 40:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:56Billy Corgan?

  So let's talk about the new record.

• 40:58Speaker 05

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• 42:37Billy Corgan?

  How, how have people, have people perceived this work well or?

• 42:43Billy Corgan?

  I know it's kind of fresh that time we're talking.

• 42:45Speaker 03

  Right, yeah. It's been out for about a month. I feel like it's got a positive reaction.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  I don't know. I don't know if I have a good answer for that yet.

• 42:55Billy Corgan?

  No, it's okay. It might be too soon. Yeah.

• 42:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:57Billy Corgan?

  I mean, you have a, you have a, you have a street sense of, of whether or not you, what you've done is going to land?

• 43:07Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 43:08Billy Corgan?

  I guess what I'm trying to say is when you do that type of work where you are a little bit more focused on like, okay, does this song have a chorus and modulations, whatever we do, the trickery. You also can internally almost set your mind to like, well, are people gonna, is the response going to elevate?

• 43:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, there's like two songs on the record and one of them is very much like, I put in the effort to make it like first strong chorus, first chorus bridge. And then there's another song that has my more traditional formula of like long intro and then like a heavier outro called Death Is Not The End. And the other one is called Cold and they're kind of like opposites in a way.

• 43:45Billy Corgan?

  The heavy bassline kind of is it?

• 43:47Speaker 03

  Cold is like the most like accessible, like the first one on the album.

• 43:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. But is that the one with like do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, there's?

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Oh, no, that's, that's.

• 43:56Billy Corgan?

  I'm doing the guitar player thing like.

• 43:59Speaker 03

  That's, that's seed. Yeah, that's.

• 44:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  But yeah, that one's like more accessible too, I think.

• 44:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 44:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like I knew like a couple of them would land. And then I felt like that Death Is Not The End song was going to be a good like first thing to put out to sort of introduce this new music. And I feel, but yeah, I feel like they're both landing well. It's just like, I'm not sure if it's the same people that like both of them now or if it's different groups.

• 44:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, you start to see what people are attracted to.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:27Billy Corgan?

  Okay, take this question however you want. The pros and cons of building your own world.

• 44:33Speaker 03

  Pros and cons of building your own world.

• 44:35Billy Corgan?

  Do you feel, do you feel you've built your own world?

• 44:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. And certainly beats, you know, the external world.

• 44:45Billy Corgan?

  I get that. I get that.

• 44:46Speaker 03

  Gives you like a nice, safe place to exist as an artist.

• 44:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:51Billy Corgan?

  So, okay, so back to the question, the pros of world building and the cons of it.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  Oh, I see. Like literally pro and con list. Pros, safe space to write from.

• 45:04Speaker 03

  I guess it makes you stand out, but I think the cons are that it's hard to find your footing in the industry. It's hard to like, I mean, I'm just thinking of building your own world as a musician, but

• 45:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 45:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, I feel like it's been hard for me to like find a lane. I feel like I've been really embraced by the metal community, which has made it so nice for me because I, it makes sense with like the folk stuff that I do and the sort of heavier stuff that I do, because it just kind of fits in that world somehow.

• 45:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Well, you know, our, our, our dear friend, Amelie Brune of Mirkur.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:37Billy Corgan?

  You know, I was there sort of for the beginning of all that.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:40Billy Corgan?

  Cause I'd worked with Amelie when she was in X Cops.

• 45:43Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 45:44Billy Corgan?

  Which was her pop band.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  Right.

• 45:45Billy Corgan?

  Her kind of Brooklyn hipster band. And

• 45:49Speaker 03

  I didn't know that.

• 45:49Billy Corgan?

  I still remember very strongly. I feel like we talked on the phone and she said, I want to do this death metal album. And kind of lean into my Norse roots. And similar to yourself, this folk song meets something kind of epic metal. So both you are really kind of OGs in this, this bringing together these worlds, but also from a very kind of feminine is not the right, if I say feminine perspective, it's wrong. That's not the way.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  No, but it is though. Yeah. I feel like that.

• 46:19Billy Corgan?

  I guess what I would say elementally feminine, if that makes sense.

• 46:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 46:23Billy Corgan?

  You know, and so there's just like women who rock. I think it's, I think it's a feminine perspective on how these things, because as you know, because you're, you're also really great with folk song. Folk song done right is the heaviest music in the world.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:38Billy Corgan?

  Heavier than any metal song, which is why people still listen to Robert Johnson or whatever, because you're like, whatever the fat is, that's the really spooky part of it.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's real soul. Yeah.

• 46:48Billy Corgan?

  So, so metal is kind of the play thing of that. You know?

• 46:52Speaker 03

  That's so true.

• 46:53Billy Corgan?

  The, the electric blues, right? So, um,

• 46:58Billy Corgan?

  okay, where am I, where am I going with all this?

• 47:02Billy Corgan?

  No, it's just, it's just this idea of like, you know.

• 47:10Billy Corgan?

  Sometimes if you're into something early, not everybody gets it. And by the time they figure it out, it's not that it's too late, but it's like you wish you almost got it from the beginning.

• 47:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:21Billy Corgan?

  Like when people talk to me about a door, it's like, yeah, but I made that album 28 years ago. And I'm glad you like it now, but I wished you liked it when I put it out.

• 47:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. It was 1998?

• 47:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's when it came out, yeah.

• 47:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't think I heard it until like 2002 or something like that.

• 47:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it was considered a total failure.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  Oh, and I would have never known that.

• 47:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, and it was a, it was a, even at the time, it was a platinum record. It sold a million copies.

• 47:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that's considered a failure. That's crazy.

• 47:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it came out of the box and then it kind of stalled. And the record company wrote it off. They pulled all our marketing funding, the whole, all the classic stuff.

• 48:00Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 48:01Billy Corgan?

  And, uh, and then one day, the guy from the label called and he said, "The damnedest thing is happening with this record."

• 48:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:09Billy Corgan?

  And I said, "What's that?" And he said, "You're selling 3,000 copies a week, every week." 3,000 copies, 3,000 copies, 3,000 copies. And I go, "What does that mean?" He goes, "People are finding out it's a really good record." And I go, "Well, it's a little late," you know? Because by then, like the circus had left town, you know what I mean? And I was deemed an idiot, literally. Because who, who takes a glow busting record like Melancholy, chucks it aside and makes something as meditative and somber as a door? It's like, you're an idiot.

• 48:43Speaker 03

  That makes sense to me.

• 48:44Billy Corgan?

  But that's what I'm saying. So I had the, like I said, I had those experiences in reverse. I was made to pay for being authentic.

• 48:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:53Billy Corgan?

  Because melancholy, there's certainly plenty of integrity on the record. But I mean, we were, we were in it to win it.

• 48:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:00Billy Corgan?

  I would have never written a song like Bullet with Butterfly Wings and made fun of the whole world if I wasn't trying to defeat it. You know?

• 49:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:10Billy Corgan?

  Here's an interesting question. Do you believe talent is God-given?

• 49:16Speaker 03

  Kinda, yeah. Is that bad to say? It's not God-given, but...

• 49:20Billy Corgan?

  That wasn't really an answer. Kind of sort of.

• 49:23Speaker 03

  I mean, I do feel like there's something that certain people are born with, you know, like someone like you, like you're gifted. And that doesn't mean that you didn't work really hard and nurture that gift, but I don't know. I do kind of feel like it's...

• 49:39Billy Corgan?

  See, for, like, and I'm saying this in, in, I would kill for your voice.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  Oh, I mean, literally same.

• 49:47Billy Corgan?

  If I had your voice, I would be, I'd be running the world.

• 49:51Speaker 03

  I mean, you are running the world because you have your voice.

• 49:54Billy Corgan?

  Well, we call it the ring wraith, you know, it's like...

• 49:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 49:58Billy Corgan?

  Even my kids make fun of my voice.

• 49:59Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, I love that.

• 50:01Billy Corgan?

  No, but I'm saying, so when I hear your voice, like to me, that's God-given. Like God gave you that voice. Now, whether you're religious or not is irrelevant to me. But I guess the second part of the question is, if a person has talent, do you feel there's some responsibility to share the talent? I know that's a bit erudite, but I mean, how do you feel about that type of stuff? Is there a spiritual component to the way you view your work?

• 50:25Speaker 03

  There is for sure, yeah.

• 50:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to answer that exactly. I mean, the part about like, if there's a responsibility to share it, I don't know.

• 50:38Billy Corgan?

  How about this? You tell me how it moves you.

• 50:43Billy Corgan?

  Because you invariably have those experiences where somebody comes and say, "I lost somebody," or "I went through a breakup and your song got me." You have to have those experiences.

• 50:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, honestly, like I was in, I have had a really amazing therapist for a while, who was like also a very spiritual woman. And she kind of like was doing some work with me, like you need to admit that, to yourself, that your voice is healing and that like the music that you make is healing. And like, I know you don't want to call yourself a healer because that can just sound so, I don't know.

• 51:15Billy Corgan?

  I don't, see, I'm not arguing with you because I admire you a lot, but to me, your voice is healing.

• 51:22Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 51:23Billy Corgan?

  But that's what I'm saying is if you believe it from a spiritual perspective, you can almost get out of your own way and say, "Whatever I was given"

• 51:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:31Billy Corgan?

  "was given to me so that I could be an instrument."

• 51:35Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah. It was helpful for me to like kind of go through that and get over it a bit.

• 51:39Billy Corgan?

  Because, because everybody understands, hey, we pick up a guitar and we play it, but we are also an instrument, especially when you sing. You're, you're literally operating this physical vehicle.

• 51:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 51:49Billy Corgan?

  And understanding how to use that physical vehicle in a way that moves people is even, even, I speak for myself, it's a mystery to me sometimes, the way people react to my voice.

• 52:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 52:01Billy Corgan?

  Because all I heard as a kid was my voice was annoying to me.

• 52:07Speaker 03

  Hate that.

• 52:09Billy Corgan?

  It's all good.

• 52:12Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so if you, if you agree with me that you've reached this interesting nadir and you've even said you're thinking about going back to like, let's call it the bedroom. You just kind of want to do your thing on your own. Nobody on, outside influences. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying, but what do you, what do you still want to conquer?

• 52:36Speaker 03

  I think there is this kind of an aspect of wanting to get back to...

• 52:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, just, I don't know, things being like a little bit more physical, a little bit more like,

• 52:52Speaker 03

  like I really needed someone to help me create a container to make music. Because I get, it's like I'm so, I don't know, I can get really, not micromanagey, but I just take on so much that like I get burnt out like every few years. And so that this was one of those periods where it was like, I really need to find someone who's like a strong personality and, you know, amazing co-writer to like help me pull myself out of that, you know? And I really did find that and really thankful for that. And I think, but yeah, I think now that I kind of like have my fire back again, I like want to learn how to be really self-motivated enough to like go back to things being a little bit more, I don't know, I guess like

• 53:39Speaker 03

  challenging or something.

• 53:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Do you, is it, is it because you're somewhat introverted that you almost need to kind of push yourself into your own form of discomfort, but it's not somebody else? It's you that's doing it? Does that make sense, the way I'm saying?

• 53:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess I'm kind of always trying to get out of my comfort zone and it leans one way or another, whether like that's more time spent alone and, or whether that's actually working with other people, you know?

• 54:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I feel like, and tell me if I got this wrong, but I asked you once about creating and I just have this image, you said like I just, I'm out in the woods somewhere or something like that.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  That is true, yeah.

• 54:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, so it's kind of stuck with me, this idea of like isolation and

• 54:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:21Billy Corgan?

  sort of being in tune with something that's not like this, whatever this is, right?

• 54:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I mean, collaboration is like so challenging, but it's so rewarding too.

• 54:32Billy Corgan?

  That's it.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  Well, sometimes, you know.

• 54:35Billy Corgan?

  My joke is always if I could play the drums, I would never play with anyone ever again.

• 54:40Speaker 03

  Amazing, yeah.

• 54:43Billy Corgan?

  Do you have any musical regrets?

• 54:46Speaker 03

  I think it just kind of goes back to the wishing that I had sort of

• 54:51Speaker 03

  focused a little bit more, or maybe, I guess it isn't a regret as much as like, I don't know, I hate to complain or something, but I do feel like I just wasn't very like supported by people I was working with for a very long time. And there was just a lot of like,

• 55:08Speaker 03

  I don't know, almost like

• 55:11Speaker 03

  emotional, mental abuse in a way that like kept me feeling very insecure. Like we're like,

• 55:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 55:18Speaker 03

  I wasn't really able to sort of like come out of that because I was always pulled back into this like negative space or something.

• 55:24Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah, I think, I'm gonna say this, and if it's too weird, just tell me it's too weird. But when I got to know you

• 55:33Billy Corgan?

  pre-pandemic, I was surprised that you, you seemed to be

• 55:41Billy Corgan?

  connected to the group of people that you were working with. And it wasn't a negative or a positive. But in my mind, you were more of a solo ranger type, you know what I mean? And I, and here you were sort of not sublimated, but you were sort of in this other architecture. Is that kind of what you're talking about?

• 55:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. It was, you know, like, I felt like my talents and hard work was sort of going towards

• 56:07Speaker 03

  something else and not my own sort of path, my own career.

• 56:12Billy Corgan?

  Is that, do you see that as a sort of a?

• 56:16Billy Corgan?

  Is it because you're a loyal person? Or because you feel you were kind of not weak, but like you were being swayed by other forces?

• 56:24Speaker 03

  I used to be very susceptible to cults, honestly. Like, not true cults, but like cult-like environments. Like, I fell into that a couple of times throughout my younger

• 56:32Billy Corgan?

  That's interesting.

• 56:32Speaker 03

  years. So, yeah, I guess weak is kind of a good word for it, but maybe a harsher word. But, yeah, I just kind of think of it as like, I think it's easy to get brainwashed when you're a young artist, if you fall into like the right place, where someone can sort of like make you feel like you owe them.

• 56:48Billy Corgan?

  Were there people surrounding you because of your talent that they were sort of mirroring and kind of

• 56:54Billy Corgan?

  leading you where they wanted to lead you?

• 56:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, or just sort of keeping me sequestered and small so that like I would stay in that world and not like sort of get too big.

• 57:06Billy Corgan?

  Because I kind of picked up on some of that, but I didn't, because I didn't know you. I didn't, I didn't know what to say about it.

• 57:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's confusing.

• 57:14Billy Corgan?

  And if you excuse the indulgence, if I would have sort of crossed that line without you knowing me, then I'd just become another one of those people. Because now it seems I'm operating on my own self-interest, which is like, oh, I think you're amazing. Let me help you climb the, you know, climb the steps to Rock Mountain.

• 57:31Speaker 03

  Again, well, there's my regrets. I wish I would have.

• 57:33Billy Corgan?

  No, no, it's okay.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  Taking some advice.

• 57:35Billy Corgan?

  No, I'm totally fine with it. It's more of like, it's my Pisces nature. It's kind of like, you do whatever you gotta do. It's all good.

• 57:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:44Billy Corgan?

  But I remember feeling that vibe around you and not knowing kind of what to put. Because it, maybe because in my mind, you have such a strong musical identity, but because I don't know you personally that well.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 57:55Billy Corgan?

  I didn't understand that, you know?

• 57:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:59Billy Corgan?

  Susceptible to cults. There you go. There's the headline.

• 58:06Billy Corgan?

  Well, actually, this feeds into my next question. It's actually right here on the paper. What moves a Scorpio?

• 58:14Speaker 03

  Well, I have a Pisces moon, so I feel like I'm like.

• 58:16Billy Corgan?

  There you go. See, that's why you'd understand a weirdo like me.

• 58:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've got a lot of watery nature in there. Scorpios, I mean, I think, I think we do need to feel like we have like some armor up, you know? And I think that, I don't know.

• 58:30Billy Corgan?

  See, Pluto and Mars are the ruling planets of Scorpio, you see? And Pluto is underworld and Mars is the god of war.

• 58:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think we're probably a little bit more like,

• 58:43Speaker 03

  I don't know. Yeah, it's like trying to find some, some balance of wanting to be like underground and wanting to be out there fighting. Yeah.

• 58:55Billy Corgan?

  One thing I did want to focus on is I love your guitar playing.

• 59:00Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 59:00Billy Corgan?

  I think you play so great.

• 59:01Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. Thank you.

• 59:02Billy Corgan?

  And I literally, this is so, it's so silly to admit, but I'm saying just to make you laugh. Because, you know, I don't, I'm one of those elder musicians. Like, I just don't pay attention to what's going on in the world. Like, I, you know, for all I know, people think you're this or that. So I literally was like, I think I put into like a, like a search engine, like, are you a highly regarded guitarist?

• 59:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:24Billy Corgan?

  And it came back, it said, something very modern AI like, although she's, she's well regarded as a, as a stylist, there's no mention of her being a, you know, of like, like, I don't know, like, like, like a shredder or something.

• 59:40Speaker 03

  No, definitely not.

• 59:41Billy Corgan?

  No, no, but it was funny to me because I was asking kind of an innocent question, which was, I just wanted to know if people had taken note of your playing.

• 59:48Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't, yeah, I don't think of myself as like a great guitar player, but I definitely feel like I have my own sort of style and rhythm.

• 59:57Billy Corgan?

  Guitar player, and here's why I think you're a great guitar player. Because, and, and because you're a great songwriter, too. You, you figured out how to make the guitar another voice. So my favorite music of yours is when you figure out how to make that guitar go with that voice. And then it creates this other thing, like a third, like a third voice. I think that's when I, when your music moves me the most. And maybe that's just the guitar player in me, but.

• 1:00:24Speaker 03

  I mean, coming from you, that's very, very nice.

• 1:00:26Billy Corgan?

  No, I think, I think, I mean, it doesn't, it's so, the guitar playing world is so silly anyway, you know? I mean, you know,

• 1:00:36Billy Corgan?

  it's, it's pretty well known. I played most of the guitar on the albums and stuff like that. And I mean, people are writing articles now like, you know, it's time to finally recognize his guitar playing or something. You know what I mean? Because people couldn't sort of deal with the fact of the way I played. Basically, my attitude plus my songwriting, plus the band's place in the culture, plus my guitar playing. The guitar playing was just a step too far for most people.

• 1:01:00Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 1:01:01Billy Corgan?

  So they were almost sort of discarded that. Like, they acted like I didn't, I wasn't that guy.

• 1:01:05Speaker 03

  Oh, you were that guy.

• 1:01:06Billy Corgan?

  Oh, God bless. Yeah. So, so I'm saying, I'm just saying it from the same standpoint. I just, I recognize you as a fellow traveler because I'm not interested in playing guitar like anybody else. I'm interested only in playing guitar or whatever I, I feel like says something. And I really like the way you play guitar, so. Was there any particular influences on the guitar for you? I know you play drop, like everything's drop to step, right?

• 1:01:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, that just like came naturally because the guitar that I had had like a broken tuning peg. So it was like already tuned to D standard. And then once I figured that out, because this was like what I learned on, I was like, oh, it's actually not in the normal tuning, but I just kept writing songs to that.

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  I mean, I'm nowhere near the guitar player he is. But again, Lindsey Buckingham is like, I just.

• 1:01:55Billy Corgan?

  I mean, he's a.

• 1:01:56Speaker 03

  He's so good. Yeah.

• 1:01:58Billy Corgan?

  He's ridiculous.

• 1:01:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. I was so obsessed with that, like, performance they did on MTV in 1997, The Dance.

• 1:02:05Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:05Speaker 03

  And like when he did Big Love by himself.

• 1:02:09Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah, it's just.

• 1:02:10Speaker 03

  I feel like that's like a huge influence.

• 1:02:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, one of the great memories in my life is because I got to know Stevie. Because I covered Landslide, which became a hit and had never been a hit. So then I got to know Stevie. And then they were doing their reunion tour somewhere like late 90s.

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:27Billy Corgan?

  So they invited me to a rehearsal.

• 1:02:29Speaker 03

  Oh, cool.

• 1:02:30Billy Corgan?

  And I got, and I walked in. I didn't know what I was walking into. It was like some aircraft hangar. And I walked in and it was literally the Tex and me and the band.

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:02:41Billy Corgan?

  And I got to hear them playing and singing with those voices. And it was like, wow.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  Incredible. In this airplane hangar, I'm sure it sounded amazing.

• 1:02:51Billy Corgan?

  Those three voices, because I know you love voice. Those three voices together was like, it sounded like honey.

• 1:02:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:59Billy Corgan?

  Like somebody was dripping honey out of the speaker. When those three would sing together, then the empathy that they have had as vocalists and their relationships. And then you take that guitar playing on top of it. And really, and I think you know this too. He's totally visionary producer, Lindsey.

• 1:03:14Speaker 03

  I didn't know that, actually. But that's really cool. That makes sense.

• 1:03:17Billy Corgan?

  Go back and if you, if you get a chance, listen to Tusk.

• 1:03:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, so you produced that?

• 1:03:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, so Tusk, you know, Tusk is the, Tusk was their adore, right? They, they made Tusk after they made Rumors, which was the biggest album. They won all the Grammys and they were the talk of everything. I mean, I lived in the suburbs and everybody was talking about Fleetwood Mac.

• 1:03:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:36Billy Corgan?

  So they made Tusk and everybody was like, what's the weird art record? But the guitar playing is unbelievable. The songs are really, it's like, it's, it's them trying to be the deeper version of that band. And of course, the public was like, huh? So that, but it's, it's grown in stature over time.

• 1:03:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:54Billy Corgan?

  It's one of those. And you might say, no, we're talking about Fleetwood Mac.

• 1:03:56Speaker 03

  No, I, I grew up on Fleetwood Mac. I love them so much.

• 1:04:00Billy Corgan?

  I know we talked a little bit about you being accepted by the metal community. Who, who, because I don't, I don't get, you didn't grow up a metal kid, did you? I mean, were you listening to any metal when you were young?

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  Only sort of like classic metal, like Black Sabbath and Bloodsuckle and stuff. Like, I wasn't listening to anything niche.

• 1:04:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  Until I was in my twenties or something and.

• 1:04:22Billy Corgan?

  But I, maybe that's, maybe that's what I like about it. It doesn't seem, again, the word affectation, but it doesn't seem overly infected by, affected by other things. It's kind of like you're doing your own version.

• 1:04:32Speaker 03

  Right. Oh, for sure. Yeah.

• 1:04:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Billy Corgan?

  You feel that too?

• 1:04:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. Because I didn't learn to play and sing on other people's songs. I learned it by writing songs.

• 1:04:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 1:04:47Speaker 03

  So I think, yeah, I just sort of did that.

• 1:04:51Billy Corgan?

  Okay, I think we're almost done. I got a lot of questions for you. Okay, so far?

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  Amazing. Yeah, thank you.

• 1:04:59Billy Corgan?

  Can we talk about spirituality a bit?

• 1:05:01Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:05:01Billy Corgan?

  Okay. Do you have a personal cosmology that you want to share?

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I follow like a very earth-based pagan

• 1:05:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:13Speaker 03

  sort of path, animistic. I mean, I, I call it witchcraft because like that's sort of a community that I've found that has, I've found people with similar beliefs and books that I love and follow.

• 1:05:25Speaker 03

  But in its simplest form, it's really about living cyclically. Sick, oh, it's a hard word.

• 1:05:31Billy Corgan?

  Cyclically?

• 1:05:31Speaker 03

  Cyclically. Yeah, like by the moon, by the seasons. Like, as soon as I started tuning into the moon cycles each month and like setting an intention on the new moon, sort of refocusing on the full moon, releasing something on the full moon, and just sort of doing that every single month. Like, my life started changing so much.

• 1:05:51Billy Corgan?

  Oh, really?

• 1:05:51Speaker 03

  And when I started thinking about living seasonally, my life changed and just became so much better. So, yeah, that's my personal path.

• 1:06:01Billy Corgan?

  Given what you just said, do you, do you feel we're,

• 1:06:06Billy Corgan?

  are we returning to an old world sense of value? And I'm talking about human value, not like morality. Do you feel that? Or is it, is it those things are always there and kind of in plain sight and depending on the era?

• 1:06:19Speaker 03

  I mean, I think more people are more openly like witchy and pagan. And that's really nice to see. So maybe there is more of a return to it, or maybe there just are more people that are being open about it, but.

• 1:06:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I, I like to say I'm a gnostic pagan.

• 1:06:37Speaker 03

  Oh, cool. Yeah, I was gonna ask.

• 1:06:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, because, because, because, you know, the, the reason not, the Catholic Church, what became the Catholic Church, the Apostolic Church, went after the, the Gnostics around 380, whenever it was, was because they were basically pagans. You know, they believed in a, in a interpersonal relationship with God. They didn't need a church, you know? And there's the Gospel of St. Thomas where it says, you know, if you need to find me, pick up a rock, there I am, crack open a stick, there I am. Basically, I'm everywhere. And of course, I don't believe Jesus ever said anything about starting a church. So I think there's a long, beautiful tradition there that goes back even through Christianity in, in Gnosticism.

• 1:07:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:29Billy Corgan?

  It feels like I'm trying to put Jigsaw pieces together. So just indulge me a couple more, but

• 1:07:38Billy Corgan?

  let's call it the folk you, which isn't fair. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, but to me, at the center of your music is this, this, this deep understanding of folk music. Did that come from anywhere or is that natural to you?

• 1:07:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know if it's an understanding or just like a sort of nature.

• 1:07:57Speaker 03

  I mean, another artist I really grew up on was Joni Mitchell.

• 1:08:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:02Speaker 03

  And Bonnie Raitt, those were like my mom's favorite. So that was kind of always playing in the house. So.

• 1:08:08Billy Corgan?

  But you know, uh, there's a deeper sense of folk music that, that you don't like. I came to it late and Adore was probably the album that I first was like, okay, I'm gonna really go there.

• 1:08:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:18Billy Corgan?

  But this idea of like, um, the greatest complexity is through simplicity. The greatest heart is through basically what I would call folk tradition.

• 1:08:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:30Billy Corgan?

  And you, you strike me as so naturally adapted it. And I was wondering, did, I mean, is it was just simple? You just picked up a guitar and learned how to do it or?

• 1:08:40Speaker 03

  I guess thinking about how much country music I was exposed to as a kid. That comes to mind and just thinking about how so much of that beautiful old country just comes from really difficult situations. So just seeing how that could be put into a beautiful song.

• 1:08:59Billy Corgan?

  Well, you, you're Northern California, right? Isn't that crazy?

• 1:09:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Billy Corgan?

  Cause you know, the whole thing about the Okies moving west and do you know that all that stuff?

• 1:09:07Speaker 03

  I mean, maybe.

• 1:09:09Billy Corgan?

  Well, you know, there's the Bakersfield sound.

• 1:09:11Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:09:12Billy Corgan?

  Do you know about that? Buck Owens and Waylon.

• 1:09:15Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:15Billy Corgan?

  Win Stewart. Well, a lot of the Oklahoma farmers, I think in the Dust Bowl years, moved west to Bakersfield. And then because of the farming moved up into Northern California.

• 1:09:27Speaker 03

  Okay. Is Merle Haggard kind of part of that?

• 1:09:29Billy Corgan?

  I think so. So that's, that's why, that's why the Western version of, of country music is so rich over in that area was through economic displacement.

• 1:09:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:09:42Billy Corgan?

  And then when Buck Owens was the first artist from that area that got really big. Win Stewart was before him. He was signed to Capitol. But once he became super popular, I think he had something like some crazy number of hits in a row. It's, it's a shocking number, but he brought what was called the Bakersfield sound to Nashville.

• 1:09:59Speaker 03

  Okay. Oh, wow.

• 1:10:01Billy Corgan?

  So there's this beautiful kind of twinning in, in sixties American, actually going back to the fifties of the Western version of country and the Nashville version.

• 1:10:10Speaker 03

  I like.

• 1:10:11Billy Corgan?

  So I was just wondering if you were influenced, I mean, maybe just by osmosis. You know what I mean?

• 1:10:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:17Billy Corgan?

  It's not really a question. It's more just like, no, it's just more of a ramble about. Cause again, um, there's, there's a lot of seminal, uh, sixties UK folk artists that you probably wouldn't necessarily know, like Ann Briggs is one that comes to mind. And even bands like Pentangle, I don't know if you've ever listened to any of those people.

• 1:10:34Speaker 03

  A little bit, yeah.

• 1:10:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. To me, you're in that tradition.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:10:37Billy Corgan?

  But I don't think you necessarily studied it. It's like.

• 1:10:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, obviously not. Sorry.

• 1:10:42Billy Corgan?

  No, but I'm, no, there's nothing, I'm saying is it's that's what, that was one of the first things that shocked me about your talent. If you, if I just listened to you and I thought, oh, cool production approach, amazing voice, cool songs. But then I would hear you do folk stuff, like just you with an acoustic. And I was like, this is somebody who understands this form. Cause it's not something that's everybody, most people who do it come up in the tradition, if that makes any sense.

• 1:11:07Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah. And, and I mean, honestly, I think I felt sort of inadequate because of that sometimes. And I don't, I don't like know these traditionals, but.

• 1:11:16Billy Corgan?

  Well, to me, to me, you're of the tradition. Maybe that's a better way to say it.

• 1:11:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's cool. I'll take that.

• 1:11:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Cause maybe it, maybe if, if I'm putting it in a way that would make more sense to you is

• 1:11:29Billy Corgan?

  on one level, there's an attraction to droning and repetition and kind of a hypnotics thing over here musically. And then using the voice to tell a story. So it's not just the lyrics, it's how you use the voice to tell a story. So even if you've ever listened, like the Carter family, I mean, that's the tradition.

• 1:11:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, you're right.

• 1:11:47Billy Corgan?

  It's, it's, it's primitive in the best sense of the word. It's, it's, it's a people's music voiced directly to the heart.

• 1:11:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:55Billy Corgan?

  It's not about charts and any of that stuff.

• 1:11:57Speaker 03

  Wow. Beautifully put.

• 1:12:01Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:12:04Billy Corgan?

  Do you, do you consider, hear me out, is Chelsea Wolfe the performer? Is that an avatar or is that, have you synthesized where that's you?

• 1:12:16Billy Corgan?

  Is there a difference?

• 1:12:17Speaker 03

  I feel like it's pretty much me.

• 1:12:22Speaker 03

  But you know, I do some like work to get up there on stage. So there, it's an elevated, or not elevated, but like a, I don't know, just a much more present version of being in this one thing. But I feel like it's pretty synthesized, yeah.

• 1:12:37Billy Corgan?

  Do you, have you, have you experienced, cause it certainly happens a lot to females in the music business. Do you feel people project a lot of things on you that may or may not be you of you?

• 1:12:47Billy Corgan?

  Have you had that experience?

• 1:12:49Speaker 03

  Trying to think back.

• 1:12:56Speaker 03

  I think the only thing I can think of is, is like the whole

• 1:13:01Speaker 03

  thinking that someone else created my image because of, or like, obviously there's a man behind that or something and you know.

• 1:13:07Billy Corgan?

  I've, I've definitely seen that.

• 1:13:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:09Billy Corgan?

  Even, even because we had a female in our, in our band.

• 1:13:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:13:13Billy Corgan?

  People would make all these weird assumptions about why she was in the band.

• 1:13:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Billy Corgan?

  And I remember I did an interview very early on where I made a joke. Somebody was poking around about why Darcy was in the band and I made a joke.

• 1:13:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:30Billy Corgan?

  Sarcastic Chicago humor like, oh, she's just in the band because she's good looking or something like that. And people ran with it for years as if it was some kind of statement that she was just up there for eye candy.

• 1:13:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:42Billy Corgan?

  Meanwhile, she's playing this like brutal bruising prog rock that we were up there doing. You know, 300 nights a year.

• 1:13:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:52Billy Corgan?

  This is a bit of a diversion, similar question.

• 1:13:59Billy Corgan?

  When a, when a woman sings like you do and conjures the kind of energy you conquer. Let's call it conjure, like, let's call it witchy, shadowy.

• 1:14:09Billy Corgan?

  You know, there's a, there's a long history of people wanting to kill witches.

• 1:14:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:14Billy Corgan?

  Have you had, have you seen where that sort of arouses that in people?

• 1:14:19Billy Corgan?

  I know it's a bit of a dramatic question, but, but I've seen it where something about a strong female archetype that's in that's call, let's call it that side of the, uh, the spiritual equation seems to kind of bring out like a certain element in people. Does that ring a bell?

• 1:14:37Speaker 03

  For sure. I mean, I think the main thing is just people calling the music demonic or something, which is like, to me is like such a basic thing to say. I don't know. It's just so funny, like how everything's demonic. But, um, yeah, thankfully nothing too scary like that. But I do feel like it's been a bit misinterpreted. Yeah.

• 1:14:56Billy Corgan?

  Okay. Why is death not the end?

• 1:14:59Speaker 03

  Cause I, I mean, I, I obviously do not know.

• 1:15:02Billy Corgan?

  It was a joke, but yeah.

• 1:15:03Speaker 03

  I don't know what happens after you die. I don't think anyone does until you get there. But I have a sense in like grief that I've experienced in the past that like your energy gets bigger. Like we have these energies that are contained within these bodies. So that's why I think it's not the end, that your energy sort of like expands and becomes something different and unknowable.

• 1:15:24Billy Corgan?

  I read this thing once where we all have at least one

• 1:15:31Billy Corgan?

  atom of Alexander the Great in our bodies or something. Do you ever see this? It's this concept that like, because you know, when people die, their atoms are dispersed.

• 1:15:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:42Billy Corgan?

  That's in a mathematical sense, we all are carrying around one, at least one something of Alexander the Great.

• 1:15:49Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 1:15:50Billy Corgan?

  Sorry, that's really dramatic.

• 1:15:51Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 1:15:53Billy Corgan?

  Two more questions.

• 1:15:54Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:15:58Billy Corgan?

  Is there a music genre that if you thought about it, you think like, oh, I can't do that. Like not because you can't do it skill wise, you'd be like, that's just a bridge too far.

• 1:16:08Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 1:16:10Billy Corgan?

  Like, is that, you know, when people say, is there like a,

• 1:16:14Billy Corgan?

  you know, like, like it's what's, it's the emotional version of desert island disc or something like, what's the music you listen to when nobody's listening? Like, is there a part of you that you?

• 1:16:24Speaker 03

  Oh, that I actually like?

• 1:16:25Billy Corgan?

  That you would, that you would dare yourself to try someday?

• 1:16:28Speaker 03

  Oh, oof.

• 1:16:31Speaker 03

  I don't know, honestly.

• 1:16:35Speaker 03

  I mean, I listen to a lot of pop music and I definitely don't ever see myself doing that.

• 1:16:40Billy Corgan?

  What's your attraction to pop?

• 1:16:42Speaker 03

  I don't know. I think it's because I sort of listen to music for different things. Like, there's music that I just listen to, you know, like your music, True Widow. I don't know, like, I'll put some bands on all the time, but then there's other musics that I sort of like use to get myself hyped up or something. I think that pop has a nice way of doing that.

• 1:17:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:05Speaker 03

  I listen to a ton of it, but like, I don't know, like, I've really been enjoying the Charli XCX records from the past few years.

• 1:17:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:11Speaker 03

  Earth Eater, but that's also kind of like weird alien pop, so, but yeah.

• 1:17:15Billy Corgan?

  Okay. I was just curious that there was like some sort of the secret version of you that we haven't seen yet. Okay, last thing, because I think it's important for people to understand.

• 1:17:29Billy Corgan?

  You take it however you want. Just describe 2026, the time we're doing this interview. What is the current sort of independent artist ecosystem like? Like, on one level, an independent artist like yourself has more autonomy and more control over what they do, why they do what they do. How you two are, you know, basically you're more in control than maybe any artist that would have been before you.

• 1:17:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:17:53Billy Corgan?

  But, you know, it's, the media thing is basically destroyed. Nobody can write a record review anymore that's going to sell a zillion records. You've got to get out there and you've really got to work.

• 1:18:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:04Billy Corgan?

  So can you walk me through that a little bit? I'm just curious what, what kind of forces you, because you're, you're on the, you know, you've put in the time and the effort. You've built yourself up. You're playing good-sized halls.

• 1:18:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:15Billy Corgan?

  And especially in this economy, there's no shade of that. That's quite an accomplishment. So, but talk about the independent artist's ecosystem for you at this point.

• 1:18:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, I also do feel like I, I do have a great support system finally, which is really nice. Like, I have people on my team that I feel like get me and, you know, are helping me along with really cool ideas. And at the same time, I, like, going out on the road is tougher than it used to be. Everything's more expensive and I also have a really great crew that works really hard and kind of like makes magic with nothing a lot of the time. And I think that's what a lot of people are probably doing. It's just like making magic happen on like less resources than there used to be. Obviously, the industry has changed, but also just like post-COVID, everything's super expensive and it's, it's hard to tour and actually make money.

• 1:19:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, somebody told me the other day that, because, you know, it was something to do with, like, I don't know, we were renting buses or something, and somebody was saying that from a few years ago, everything is 130% as expensive.

• 1:19:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:20Billy Corgan?

  Anything to do with travel, like airplanes, buses, cargo. So just add that, which is why a lot of artists aren't able to tour, because they just, they literally would tour for free, meaning they would tour, make their money, and it would all go out the door and they come home with zero.

• 1:19:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's what's on my mind, just because I'm embarking on a tour, but, yeah.

• 1:19:42Billy Corgan?

  Do you feel, do you feel good about the, sort of the freedom that you have from an artistic business perspective? Do you feel empowered by that?

• 1:19:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I feel like right now I'm, I'm kind of being told to like be more me, which is nice.

• 1:20:00Billy Corgan?

  Can you explain that?

• 1:20:01Speaker 03

  Like, in this process of doing a new album with a co-writer,

• 1:20:09Speaker 03

  I felt like there were times when my team was like reminding me to not like

• 1:20:14Speaker 03

  give over my sound too much or something like that and like to pull it back to myself. And that was like, sometimes a reminder I needed because of like what I mentioned earlier.

• 1:20:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. We are definitely coming back into an age of greater integrity, even when somebody like Charli XCX starts talking about making a rock record, right?

• 1:20:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, I didn't, I don't know if it's a rock record, but it has.

• 1:20:34Billy Corgan?

  No, but I just, I guess what I'm saying is just to say it is on some level a recognition that rock is about to have another era.

• 1:20:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:20:43Billy Corgan?

  After many years of dormancy, not that it was dormant for you, but, but.

• 1:20:48Speaker 03

  But yeah, it has been.

• 1:20:48Billy Corgan?

  Access, you know, like as I, as I've pointed out many times, you haven't had any rock on the charts for years and years and years. I'm talking about mainstream charts, you know? It's been pop hegemony across the board and rap. So to see rock sort of reasserting itself from the bottom up is, is interesting.

• 1:21:09Speaker 03

  That's cool.

• 1:21:10Billy Corgan?

  Okay, I think I've asked you every psychological question I could think to answer today. Ask you today. Oh, thank you. Thank you for being here.

• 1:21:18Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor.

• 1:21:19Billy Corgan?

  Thank you.

• 1:21:20Speaker 03

  Thank you.