Courtney Love | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

In this long-awaited conversation, Billy Corgan sits down with Courtney Love. Courtney reflects on her fractured childhood, counterculture upbringing, and complicated family history—growing up around drugs, instability, and radical independence. From juvenile hall to early psychedelics, she traces the shift from feeling like a victim to becoming a force. Together, they take direct aim at the myths: the gatekeeping of the ’90s indie scene, the class politics hiding behind “authenticity,” and the real price women in rock paid for ambition. Along the way: punk beginnings, ABBA vs. Zeppelin, and an unflinching look at confidence, control, and survival. 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:29Speaker 01

  I was confident after that. I got cocky. I got cocky. I was confident.

• 0:34Billy Corgan?

  First time I ever laid eyes on you, the memory I have is the shoulders kind of thrown back and this just confidence.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  I throw out 10,000 tangents so no one can get to me.

• 0:47Billy Corgan?

  Sure. Well, I've chased you down many other.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  I know, Billy. Like, this is terrifying.

• 0:52Billy Corgan?

  My two memories of watching you play at the Avalon that night, you know, was the cool guitar stuff happening and then this just never-ending scream. And what is the source of this?

• 1:06Speaker 01

  You wouldn't give me money for smokes.

• 1:08Billy Corgan?

  You're still mad?

• 1:09Speaker 01

  I am.

• 1:12Billy Corgan?

  Courtney, thank you for being on my podcast.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Anytime, Billy Corgan.

• 1:16Billy Corgan?

  I love it. Okay, well, it's gonna be a hundred-part series.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:19Billy Corgan?

  So this is part one and two.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:22Billy Corgan?

  Okay, let's start here.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24Billy Corgan?

  I'm gonna jump around a little bit, which I sure doesn't surprise you.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  No, I do that, too.

• 1:29Billy Corgan?

  Let's talk a little bit about mom and dad.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Wow. My blood just ran cold. Oh, my God, of all things, Corgan, okay?

• 1:41Billy Corgan?

  Dad was an interesting guy.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45Billy Corgan?

  In the Grateful Dead world.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then in the Irish Holy Grail world, and in the LSD, giving LSD to his child at the Haight-Ashbury world. You know, he's got a hero's journey, as lame as he was. Oh, and the Steve Jobs working at Apple before anyone world, and then getting fired from Apple because Wozniak liked him, and getting fired from... He would attract like Peter Albin from The Big Brother. You know Peter Albin? You do, too. It's like a very...

• 2:15Billy Corgan?

  Big Brother and the holding company?

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was that guy.

• 2:18Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  He was that guy. I don't think he's the guy that went to Texas. You know this stuff. You're like, AI. He didn't go to Texas and get Janice Beck, but he was in Big Brother.

• 2:26Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Am I wrong?

• 2:28Billy Corgan?

  I'm not a

• 2:29Speaker 01

  You were just doing forensic electric prunes.

• 2:32Billy Corgan?

  I'm in the snob crowd that likes Janis without the holding company.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Me too. I thought they were a really bad band.

• 2:38Billy Corgan?

  There's something there.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, the recording in Chicago, you would know about that.

• 2:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  It's a crap recording, honestly. It's hard to get through it. I understand. It's still gold. So Peter Albin, if I'm not correct, my father.

• 2:52Billy Corgan?

  Have you heard Janis Joplin's? It's very raw. Her recordings early on, like 64 with Yorma from, from.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  There's one.

• 3:02Billy Corgan?

  From the airplane. They're called the typewriter tapes because somebody's typing while they're singing.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  I heard some really raw stuff.

• 3:09Billy Corgan?

  Singing, it's her singing early blues with Yorma playing guitar.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  I've heard stuff from Texas.

• 3:14Billy Corgan?

  It's on Spotify. You can find it.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:16Billy Corgan?

  No, no, this is when she's in San Francisco and she's like 18 years old.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, because she went there twice and people think the hate was this really great place. My memory of the hate, Ashbury, other than my father giving me acid from about three to six, until my mother noticed and he got his custody taken away, is that it was dank and dirty and awful and people were on heroin. And so the whole and or early meth, right? So the whole Summer of Love thing, they just use the same footage over and over, like two days in Golden Gate Park. Not kidding. Like it's the same.

• 3:51Billy Corgan?

  The apathiosis they had it. They actually got it on tape.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  The whole Fillmore thing was dark and the Janis thing that tracks is that she ended up on, on smack. She ended up in sex work, tracks for me. I get it. And had to go back to Texas twice.

• 4:05Billy Corgan?

  Well, it is a gold rush town.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Von Dyke? Absolutely.

• 4:09Billy Corgan?

  I always think the way towns are formed, it never leaves their DNA.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  No, you're right. You're right.

• 4:14Billy Corgan?

  Like, look at Chicago.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  You're right, you Mason.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  You're right, you Freemason, you Mormon. The DNA thing is real.

• 4:24Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so let's talk about mom a little bit.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  She doesn't really have a hero's journey that I've figured out yet. Maybe she has to pass.

• 4:31Billy Corgan?

  Well, she's just, isn't she just like the classic white intellectual snobby therapist?

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, but adopted by Irish Italians who I adored. Who couldn't have children, who wanted a blonde, blue eyed child. My mother's mostly Jewish, but she is blonde and blue eyed. It took some 23andMe to figure that one out. But she always would try, when she became a hippie. So she inherited a lot of money from the Reese's, who I adored. It is said, because my father's not credible, that he was the treasurer of Bohemian Grove. But then my sister showed me the country house that I thought was the other way. It's in Russian River. It's right on.

• 5:12Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I know Russian River.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Oh, right on, right next to Guernville, right on Bohemian Grove. Like, it's a big old house with like the knotty pine and the eames chair. They were really rich. They lived at 999 Green Street in the entire penthouse. Dormans, maids, my mother had a maid, which lived in the avenues named Model. But then we would, we'd get about 5am and stuff. My stepfather's boots, who was a garbage man with newspapers. So I'm pretty class neutral because I've been all the things. No, I really am. I've been on food stamps. My mother inherited a lot of money and they, they met, my mother and father met at a Dizzy Gillespie after party.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  My mother was kind of a bit of a groupie. She had fur coat, hot pants, looked a little like Mary Ann Faithfull. And all her friends, like her best friend was Abigail Folger. Let's start there.

• 6:03Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah. Okay.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  I mean, honestly, I didn't know that Manson lived in San Francisco. When I read that book Chaos, the scales fell from my eyes. Because there's Ares's, all the, all of his first children were with like Petaluma moneyed women. Petaluma, and then I was like, there's just no difference between the murderers and the murdered in this world of mine. And also the MK Ultra child, this is on social media. I was, I thought MK Ultra was Q. Not.

• 6:35Billy Corgan?

  No, no, this is a totally different.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  It's real. I mean, my father was too stupid to be a spook.

• 6:40Billy Corgan?

  You ever see the stuff where they say that even Jessica Simpson's an MKUltra kid?

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Come on, we're all MKUltra. People in the Midwest probably aren't, but we all are.

• 6:49Billy Corgan?

  Well, you may not remember this, but you used to say way, way back in the day, you've got to be Jewish to me.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:54Billy Corgan?

  And I was like, no.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  To you?

• 6:55Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  I thought you had the people.

• 6:58Billy Corgan?

  I do, I do have, I do have some blood in there.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:02Billy Corgan?

  Well, I'm married to a Jew, my kids are Jews.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  A Chinese Jew, though.

• 7:07Billy Corgan?

  As my friend. As, as my friend said when he found out I was in love with a Chinese Jew, he said, did you make her in a test tube?

• 7:14Speaker 01

  For you, yeah, dynasties, dynasties, dynastics. I wish I thought in dynastics.

• 7:21Billy Corgan?

  It's really interesting being with a woman who's steeped both, because you know, her, her one side is Polish Russian.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:27Billy Corgan?

  And we know how that rolls.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:29Billy Corgan?

  Like, you will not kill us. You know what I mean? We're gonna win no matter what.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:33Billy Corgan?

  And the other side is dynastic. It's really interesting being with those bloodlines.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  5,000 years. We know what we're doing.

• 7:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Dynastic.

• 7:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it's all about the family.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:44Billy Corgan?

  It's all about billing. So it took me a while to figure out because, you know, in the American ethos, a woman of ambition, it's like, oh, they just want your money. And Eastern woman, the money is money.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Incidental.

• 7:56Billy Corgan?

  No, I wanna, I wanna rule the world.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do you know, tracking that recently, Rupert Murdoch cut some kids out of his will, but I knew this would happen. He put the Wendy Deng Murdoch kids back in. I was like, yeah, I knew that, justice for Wendy Deng Murdoch. He was married to a very ambitious, hard scrabble, a woman named Wendy Deng, and she was Tunis.

• 8:19Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I do remember that.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, she became a translator. And I mean, this woman was, people were really pissed off at her. I loved it. I loved it. I like her. Like, yeah. And then they got a divorce over some weird, and then she had two kids, but had two daughters. He kicked some kids out of his will, and he put those daughters back in.

• 8:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Dynastic.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Dynastic.

• 8:42Billy Corgan?

  Um, of course, you referred to the LSD times, but, um.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  I don't remember it. And also, I went to a neurologist at King's College or Buryo College, London. And my friend knew this neurologist. I didn't want to find out any of the bad stuff that happens when toddlers' brains, but I wanted to find out the good stuff. And it wasn't just San Francisco people that dosed their toddlers and kids. It was a lot of Brits. A lot of Brits did it, too. And she said, I said, what's the commonality with with us, us little tribe of LSD toddlers? And she said, and kids, two young kids, like, under 10. And she said, well, you all are pretty chaotic. And sometimes you're really OCD controlling. And you're all really open minded. I'm thinking, yeah, no, there's that. I kind of know more information. But I was pleased with those two.

• 9:29Billy Corgan?

  It would seem though, if, I mean, I didn't have that experience, not that I know of. My father was constantly smoking weed. So I was stoned half my childhood.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:37Billy Corgan?

  Like.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  But you liked, you liked a psychedelic, what I meant. You liked a mushroom.

• 9:41Billy Corgan?

  We were, when we first met in the early 90s, it was, it was a lot of LSD.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:48Billy Corgan?

  Mushrooms less so.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  I liked that about you, though. You were very, you were like, la di da, with your bell around your neck. You were like, exploring the vacuum, la di da.

• 9:58Billy Corgan?

  Well, I came from such a colorless world.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:02Billy Corgan?

  That to throw open the gates to.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  And the sky was made of albatross.

• 10:06Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  I mean, you're very colorful when I met you.

• 10:09Billy Corgan?

  But I'm saying is, it was like, oh, there's this other thing. I'd felt it in literature by reading, you know, whether.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  But look at this palette that you chose. It's like a mauvey pink, a silvery gold.

• 10:22Billy Corgan?

  Astrologically, I'm moving heavy into Venus right now. We can talk about that.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 10:27Billy Corgan?

  Nice thing is, my daughter has the same thing in her chart.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 10:30Billy Corgan?

  So we share this. It's coming for me. It's an emerging love of color and smell and food that I've never.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  I was born with that.

• 10:37Billy Corgan?

  But I've never had it my whole life.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  You all, you know, you had color in your.

• 10:42Billy Corgan?

  No, no, no. But, but I'm saying is it wasn't from here. It was an aesthetic attraction, but it didn't come from.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Oh, I felt like it was super genuine. You know what, though, with the music, with the musicality? I think that that's maybe what sold it. And then as you progress, like Madam Ziziz, I was like, wait, he's into tea? And the cats and the wrestling. I love your, and your house, that house. That house is a regency, no, it's pre-regency jewel box.

• 11:09Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  I've been in that house.

• 11:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  I've been in that house where you were on a very green couch, playing Xbox and I was with my guitar playing. And you looked like Bob Geldof in the wall. You did, you're like this. And you wouldn't get off this very stiff couch that was not comfortable.

• 11:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  And me and Lisa were decorating the Christmas table. What? He's like, he's like Bob Geldof in the wall.

• 11:29Billy Corgan?

  That's what it felt like.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that house is crazy beautiful. Like I saw Oprah's house. I saw that architect row. Your house is the best. It's very, it's Wuthering Heights. Didn't I say that to you then?

• 11:41Billy Corgan?

  You did.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  That November, I don't know what year it was, not sometime oh eight or something.

• 11:45Billy Corgan?

  I think I, at some point I invited you to come back and stay and you said, uh, I don't, I'm scared of Miss Havisham or something.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  No, and smoking, which I don't do anymore. I was scared of smoking in there and, uh, it was beautiful. It was on the lake. It was, it was.

• 11:59Billy Corgan?

  We're still there.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Christmas, it was like raging wind. It was Wuthering Heights.

• 12:06Billy Corgan?

  I'm pointing these details out not to dive down the rabbit hole of them. You're welcome to, but you know, like a lot of our generation, you got divorces and you know.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Death.

• 12:16Billy Corgan?

  Huh?

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Death.

• 12:17Billy Corgan?

  A lot of, yeah.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Lot of death.

• 12:19Billy Corgan?

  Good times.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Good times.

• 12:20Billy Corgan?

  So it begins this period, I think if my memory serves us, eight or nine, because I went back and refreshed my memory. But you know, eight or nine, your life goes from whatever it was to suddenly you're, you know, you're going to Eugene and Portland.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Oh, me.

• 12:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, and there's, yeah, there's different, now there's different stepdads and, you know, I think it's, it's not exclusive to us that, that.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  That happened. That's why when I went to the neurologist, there's a bunch of kids that had LSD. It made me feel good.

• 12:49Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I see. But I, as I like to say, you know, we, we grew up with that boomer, those boomer parents.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Those boomers.

• 12:55Billy Corgan?

  Who were more, my joke is they're, they were more obsessed with cocaine and yoga.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Or weed and yoga.

• 13:00Billy Corgan?

  Sure, but but I'm saying we all were kind of the byproducts of this.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, like latchkey kids or.

• 13:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Parents.

• 13:08Billy Corgan?

  Too much Gilligan's Island, you know.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, we went there and our parents like that's garbage because they were like you're you told me about your dad having like long hair and a fur coat and a purse. I'm like, mm hmm, I hear that. I also suspect.

• 13:20Billy Corgan?

  Seventy two, by the way.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  clarify this.

• 13:22Billy Corgan?

  Seventy two.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Did you have a Camaro in high school?

• 13:25Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Okay, that like puts you on a whole privilege level from the rest of us.

• 13:29Billy Corgan?

  Slow down.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  I've been making fun of that Camaro. I want I just want to get it right.

• 13:32Billy Corgan?

  I inherited the the family nineteen seventy five Camaro, which my dad later stole from me.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:38Billy Corgan?

  They signed over the title.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  What color was your Camaro?

• 13:40Billy Corgan?

  Silver.

• 13:43Billy Corgan?

  Black interior.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Wow, that's hot.

• 13:45Billy Corgan?

  I'll let you imagine what went on in that Camaro in high school.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Lucky you. That's a scorecard.

• 13:51Billy Corgan?

  I have an amazing story that I can't tell here. I'll tell you about the Camaro.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:55Billy Corgan?

  Um, it's I mean, it's an amazing story. It's one I've never told publicly.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  I'm taking off my bougie ring. It really is upsetting me. Okay.

• 14:01Billy Corgan?

  So I guess I'm just pointing at the fact that, you know, so so begins this disassociative life of different people and mom getting divorced.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  And hypervigilant, too.

• 14:12Billy Corgan?

  Which leads to, okay, hypervigilance, but also.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  And disassociative. They're both they're both in there.

• 14:16Billy Corgan?

  I'm from living it. I mean, I'm here, but uh, but it strikes me that, you know, it's it it arcs a particular way, which is, let's call it not good.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:27Billy Corgan?

  You know, you.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Chaotic and not good.

• 14:28Billy Corgan?

  Foster home group.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  No, no, I chose that. I chose that.

• 14:31Billy Corgan?

  Explain that then.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Okay, I was safer. Well, I heard the runaways and they were really um, uh, glazing juvenile hall and uh, I started like kind of investigating without a without the internet and actually it was a good gig because I was safer there. I was safer there than I was in any part of my biological or stepfamily and.

• 14:54Billy Corgan?

  Stop. What was unsafe about your biological family?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  I just didn't like it. And I mean, you say that when like, as a kid, it's not like I just didn't like it or I didn't know how to form that yet. But I was scared most of the time. I was scared.

• 15:11Billy Corgan?

  Was it emotional judgment?

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was really abandoned in that family.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  I knew I didn't like my mother. I knew it was a bad match, as I like to say. You know, I didn't like it.

• 15:23Billy Corgan?

  You guys have never really had any kind of warmth there, right?

• 15:25Speaker 01

  No, no, it was, I'm glad I was born. I'm glad she had me. I'm glad I was here to raise hell. And I just wanted to get away. And the juvie thing seemed glamorous and like a good gig. And honestly, most of it was. Most of it was. Those hippies in Oregon, not in the central part, not when I was in the Hillcrest part, but I turned myself in over nothing, over shoplifting a Kiss t-shirt. That's not untrue. At a Woolworths, just so you know, I had to walk out with the Kiss t-shirt three times to get caught at the Woolworths at Lloyd Center in Eugene. Oh, no, Lloyd Center is in Portland, sorry. Oh, I was in Portland because Kiss was playing the Enormadome, and I thought just I could walk in there, that I could just walk in without.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  So I had this t-shirt that resonated with this show. And I got arrested after the third time. It's like, I'm not getting in that show. I just kind of feeling, I was like, let's try this juvie thing. And I got arrested. I wouldn't give my, that was in Portland. My mother had a very fancy lawyer who came up from San Francisco with her because she had so much money. So she had her own lawyer in Eugene. His name was Jeff, and he came to pick me up after I finally gave my name. I think he said something to me, but I was like, and then I did something again so I could get, I don't even know where I was put, not with my mother. She was in New Zealand at the time, but her lawyer was still around, young guy. And I did something else to get in. Oh, also, I was with her guru who was getting a fortune.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  I knew I had a trust fund, not a big one. I hate saying trust fund because people assume it's huge.

• 16:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Like 500 bucks a month from Grandpa Jack.

• 17:02Billy Corgan?

  When you're a kid, that's still a lot of money, though.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  It's a fortune. And it enabled me to come to England. It enabled me to, with my best and Robin, like, live in Liverpool. It enabled me to go up to London. It enabled me. To to con them a lot and like see my real father in Ireland, Dublin. And they only did do along with stripping, but you know, that's that's also.

• 17:23Billy Corgan?

  We're not there yet.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  They're not there yet. So Michael Sun was this guy's name and he was my mother's guru. And he'd come up from San Francisco also to live off her, but also ended up doing Gestalt therapy with my teachers. I peeked down and see my teachers naked. That was horrific. Like they all fell into this cult thing with my mother from my Montessori school. So, yeah, he he was, he was a really gay guy. And he, when I came back from New Zealand, because I was kicked out of boarding school, he was, um, he took me in. My mother was going to send me to this place. I saw the pamphlet for emotionally messed up children. I saw the pamphlet. There's a kid on the front. And we stopped in Tahiti and I got Michael Sun to take me on if he could build my trust

• 18:07Speaker 01

  fund. Well, Wells Fargo. Okay. I wasn't going that place.

• 18:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  So I was 10.

• 18:12Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  And I lived there for for not quite two years. I lied that I was 12 when I went.

• 18:18Billy Corgan?

  You lived where?

• 18:19Speaker 01

  With Michael Sun and Eugene Oregon.

• 18:21Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but stop there for a second. 10, you know, because my son's 10 now.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 18:25Billy Corgan?

  10. What's your self, what's your self perception at 10? Did you think you were a good kid, misunderstood? Like, what's the, what are the?

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Just sad, just like sad and abandoned, like self. You go back and you you have a whole fantasy construct for your personality, like, oh, I said something, or, oh, I could understand sarcasm. You can't, you can't. So I don't know really what happened to that kid, because the kid is really hard now. Hard, funny, deflective, all the things. But, you know, you're not thinking about what grown up, I mean, the sex stuff was appalling. Um, and then my mother put me on drugs. So she put me on Valium in New Zealand and then Ritalin. And, uh, you know, I'm in 12 step, but.

• 19:07Billy Corgan?

  You in Ritalin.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Can you imagine? Oh my God. The one, everyone tries to chase that first high. I can't remember any but one, which is the most beautiful spring is Eugene, Oregon. They have Daphne, which is a really ugly shrub. But if you've never smelled Daphne, you know nothing. Good. All these women named Daphne in England. I'm like, but you don't know what it smells like. And Eugene, because it's in the Willamette Valley and the HOH Valley in Washington, that is like the most, the oldest, I think this is the oldest rainforest in the world. And, you know, people from Yale come up to the HOH and hike it. And they end up in Aberdeen, Washington afterwards. Like it's both things.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Class neutral, I'm saying. So, you know, whenever, uh, you know, I read a book on roses and Portland rose is used in every English rose that they do at like Cube Gardens. They have to make some hearty, the Duchess of Cornwall rose, which I have a lot of Camilla roses in my backyard. I, I love Camilla. She probably took more than me. So she's the queen. I kind of just dig it. So in celebration, I have these roses from a bit of half Portland rose. I was like, what? And then I read this book on roses. It's like this thing. Yeah. It's like the history of roses. But anyway, in spring, Eugene, Oregon bursts, burst jasmine, honeysuckle, rhododendron, Camilla. I've never seen anything like it again.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  And I looked outside Michael Son's house and, you know, this is like 77. He's getting 2,000 bucks a month for me, doing nothing. He's just building up annex. And lots of boys are coming through and he had weed and he had Valium. So I'd go to sixth grade, seventh grade with the weed and the Valium to make friends. Like I didn't know what to do. That's when I came back. I had a bit of a New Zealand accent. I was really into the Bay City rollers. Like the Bay City rollers were this. And I had tartan at the bottom of my pants and not because I'm cool. It wasn't Bowie. I didn't know who Bowie was yet. He'd been on top of the pops over there. They were always like eight weeks old because there were not satellites back then. So. Anyway, I had this Bowie haircut, but it was, it was a Bay City rollers haircut. So, um, yeah.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  I can hear the dogs. Just FYI.

• 21:19Billy Corgan?

  You won't hear them in the.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Okay, good. That's fine. Anyway, I'm sorry. And I got really picked on. Like, I got beat out of me a few times with these stoner girls. Like, they had red zepplin belt buckles, and they were cool. But there was no ABBA in America. That freaked me out. Where's the ABBA?

• 21:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  I mean, my first literal head orgasm was to Waterloo.

• 21:40Billy Corgan?

  Have you seen the, have you seen the ABBA documentary that's out?

• 21:44Speaker 01

  No, but the BBC has like 10 ABBA documentaries.

• 21:48Billy Corgan?

  Right, but this one that's just come out and, and they never actually got that big in America. That's part of the documentary.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  That's what I'm telling you. Like Dancing Queen was it.

• 21:56Billy Corgan?

  Which is wild.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Up. Like, there was a single week in New Zealand. And by the way.

• 22:00Billy Corgan?

  Oh, they were huge in New Zealand.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Australia and New Zealand was the biggest part for them, actually. Like, they were, but they were bigger than they were in the UK. And the, the BBC documentaries I've seen, there's one just on Agnetha. Did you know that before she joined ABBA, she wrote a song to kick the Beatles off of the Swedish charts? And the whole Nordic charts?

• 22:19Billy Corgan?

  I have listened to her early solo work.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  I mean, it's very like Beer Hall, kitschy. Like, they did that kind of Beer Hall.

• 22:26Billy Corgan?

  She has one of the great voices of all time.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:28Billy Corgan?

  And what a voice.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  My head orgasm was Waterloo. And like, you know, rockers, like, you can drop a needle anywhere on SOS and it's perfect. I'm with that, but also.

• 22:37Billy Corgan?

  So that was more S A T Y D A Y night?

• 22:40Speaker 01

  That song is great. That song is one of the great songs of all time. That, I don't know who wrote it, but that song is catchy.

• 22:46Billy Corgan?

  It might have been Mickey, Mickey Most might have been involved with them.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Okay, they were from Dunedin.

• 22:51Billy Corgan?

  Do you know Mickey Most as a producer? He's good on that rap.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  I know the name. It was give me one.

• 22:55Billy Corgan?

  Mickey Most, well, he, he was, he was Donovan Yardbird's animals.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  That guy. Was he a melter type that kicked, you know, bass players off?

• 23:03Billy Corgan?

  Like, I don't know about that. That was a different world. But, but the thing about Mickey Most, he was the first producer to figure out that a song was like a mini movie.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Right, he was a Don Arden connective, right?

• 23:14Billy Corgan?

  I don't know, but he had a lot of influence, and I don't think people have connected the dots. I think he had a lot of influence on the Beatles thinking that way. Because he started doing that before the Beatles started doing it.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Like a mini movie?

• 23:25Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that a song was like a mini movie. So when you think of like, when you think of some of those great animal songs, it's like you're in a certain room. It's not just the animals being the animals, you know what I mean?

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Oh, no, you're right.

• 23:35Billy Corgan?

  It's like they set the scene.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  And then we go up to like-

• 23:38Billy Corgan?

  It's cinematic.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Robert Russell, and then we get to Sergeant Pepper.

• 23:41Billy Corgan?

  If you think about, you know, you're talking about four-track recording.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:44Billy Corgan?

  So in order to achieve atmosphere, you've got maybe one or two chances to do it within the realm of a recording. It's not like now where you can layer a bunch of sitars. You've got to kind of pick one thing to kind of denote aesthetic vibe.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  I saw Chris Martin give an award to George Martin one time. I don't know what it was on, because there's not a day that goes by I don't think about George Martin. I'm like, no, I don't think about, what? I didn't believe him.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Okay, Basicity Rollers were great. They were great, and Rock and Roll Love Letter was also great.

• 24:17Billy Corgan?

  That's a good one.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Come for me. But I got beat up, and I'll tell you about getting beat up. Seventh grade, junior high, I was coming from fourth form in English, in British Commonwealth education. I knew some Latin, I knew some French verbs, I knew-

• 24:35Billy Corgan?

  Had you started your Shakespeare education?

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Yes, I had, and I definitely had. And the other blessing about Oregon is the best Shakespeare festival probably in America is in Ashland, Oregon. And so I had gone there a few times as a little camp, so I'd already done that. I'd bagged a little Shakespeare. And then, you know, the British Commonwealth education-

• 24:56Billy Corgan?

  And then the girls with the Led Zeppelin bell buckles.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  There was no need for what I knew. Handwriting, like, that's why Nick Cave's handwriting is so interesting. That's what I infected you with, and your handwriting is so interesting. Thank British Commonwealth education in New Zealand, I'm not kidding. Like, that handwriting that they teach you-

• 25:16Speaker 01

  It's called something, I forget. Proper ink, proper pen, like it's real. In seventh grade in Eugene, Oregon.

• 25:23Billy Corgan?

  Calligraphy, you're not talking.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  No, it's called something that I'm forgetting because my brain is. And yours isn't. I've watched a few of these podcasts and your vocabulary is deathly. And I was like, how am I going to spar with this guy?

• 25:37Billy Corgan?

  You're fine.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:39Billy Corgan?

  So how do we get from girls with belt buckles beating you up to?

• 25:44Speaker 01

  TV?

• 25:45Billy Corgan?

  DJ punk rock.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  I'll tell you how. There's one thing of one girl beating me up and that was my birth. Other than the scream in Minneapolis, that was my birth. Tracy Shannon was my birth. Big girl, big girl. I'd been beat up twice with the whole school watching.

• 25:59Billy Corgan?

  Pretty face or no?

• 26:00Speaker 01

  No, pretty much about to be not a pretty face for whatever reason. And I'm in the bathroom in fourth, fourth form. It's a fourth form, whatever lunch, there's two lunches. These twins all in rabbit fur coats. These, um, these other girls, Desiree, these other girls, you called me a. No, I didn't. You called me a liar. Me, me, me.

• 26:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Pushing around and I was wearing one of those madras, we're about the same age. Those madras Indian shirts. I was living with the guru and seventh grade, I'm living with the guru and the whole school's there. And I'm little, I'm scrappy. I don't have tits, I'm scrappy, right? But I've been beat up twice and Tracy Shannon comes for me. I don't know what happened, Billy, but I'm on top of her. I see red and they're pulling me off. Like I win this fight, but then some. So this temper emerges to defend myself for the first time that happened. So when you ask about self conception, it was just being victimized.

• 26:56Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  And I didn't understand it. So I don't understand sarcasm. I don't have a moment, except Tracy Shannon was my moment. And now I'd be in jail for whatever I did, but like she was beating me up. She's much bigger. And that was the birth of my temper.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  And I was confident after that. I got cocky. I got cocky. I was confident. I even tried hunting the other girls, like the, the Blackfoot girls from the reservation. Like, you know, these other girls that ended up going to do.

• 27:26Billy Corgan?

  It's funny you say that because the first time I ever laid eyes on you, the memory I have is the shoulders kind of thrown back.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:34Billy Corgan?

  And this just this confidence.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Came from beating up Tracy Shannon.

• 27:38Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but I'm saying, you know, you remember the ranks of the indie girls back in the day.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:43Billy Corgan?

  They were hardly like charismatic.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Well, the charisma thing probably is my own thing.

• 27:50Billy Corgan?

  No, I get that, but I'm saying.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  But the beat up Tracy Shannon thing, I walked on from there. I was like, I'm.

• 27:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but again.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  I didn't know where I was, but I was somewhere.

• 27:58Billy Corgan?

  Sorry, I'm having a, I'm my own moment.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Okay, I want to hear it.

• 28:01Billy Corgan?

  No, shoulders back. You know, you have great shoulders.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:04Billy Corgan?

  You know what I mean? You have this beautiful kind of carriage and just this kind of confidence is rare for the time. You know, all the girls growing up listening to Suzie were not confident women.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  They were more puny too. They were smaller.

• 28:19Billy Corgan?

  Well, there was the coquettish version.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:21Billy Corgan?

  There was the.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Like the cat.

• 28:23Billy Corgan?

  I'm not really a lesbian, but I'm a lesbian.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:26Billy Corgan?

  You know, there was the.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  The denita.

• 28:27Billy Corgan?

  The pretty.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  The cat, the denita, right.

• 28:29Billy Corgan?

  The pretty, the pretty skinhead girl.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 28:32Billy Corgan?

  You know, you, you'd be like, why are you a skinhead? You're pretty. You know, they're like.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:35Billy Corgan?

  You know what I mean? There weren't a lot of like charismatic, shoulders back.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  But you met me after I started my band. I had to do in the mines first. Like I had to.

• 28:45Billy Corgan?

  Well, we're getting there, yeah.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Crush the competition, if you will. There were, because it was only, it was room for only one back then. It was like, even the eighties, there was the Bangles, the Go-Go's, there was only room for one. And now we're just, in the nineties, we're just coming out of that.

• 28:58Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  And now, I just want to say one thing, like with Emerald Fennell or Margot Robbie, those women are young enough to be real feminists and like make, lift elbows. You know what I mean? Like, you know, we weren't my generation.

• 29:12Billy Corgan?

  Well, I guess what I'm after here.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  But I was demanded to be and I was like, no, fuck off.

• 29:17Billy Corgan?

  Sure, but you're, you're smart enough to figure out what I'm after here, which is like, you know.

• 29:23Billy Corgan?

  People look at one end of the telescope and they see a rain contour and out of control child, you know, and, and you know, there, there are the easy threads which

• 29:31Speaker 01

  That's kind of stupid, right?

• 29:32Billy Corgan?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:33Billy Corgan?

  So I want people to understand there's a layer of sophistication here that has to do with somebody making decisions. In some cases, binary, in other cases, more complicated. That builds, uh, builds the machine of you. So when you force yourself onto the public consciousness, it's shocking, but if you know the story, it's actually not that shocking.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  No, it's much more nuanced than the cheap shot of it.

• 29:56Billy Corgan?

  That's kind of what I'm after.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  And it's more complex, as you said, like usually when I talk to somebody, even a Mark Morone, the one podcast other than you I've ever done.

• 30:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  And it wasn't visual and I throw out 10,000 tangents so no one can get to me. And I've, I've done that for a long time.

• 30:14Billy Corgan?

  Sure. Well, I've, I've chased you down many rabbit.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  I know, Billy, like this is terrifying. This one's a little scary.

• 30:20Billy Corgan?

  Nothing but love.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Nothing but love.

• 30:22Billy Corgan?

  Um, as I once told you, you name yourself love for a reason.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  I mean, and Pat Smear made me too, because he had that Robert Indiana, um, little love thing from Darby. And I wanted to be loveless because it felt more honest. And he was like, no, there's two words people love, free and love. And they're like this, this. And then, uh, I kind of got into it and then he gave my name to this Talk Rock LA Weekly column.

• 30:47Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  L U V. But it was the first time my name was in print. I'm like, yeah, I'm going with it. This is great. But I, I did like it. It sounded like porn star, but I was like, yeah, no, this is cool. It's, it contradicts.

• 30:58Billy Corgan?

  Okay. So 14, 15, 16, 17, you're on your way to, uh,

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Juvy, which was really good.

• 31:06Billy Corgan?

  Okay, there's you going to Juvy, but there's also you showing up in England.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Well, the counselors in Eugene were really cool. In the course of one month, this is crazy, three men, all men, uh, one had returned from England, uh, they were all in, at, at skipper's too, where skipper's for credit at college. So these guys were like deadheads, cool guys. They brought me, one guy brought me Patti Smith back from England, along with Chrissy Hind and Squeeze, just saying, Squeeze was the third one.

• 31:32Billy Corgan?

  Good lyrics.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  And he goes, absolutely. He goes, these remind you, these remind me of you. And they let me sit in the day room. And you know, the Tuesday and Thursday was the jean change. And everyone for the tightest jeans. I, after that, I went for the loosest. I stopped caring. And it blew my mind, like, these two women looked amazing. I like the Squeeze record, too. And then another guy gives me horses, like, this reminds me of you. I was like, what the hell? And then I looked, I'm like, OK. And then my foster father, Kenny, I was looking at the Buckingham Knicks record he had. And he always slept, he was a real, he was a real, um, what's the word? Good with the ladies. And, and he was beautiful. And, uh, they all would come in with, like, these thin gold chains and this blonde hair, doing a Stevie thing.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  And I looked at Buckingham Knicks, I was like. And then Kenny interrupts, he's like, this reminds me of you. It's horses again. So I'm holding Stevie Nicks and Lindsey in one hand and Patty in the other.

• 32:25Billy Corgan?

  Well, there it is.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  And there it is. There it is, one hand in each. Um, and also, when I came back from New Zealand, Stevie was on, Fleetwood Mac was on the radio with Dreams, and it was reassuring that one woman was on the radio. Cause I went from ABBA, kind of being my mother's, to Stevie being my mother. It was super, it was the year, I remember Lonely Boy was on the radio, Shannon, about the dog, was on the radio. Like, I remember the top forty at the time. I was listening, this is in sixth grade, I start listening to Casey Kasem religiously. And then Dr. Demento, did you listen to, after Casey Kasem?

• 33:00Billy Corgan?

  Of course I listened to Dr. Demento.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  And Dr. Demento liked a little bit of new wave and punk. The first time I heard the tubes, don't touch me there, was Dr. Demento.

• 33:08Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  And I was really good.

• 33:09Billy Corgan?

  I remember playing a lot of Zappa.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did. And I didn't understand Zappa at all, but the others.

• 33:14Billy Corgan?

  My dad liked Zappa.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  I just didn't. When I did a lot of drugs, one time, and they were kind of downers, I lit, I lined up Zappa, Weasels Ain't My Fret Flesh, Coltrane, I Don't Mean To Be Cliche, Mingus. I was like, I'm gonna listen to difficult music on smack. And I, I'm gonna be honest, I could hear it for once, and then I couldn't hear it anymore.

• 33:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, you're not big on difficult music.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  No. I can do trout mask replica just fine, thank you, Courtney, thank you. Like, no, I can't do jazz, I can't. It's so complex for me, and I, I just never understood the codes of it. I know when it's beautiful, I know what jazz is, and I know what good jazz is, that's about it.

• 33:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Well, if you understand the roots of jazz, it actually makes a ton of sense.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Oh, intellectually, I wish I understood it.

• 33:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but it's one of those things where you're not really sure if you're listening because you're supposed to listen or you're listening because you enjoy it.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 34:04Billy Corgan?

  That's where it gets complicated.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  And I'd rather be honest about it. You know, the Lomax field recordings, that's I love. But when it gets to jazz, I'm like, lost. And why should I bother with something that I don't understand or pretend that I do? Trying to be intellectual about it.

• 34:18Billy Corgan?

  I think you would enjoy West Coast jazz.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  What's that? Who's that?

• 34:22Billy Corgan?

  That's Jerry Mulligan and even Charlie Parker used to come out here and do sessions. I think that's what you would most resonate. Chet Baker is probably the thing you would most understand.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Do you know, I was friends with Wayne Shorter, who just passed.

• 34:35Billy Corgan?

  Oh, God bless.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  He was a really, he was Buddhist. And I always had, and I still have access to Herbie Hancock. And those guys played with Miles.

• 34:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but the West Coast iteration of jazz, I think, is what you would most.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  So Chet Baker.

• 34:48Billy Corgan?

  Well, Chet Baker is the thing that the goths like.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  I like Chet Baker.

• 34:51Billy Corgan?

  The goths like Chet Baker for some reason, probably because he was on smack.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  And he was beautiful. And also the funny Valentine is amazing.

• 34:59Billy Corgan?

  Beautiful cat, but obviously troubled.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:02Billy Corgan?

  But that, that world, that 50s SoCal, because you've got to understand.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Swing band.

• 35:09Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but form follows function.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Okay, could you explain that to me? I'm so dumb right now.

• 35:14Billy Corgan?

  No, here. Okay, so imagine you're Charlie Parker. You are the number one bop guy in the world.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:19Billy Corgan?

  You're a total savant.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:22Billy Corgan?

  You come out and you're playing some place in Pasadena.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:26Billy Corgan?

  And everybody's just chill. The music is more chill. You can't be Charlie Parker, New York Charlie Parker. Because they're so sensitive, he goes more to the waves and the vibe. So he's still doing.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  So you acclimate. Is that what form follows? You said it yesterday and I, I don't want to be dumb, but I don't, never understood that phrase.

• 35:45Billy Corgan?

  Okay, you're playing a club, 1955, you're playing some club in Santa Monica. And it's a beautiful night. And you know how this world is out here.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a little more chill.

• 35:54Billy Corgan?

  Nobody, nobody, nobody wants to.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  It's like going to Holland, when you go to Holland and play.

• 35:57Billy Corgan?

  Spoil the party. So the music is reflective of the vibe that they're in.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Remember playing the Paradiso and those Dutch people? It's like, they're so chill. What the do you do? Like, no, you just play your slow songs because they're just, they're just like.

• 36:10Billy Corgan?

  Well, you know what I would do? We would play more aggressive.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  I know, me too.

• 36:14Billy Corgan?

  To upset them.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Me too, to upset them. You want me both, baby. The Dutch, man. And then, you know, you go to the Nordics and they love death metal. They want you, they, the Norway, like Norway.

• 36:26Billy Corgan?

  What else is there to do?

• 36:29Speaker 01

  Ah, I think a lot.

• 36:30Billy Corgan?

  They're inside nine months a year.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  They don't have like, they don't have, they have great societies, but they don't have like rebellion coded in there.

• 36:38Billy Corgan?

  Okay, let's, let's keep.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Liebock. Okay, sorry.

• 36:41Billy Corgan?

  I actually was listening to Liebock recently.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Really? I bet you were. You know, the first, do you remember the first thing you ever said to me? It was supposed to make me contrarian and I was like, oh my God, I knew he'd do this. You're like, what do you think of, the first thing you ever said? What do you think of Ingbe? I can't even say his name. Ingbe, Mals.

• 36:57Billy Corgan?

  Momstein.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, Momstein. And I was like, you know what? I'm not biting. Not doing this, no. I totally understood what you were doing. Trying to alienate a girl, right? Like a girl. And I, I love this, this, whatever, two weeks ago.

• 37:11Billy Corgan?

  Well, that was the beginning.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  I'm playing at NAMM, which is the gear show. And I was like, I have nothing. And then it was like, I remember, I called them the Bristol or something. But I remember the, um, Bilson, the Bilson. And I was at this, Suzie, she's a producer's house, just singing that vocal that we, that you helped me with for the other Billy. It's like the world of Billy's. Um, and, uh, I saw that she had a new Bilson. I'm like, I won NAMM. I won NAMM. I called it a baker, but I won.

• 37:40Billy Corgan?

  Oh, Vin- Vincent.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Vince, no.

• 37:42Billy Corgan?

  Vincent, it's Vincent.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Okay, but I knew what it was.

• 37:45Billy Corgan?

  She's referencing the, the famous, uh, oil can.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  It's not that famous. It's like a Corvair famous.

• 37:50Billy Corgan?

  Well, if you know your Floyd history, it is famous.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Uh, that's what he said. That's what Chris Baur said.

• 37:54Billy Corgan?

  It's what Dave Gilmore and Richard Wright, the, the, uh, pianist keyboard player used to use to create that album.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Is that what they called the album Metal?

• 38:04Billy Corgan?

  That I don't know.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Cause it's, isn't it, okay, is it the beta of the, the VHS or is it the beta of Real to Real?

• 38:12Billy Corgan?

  No.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Why not? It makes sense to me. It's like a cassette on metal. Am I wrong?

• 38:18Billy Corgan?

  It's different.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  I'm trying to be a gearhead.

• 38:22Billy Corgan?

  You're not doing well.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Suck. So the whole boy, I feel like Leeds like that, right? Navarro, I don't mean to tangent, but I want to tell you one thing about Leeds. Because Will Sargent is on my record shredding, but it's Will Sargent shredding.

• 38:36Billy Corgan?

  You're talking about the record that you're still.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  My record.

• 38:38Billy Corgan?

  You're still working on at the time of this recording.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:41Billy Corgan?

  Your first album in how many years?

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Sixteen.

• 38:44Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Okay. That's Robert Smith took that long.

• 38:46Billy Corgan?

  I was around for the last one.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yep. You helped me with Samantha on that last one. That was a hell of a song. But anyway, one day, justice for nobody's daughter, it will happen. In any event, Will Sargent plays from The Bunnyman, who I met in eighty one.

• 39:01Billy Corgan?

  Which is crazy.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Dreams come true, man. And.

• 39:04Billy Corgan?

  What can we say as a mutual echo appreciation society? One of the greatest bands.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  I couldn't agree more. And also the deep cuts, what I would do honestly, and what I've wanted to do, somebody pitched a movie to me about me and Robin, being in Liverpool on the lens of two teenage American girls being in Liverpool. It's a really great film idea. It's like my almost famous, I really wanted to get it made. In any event, and, and I think that like a Mamma Mia level for not just our generation, but millennials at this point, but Gen Z. I really understand Gen Z as.

• 39:36Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Online is I like them. I really like them. I see their.

• 39:39Billy Corgan?

  They seem like you.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  I like them. I like them first. I like them first and then they like me. I am the moment, me and Charlie XCX. But in any event, I want to talk about Leeds because Will Sargent does these incredible leads. I don't think he's ever played outside The Bunnyman other than his solo stuff. Maybe I'm wrong.

• 39:58Billy Corgan?

  I think you're generally directionally accurate. Yes.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Something like that.

• 40:02Billy Corgan?

  I mean, because I would know.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Well.

• 40:04Billy Corgan?

  If you said to me, where can I hear Will Sargent not on The Bunnyman? I would go, well, his solo records and I don't know. So that's.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  He sent me some Soundclouds of his scoring stuff. It's astonishing. I sent to Bush Walker, my manager JD, the producer Bush Walker. And in any of the lead thing, when I heard Dave Navarro, okay, not on Jane Says, from Jane Dixon.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Not on Jane Says, but on Ocean Song.

• 40:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  And I met him and I'm like, you're from the valley. I can tell by your leads. He wasn't, but he's from Bel Air on the tip. The valley side of Bel Air, I gotta say. And that's where he's from. So I guessed his geography from his leads. Okay, like leads are a guy thing. There are women that can do leads great, that generally.

• 40:52Billy Corgan?

  Yes, you, you, you, you, one of the first significant conversations we had about music. You said, I don't understand what you're doing on the guitar. Why do you have to? What is with this?

• 41:02Speaker 01

  I think your leads are phenomenal.

• 41:04Billy Corgan?

  No, but I'm saying.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Your leads are special and your bass play is insane.

• 41:07Billy Corgan?

  But you, but you wanted to understand, not so much you were castigating me for playing leads, which is what most indie people did, which is they weren't cool.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  No, your leads are phenomenal.

• 41:17Billy Corgan?

  You were like.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  They get, you know, the Gish one on Rhinoceros is when I would think, okay, we'll stay with them. You know, they wear hats, but we'll stay. And I was in the one van that Eric and me bought with Mr. Bimini that we're touring in. And I was listening to Gish and I heard Rhinoceros is like, to this day, I play Rhinoceros for kids. I'm like, this is the perfect rock song. This is it. This is it. And your leads were, your bass was insane. The bridge was insane. The other thing I didn't like, honestly, Billy, if I want this, was the title. Cause it's a pun. Like I was like, oh, oh my God, this boy needs words.

• 41:51Billy Corgan?

  That's, that's, that's early psychedelic LSD problems.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  I like it. Okay. Now that I know that, I can, I can let it go. It's been a little resentment. Why'd he call it that? I know why he called that. She knows the nose, the, yeah. But the rest is perfect. Flawless song. Absolutely flawless. Your bass is flawless and you, I really think your bass is a great strength. And then your leads, except when you're wanking off at Nam. But that's different. The beautiful, majestic stuff. I've been listening to Melancholy recently and the opening track is that kind of funeral for a friend thing? The composition that you really worked on?

• 42:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  And yeah, yellow big road, that was amazing. Melancholy was amazing. So I get the track you were on, but leads, they're kind of male, you know?

• 42:35Billy Corgan?

  Very male.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Unless it's you.

• 42:37Billy Corgan?

  It's changed a bit. It's changed a bit. There are a lot of phenomenal young female guitar players coming out of the scene.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  There's a lot, there's a lot of female everything right now, which is great.

• 42:45Billy Corgan?

  Great.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  There were.

• 42:46Billy Corgan?

  More, more, more better.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Oh, no, more better. And Arjun, like, I feel like he was way more rapaciously competitive. And you had to be to succeed.

• 42:56Billy Corgan?

  There was no other system it, it, it will. Because if, if anybody would romanticize the, the, the nineties as a more egalitarian time, the, the.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  They don't know what they're talking about.

• 43:08Billy Corgan?

  The pernicious and, and, and horrific meanness of the indie community at that time, which both of us have had our sort of battles with. I mean.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  You know, I'm friends with Thurston Moore now, speaking of gatekeepers. He is like mellow. He got a divorce. He's like a, a sun bear.

• 43:25Billy Corgan?

  But, but look, I.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Out of captivity.

• 43:27Billy Corgan?

  But hold on one second. I barely know Thurston and I.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Me neither. I didn't know him very well.

• 43:32Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but he was never a gatekeeper type.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  No, it was his wife.

• 43:35Billy Corgan?

  His partner was the worst.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  He was the worst. And she kind of still is like.

• 43:40Billy Corgan?

  Oh, she's still rocking the gatekeeping.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  I know you and her book, this is so hilarious. I'm, I'm friendly with Lonnie Del, right? In fact, at one point we were really good friends. And she put me in her house in Malibu for a year, rent free, like, what the hell? Also, she was really great at helping me get out of town because I need to get out of the life. And I had bad people around me and she could play them because she's like got this upper middle class thing as well. So she could play these guys that were really harming my life.

• 44:07Billy Corgan?

  Want to hear something that you don't know?

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:09Billy Corgan?

  So my wife's brother, my wife has five brothers.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:13Billy Corgan?

  One full and four half.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:16Billy Corgan?

  I had a kind of romantic moment with her.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:19Billy Corgan?

  She was sort of obsessed with him and then eventually ghosted him.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  What does he do?

• 44:24Billy Corgan?

  Uh, he's out here working, you know?

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Okay. Okay. That's secret.

• 44:27Billy Corgan?

  So isn't that funny that there's this?

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:29Billy Corgan?

  I've never met her. I know you, I know you speak very highly.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  She's a fantastic girl.

• 44:32Billy Corgan?

  She's obviously very bright.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  And she's a real friend. You know, she's done things for me that nobody's ever done in our business, particularly another woman. In any event, um. Kim wrote about Lana Del Rey.

• 44:42Billy Corgan?

  Oh, Jesus.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  She's no, in her book, like she says horrible things about me being a tarantula and stuff. But like narcissistic Hollywood obsessed tarantula, oh, Kim, I'm so scared of spiders. I wish she had done something else, like another bear, maybe I'll take a bear eagle. I'll take an eagle. Um, in any event, uh, she puts down Lana, she calls her all these names because Lana, in one of her very few early interviews, and she still doesn't do many now, said, I wish I was dead. She was 27. She said, I wish I was dead. She named 27 year olds. And my daughter Frances, like raged at her on Twitter. And then Lana was like, I'm so sorry. And now they're friends. They were friends when Kim wrote this and she called, and then her defense of it, she didn't know Lana Del Rey. And Lana was like, who is Kim Gordon? Totally other generation, did not grow up gay.

• 45:28Billy Corgan?

  A question, by the way, billions are still asking.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Exactly. Maybe not so many millions, because I don't think she had.

• 45:34Billy Corgan?

  I'll go with billions.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay. Um, who is Kim Gordon? She was really horrible in the 90s. She was really, I remember in Holland, um, I was hanging out with you and, and they were so mean. It was like, like I didn't.

• 45:49Billy Corgan?

  Yes, I came in there, I came into their dressing room because we were all playing this festival.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:53Billy Corgan?

  Kurt was playing too.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:55Billy Corgan?

  Nine Inch Nails was playing.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a big deal.

• 45:57Billy Corgan?

  Charles from Black Francis was playing.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  I wasn't.

• 46:00Billy Corgan?

  You were, you were.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  I feel like Urge Overkill played that even.

• 46:02Billy Corgan?

  Urge was there, you came over on the boat with her.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  I came over on the boat with Urge, yep. I didn't leave with them.

• 46:07Billy Corgan?

  But I, I came in, I was a fan and I came in to pay my respects and I was treated so rudely by her.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  I was too.

• 46:13Billy Corgan?

  And that was the beginning of the horrible relationship.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  Uh, uh, the lyric from Kurt, which is, you're priceless advice. Hey, wait, I've got a new, ever, uh, help me finish it. Oh, my God.

• 46:24Billy Corgan?

  Places and.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  No, no, no, it's the lyric. Um, I mean, what the actual, I'm so sorry. And never, oh, my God, hey, wait, I've got a new, forever in debt to your priceless advice. That's about Kim. That's literally about Kim. And there's, he was so mad at her. He was, because you know, his whole thing was, Kurt's whole thing was. He, believe it or not, he hid his light, well, you know this, under a bushel for bleach. Because, one, Seattle, which he wasn't from, two, Kim Gordon.

• 46:57Billy Corgan?

  Back to pernicious indie politics.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, indie politics. He wasn't from Seattle. And when I first saw Nirvana in Port La Dorgan, there was Jason, this, this, this.

• 47:07Billy Corgan?

  Newstead? No, Jason, the.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Jason Everman, right?

• 47:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I know Jason.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  And he was, he had long hair, like a Soundgarden guy. And I watched her at a little club called The Chirac on turn his, his fender all the way down. I saw it. I'm not stupid. I saw it. And that's what led to me and him having an interaction. I was like, you fake guitar player. I get it. Right? And a whole thing. But that was, that was the Seattle element. And I didn't know till I hung out with them about the Kim. I know, I was scarred by Kim. So scarred that I had to write her a letter kissing her ass to get, you don't go for the husband, the cool husband, you go for the wife. And she produced my first album, to her eternal regret.

• 47:49Billy Corgan?

  Do you remember what she paid her? Because she told me.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  I can't remember. It was that important. She never came by. She came by once for 10 minutes.

• 47:54Billy Corgan?

  You said, you said you gave her six grand and a bag of pot.

• 47:59Billy Corgan?

  Does that sound right?

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. She was, she's from LA. And I went with her once, when I was still social with her. I went with her once to her father's house. And the whole thing is about, she's from Culver City, like Jennifer Finch, but the whole, her father was UCLA professor. I don't want to give her too much time, but the important thing is that her brother was a junkie. I think that made her, I don't know what made her, art made her pernicious, because she was really a bad force in the whole thing, you know? Were you ever attracted to the band, Sonic Youth?

• 48:30Billy Corgan?

  I loved what they were doing with the guitars.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  I loved the graphics, the graphics.

• 48:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. And the drummer, uh.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Lee Ronaldo?

• 48:38Billy Corgan?

  No, the drummer.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  I forget.

• 48:40Billy Corgan?

  Bill?

• 48:41Speaker 01

  I forgot a Nirvana lyric just now. Like, don't ask me anything.

• 48:44Billy Corgan?

  No, but the drummer, the drummer, the drummer and Thurston were always super nice and very friendly. And, you know, you know how it is, you got the generational politic. They're an older band.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:54Billy Corgan?

  Which seems, you know, they're probably 30, but you know, when you're 24, they're the next generation.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:59Billy Corgan?

  So, uh, the drummer and Thurston were always super nice and would answer any questions.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  His name was Steve.

• 49:03Billy Corgan?

  I talked to Thurston about gear, you know, like, I remember talking to Thurston once.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Oh, he's a gearhead, yeah.

• 49:09Billy Corgan?

  About how, how they traveled with their guitars and kind of a weird, they would just put their guitars in this weird road case with no cases. They would just basically put like 12 guitars in like a thing and just put it in a bike, almost like a box.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Let me cap this conversation. I've got the best story. It's really quick. So when Thurston and Kim got divorced, because you know their daughter is in Chicago at school. Don't know if you know that. Kim sold all of Thurston's album vinyl for a vast amount of money behind his back. Do you pay for her education, the kids vacation? I'm sorry, college. It is one of the greatest things I've ever heard. And, you know, he lives in London with his incredible new wife. He's like free. He's happy. Happy guy. Playing his jazz love ecstasy music, sun raw, whole thing. He's a great guy. They came over to my house for the Oscars, which is one in the morning over there. They're great. Let's move on because these people are dicks. They were dicks. Anyway, one was a dick.

• 50:03Billy Corgan?

  I mean, I, you know.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  How much did it scar you? It scarred Kurt. So the whole point I'm making about Kurt is Bleach is him hiding his light under a bushel. And it's not till one of those riot girls.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  It is in a polyamorous, non-consensual to him relationship, which really scars him. That, and he asked me the first one, the first question is like, would you know polyamory? I'm like, I know polygamy. And I was like, no, that when he told me the situation, I'm like, this is, no, you didn't give, no, you got to give permission for that. Anyway, she was one of the riot girls that was really under the enthralling, whatever spell of the sonic chaos bullshit. And he got so angry. He was like, I'm over it. Because she didn't like about a girl, which was about her. And she said something about populism and capitalism and how dare you write this song about me? And he got so mad and he told me he had two thoughts. And this is like true. It's crazy because they talked about me a lot. I didn't really know. There was a band called Courtney Love up there in Evergreen. That's.

• 51:04Billy Corgan?

  That crowd was obsessed with you.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Obsessed, but I didn't know this.

• 51:07Billy Corgan?

  Do you know what? Can I give you, wait, stop. Can I give you a theory why they were obsessed with you?

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Well, because there was a band called Courtney Love, Portland.

• 51:14Billy Corgan?

  No, no. Here's why they, because look, you can, you can, you can analyze one moment in time.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:20Billy Corgan?

  So that whatever.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  Let's go back to form, falls, function on this yet.

• 51:23Billy Corgan?

  Okay, right. Let's, let's macro out. Why was the riot girl crowd? Why were they obsessed with you?

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Because I was really ambitious. Portland?

• 51:32Billy Corgan?

  Ready?

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:33Billy Corgan?

  Class traitor.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Did they know that my mother was upper middle class? How do they know?

• 51:40Billy Corgan?

  Think about it. Think about it. Think about it. You're a class traitor.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Because I'm hard scrabble. I exited, pissed out that family at 11. How did, really?

• 51:52Billy Corgan?

  Think about it.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  How would they know my roots? I pretend I was from the trailers and I kinda was.

• 51:57Billy Corgan?

  Like knows like.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Cause I'm literate?

• 52:02Billy Corgan?

  Listen.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  Wow, this is really blowing my mind. What? Well Kurt wasn't. He was really from the trailers.

• 52:10Billy Corgan?

  So was I.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  I know, but when Toby Vale smashed a cake and said, how dare you write that song about me? And there were three bleachers in the planet. Sub Pop had one, Chris had one, Kurt had one. He lit candles, he stole a cake from Safeway. Toby Vale comes over in her Doc Martens, he plays her about a girl. She smashes the cake and walks out and I think something happened to the bleach. You know, acetate and he had candles. He's like this. First thought of getting the best drummer in the world. I don't care if he's in Warrant. Second thought, I'm gonna f that Courtney girl, even if I hate her. That's what he told me and I'm gonna write all, I'm gonna write to, I'm with the word embodied, but that wasn't a word then. I'm gonna write great songs because I can, right?

• 52:52Speaker 01

  And I had that same feeling on Pretty on the Inside, even though people love Pretty on the Inside. I could, I could with an R E M song. I couldn't write Killing Moon, but I could with lesser Bunim and songs. I had a guitar player who was really good. I mean, at best, at my best, I was a reliable rhythmist. But I must have wanted to even try and play guitar, which is probably a good thing for the world. But anyway, but I understood, you love to say skill set. I understood the, the art, the Peter Buck of it all. You know what I mean?

• 53:21Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  And instead I.

• 53:22Billy Corgan?

  You talked about Peter Buck a lot.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Well, instead I loved R E M so much and Leonard Cohen were like my two real go tos. And Navy's and Dylan and definitely Beatles. Okay? So I understood what I could do with a good band. But I also understood like this is the market right now. And I'm gonna go all the way in and write great lyrics and do noise, noise music. So the fact that like people even like those songs to this day, there was a 30th anniversary. I was like, I wanted to see at this huge tattoo mall in London. And there's like thousands of people there. I was like. This is weird. This is weird. I mean, and then I got a little more respect for that album. But like bleach, it was that. It was, I'm going to cleave to this market.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  There was like with gifts, there was no selling out. The real sellout is those of us that bent, bent to the market, the market of Kim Gordon, whatever you want to call it, the market of the indie.

• 54:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. I mean, I think that's what irritated.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  Pavement's entire career is bending to that will.

• 54:20Billy Corgan?

  That's what continues. It was funny because they're still irritated, which is amazing. I mean, we're talking about 35 years of irritation.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Get over it.

• 54:27Billy Corgan?

  Well, yeah, I mean, like I own a tea house and I got little kids, you know, like get over it.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You're selling, you're selling your, your ex husband's vinyl collection to put your, not really, but that's a word.

• 54:37Billy Corgan?

  What I'm saying is, is, is the, is the gatekeepers scream, to this day, they still scream about authenticity. But most of them, at least the way I've tracked, uh, didn't come from an authentic place.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 54:51Billy Corgan?

  They're, they're, they have a, they have a.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Or they married well now, or they're in human resources because they didn't write choruses.

• 54:57Billy Corgan?

  Okay. But they have a mental conception of authenticity. They don't have a real conception of authenticity. Do you understand?

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Okay, explain that. Like go back to Evergreen College and like, you know, this, this whole.

• 55:08Billy Corgan?

  You had to make choices based on a whole set of fact, a whole host of factors. Okay. Uh, how am I going to eat? What am I going to do? Who do I want to be?

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:20Billy Corgan?

  Who do I have to sleep with or not?

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Or not.

• 55:23Billy Corgan?

  Okay. You had to make a whole set. You, you, you don't get to sit there and say, my dad's got a university gig and he's going to take care of me when I'm in the band that nobody wants to listen to. So just because you.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Do you think those girls and boys were trapped by those constructs though? My dad owns a university. I mean.

• 55:41Billy Corgan?

  Of course they're trapped by it.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:43Billy Corgan?

  That's why they make sexless music.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Right. Why? Wait, why? Why?

• 55:48Billy Corgan?

  Because they don't, they don't under, it's like, the, the reason.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Madonna comes from like the work, working class, right? Like sex. Yeah, no, you're right. There's a lack of, um, there's a lack of wanting to have sex in some.

• 56:01Billy Corgan?

  Isn't that shocking? Like, I mean, it isn't.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  For a woman, it is, I think. I mean.

• 56:05Billy Corgan?

  No, no, I don't mean it this way. I'm saying.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Or boys, the boys there too. They stay boys. They were like.

• 56:09Billy Corgan?

  It's like, it's like, you don't really understand the true cost of vulnerability because you don't have to live it.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Vulnerability is the whole show for me. I think I agree.

• 56:21Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  And vulnerable, people that are vulnerable on stage to this day, to this day, pop, pop kids. Do you know what I mean? Like vulnerability is everything. And if you can't get friends with your vulnerability.

• 56:33Billy Corgan?

  You cannot manufacture vulnerability.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  No. You texted me last night, we're talking about Youngblood and the girl I mentor, Baby Queen. And you were talking and they're kind of the same. They're definitely peers. They definitely fuck with each other, whatever. And it's funny that we both sort of picked up on the thread of both of them. But you said something about how they fuck with everything, but they can't backtrack integrity. What, what did you mean by that text?

• 56:59Billy Corgan?

  This, this, this, the, the construct of the current generation, let's call it the current musical generation. Cause obviously there's different ages at play. So it's not just one.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  These are Gen Z kids, right?

• 57:10Billy Corgan?

  Youngblood's 28, that's what I know.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  Uh, she's 25.

• 57:13Billy Corgan?

  Okay. So, so, okay.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  26, 26, sorry.

• 57:17Billy Corgan?

  If, if your, if your audience has been raised on pop, they don't respond to indie, alternative language, the way that we did.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  No, but she loves Drowned. She listens to all those.

• 57:29Billy Corgan?

  Okay. God bless. But let me finish why I'm telling you this. When you found the Bunnyman or Joy Division or Bauhaus or Sisters.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  New Order.

• 57:38Billy Corgan?

  You felt like you'd found like the secret to the universe.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:41Billy Corgan?

  There are people.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. No. Yeah.

• 57:43Billy Corgan?

  There are people making music for what I'm actually doing.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  From Aerosmith to that. It's like, what?

• 57:48Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's what I said the other day. Cause I just did a benefit for Steven Tyler.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  I know Steven Tyler. I mean, a god, but yeah.

• 57:54Billy Corgan?

  No, but, but, but to, cause I was talking to a friend actually that works on the show, uh, who's a friend of Steven's. To us, Aerosmith was an alternative band.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. You had the guy from REO Speedwagon on this podcast.

• 58:07Billy Corgan?

  Seasons of Withers.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Who was. Oh, wait, you see me crying, which I actually got Stephen to perform. I can't hit any notes, but there was those Vegas whore gigs.

• 58:15Billy Corgan?

  Baby, what you done?

• 58:16Speaker 01

  Down to your head. Oh, my God, track 10 or track 12 on Toys in the Attic, and nobody knows about it.

• 58:24Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but when you find that, like I found Cheap Trick or you found?

• 58:28Speaker 01

  Well, Cheap Trick is the whole sauce, like there it is.

• 58:31Billy Corgan?

  But what I'm saying, when you find it, you're like, oh, my God, these guys have the manual to get me out of here.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, and also with Cheap Trick, you're hearing the weirdest lyrics on the radio.

• 58:40Billy Corgan?

  Why do you think, listen?

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Because we, you know what I said to Michael Stipe recently? I'm like, I couldn't afford R E M. Do you understand, like, I had to hang out with upper middle class, middle class girls who could get the juice and the rumors and the new singles. Like, I'm like, I didn't have to afford Cheap Trick, he got kind of mad, but then he realized I was right. Which is like, mom and dad are rolling on the couch, rock and rollin', rollin', got my Kiss records out, or mommy was a whack in the Philippines. That's on the radio, it's free of charge. Like, like, I love R E M, I love them so much, but they cost a little money to get. You know what I mean? Like, you had to buy the singles for money, and Cheap Trick was free, and that's important, I think.

• 59:21Billy Corgan?

  Just to finish the point I was.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  Okay, sorry.

• 59:25Billy Corgan?

  Have you found, like I have, that people's obsessions often belie their greatest fear?

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Tell me what you mean.

• 59:33Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so my argument is the reason the upper middle class to snobby rich kid class, almost predominantly white, by the way.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  And middle, middle, go with middle, because it is middle class, too.

• 59:44Billy Corgan?

  And she's, well, I think.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  It goes to upper, but middle.

• 59:47Billy Corgan?

  But they need the upper middle class to give it.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  The legitimacy, yeah.

• 59:51Billy Corgan?

  Thank you, okay. Why are they so obsessed to this day with the concept of authenticity?

• 59:58Speaker 01

  To their own detriment, too. They end up not wealthy, they end up not doing as well as they're.

• 1:00:02Billy Corgan?

  They end up making a lot of music that people don't want to listen to.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Because they choose to make music that doesn't have choruses and is sexless. You're 100% right, to this day. You know, I mean,

• 1:00:11Billy Corgan?

  But they secretly listen to AB at home. That's the strangest thing.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a, I don't want to name them, but there's a band that's like getting huge. And I tried listening to it and I'm like, okay, this is weird and cool. I get why people love them. But there's a level of purposeful naivete. Cause I went back and listened to their first record. I'm like, oh, this is bullshit. They're trying to be wired, trying to be game for. They're trying here. They've given up and it's almost like, um, uh, naivete, like, like purposeful naive art.

• 1:00:38Billy Corgan?

  Calculated naivete or calculated.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  I think they've just let go.

• 1:00:42Billy Corgan?

  Feigned innocence.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  Cause I'll tell you, well, the singer is a hundred percent in. And I don't think you can fake the way he's singing or what he's doing. But there is a, the cult that's growing up around them on the East Coast is like,

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  I'll talk to you about it later. I don't want to be, I don't want to be, but, um, I do like them. I do get the point. I do genuinely like a few of the songs, but at the same time, I'm seeing the, the marketing growing up around this, this, these bands, this artist that is all about this thing we're talking about authenticity, um, extraction of youth. Um, I think they're probably innocents, but like the people around them.

• 1:01:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. I think Jimmy Chamberlain, the drummer of the Pumpkins, made this point to me recently. And it was interesting what he was after. His argument was, uh, our early music was predicated on survival. Where it's noble is we made really interesting choices as our path to survival.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Gish. And it showed the rest of us up. The true selling out was those of us that sold out our spirit over here on the West Coast. Whether it was Kurt coming from a serious working class, whether it was me coming from all, all the things, right? That street, the, you know, the penthouse, all the things.

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  I love that you said I was a class traitor. By the way, I'm stuck on that. Um, but selling ourselves out. Was far, far bigger a sin, which you got accused of the worst sin because you were embodied and not selling yourself out. And now that we're 35, 37 years later, it's like,

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  how did people like my first album? I wasn't even present for it, right? If I'd have written to my level, I would have.

• 1:02:24Billy Corgan?

  Well, can I give you, because I.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  Tell me about me at Class Cater though, because you had a Camaro, man.

• 1:02:28Billy Corgan?

  Okay, let's, let's, let's do one thing and then we'll go back to.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 1:02:33Billy Corgan?

  I had to look up the date, the date we first met. I believe we talked on the phone briefly before that.

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Billy Corgan?

  That's my memory, but.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  We did.

• 1:02:40Billy Corgan?

  The date of our first meeting in person was October 29th, 1991. You were playing the Avalon.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Nevermind hadn't come out yet and smashed the shit out of the rest of us.

• 1:02:51Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  Everyone thinks it was 91. No, it's November.

• 1:02:54Billy Corgan?

  The Avalon Club was formerly a club named Tuts. It was a second floor venue. So it was a.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  It wasn't your Metro? Wasn't that same? Oh, wow.

• 1:03:02Billy Corgan?

  First gig in Chicago.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  I thought we were bigger than that. Okay.

• 1:03:06Billy Corgan?

  No, it would have, it would have held about 400 people max. You had a.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  Didn't we see the poor guy from Material Issue who wrote Valerie Loves Me that night?

• 1:03:16Billy Corgan?

  He was probably there, yeah. Yeah, Jim, I was friends with Jim. Jim unfortunately killed himself.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  I know. God, that song. He got made fun of too, a lot. Because he was on a major label.

• 1:03:26Billy Corgan?

  For my generation, absolutely the most talented guy in Chicago, hands down. He was shockingly talented.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  I've covered that song. It was one of the really good covers I did.

• 1:03:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I want to tell you a quick story about Material Issue because I love this story.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:03:38Billy Corgan?

  They come on stage. I see him. One of these things, it's like $3 show type of thing.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  Valerie Loves Me.

• 1:03:43Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but this is before the record deal. This is before, they were the first band to sign with a major label.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were with a major label.

• 1:03:47Billy Corgan?

  Ministry or something, right?

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:50Billy Corgan?

  They come on stage. He's carrying an amp this big.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:03:53Billy Corgan?

  He puts it on a chair, right? Somebody puts a microphone in front of it. The drummer goes one, two, three, four. They do a pitch perfect, hit every note version of Ballroom Blitz by The Sweet.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:04:06Billy Corgan?

  And I'm in the audience.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  With the little amp.

• 1:04:08Billy Corgan?

  A punter going. And I go, oh my God. And I was in, and I was in love with this half black, half white skinhead girl, who was the most beautiful alt girl. I was in like in love with her and I had, I had, I thought was having this soulful relationship.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  You probably were.

• 1:04:25Billy Corgan?

  And, and she had, um, she had, you know, it was the classic alt girls. There were three roommates, three girls living in this apartment, really close to Wrigley Field where the Cubs play. Same neighborhood as the metro and all that.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Right. You, you live by there, right?

• 1:04:37Billy Corgan?

  That's where I lived and that's where we had our apocryphal moment. Anyway, uh, uh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm over there. We're talking about, you know, she liked the, she like, who'd she like? Hoodogurus?

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  Oh my God, bittersweet. Hello.

• 1:04:52Billy Corgan?

  She liked the Hoodogurus?

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Amazing though.

• 1:04:54Billy Corgan?

  So she had good taste in music, but she was a skinhead. Everybody thought she was the most beautiful girl of the crop, but she was a skinhead.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:05:01Billy Corgan?

  And, uh, and, and one day, you know, it's, it's, it's morning and we've slept together the night before and da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And, uh,

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a dinner and a show. Okay.

• 1:05:11Billy Corgan?

  Okay. So I'm in her, I mean, her cool apartment with like, you know, veils over the, over the lamps and you know, whatever. And this morning, you know, and I'm just hanging out being the boyfriend. At least I thought I was the boyfriend. And she goes outside and says, oh, I gotta go say hi to somebody or something. So I don't think anything of it.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:28Billy Corgan?

  And about 30 minutes goes by and she doesn't come back.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:31Billy Corgan?

  So then I start to get suspicious. And before I, before I went and looked, cause I had a feeling, I, I asked the roommate who I later slept with, but that's another story.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  God, we were such sluts.

• 1:05:45Billy Corgan?

  In revenge, in revenge. But, um, I said to the roommate,

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  I get that.

• 1:05:50Billy Corgan?

  I said to the roommate, um, who's she talking to? And she's like, and the way she acted, it was like, oh, you know, her friend. So I knew I was cooked. So I go to like, you know, the classic, like you go up to the window, like to look like, oh, oh, here goes my life. And I look out and she's talking to Jim.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:06:08Billy Corgan?

  And I thought I'm, I'm dead. I'm, she's, she's talking and obviously enamored with the most talented guy in the, in the city.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:16Billy Corgan?

  And I'm just some.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  He was on a major label, like the Buck Pets, who weren't as good.

• 1:06:20Billy Corgan?

  By the way.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  And everybody, and he had weird hair and everybody gave him, I think that fed into how he, he killed himself.

• 1:06:26Billy Corgan?

  But here's the other part of the story you need to know.

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  Cause he was so ostracized.

• 1:06:29Billy Corgan?

  This is before the pumpkins.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:06:32Billy Corgan?

  So I'm just some guy.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  I know they were big.

• 1:06:34Billy Corgan?

  With a dream. No, but I'm saying you're looking out the window and the girl you think you're in love with and you think's in love with you.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  The guy in the band.

• 1:06:40Billy Corgan?

  Is talking to him.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  Well, of course.

• 1:06:42Billy Corgan?

  You're like, I'm dead.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Hello, the guy in the band. We, you know.

• 1:06:46Billy Corgan?

  I would have felt more comfortable if she was talking to like a Rhodes scholar who was up for a Nobel Prize. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, the guy in the band.

• 1:06:52Billy Corgan?

  When you're a musician and you see that guy.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  That world, we're all gonna go with the guy in the band or the girl in the band. Like, that's how it works, baby. We met in October of 1991 at the Avalon Ballroom. So you were gonna go there and then.

• 1:07:03Billy Corgan?

  Oh, you, I'll remind you of the story.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Okay, so.

• 1:07:06Billy Corgan?

  You and the whole band pull up to my apartment.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:09Billy Corgan?

  Where I was living with Hippie Bob.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  I don't remember him.

• 1:07:13Billy Corgan?

  Uh, he would have been around.

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  I remember you had like a, uh, um, uh, a wacko soap plant Melrose vibe Mexican Virgin of Puerto Rico candle. And I was like, why is that in Chicago? But it was very cool that you had that. Go on, Hippie Bob. Yeah, I remember Hippie Bob.

• 1:07:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, you guys, um, came, we met, and then you went over for sound check, which I don't think I went to. Then you came back, hung out for a while, and then we, I went and saw the gig.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Okay, alright. So, yeah. And this guy was made a band with this?

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Cause it was very pretty on your back porch and we both took, you're not big on drugs, but we both took a Vicodin. And I love.

• 1:07:58Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I love Vicodin.

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  I, I mean, that was great. I was like, I think you provided it. And I think I was like, can I have more? Can I have more?

• 1:08:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I was big on Vicodin.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  I was big on opiates, clearly, because that happened. But, um, you know, not then, not then. I was being really restrained about drug use, really restrained. Nobody's gonna sign a junkie. And I knew that, you know, I knew that. So.

• 1:08:18Billy Corgan?

  Well, can I, let's, let's pause here because.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:22Billy Corgan?

  I alluded to briefly in talking to you about doing this interview, but it's interesting to me because when I met you, you would have been like, what, 24?

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, around there.

• 1:08:33Billy Corgan?

  Somewhere. So maybe a touch older, but.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Really, I was 25 now? Okay. Oh, no, I was because I was at Jumbo's Clown Room in the 7th vale. And this guy at the Jumbo's Clown Room was like, if you don't make, if you don't get signed by 25, I'm starting wrestling and you're built for it. And I was like, female wrestling? I was like, off, it's not gonna happen. Michael, his name was Michael.

• 1:08:55Billy Corgan?

  You could have, you could have drawn a lot of money in wrestling.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  He said, he was, he said, he's like, you'll be using Chanel tampons and driving a Jean Paul Gaultier.

• 1:09:04Billy Corgan?

  He must have, he must have been from Chicago.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  I mean, something like that. Mike, Michael, anyway, I won that bet because it was a real bet. I was like, you. He was the manager at Jumbo's Clown Room and yeah, somehow I did it.

• 1:09:16Billy Corgan?

  But I was.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  But I was, maybe I was 26.

• 1:09:19Billy Corgan?

  You know, I was, I was smitten with you, but, but, you know, usually when you're smitten with somebody and they're about 25, there's usually an arc, like, okay, they got out of high school when they're 18 and how much life could they have lived in this time?

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:09:31Billy Corgan?

  So I started poking around from the first meeting about, you know, your origin story and you were very evasive. You know what I mean?

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, no, I like to tell people I was in a trailer park and I was just a goth.

• 1:09:44Billy Corgan?

  Yes, because at one point.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  Because it's too complicated otherwise, like all the class stuff.

• 1:09:49Billy Corgan?

  At one point, I just, I wouldn't let it go, as you know, I tend to.

• 1:09:54Billy Corgan?

  Yes, thank you. God bless.

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  Next layer, what is the next layer?

• 1:09:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. But at one point, and I guess maybe in frustration, I was poking around when you were living in probably Portland when you were 19 or 20 and you, you just weren't giving me a suitable answer.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Japan.

• 1:10:12Billy Corgan?

  But I'm saying, you know, I'm trying to get a sense of.

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  By the way, let me just say that the people think of the lowest points in my life, probably because I'm American, probably because I'm durable, to be a delightful experience. I'm not even kidding. Getting trafficked by the Yakuza to Japan, delightful. I'm not even kidding. Like, people think it's, I understand Japan is because I was American and nobody would pick me, but I really was trafficked by the Yakuza out of Portland with all these other girls from Idaho, from Utah, from Washington State, that, you know, I don't know what happened, but I went to the, because I took my passport, but I, after five months, went to the Japanese embassy, not the American. Why was I so dumb? Because I, you know what? I knew at that point I could, it would generate press.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  It was called, you know, whatever slavery then. And I was like, if I go to, they're more discreet. And they just put me on a, they gave me first class, too. First class flight back to Portland, eye rolling. And I had my Hyundai guitar and the Yamaha. So that people think was the good stuff was horrible, and people think the bad stuff was really good.

• 1:11:21Billy Corgan?

  Right, but I'm, I'm putting myself in the story here.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  Right, okay.

• 1:11:24Billy Corgan?

  Which is, you know, I'm a smitten indie wannabe rock star. And, you know, I've just seen you play, and, you know, if anybody saw you in the first album era, you know, what it lacked in Beatle chords, it made up for in complete sheer visceral energy.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  I mean, if you're gonna go there, that's why I said with the Kim Gordon era with Pretty on the Inside, like, this is our own, this is the market. All right, I'm going all the way in, you know?

• 1:11:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I mean, the things I remember were Eric's kind of atonal approach to guitar, which I found really interesting as a nerd.

• 1:12:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:02Billy Corgan?

  Combined-

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  He had nerd chops, though. He had the whole Kevin Shields.

• 1:12:05Billy Corgan?

  I'm a fan of Eric.

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I am too.

• 1:12:08Billy Corgan?

  He wasn't always a fan of me, but we made our peace, which is all good. But the point is, my two memories of watching you play at the Avalon that night, you know, was the cool guitar stuff happening, and then this just never-ending scream. And what is the source of this? Whatever that, I mean, it was like a white hot rage.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31Billy Corgan?

  And it was performative, yes, but it was coming, it was sourced from somewhere.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Well, that's why I'm saying that the band I'm talking about in New York, like, he couldn't fake that kind of singing. I've been listening for three days. You couldn't fake the level of playing and singing you were doing. You couldn't fake it. You know, you couldn't fake it. You know, you know, we're just talking about this like with the kids. Like they're behind a pop veneer, they're multimedia because they're online, like, but there are certain things we can see with these pop kids where they can't fake it. Like the, the good stuff. You know what I mean?

• 1:13:01Billy Corgan?

  What, when, when the indie world would give me about playing solos and playing, they used to say too good. That was always a funny one.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, you played too well. You played, you were technically great. So they, I loved it. I was like, oh man, I don't care if they were hats. This song is, this album's great. Cause we had the same publicist and I was like, they were hats.

• 1:13:21Billy Corgan?

  But let me give you an addendum to that.

• 1:13:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, what?

• 1:13:23Billy Corgan?

  What, what no snob from, you know, the Village Voice could ever understand was I had no concern with what they thought about my playing. My shadow was my father.

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:36Billy Corgan?

  Who was a failed musician, drug dealer, you know, very, very bitter. Who basically said, if you're going to do this, cause he resisted it for years.

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Billy Corgan?

  If you're going to do this, you must play at this level or you're not.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  Oh, well, good for him though.

• 1:13:51Billy Corgan?

  No, what I'm saying is people don't understand, that's a working class shadow. My dad wasn't teaching at Berkeley and said, son, if you want to be good, you gotta be as.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  My father wished he was teaching in Berkeley, but he was a failure.

• 1:14:03Billy Corgan?

  But I'm saying is, it's not like my dad said, you know, you gotta be as good as Jango or you don't belong on stage. My dad was like.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Jango? That's not what he said.

• 1:14:11Billy Corgan?

  If you can't play as good as Albert King, or you can't play as good as Stevie Ray Vaughan or Jimi Hendrix, get the f off the stage.

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  I mean, that's great.

• 1:14:19Billy Corgan?

  And he would illustrate what he meant, not from a place of erudite, you know, snobbery from a, from a place of when this guy hits this note this way, it sends lightning bolts through my brain. My dad talked about seeing Albert King. Do you know anything about Albert King?

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  Really know.

• 1:14:38Billy Corgan?

  Okay, cuz I know you love music stuff. Albert King played a Flying V upside down with the strings upside down.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:14:45Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:14:46Billy Corgan?

  When you listen to Stevie Ray Vaughan.

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:49Billy Corgan?

  Or Joe Bonamassa or Jimi Hendrix.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:51Billy Corgan?

  Or Carlos Santana.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:54Billy Corgan?

  The great, the great soloist.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  King of Marin County. Yeah.

• 1:14:57Billy Corgan?

  Okay. Including Jerry. Okay. God bless Jerry.

• 1:15:01Speaker 01

  I can't.

• 1:15:01Billy Corgan?

  I know you can't, but God bless Jerry.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Stop, stop, stop.

• 1:15:04Billy Corgan?

  Okay, you lived it. Aren't you on the cover of one of the records or something?

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Actually, it's not me. Apparently it's Mountain Girl's daughter. I don't know. Hank told me it. Everything Hank told me is not true.

• 1:15:13Billy Corgan?

  Now, you gotta imagine. A bear of a man. African American.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:15:18Billy Corgan?

  Came up through all that.

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  I knew that.

• 1:15:20Billy Corgan?

  Racist crap.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:22Billy Corgan?

  That all those great pioneers had to deal with.

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  Green Book, all this.

• 1:15:25Billy Corgan?

  Now imagine him embraced by the hippies in the sixties because why? Bill Graham put him on a bill at the Fillmore. And the hippies embraced Albert King. And there's actually a live record of him playing at the Fillmore in that time.

• 1:15:37Speaker 01

  Okay, wow.

• 1:15:38Billy Corgan?

  Called Blues Power, I think it's called.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  Who was the African American that also played Woodstock that all the hippies liked?

• 1:15:43Billy Corgan?

  Richie Havens?

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  Yes, that guy. Yep.

• 1:15:45Billy Corgan?

  Okay, who played with one finger, basically.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:49Billy Corgan?

  Brilliant.

• 1:15:50Speaker 01

  He was like.

• 1:15:50Billy Corgan?

  His albums are fantastic. I'm a big Richie fan.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  My, my, my parents had that.

• 1:15:54Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so imagine my dad, skinny, white guy.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  With a purse.

• 1:15:59Billy Corgan?

  Not yet.

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:16:00Billy Corgan?

  No, this is early days now.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:16:02Billy Corgan?

  This is sixty-six, sixty-seven.

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  Are you even born?

• 1:16:05Billy Corgan?

  Uh, I would either just about been born or somewhere in this. So my dad's, whatever, he's a, you know, him and my mom met at a high school dance that my dad was playing. Okay?

• 1:16:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:16:14Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so he's in that world. He's in the eee, eee, eee, eee world. Okay? He goes to see Albert King at some club. Okay, here's this bear of a man playing a Flying V upside down. What guitar did my dad play? A Flying V.

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:27Billy Corgan?

  Okay, which I still have.

• 1:16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:29Billy Corgan?

  So my dad's in this crowd, you know what I mean? He's total working class. Uh, one of six children incest. Uh, grandmother got the beat out of her.

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  Saw like Irish Chicago?

• 1:16:42Billy Corgan?

  Southern Illinois, no, like redneck, bootlegging, all of it. Is this where the Mormons come in? That's earlier. Okay, good. I know, but like, is that the side? Okay. Yes. Okay. Okay. So imagine he's complete working class. His mother is, you know, you know, addicted to horrible, horrific men. And he sees this guy, he's got no tangential relationship to, other than he's growing up in a predominantly black neighborhood, and he loves to go across the street and listen to gospel or music of the church. Right. And he sees this guy, who's from the same sort of class level that he is, but obviously difference between a young white guy and an August black bluesman. Yeah.

• 1:17:26Billy Corgan?

  Who's, you know, traveled the trails. But they're meeting in this cultural moment of the 60s. Where that mess, that melange. Through the, through the genius of Bill Graham. Bill Graham says to the white kids in San Francisco, you need to listen to this guy. Yeah. So here my dad is seeing him on this trail that Bill Graham, you know, ignites. And here is Albert King in Chicago. My dad, for 50 years of my life, would talk about when Albert King would hit that string, what it would do to his senses. It was like somebody trying to describe lightning in a guitar. So when I'm on stage at the Avalon, and by the way, the Avalon is the first time we ever played me, James and Darcy in a drum machine. Okay.

• 1:18:09Billy Corgan?

  Okay. So I'd been on that stage and I sort of knew that feeling. Yeah. Okay.

• 1:18:15Billy Corgan?

  It isn't, it isn't Sonic Youth over my shoulder. It isn't Das Domin, it isn't the Das Domin! It isn't the Replacements, it isn't, you know, whoever anybody threw at us at that time. Yeah. You know what I mean? It isn't Albini.

• 1:18:31Billy Corgan?

  Well, no, but I'm saying is No, I mean, he's brilliant, but he was a dick. All the gods of the time. Right, right. Including Soul Asylum and Husker Du. I think Soul Asylum was a great live. I'm not making a musical judge of it. I'm saying is, I didn't care at all about their, their, their Hall of Titans. You know what I'm saying? I was raised to believe if you're gonna play guitar and you can't play like this.

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  I got it. This is the shadow making you level up. Got it.

• 1:18:58Billy Corgan?

  So.

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  And it's a working process. I totally received that. I understand.

• 1:19:01Billy Corgan?

  The reason I'm even going down this rabbit hole is to say, I think that's what people didn't understand about you. What motivated you as an artist, what motivated you and what you wanted to say?

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  I don't even know. What do you think is it, Doctor?

• 1:19:13Billy Corgan?

  We had, well, we had a ton of conversations about it at the time.

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  Okay, what did I say?

• 1:19:18Billy Corgan?

  You basically said, and correct me if this strikes you as wrong.

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:19:22Billy Corgan?

  You acknowledged the shadow of the indie world on what you needed to navigate to get where you wanted to go.

• 1:19:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:30Billy Corgan?

  At the same time saying, I know they're a bunch of pricks, but that's just the way it is.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  Well, that's what I've just been saying. Hiding your letter in a bushel, going all the way to Kim Gordon, like all the way. Like the, the rest of it, this is the gatekeeper. I am landing her. She needs me. I need her. This is what's gonna happen.

• 1:19:47Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:19:48Speaker 01

  Like, understanding the politics of it really arose. I want to say this.

• 1:19:51Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 1:19:51Speaker 01

  You were, even though they didn't like you and you didn't like them, you had different goals. You were in the Midwest, which, which believe it or not, really protected you. Like, I couldn't afford to not understand the politics. And like, kids have to be online now. Try doing indie politics. It distracts so much of your musicality.

• 1:20:09Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  And so, you know, I mean, screaming was my only option. It was something I was good at too. And, uh, my lyrics were fire and I knew they were great. And, um, you know, the hiding, like, I wish sometimes, I'm glad it turned out the way it is, but I wish sometimes I'd followed that R E M narrative. Do you know what I mean? It with my playing with them.

• 1:20:28Billy Corgan?

  We got there eventually.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did. But like, getting for it was like, oh my God. But I'm telling you, the ambition that we had to be on major labels. Me, you, Kurt, you know, those of us that did it, that fury that Kurt felt when Toby Vale like screamed at him about, about a girl. How could you write something so populist, so capitalist and think I'd be impressed?

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  I mean, these people, what the, you know, and the thing is, is like, unless they, these women, unless they married real well, where are they now? And some of them are my friends, some of them are people that I love, who went down that rabbit hole, I'll be specific, you know, the babes girls, right? Like, I love Kat, I love her, she's still with us. But um, it's, it's a matter of, you didn't write, you were so capable. She had Paul McCartney, her guitar playing was on another level for any woman I'd ever met. Her musicality, her sense of the Paul of it all, right? And I remember once in Minneapolis, when she started Babes in Toilem, I was yammering on about the Beatles, whatever, got in a huge fight. She's like, well, I know who's Paul and who's John.

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  Like, I was like, actually, you're Paul, but I'll take Paul, I'll take Paul all day long. And it was, it was a big insult at the time, like, really? Paul's an insult? And, okay, John's good too, but John is like, John was great, but John is representative in that moment. Of like, the punk part, like, I'm punk and you're just Paul. And like, god, I wish I was Paul, like, one, one finger of Paul would be great. But the fact that they didn't follow the Lee Ronaldo record, like, she could write choruses, but she didn't want to, right? And like, you know, I'd see her on like, my own, you know, biographies of Courtney Love, and like, going on there non-consensually, like, everybody did, my family members did. You know, they're all people that ever asked, like Jennifer Finch, right? Cannot, you know, what do you think of us? Like, please, you know, do it.

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  Like, Kat would go on non-consensually, I mean, isn't that insane? Now, that the culture has changed, like, people, your family members, not that I really like, I like a few of them, but um, you know, Kat, other people, like, go, my old bass player, like, whatever, so full of resentment that they non-consensually go on The E True Hollywood Story, go on Behind the Music, without your permission. I mean, have you had that happen to you?

• 1:22:45Billy Corgan?

  Not as much as you, but I've had it, yeah.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  I think those women are just so mean to each other, but anyway, they used to be. But anyway, Kat's like, she wanted to be famous and I wanted to play music.

• 1:22:54Billy Corgan?

  Goes back to my class traitor.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  I mean, what the actual, man?

• 1:22:59Billy Corgan?

  Why were they so mad at Dylan?

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Oh, because he betrayed them by going electric? How is that class traitor, though?

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  Wasn't he working class Jewish?

• 1:23:12Billy Corgan?

  Let me tell you a story and see if you remember this story.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:23:17Billy Corgan?

  We were both in London together. We were in a relationship at the time.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  I remember that.

• 1:23:21Billy Corgan?

  Good times.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  You wouldn't give me money for smokes.

• 1:23:24Billy Corgan?

  You're still mad.

• 1:23:25Speaker 01

  I am, because I had to take a tube back to Cat in Wood Green. And that tube was, like, you know, I live there. It's a long way from central London. Go on. I'm just saying. I had to buy, in England, you can do this, buy five cigarettes at a time with like a shilling, like a pence, whatever. All right, go on.

• 1:23:44Billy Corgan?

  I hadn't yet outgrown my, my parochial, you know.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 1:23:49Billy Corgan?

  Roman Catholic sort of stodginess.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember that.

• 1:23:52Billy Corgan?

  That came later. So God bless on that.

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, no.

• 1:23:56Billy Corgan?

  No resistance, no resistance to the criticism.

• 1:23:58Speaker 01

  Okay, no, it was just.

• 1:23:59Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but here we are, and.

• 1:24:01Speaker 01

  You have more money than me.

• 1:24:02Billy Corgan?

  Well, I had the only money between us.

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  Fish and chips for days.

• 1:24:06Billy Corgan?

  I think I was living on a, at the time, I was living on a 75 pound per diem a week.

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I know. It was, it was.

• 1:24:13Billy Corgan?

  So you.

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  Marmite thin.

• 1:24:14Billy Corgan?

  You knew enough to complain about not getting cigarettes, but you also knew that we couldn't afford a cab ride across London.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:24:20Billy Corgan?

  So we walked.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:24:22Billy Corgan?

  I don't know if you remember this. So I'll get to it. The reason we had to walk across London, and you can imagine the two of us in 1990, whatever, walking across London.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I kind of knew it, though, from 81, right? Did I know a little bit about London?

• 1:24:37Billy Corgan?

  Oh, you had, you had, you.

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  I had chops.

• 1:24:39Billy Corgan?

  You had chops, yeah.

• 1:24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:40Billy Corgan?

  We were staying in Hyde Park.

• 1:24:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:43Billy Corgan?

  And

• 1:24:45Billy Corgan?

  the reason we had to walk across London is you had to do something, you had to get your passport updated or something.

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24:49Billy Corgan?

  There was some sort of contrivance where I need to get a stamp or something, or I'm not going to be able to do X, Y, or Z.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Okay. You did or I did?

• 1:24:57Billy Corgan?

  You did.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 1:24:58Billy Corgan?

  So we had to go to some.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  It was a contrivance?

• 1:25:02Billy Corgan?

  Not a contrivance in the sense that's why we're walking.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:25:04Billy Corgan?

  That's the, that's the reason we're walking across London.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 1:25:07Billy Corgan?

  That's the contrivance. I'm probably abusing the word. Tell me the right use of the word, please.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  Well, it means when you fake something.

• 1:25:14Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so I'm using it wrong.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  Okay, contrived, right? Contrivance. I'm just saying with your incredible vocabulary.

• 1:25:19Billy Corgan?

  Okay, no, you caught me. That's good.

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:25:21Billy Corgan?

  No, so I don't know what the right word, but that's, that's the reason, that's the.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  A reason.

• 1:25:25Billy Corgan?

  The reason.

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  All right, come down to our level, Corgan.

• 1:25:27Billy Corgan?

  So here we are in the, in the English sun, walking two hours one direction and two hours back the other way.

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I don't remember this at all.

• 1:25:33Billy Corgan?

  It was very long.

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:25:35Billy Corgan?

  So you can imagine two hours this way and two hours that way.

• 1:25:37Speaker 01

  In the sun?

• 1:25:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  That would suck.

• 1:25:39Billy Corgan?

  Arguments, jokes.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  We're jokes.

• 1:25:43Billy Corgan?

  You know, leave me alone. Don't talk to me for 20 minutes. I'm gonna walk ahead of you.

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  Virgin megastar.

• 1:25:49Billy Corgan?

  Somewhere around there.

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:25:50Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so here we are. We're walking and walking, walking. We go to the thing. We go to the passport thing. There's a, there's a beautiful coquettish moment where I, I asked to see your passport and you don't want to let me see it because I'm gonna find out your real name and.

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Was this still like Manelli or something?

• 1:26:06Billy Corgan?

  You're also telling people a different age, which was, which was.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  Well, one does that from the jump, my friend.

• 1:26:12Billy Corgan?

  I busted that you were, you're, I thought we were the same age.

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  No, I'm older. But a woman does that from the jump.

• 1:26:19Billy Corgan?

  Let's put it this way, I figured it out that day.

• 1:26:20Speaker 01

  All right, okay.

• 1:26:21Billy Corgan?

  But here's the beautiful memory, and this is why I want to loop it back into what we're talking about. And I think this has been the most interesting part of our discussion today. We're, we're walking back. We have no money. You're mad at me that I won't buy you cigarettes. You know, and we're so poor.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  I'm still mad. I don't even smoke, but I'm, okay, go on.

• 1:26:40Billy Corgan?

  And we're walking, you know, we're on some high street somewhere and we're walking past the Prada store. And you stop in front of the, the window. And, you know, you're gazing at Prada's current line. True story crossed my heart, okay? And, you know, I'm hot, I'm tired, I'm annoyed, you're mad at me still. And, and so after about a minute of you gazing. I go, come on, let's go. The come on, let's, let's go wasn't just based on let's go. It was like. Why are you staring, you indie girl?

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  Oh, I know why I was staring. I know exactly what happened. I know exactly.

• 1:27:19Billy Corgan?

  Do you remember?

• 1:27:20Speaker 01

  Was it Mary Janes?

• 1:27:22Billy Corgan?

  No, but I'll get to it.

• 1:27:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:27:23Billy Corgan?

  I'm sure, yes, but no.

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  Cause whenever I see those kind of references, stuff that we've done in the culture reflected in mass consumption. I remember in the early, I still am, I get shocked. I get shocked. I'm like, wait, what?

• 1:27:38Billy Corgan?

  Like. No, it wasn't that.

• 1:27:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:27:41Billy Corgan?

  So I'm kind of annoyed because I'm thinking, like, to me, it's the equivalent of me standing outside a Mercedes Benz dealership and looking at the car that I can't afford.

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  Alright, so I'm staring at the Prada store for.

• 1:27:52Billy Corgan?

  And I'm like.

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  I wonder why.

• 1:27:54Billy Corgan?

  We don't have any money for anything.

• 1:27:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:27:56Billy Corgan?

  Food, you know what I mean? Why are you looking at Prada?

• 1:27:59Speaker 01

  I feel guilty, I even.

• 1:28:00Billy Corgan?

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  Okay, go on, go on.

• 1:28:02Billy Corgan?

  This is a, this is one of my favorite stories.

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

  Okay, go.

• 1:28:05Billy Corgan?

  And, and I said, like, something along the lines like, what are you looking at that stuff for? We can't afford it, or you can't afford it. And you go, as you, as only you can do, you go, one day, I'm gonna have it all.

• 1:28:21Speaker 01

  I mean, that is so late stage capitalism.

• 1:28:24Billy Corgan?

  But you knew.

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I always knew, you knew.

• 1:28:27Billy Corgan?

  I didn't know you liked that then.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  No, you knew about yourself, didn't you?

• 1:28:31Billy Corgan?

  But that's different. My thing was more of a, like, you know what they used to call making it.

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  I call it making it.

• 1:28:37Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but my version of making it wasn't your version of making it. Your version of making, you had a lot more, you had a lot more arc in your ambition than I did. I wanted, I wanted to sell out the metro, you know?

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  Oh, no. Did you hear that lyric? There's no business like show business, I know business, I know. Yeah, but there's that in that song, the one you just helped me with. And then I go, you can call us sellouts now. Wait, no, yeah. You could tell, there's no more tickets to the Garden. That's how that song ends.

• 1:29:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  You can call, I forget the rhyme. It's a really good song, too, but um, you, there's no more tickets to the Garden, you can call us sellouts now. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it's a great line.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like, I've been saving that line for a long time. And to put it on what I know is gonna be a wildfire of a song, like, it's gonna go into people's heads. Oh, my God, Revenge of the Nerds.

• 1:29:25Billy Corgan?

  But if we're talking comparative values, right?

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:29Billy Corgan?

  Because your ambition definitely led me to a greater ambition than I had.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah?

• 1:29:32Billy Corgan?

  I'm often accused of being overly ambitious. Your ambition was far greater than mine, and you actually opened me up to see it in a bigger.

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  Do you know what I realized about women and ambition, or even men and ambition? Like, I noticed, I was watching Donald Trump, of all things, in his first term on a Rona Barrett, like, 80s, you know, when he was building, and it was this crazy little dragon, whatever. And I'm no fan of that, guys, but Rona Barrett asks him the word ambition. Like, it's probably the one manner Donald Trump knows, like, the one courtesy he knows, "Don't say the word ambition." And then I went down a rabbit hole. Did Donald Trump ever say the word ambition? He has not. And what I realized about the word ambition is that I learned it from Madonna and the whole, "I'm gonna run the world," and the whole blonde ambition thing. But people think it's rude. They really think it's rude. They think it's rude.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  And honestly, if Donald Trump knows that it's rude from West Point or wherever his father, like, men know, men of a certain age know. I mean, that was my narrative. It was like, oh, my God, you've got Madonna over here. By the way, Trump once called the page six. He's like, "I dated Madonna," just whatever. You've got Madonna over here going, "Blonde ambition is working for her." And then when she's older, it's not cute anymore. People find the word, and I started using that same trope that Madonna had laid down. Like, ambition isn't about, I mean, I was ambitious, for sure, but, like, embracing it publicly, it's rude. People don't like it. They like Oshap's, they like Elvis, my mama, they like apple pie. When you're successful, they really do. And when you're on the way, like, if Donald Trump hid the word ambitious, what the, you know what I mean?

• 1:31:05Speaker 01

  Like, that got my brain. That broke my brain. So, yes, I was crazy ambitious, but people prefer when you hide that.

• 1:31:15Billy Corgan?

  Well, my point was slightly different, but.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Okay, go on.

• 1:31:17Billy Corgan?

  No, it's contributory. So, but my point is, is the gatekeeper indie system, if we had succumbed to that, including your husband.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  Well, we did on album one, you didn't.

• 1:31:29Billy Corgan?

  Sure, but the point is, is at some point, you blew past it, he blew past it.

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:33Billy Corgan?

  And look at the.

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  But you had to get angry enough to blow past it.

• 1:31:36Billy Corgan?

  Sure. First of all, you have to believe in enough for it to be cowed by it. But secondarily, you have to ultimately figure out that it's bullshit to blow past it. And thank God that we all did, and I'm including a bunch of other people in this category, because we would have never made the music and we would be basically forgotten.

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  Think about when R E M got big, and I mean, I didn't know them yet, but like Michael on South Central Rain, would like, he was so freaked out, he turned his back on the audience.

• 1:32:02Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:03Speaker 01

  Like Bono never did that, but Michael did, and also with Green Day. You know, they come out of the gate, right after Kurt died, they were a good mood. They were a good mood. Dookie was a good mood and everybody needed, in that world, needed a good mood. The other thing is a great, um, Harvilla has a great show called Sixty Songs that was playing in the 90s. But by the way, he's at like 150 songs now, but the one on Green Day and Dookie, he played, he goes back to Gilman Street, which is in Berkeley. The number one rule, it was straight up, Gilman Street, it was no major label bands here ever. It was painted on the wall and poor Green Day, I mean, I saw a picture of Billy Joe, I mean, he's from Berkeley. Like, he's got Grateful Dead sticker on the back of their first band. I'm like, no! But he does. Berkeley is a whole milieu. Um, anyway,

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  Robert Villa sourced like their first live show and the bridge of one song is literal Beatles. Like they were obviously Pennywise, like their peers, they were better. And that was apparent from show one, the three of them. And um, with the note, and like Harvilla sourced this tape. So when I first met Billy Joe, um, you know, he wasn't in any position to, to take my side, as it were. Um, that he did, like from day one, and I brought him this Fang record of Kurt's, because it was Bay Area punk and he would appreciate it. And um, you know, we just really got along from day one. But the point being, he was tormented, even in 94, they tormented him. You know, even after everything that happened.

• 1:33:28Billy Corgan?

  He was publicly critical of me, uh, in that same.

• 1:33:31Speaker 01

  But probably he was told to be, Billy, like.

• 1:33:34Billy Corgan?

  But let me, let me, but.

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  We didn't have a lot of character then because we couldn't, you know, like, go on.

• 1:33:38Billy Corgan?

  But no, but because, because I don't want people to twist, twist what I'm saying.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:42Billy Corgan?

  You know, we met, uh, Green Day and I met during the Lollapalooza tour 94, which you were also on with us for, for a hot minute. And we, you know, we don't, you know, I'd be out there playing basketball with the monks and all that.

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  Oh, with that tour, right.

• 1:33:55Billy Corgan?

  And they were the snotty little young band.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  I haven't that tour ever, really?

• 1:33:58Billy Corgan?

  Don't you remember? We took you on tour with us.

• 1:34:00Speaker 01

  Not Lala?

• 1:34:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  Oh, God, I don't remember. Look, if you remember the 90s, you weren't really there, but go on. The monks were on. Oh, I do remember the monks, yes.

• 1:34:08Billy Corgan?

  But the reason we took you on tour, or the reason I asked the band, and the band, to their credit, was totally cool with it. I said, I didn't like the way you were being framed in public as like, you know, this kind of Yoko Ono character. That the story was overwhelming your musical opportunity.

• 1:34:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:24Billy Corgan?

  And I said, and I think I suggested, that's my memory of it, that the best thing for you to do was just get out in front of people and play.

• 1:34:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:31Billy Corgan?

  So we would stop our show.

• 1:34:32Speaker 01

  Saved my life doing that. No matter how I was, it saved my life.

• 1:34:36Billy Corgan?

  So we would stop our show somewhere in the middle, and you would come out and play one or two songs.

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. I don't remember that at all, but thank you.

• 1:34:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:43Speaker 01

  Okay. Sorry, I was on a lot of drugs.

• 1:34:44Billy Corgan?

  But back to Billy Joe at first.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:47Billy Corgan?

  So, you know, you know, it's typical, like, he was saying, everybody was talking.

• 1:34:53Speaker 01

  Teenager, too.

• 1:34:54Billy Corgan?

  God bless.

• 1:34:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:34:55Billy Corgan?

  I mean, look, we've all proven our metal.

• 1:34:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:57Billy Corgan?

  So I have no issue with it. But there's this really beautiful moment where we were playing a bridge school benefit. And, and, you know, so imagine I met.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  I've never, he's never asked me to play him, so, oh, Neil, Neil, if you're out there, I've been listening to Harvest five days straight. Please, God, okay.

• 1:35:16Billy Corgan?

  I don't think they do it anymore.

• 1:35:17Speaker 01

  There's still, there's still a, yeah, Lana just played with Neil recently. Eden told me, and apparently she belted, she belted rock.

• 1:35:25Billy Corgan?

  Oh, God bless.

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:35:27Billy Corgan?

  Anyway, to try to wrap this story up in this, our interview today. So I, you know, I met them on the Lollapalooza tour, and, you know, you're together every day for 40 shows, so you get to know people a little bit.

• 1:35:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:38Billy Corgan?

  And then the next thing I know is, like, Billy's saying negative stuff about me in the press. So I'm playing a bridge school benefit somewhere like 98, 2000, somewhere around there, 98. And I look and I see him, you know, in the backstage area there where the Grateful Dead, the Shoreline, you know, I mean, that's like, you know, they have the dead, the big dead skull.

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:56Billy Corgan?

  Backstage.

• 1:35:56Speaker 01

  I know Shoreline, yeah.

• 1:35:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah. So it's, we're in Grateful Dead.

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  Headed with Lorna, actually.

• 1:36:00Billy Corgan?

  We're, we're in Grateful Dead land and I look across the dressing rooms, all these cabanas, and I look and I see Billy Joe and I think, oh, God, because I'm from Chicago.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  Doesn't it, to me too, every time somebody that's great to you says something mean about you in the press because they feel obligated, like Lanigan did, your heart drops and my heart drops. It's like, wait, what? You are my friend. You are my friend.

• 1:36:20Billy Corgan?

  I don't want to stir up any controversy because Billy and Joe and I are great in my,

• 1:36:23Speaker 01

  I'm saying in general, they all did it to me and a lot of them did it to you. And I mean, I remember a guy from Tool wearing a Free Francis Bean shirt in the 90s. I was like, wait, what? We were friends. Like, like a lot, like, I understand it now that they were obligated to say something or, you know, girl, like, come out with it and just say we're cool. Like, come out with it, right? Like, be man enough to man up because you're the Uber manager that has all the straight males and we're cool, but you won't say it because you're afraid you'll lose your audience? You're afraid you'll affect your relationship with literal Paul McCartney because he's got a friendship with Paul and Paul has, Dave has not the talent of Paul, let's be clear. But they both have the wife haunting dark shadow. They both have the cool guy dying haunting dark tragically,

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  haunting. So they're buddies. Is that why? Like, I really, Dave, it would really behoove me if the straight white males that you are your base, if you will, stop picking on me. Like, the millennials in particular, like Gen Z is not picking on me anymore.

• 1:37:23Billy Corgan?

  And to be.

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  But, you know, your, your heart drops whenever somebody that you're cool with or maybe just remotely cool with. This is you in the press, like, oh, my God, this is still happening?

• 1:37:33Billy Corgan?

  Well, I, I can confirm that I've, you know, I've spent time with you and Dave together and Dave doesn't have any issue with you. So.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Why won't he say that to his base? It's so stupid. Anyway, anyway.

• 1:37:42Billy Corgan?

  No, but what I'm saying is, what I'm saying is, there's the, there's the stuff that goes on behind the castle walls and their stuff goes out front.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, because he needs that image. I mean, he needs.

• 1:37:51Billy Corgan?

  Sure. Well, obviously, obviously.

• 1:37:53Speaker 01

  How many songs has he written? Like, I can't write a song about, I'm just gonna be for a second. Let me. You can cut it or not. I couldn't write a song about Dave Grohl to save my life. If I had to, I'd do the, you know, ASMR thing of like, upload the color. I don't know. Brown, whatever. Um, upload, I'd say the AI upload whatever. You know, and he's written like four songs about me and they're hits. I'm like, wait, what? Like, what about me? Like, I don't get it. Um, particularly at that time when he wrote those songs.

• 1:38:27Billy Corgan?

  You're good to write hits about.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. So, okay, I'll give you a great one. Scott Weiland, my friend.

• 1:38:31Billy Corgan?

  I start to finish my Billy Joe story though.

• 1:38:33Speaker 01

  Scott Weiland, my friend, my drug buddy, my friend. Nothing romantic, just my buddy, right? Saved him from cry help, one's probably to his detriment. But in any event, wrote two songs about me. One's called Too Cool Queenie, something else. And we're buddies and they're mean. And I'm like, Scott, what the you doing? Why are you writing memes? He's like, listen, it's lazy, but you're too good to not write songs about. I'm like, why? Like the suicide blonde thing, the movie star thing and like all the, the fact that you've had. It was crazy. Like, why have you written mean songs about me, Scott? And we were friends. Anyway, go on Billy Joe.

• 1:39:05Billy Corgan?

  Let me finish my Billy Joe.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  Okay, all right, sorry.

• 1:39:08Billy Corgan?

  Uh, I don't want to get into what his criticism was because it ultimately would make him seem hypocritical. And I, I'm not interested in doing it because I like Billy Joe.

• 1:39:16Speaker 01

  I know, I saw, I saw you on here like God bless Irving A's off. I'm like, yeah, no, I put Irving A's off.

• 1:39:21Billy Corgan?

  My wife has become friendly with Billy a bit and, and loves him and is a huge fan of his. So it's like, all is good in the hood. We went on tour with them in 2025.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:39:30Billy Corgan?

  Amazing. I mean, amazing tour. Um, even my praise of them cost me my relationship with Linda Ramon because she didn't like what I said about Green Day and the Ramones. I mean, I've lived it with Green Day in my own kind of interesting.

• 1:39:42Speaker 01

  They're great, man. I think they're great guys.

• 1:39:43Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so we're, we're in agreement on Billy. Billy's one of the great songwriters of our generation.

• 1:39:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Deceptively simple when I was trying to sing that song.

• 1:39:51Billy Corgan?

  Truly, truly a great talent. So if anybody misunderstands what I'm saying, understand that as I sit here right now.

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  Oh, you're so political. Of course you like him and he likes you.

• 1:39:58Billy Corgan?

  No, no, no. What I don't want people to do is twist and create drama where there's no drama.

• 1:40:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:40:02Billy Corgan?

  But I am telling a story about the past.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:40:04Billy Corgan?

  Cause I think it illustrates kind of what we're talking about.

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:40:07Billy Corgan?

  So here, you know, there I am in my little, you know, Victorian mansion in, you know, 94. And, you know, here is, you know, or 95, whatever. And here's Billy Joe criticizing me for whatever. You can look it up if you want.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  I don't want, I don't want, I don't want the, you're, you're like, just.

• 1:40:21Billy Corgan?

  I'll tell you when the camera's off. Anyway, so four or five years later, there I am at Bridge School. You know, Neil's charity event, beautiful event.

• 1:40:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:28Billy Corgan?

  It's just, it's, it's a beautiful Marin County day. You know, I'm backstage in, in, in the shadow of the Grateful Dead skull, which by the way.

• 1:40:34Speaker 01

  We both feel the way about Marin County. I think we both.

• 1:40:36Billy Corgan?

  It's all there and I look.

• 1:40:37Speaker 01

  It's all cedar and it's all upper class.

• 1:40:39Billy Corgan?

  And there I see Billy, there I see Billy and I think, and again, I'm from Chicago. So the Chicago politic is if you see somebody that's been talking smack about you, you have two choices. Choice one is to turn tail and pretend that you didn't see them, but know you've been humiliated on some point.

• 1:40:55Speaker 01

  Sometimes that's happened to me. Yeah.

• 1:40:56Billy Corgan?

  Whether or not they know, or two, you gotta go up and sort of slay the beast where they stand. Doesn't mean it's a fight. It means you're not gonna, you're not gonna take it laying down.

• 1:41:05Speaker 01

  I've done both, but yeah, I feel you.

• 1:41:07Billy Corgan?

  So I'm standing there contemplating. So this is all, all credit to Billy. I'm standing there contemplating whether I want to address the situation because I don't, I'm not gonna take lightly what he said. And he comes up to me and my first reaction is like, oh, this isn't gonna be good.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:41:23Billy Corgan?

  Right. And again, I'm, I'm, I'm right in a, right out of central casting.

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:41:28Billy Corgan?

  I think he's gonna do the snotty, say the punk rock thing. Well, that's what I'm thinking.

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:41:34Billy Corgan?

  And he, he says, I have to tell you that I'm very sorry about what I said.

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  Oh, I love it.

• 1:41:41Billy Corgan?

  And he explained his logic. He explained his regret and I said.

• 1:41:45Speaker 01

  That almost makes me cry. Like he's my kid.

• 1:41:47Billy Corgan?

  But this is, I guess what I'm trying to.

• 1:41:48Speaker 01

  He's around my age, but I still feel like he's my kid.

• 1:41:50Billy Corgan?

  This is what I'm trying to say, and this is what I think's more valuable. And this is where part of our haranguing today is castigating the indie rock system of the nineties and its bullying and its perniciousness, particularly in its bullying of you, which to a certain extent continues, mine less so, but it's there.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  I could give a about how it continues. Like I'm over it.

• 1:42:09Billy Corgan?

  Well, when you win, there's nothing to crow about. We won.

• 1:42:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:12Billy Corgan?

  Okay. But it, it doesn't mean it didn't hurt at the time.

• 1:42:16Speaker 01

  I mean, it doesn't mean it didn't scar.

• 1:42:17Billy Corgan?

  Okay. But the point is, is that when we really look at our generation, our shared generation, I think this is a good place to end.

• 1:42:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:42:24Billy Corgan?

  And we'll pick it up some other time because there's so much more to talk.

• 1:42:27Speaker 01

  Class traitor thing, like how would they know my class of just all sorts of places?

• 1:42:31Billy Corgan?

  Maybe not in front of a camera.

• 1:42:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe not.

• 1:42:34Billy Corgan?

  But here's the point I'm trying to make.

• 1:42:38Billy Corgan?

  If you look at the records the snobs made versus the records that the ones who got past the snobbery made, or who didn't give a [bleep] from the beginning,

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  Or the hunger.

• 1:42:46Billy Corgan?

  Or the hunger. Okay, you stack, let's call it, the non hipster records in one pile, and the hipster records in another, and it's like, it's like this.

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  It's class. That's crazy. You've changed my world, Billy Corcoran. As always.

• 1:43:02Billy Corgan?

  So, so the obsession, you know, the malchmist obsession with me 35 years later belies a certain point, which is, A, they didn't have the chops to get there, or B, they accepted a worldview which was ultimately limiting to their talent.

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  I think that the second one is the generous one. And I think it's, um,

• 1:43:21Billy Corgan?

  I'm trying to be nice.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  I know, but I think we can afford generosity. I think we can afford it at this point. Like, we may be scarred by that.

• 1:43:26Billy Corgan?

  That's very Shakespearean of you.

• 1:43:27Speaker 01

  I mean, there we go. There we go. Hamlet and Hamlet having a talk. I love you, man. All right.