Dave Davies (The KInks)| The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Billy Corgan sits down with Dave Davies, the pioneering guitarist/co-founder of The Kinks and one of the architects of distorted hard rock. From the raw explosion of “You Really Got Me” to the emotional genius of Ray Davies, Dave reflects on growing up poor in postwar England, discovering Little Richard and blues music, surviving fame in the ‘60s, and helping create one of the most influential bands in rock history. The episode dives into brotherhood, creativity, spirituality, and the magic behind songs like “Waterloo Sunset,” “See My Friends,” and “I’m Not Like Everybody Else.” Dave opens up about his spiritual awakening, the band’s chaotic early years, his relationship with Ray, and why love, not fame or success, is ultimately what matters. There are also incredible stories about Eddie Van Halen, British Invasion chaos, guitar experimentation, and the creation of some of rock’s most enduring records THE RATS IN A CAGE TOUR: ' A One-of-a-Kind Show Featuring Two Distinct Sets Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness Plus Nearly Four Decades Of Hits And Dark Treasures. Tickets On Sale Here: https://smashingpumpkins.com 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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• 1:09Speaker 01

  You know, the Kinks is an enigma, why, you know, why it's that the people shouldn't even be in a band.

• 1:20Billy Corgan?

  Maybe that's part of it. That's kind of what I'm after.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  I mean, it was so spontaneous that we didn't realize what we'd be doing.

• 1:28Billy Corgan?

  But the thing is, is when you look at your brother's writing, there's been no other writer ever like him.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  To be honest, it was magical, really. And like, he could write anything.

• 1:41Billy Corgan?

  I get the sense as a fan, there's only love.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  And I'm just getting emotional thinking about it.

• 1:48Billy Corgan?

  I know you know the mythology of who played the solo on You Really Got Me, you know?

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Well, of course I did.

• 1:55Billy Corgan?

  Who was the wildest?

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Well, I was.

• 1:59Billy Corgan?

  Dave Davies, thank you for being on my podcast.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  It's great. I'm very privileged to be here.

• 2:07Billy Corgan?

  Thank you. So here we are. It's 30th Street Guitars. Yes, you're friends of yours, right?

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great.

• 2:14Billy Corgan?

  Here in New York.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Guitar.

• 2:17Billy Corgan?

  But as soon as I walked in, I wanted to spend money.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Yes, like you do, but.

• 2:21Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so here's the secret nerd question. We'll start here. Do you still have your 60s Flying V?

• 2:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  No, I don't. I don't keep my guitar.

• 2:32Billy Corgan?

  Really? Are you not sentimental?

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Because if I get sentimental, I get too attached.

• 2:40Billy Corgan?

  I get it.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  Coveting. I covet.

• 2:46Billy Corgan?

  So I'm terrible. I don't want to get rid of anything.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  And it's terrible.

• 2:50Billy Corgan?

  I want your Flying V too. You know what I mean? It's like, it's not enough for me to have my guitars. I want your guitars too.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can have it. I don't want to.

• 2:57Billy Corgan?

  God bless. We'll find it. Okay. Correct me if I'm wrong. Last time you played with your brother Ray, 2015. Last time you did a solo concert was 2018, approximately. Close enough, yeah. And the last official kink show was 1996 in Oslo. Oh, you dropped your mic. You're such, you're still a rock and roller, you seem.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  How am I doing? Is it, is it working?

• 3:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 3:25Billy Corgan?

  It's, it's relaxed. It's like cable access, like maybe one step up. Thank you for being on my cable access show. Okay.

• 3:36Billy Corgan?

  This is an unfair question. But looking back over so much music and so many concerts and is there, is there something that you, do you feel pride? Do you feel like I would have done it differently? Is there a way you can sort of sum up?

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Oh, no, it's impossible.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  You can't sum up 30 years, 60 years.

• 3:57Billy Corgan?

  Yes, 60 years.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  30 years. You can't sum up.

• 4:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  That many years playing. It's too crazy. And there's too much stuff because you think of one thing and then you think, oh, hang on, there was something else. It's too much. Too much stuff.

• 4:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I'm sure you have that experience where people come up and say, I saw you here and this thing happened and it's like, you know you were there, but you have no memory of it because you've done so much, it's hard to remember it all.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  It's you can't even remember what you played.

• 4:37Billy Corgan?

  On the V, on the V, on the V.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  It was hard, it's difficult to get guitar to play on anyway.

• 4:47Billy Corgan?

  Was it?

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I thought it's fun.

• 4:49Billy Corgan?

  But you looked fantastic playing it.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:51Billy Corgan?

  And you know, with guitar, looking good is half the battle.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:55Billy Corgan?

  Okay. Uh, a little biography, short, uh, born February 3rd, 1947.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 5:02Billy Corgan?

  Muswell Hill.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Good.

• 5:04Billy Corgan?

  Youngest of eight.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:06Billy Corgan?

  That's a lot of children. Was everyone as headstrong as you and your brother in the family?

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Thing is, we were a poor family. A lot of people and a lot of women. It was great growing up as all these equipment and Ray was kind of sulky in the back, but it was great.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  And I was thrown out of school. I was a terrible pupil. I was really bad at school. And I didn't like being talked down to.

• 5:40Billy Corgan?

  Ah, at school.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  At school, yeah.

• 5:43Billy Corgan?

  But didn't you get thrown out for a sexual indiscretion? Is that true?

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did.

• 5:47Billy Corgan?

  We don't have to, we don't have to belabor that.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  I did, you know, unfortunately, and it was a time when it wasn't very, um, bod- modest.

• 5:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, no one would blink.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  No, no, it was very glassy.

• 6:03Billy Corgan?

  Yes, you got a young woman pregnant and.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and.

• 6:07Billy Corgan?

  As you do, you know.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  But then it was terrible.

• 6:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  I was like, hmm.

• 6:12Billy Corgan?

  Control.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Um, it was fun. I had a great time as a young man and I didn't know how old I was. When I'm being young.

• 6:24Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  It was a blast. Yeah, it was all a blast. I don't remember.

• 6:32Billy Corgan?

  Okay, well, we'll try to, we'll try to touch a couple.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:35Billy Corgan?

  Um, we all grew up with music around us. It's on the radio, it's on television, whatever. But when's the first time music spoke to you directly and you thought, okay, that?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  I know this. It was. Good golly, Miss Molly.

• 6:55Billy Corgan?

  Say it one more time.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Good golly, Miss.

• 6:57Billy Corgan?

  Oh, good golly, Miss, Little Richard.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  And, um. I was a transfixed.

• 7:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Was it a television or a radio or?

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Radio.

• 7:08Billy Corgan?

  Ah, yeah, that sound, even today, that sound.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Is awesome.

• 7:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it's overdriven. Yeah, everything is distorted.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Oh, it's so good.

• 7:17Billy Corgan?

  Did you ever hear the story of the room they recorded that in? You ever know?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  No, tell me.

• 7:22Billy Corgan?

  So apparently it was, I think, a studio in New Orleans.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:25Billy Corgan?

  And it was just, you know, like a lot of studios back then, very makeshift. And there were carpets on the walls to protect the sound. So it was a sweltering hot room.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 7:35Billy Corgan?

  And everything was just jacked to hell. And that's that sound.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  That sound.

• 7:39Billy Corgan?

  And there you are.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the thing is, it was that sound that got me going.

• 7:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  And I had to not copy it, but I was inspired.

• 7:50Billy Corgan?

  The feeling of the sound, yeah.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  And the feeling was incredible. And another record was, um, High School Confidential.

• 8:00Billy Corgan?

  Bill Haley?

• 8:01Speaker 01

  No. It's none. It was, um, in the wish.

• 8:09Billy Corgan?

  Oh, it was also Little Richard, yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  It was, ah, hell. I can't remember the bloody.

• 8:16Billy Corgan?

  She's looking at you. High School Confidential. Is that, wait?

• 8:19Speaker 01

  High School Confidential was.

• 8:23Billy Corgan?

  Eddie Cochran?

• 8:24Speaker 01

  No. I can't believe it.

• 8:29Billy Corgan?

  We'll get, we'll get, we'll get our Jerry Lee Lewis.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Jerry, Jerry Lewis. Yes, it was him.

• 8:35Billy Corgan?

  So what, so piano, see, you're not listening to guitar, you're listening to piano.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, people weren't playing guitar.

• 8:43Billy Corgan?

  Ah, and if they were, it was like, yeah, simple, yeah.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  And, but, um. I didn't like the piano.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  And because too many notes.

• 8:56Billy Corgan?

  Too many notes, yeah.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I I want somebody who can play quick.

• 9:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  And so guitar was obvious.

• 9:03Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Because um you can, you know, you could just hit a few things quickly.

• 9:09Billy Corgan?

  Sound cool.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  I was like, okay, I finished. I finished that now.

• 9:14Billy Corgan?

  Um.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  And what it was a a life of of lonely, how to play.

• 9:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Playing guitar.

• 9:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, you you never stop learning on the guitar.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 9:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Never, never.

• 9:29Billy Corgan?

  Um.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  I don't know what we're doing.

• 9:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but that's the beauty.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  And but I think beauty is as well, and I think Ray won't realize this, but I think it was the fact that we were brothers.

• 9:42Billy Corgan?

  Uh.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  And we helped each other.

• 9:45Billy Corgan?

  Uh.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  He thinks of something and I think.

• 9:47Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  And we first just suppose.

• 9:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  The star.

• 9:55Billy Corgan?

  Do you, you know, people presume things about brothers that are musicians, but do you think you guys had almost like a telepathic kind of understanding?

• 10:04Speaker 01

  It's so telepathic.

• 10:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  It's unbelievable. And like when you're not on or plugged in.

• 10:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  You don't know.

• 10:12Billy Corgan?

  I certainly love the sound of your guys' voice together. Cause you've got kind of a higher.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  I got higher.

• 10:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but such a beautiful sound of you guys together.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. And it was um what was it? And we didn't have any time.

• 10:28Billy Corgan?

  No, not back then.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 10:30Billy Corgan?

  Go you go in what for like a two, three hour session, right?

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, we get it done quick.

• 10:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Yeah, play live.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 10:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that was it.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Oh, it didn't work live, but wasn't gonna work.

• 10:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  You had to.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  That was awesome.

• 10:45Billy Corgan?

  There's a lot of the great English bands were influenced on some level by the atmosphere in Britain of post-war life, the the poverty, the the rationing, the, you know, living with, living with blown out homes, still with, you know, crevices in the ground. Did you grow up in all that?

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, unfortunately, unfortunately, we did. And but I think it helps helps us because we.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  We're in a small house, there's a lot of us, and the girls are great because all the girls sing.

• 11:24Billy Corgan?

  Ah.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  And they all contributed to the sound.

• 11:28Billy Corgan?

  Oh, interesting.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  We didn't, we didn't know what we were doing.

• 11:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  But um, they go, we'll see, sing this or sing that. Oh, yeah, I mean, it was so spontaneous.

• 11:40Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  That we didn't realize what we'd be doing.

• 11:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  And Ryan was crafting is all very carefully.

• 11:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Ryan, Ryan was a genius, uh, at very young age.

• 11:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  And so I don't know how it it came out. I don't know how music came out.

• 12:02Billy Corgan?

  Well, we have, we have sixty years of evidence to, but, but the thing is, is when you look at your brother's writing, there's been no other writer ever like him. Like you can imitate.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  To be honest, it it was magical, really.

• 12:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  And like he could write anything. It seemed like when we wrote, the first thing he wrote was the first thing he wrote was, he really got me. And it happened so quickly.

• 12:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  It was like, ah, do it, do it now. And we did it.

• 12:37Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Then it was then now time.

• 12:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  I don't know how we did it.

• 12:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  But then we did it and then we kept doing it. But I think that it's because of the brother thing.

• 12:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  That.

• 12:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  It helped. I don't know how, but it does, does work.

• 12:58Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Um, just a quick diversion.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:02Billy Corgan?

  Were you, were you a skiffle guy? Were you into the skiffle thing? Or how do you feel about skiffle?

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Beginning, I liked. The sound of of um the blues.

• 13:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  I liked the.

• 13:12Billy Corgan?

  Was it more blues or skiffle or the combination?

• 13:15Speaker 01

  I think I liked the skiffle because it was funny. Yeah, the humor to it.

• 13:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  And that was funny, that's fun.

• 13:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Blues was more serious.

• 13:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, absolutely, especially all the American musicians coming over.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Music, we come from America.

• 13:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  It's like outrageous.

• 13:34Billy Corgan?

  Well, as you know, a lot of the blues musicians, which came from my hometown in Chicago.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Um, yes.

• 13:38Billy Corgan?

  But they were treated better in Europe than they were treated in America in a very horribly racist atmosphere.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:44Billy Corgan?

  So they would come back to Chicago and say, I was just over there treated like a king.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:49Billy Corgan?

  You know, and of course.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  I mean, I mean, I loved all the blues guys.

• 13:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Really, and I can't even.

• 13:55Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  You said, listen, every thing.

• 13:58Billy Corgan?

  Especially the sound of the chess records. Again, that sort of distorted.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:02Billy Corgan?

  Uh, hyped up drums.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Records were really dirty.

• 14:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  I see, yeah.

• 14:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  And like, yeah, it's.

• 14:10Billy Corgan?

  Have you ever been to Chess Studios in Chicago?

• 14:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:13Billy Corgan?

  It's still there, you know, it's not a functioning studio really anymore, but the but the room is still there. And you could still this, you know, very cheap plaster boards on the wall.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 14:22Billy Corgan?

  It's kind of almost like a little barn. It's sort of a long.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 14:25Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah. And.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  I definitely, I'm gonna go.

• 14:28Billy Corgan?

  You should. Um.

• 14:32Billy Corgan?

  Signing with Pie Records, Shell Tommy.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:35Billy Corgan?

  Your original producer.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:37Billy Corgan?

  And also also kind of a visionary. I know you guys were young and you were sort of figuring out.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Didn't know what we were doing.

• 14:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  But Shell was very gracious.

• 14:48Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  And he's very kind, which I kind of support. This can't be bad.

• 14:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Because the record company wanted to do, can't do it, do it.

• 14:59Billy Corgan?

  Hurry, yeah. Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  And just do it quick, do it quick. And um.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  It was gracious.

• 15:08Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  And it helped us.

• 15:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Through.

• 15:13Billy Corgan?

  He seemed to be, you tell me, but he seemed to be a producer to seem to be able to capture the spirit of the band on record.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  I think he did, although we didn't know it.

• 15:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah. But those records hold up so well, they capture the like the lightning in a bottle feeling.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:30Billy Corgan?

  And even early Who, same thing.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  They do.

• 15:32Billy Corgan?

  He was good with that.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  We did it very quickly.

• 15:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  And like lightning as ball.

• 15:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  But.

• 15:40Billy Corgan?

  So when you, I signed a pie, Donovan was on the label and Ronnie Donigan.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Ronnie Donigan was a great influence.

• 15:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  A really great influence. I don't take enough credit, it's ever given to Ronnie Donigan. Cause he came up with some, he had.

• 16:02Billy Corgan?

  Like almost like a Woody Guthrie.

• 16:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  A nasal sound that we ran on last.

• 16:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  And put non agony, put non star.

• 16:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  It was. And how he came up with these sounds.

• 16:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Long and you know.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Ronnie was quite loved and.

• 16:29Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so first single, Long Tall Sally.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:33Billy Corgan?

  Didn't really do too well.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  It was.

• 16:35Billy Corgan?

  Second single, You Still Want Me.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  So.

• 16:39Billy Corgan?

  And then.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:41Billy Corgan?

  But then you really got me.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  You really.

• 16:42Billy Corgan?

  And then. Like a rocket ship.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Well, then you really got me when you, we didn't, before he was playing piano, he was writing on the piano.

• 16:51Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  And, um, and I thought I played guitar because I didn't really know the chords on the piano on the guitar.

• 17:02Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  I was playing three bar chords.

• 17:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  We said, well, no, he was playing.

• 17:08Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  And so, and even the inversions were.

• 17:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:16Billy Corgan?

  Well, one, five, one, right?

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's just wonderful.

• 17:20Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  And, um. I found that neither way to laugh, because I could play all the way up bridge.

• 17:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  And it was a lot easier for me.

• 17:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  But I didn't realize that was crazy.

• 17:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Incredible song.

• 17:38Billy Corgan?

  So, um, I know you know the mythology of who played the solo on You Really Got Me, you know?

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Well, of course I did.

• 17:46Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  But the thing is, I didn't even know what I was doing. I really didn't know what I was doing.

• 17:52Billy Corgan?

  Isn't there some sort?

• 17:53Speaker 01

  If anybody could play it like that, they must be crazy.

• 17:57Billy Corgan?

  But isn't there a story where like, something like during the recording, Ray looks at you and goes, oh, come on?

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did. He did. And it was pretty piss me off.

• 18:07Billy Corgan?

  But it got your blood going, you see?

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yes, it did, you see? And so I swore on my mind to get it out.

• 18:20Billy Corgan?

  But what a great solo.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 18:21Billy Corgan?

  Launched a thousand, lots of thousand ships.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  It did.

• 18:26Billy Corgan?

  So, from a, from a, because you played so distinctively, would you agree with that?

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Um, oh, absolutely.

• 18:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Because.

• 18:36Billy Corgan?

  Was it more because you didn't know what you were doing, you sort of developed your own style? You weren't trying to necessarily emulate other.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  I was, obviously I didn't know what I was doing, but I tried to carve it around what I'd heard.

• 18:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Which there wasn't anything really that I heard.

• 18:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  So it was really make, make it up as you go along.

• 19:02Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  And there was anything to listen to.

• 19:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  And there wasn't, you know?

• 19:08Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, because really before you, there's no one who plays like you. And then often imitated after since.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  The record company didn't want to put the record out.

• 19:21Billy Corgan?

  Because of course they did. It's classic record company.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  What's up?

• 19:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  And um, and thankfully for Ray being sister. That you really got me got released and because it wasn't done.

• 19:39Billy Corgan?

  Well, how were the man, did the managers agree with, obviously they agreed with you at some point, but they were.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  The management did eventually.

• 19:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  But the people in the back.

• 19:50Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  In background, background.

• 19:53Billy Corgan?

  The bean counters.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:55Billy Corgan?

  Um, you were there, but I, I, I have to read this list. It's a short list. So after this breakthrough, all day and all of the night, tired of waiting. Everybody's going to be happy. Set me free. See my friends, a well-respected man of fashion till the end of the day. Dedicated follower of fashion, sunny afternoon, dandy, dead end street, Waterloo sunset. That's, that's a.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  There's some.

• 20:21Billy Corgan?

  There's a couple more in there, but that's a pretty good.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Start.

• 20:25Billy Corgan?

  That's a pretty good start. Yeah. You, you did, you did well, young man.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  But, you know, if I'd have been any younger, I would have known what to.

• 20:34Billy Corgan?

  That's right. You were seventeen when you got signed to Pi, right?

• 20:37Speaker 01

  That's right, yeah.

• 20:38Billy Corgan?

  Seventeen.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Amazing. I thought.

• 20:41Billy Corgan?

  Were you, were you a well behaved seventeen or were you a?

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 20:45Billy Corgan?

  Terrible. I love it.

• 20:50Billy Corgan?

  But when's the first time you noticed like? It's one thing to say, I know my brother's talented, but it's another thing to think like, whoa, he's this, cause if you listen to the first.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  I didn't.

• 21:00Billy Corgan?

  Year of the Kinks records.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 21:02Billy Corgan?

  The sophistication starts to come out.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  It comes up very early.

• 21:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but it, but it's like, it's sort of shocking from a writer point of view that he's suddenly there.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's different because he was right. So, you know, I said, oh yeah, sure. You take it for granted.

• 21:18Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  And, oh yeah, sure. You expect him to do it.

• 21:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  I mean, if he wasn't doing it, we'd be shocked.

• 21:27Billy Corgan?

  Was there a song back then that like? Like of those songs where you thought, oh, wow, I can't believe you wrote this and I can't believe.

• 21:35Billy Corgan?

  Is there anything that jumps out?

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, what was Sunset was um was earlier when we before we had any heavy heavy songs. But um what it listens to, yeah, it was a

• 21:50Billy Corgan?

  Such a

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Pretty

• 21:51Billy Corgan?

  Such a one of a kind song.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:53Billy Corgan?

  Even for your band.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  It was

• 21:55Billy Corgan?

  There's almost no other song that's like that song.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  No song at all, even we had a amazing. Oh, I can't I

• 22:06Billy Corgan?

  Shalala.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 22:10Billy Corgan?

  Right?

• 22:11Speaker 01

  It's making me think of these songs. I don't know how we did it.

• 22:15Billy Corgan?

  It's kind of magical, right?

• 22:17Speaker 01

  I'm glad we didn't didn't think too much about.

• 22:20Billy Corgan?

  Maybe that's part of it. That's kind of what I'm after.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:22Billy Corgan?

  For you, it was just another week or couple of weeks in your life.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:26Billy Corgan?

  But here we are still talking about it, still listening.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:29Billy Corgan?

  That's the beauty of it.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 22:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  That so much has come out of that era.

• 22:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  It's phenomenal. Um, yeah. That was incredible. Uh, he played records today in a I mean, so.

• 22:50Billy Corgan?

  Okay, Death of a Clown nineteen sixty seven.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:53Billy Corgan?

  That's your big.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  That's my

• 22:55Billy Corgan?

  Your big moment. You're

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's

• 22:57Billy Corgan?

  You're gonna bust out of the van.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Just, uh, you know, maybe just, uh, no.

• 23:02Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. But did you, did you? I ne- I never got the feeling that you were looking to be on your own as opposed to you were maybe interested in doing other stuff. But it ever felt like you wanted to leave the band this.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  No, I didn't.

• 23:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  I feel like that too, but obviously I was enjoying writing.

• 23:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Because Ray was doing all the writing.

• 23:25Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  And I was just doubling doubling really.

• 23:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  And a few songs and

• 23:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  And but Um, Death of a Clown was really a big theme for me.

• 23:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Did Ray write the lyrics? Did you write the lyrics together or?

• 23:42Speaker 01

  No, I wrote lyrics and he kind of poised a little bit.

• 23:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Such a bit what about?

• 23:50Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  What about? And which made it easier.

• 23:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Uh, my makeup is dry and it cracks around my chin. I'm drowning my sorrows in whiskey and gin. The lion tamer's whip doesn't crack anymore. The lions, they won't fight and the tigers won't roar.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Well, that should have, it was based on a, a, a idea I had. Well, I was always scared of clowns and I was always worried that I was. You wrote a song about a clown. It's a horrible finding.

• 24:25Billy Corgan?

  As you know, where I grew up in Chicago, we had the serial killer clown.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 24:29Billy Corgan?

  John Wayne Gacy, yeah.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 24:30Billy Corgan?

  When I was a little boy.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  I met him.

• 24:32Billy Corgan?

  You met John Wayne Gacy?

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yes. He was so nice. I just couldn't believe it.

• 24:40Billy Corgan?

  How do you know that you met him? Is there a picture somewhere?

• 24:42Speaker 01

  No, somebody told me that he was invited us to the party.

• 24:47Billy Corgan?

  Ah.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  They gave that night. But I didn't know who it was.

• 24:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Thank God.

• 24:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Well, there I was in the suburbs, quaking in my basement. Because we were, we didn't know he was a clown yet, but we heard there was a killer on the loose.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, but I was scared of him.

• 25:05Billy Corgan?

  Rightly so.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  And, um, yeah, obviously. But, um, I think I got put to music and it was okay.

• 25:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So the infamous album that never was Hole in the Sock of, is that, is that?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Oh, it's just a man.

• 25:22Billy Corgan?

  Like a, like a silly thing.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Something like that.

• 25:24Billy Corgan?

  Um, but I thought it was interesting because Death of a Clown comes out and you have success with that. And then the band releases Autumn Almanac, which is an amazing song.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Yes. Even now, if you listen to it, you think, well, how did that come from?

• 25:40Billy Corgan?

  Right?

• 25:41Speaker 01

  It's such an un-thought. It's phenomenal.

• 25:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but it's, it's, I love it has a certain atmosphere that's hard to.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Oh, it's, when we're making it, we went in awe of it. Because it was, it spoke to me in a, in a certain way.

• 25:58Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  There was, can't let this go.

• 26:02Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I see.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Can't let it go. And it had a, an incredible feeling about.

• 26:08Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. It's like a shuffle, right? Do, do, do, do.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. It's a call.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  It's, it's really, it's funny you mention that song. It's quite an autumn song. And I think, how old was I? Seventeen, I say. Had on that meeting.

• 26:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, at that point, you would have been, gosh, twenty.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:31Billy Corgan?

  Right?

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:32Billy Corgan?

  But still.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. But, um.

• 26:34Billy Corgan?

  I mean, my first album came out when I was twenty four, just to give you some perspective. So I wouldn't have been able to handle the success that you had at twenty. There's no way.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  I fluffed my way through.

• 26:45Billy Corgan?

  You did well, young man. And then, uh, Susanna's still alive, back to you again. And then.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  And the things of Susanna, I couldn't write about Susanna because I fell in love at a very young age with a girl called Susan.

• 27:03Billy Corgan?

  Oh.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  And so it was easy for me to write about.

• 27:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Someone called Susanna or Susan.

• 27:10Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  And it came.

• 27:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Really.

• 27:13Billy Corgan?

  Beautiful song, yeah.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, um, I don't know, stick down.

• 27:18Billy Corgan?

  But, uh, but is it, so correct me if I'm wrong. Uh, Lincoln country was the, like, the next solo.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  County, yeah.

• 27:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. And, and is that why the record company got cold feet on you doing a solo record? Is that true or not true? Do you remember that?

• 27:33Speaker 01

  No, it's because, um, I suppose Lincoln County, no, is it Lincoln County?

• 27:42Billy Corgan?

  Is it county or country?

• 27:42Speaker 01

  County.

• 27:43Billy Corgan?

  Oh, my bad, yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  And, um, it was, you know, uh, I'm turning around what happened.

• 27:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. The, the, the mythology is that you had success with Death of a Clown. You started making a solo record. Obviously, the band was involved, the band's playing on the record, Ray's helping you.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:02Billy Corgan?

  You know?

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:03Billy Corgan?

  And then the, the story is, and as the mythology goes, is that the Lincoln County song was where they got cold feet? And then it kind of showed.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 28:13Billy Corgan?

  Okay, well, I'm asking you, you were there, you.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I don't remember that.

• 28:16Billy Corgan?

  You don't remember, yeah.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  But that's first.

• 28:18Billy Corgan?

  But did you, did you, do you feel, looking back, you wish you'd made a solo album at that time? Are you okay with?

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was glad to get anything out, really.

• 28:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  And Lincoln County, I thought was fantastic. I thought it was great.

• 28:33Billy Corgan?

  Cool song.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  And, um. I nearly took the rough for the smooth.

• 28:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  And we then we go and do something else. You know, they go into another record.

• 28:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, and another tour and you're just moving on. Yeah.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  And just like.

• 28:50Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  And we were doing, we were recording so much during that time.

• 28:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  So.

• 28:58Billy Corgan?

  You guys recorded a lot. For a band of your time, you seem to record more than other bands.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Yes, that's true. And we did. And, uh, uh, and we did. We did a lot of recording.

• 29:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fine. We did.

• 29:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. How long would it, would you go in for?

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Laughing because I said it ridiculous.

• 29:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  We did, yeah.

• 29:21Billy Corgan?

  But was it because maybe Ry was, Ray was writing so much?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Ray was, was writing, writing. He started to write and then write and then write.

• 29:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  And then.

• 29:32Billy Corgan?

  Well, but the play was having hits with other people too, right?

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Yes, he was. He was writing for, um, was it? No, who was he writing for?

• 29:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, no, that, yeah, I'm on the spot too. I know who he wrote for, but I can't remember. But there were, but there were even hits where they were covered, people were covering Kinks songs.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Um.

• 29:49Billy Corgan?

  I think the guest, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the grassroots, I think, did I'm Not Like Everybody Else.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Did they?

• 29:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah. Ear- early grassroots before they had songs like Midnight Confessions.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, that's right.

• 30:03Billy Corgan?

  They, early, early, uh, grassroots did a cover of I'm Not Like Everybody Else.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Oh, that's one of my favorite. It's one of my favorite songs.

• 30:12Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  One of my.

• 30:13Billy Corgan?

  Not a bad one.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:16Billy Corgan?

  Um, okay.

• 30:19Billy Corgan?

  You answer this question however you like, please. Uh, the band's reputation is a brawling, raucous.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  When we were, while we were kids, I was very.

• 30:29Billy Corgan?

  Who was the wildest?

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Well, I was because, uh.

• 30:33Billy Corgan?

  I read your book, by the way, so I.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  But thing is.

• 30:37Billy Corgan?

  Yes. I know how wild you were, so.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  But I was very wild, you know, I, you know, I wanted to get on to the next days. I was always what's next.

• 30:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  And.

• 30:55Billy Corgan?

  Is that just your personality?

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:56Billy Corgan?

  Kind of always.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and starting that right, wasn't I? What the, what is it? And like it was, and it was important for the writing. I answered the, the, you know.

• 31:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, you seemed, you seemed in the time to have good relationships with a lot of the other artists. Is that true?

• 31:18Speaker 01

  Well, um.

• 31:20Billy Corgan?

  Is that just because you were hanging out and people got to know you?

• 31:22Speaker 01

  I really got on well with Brian Jones.

• 31:26Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  And he was, because he was really kind of cool.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  And he was, was very nice. I, I did love him very much.

• 31:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  And we, it was like, we thought that we were supposed to be like this.

• 31:50Billy Corgan?

  Dandies. Dandies, right? Kind of dressing the part and.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  In the part, great looking.

• 31:58Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Ruffled feather, ruffled shirts.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, we thought.

• 32:03Billy Corgan?

  Your handmade coats, right? It's these kind of beautiful.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  And Brian, we dressed so well. And I love dressing up and I'm.

• 32:14Billy Corgan?

  You're still a good.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  What?

• 32:15Billy Corgan?

  You're dressed better than I am. I mean, you're still, you're still working. You're still working.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  And I, I loved it, just dressing up and.

• 32:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but was also we know.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  It was almost, it was a part of the scene, man.

• 32:32Billy Corgan?

  But, but looking back now, we, we realized that was a very magical time for culture, for music, for sexuality, for a lot of things.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Yes, for, yeah, a lot of things.

• 32:42Billy Corgan?

  And there you were.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Sexuality and, and, and sexuality was important as well.

• 32:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  You know, it was, it was like, oh, I'm a trialist. I know it sounds really gross, but, you know, we, we experimented.

• 33:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  We experimented with each other.

• 33:03Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  And learning and, and, and it was a very great time.

• 33:09Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. You seem like you had fun.

• 33:14Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 33:17Billy Corgan?

  How did you feel when bands started imitating the Kinks? For example, the Trogs come to mind. I mean, Wild Thing is basically. Yeah, but I mean the.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  It was great.

• 33:28Billy Corgan?

  You liked it?

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Fun, I did. And then I got used to it and thought, well, hang on. That's was a little bit like you really got me.

• 33:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:39Billy Corgan?

  So you were cool with it? You thought it was fun? Yeah, yeah.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  And when I had, years later, when I heard the, who was it?

• 33:52Billy Corgan?

  Somebody imitating you guys?

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it was a great band.

• 33:57Billy Corgan?

  You're talking about Van Halen?

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, Van Halen.

• 33:59Billy Corgan?

  Van Halen, yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Van Halen did it. And I thought, doesn't he know it's already been out?

• 34:06Billy Corgan?

  Well, they covered two of your songs.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:10Billy Corgan?

  You Really Got Me and Where Have All The Good Times Gone?

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Flashy kind of first one.

• 34:14Billy Corgan?

  Won't you tell me? Do, do, do, do, do. They almost like more R and B. If you think about it.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was.

• 34:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Did you ever meet Eddie Van Halen?

• 34:23Speaker 01

  No, certainly not.

• 34:25Billy Corgan?

  He was great.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Oh, it's enough to imagine, really.

• 34:27Billy Corgan?

  What a guitar player.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, it's amazing. Why, why would they copy of Kornia Record, of course?

• 34:36Billy Corgan?

  Because they love the record.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:37Billy Corgan?

  But I interviewed Eddie once at his home studio. And I was, he was as far away from me as you are. And watching him play like from this far away, I was like. He made it look so. It was crazy. It was just like somebody, and he would talk the whole time. So he's playing like the hardest you'd ever play. And he's talking the whole time. And you're like. And then he goes to me. You try. And he hands me a guitar.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 35:09Billy Corgan?

  I want to see you play. I'm like, what do you play?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  What did they?

• 35:12Billy Corgan?

  I should have played You Really Got Me.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, should have done.

• 35:17Billy Corgan?

  So. A big part of the band's story is you guys don't tour the US for about five or six years because of something with the unions.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:27Billy Corgan?

  Some kind of.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  I still don't know.

• 35:30Billy Corgan?

  Something probably with the unions.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  But the unions were a bit strict then.

• 35:35Billy Corgan?

  Well, back then, the unions were tied in with the mob.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Well, that's.

• 35:38Billy Corgan?

  Every city was wired. Well, it's true. Every city back then, because my father was a musician back then, so I heard all the stories. The mob and the unions were all tied together. So if you didn't pay the right people or pay the right respect. So it might have not even been anything you guys did.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Did.

• 35:53Billy Corgan?

  It might have been a promoter. It might have been something.

• 35:58Billy Corgan?

  A manager that didn't pay somebody in a paper bag.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Awful. Well, the tour was hot time.

• 36:04Billy Corgan?

  Well, it must have been hard because those are pretty good years to be in America.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we got banned from America.

• 36:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, for a while, yeah.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  And we didn't. And to be honest, we went to the studios to do.

• 36:19Billy Corgan?

  Moswell Hillbillies.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  No, it was, um, ah, no, I forget. What?

• 36:24Billy Corgan?

  Arthur? Arthur?

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Arthur, we're doing Arthur.

• 36:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  And, um, we kind of thought that it might be a lot album.

• 36:34Billy Corgan?

  Oh, because you were.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Because it would.

• 36:36Billy Corgan?

  You just cut off half your market.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, um, it was kind of in the back of my mind, singing, you know, and, um.

• 36:45Billy Corgan?

  Right. I would never even have thought about it that way.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  But Arthur was, I thought Arthur was great. I thought it was one of the best albums in the world.

• 36:57Billy Corgan?

  Arthur is so ahead of its time. It's almost shocking. It sounds like, it sounds like a late seventies record done in like.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  I know.

• 37:03Billy Corgan?

  Sixty eight or something. You guys are so ahead of your time. It really does sound like kind of what we would later call in the Midwest, power pop.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  I guess so.

• 37:12Billy Corgan?

  You know, I mean, like strong corn work and.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. But you guys are like, you're seven, eight years ahead of everybody on that.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I guess we were.

• 37:21Billy Corgan?

  So your bluffing was working.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  But they were great years.

• 37:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  There's some emotional songs.

• 37:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  That really stand out.

• 37:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 37:39Billy Corgan?

  I want to give you a compliment. But it's an interesting compliment. So I want to see. Well, we'll see.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:46Billy Corgan?

  I think one of the things that I'm proud of as a fan of your band is you guys didn't seem to be influenced by The Beatles like everybody else were when The Beatles had such big success. Even The Rolling Stones were influenced by The Beatles. They couldn't help them. You guys seemed to just exist in your own world. And somehow The Beatles' success didn't seem to, if anything, I would argue The Beatles were influenced by you guys.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Well, I think so. I think See My Friends really was.

• 38:14Billy Corgan?

  Absolutely. Or at least psychedelia. Yeah, sixty five is See My Friends?

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Yes, sixty five. It was a real

• 38:24Speaker 01

  joy.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  And I'm just getting emotional thinking of it. I think See My Friends was early.

• 38:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  And before The Beatles had.

• 38:38Billy Corgan?

  Well, you're basically playing the open chord in A, I believe.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:42Billy Corgan?

  Because my band used to cover See My Friends.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, aye, what's up?

• 38:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Because that was a big influence to us, this kind of hazy psychedelia.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:50Billy Corgan?

  But it was cool because it had a beat. It wasn't like hippie shit. It was more rock.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  The reason why we didn't copy The Beatles, it's because we couldn't. We were copying ourselves.

• 39:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  We're listening to ourselves.

• 39:06Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Play.

• 39:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  And I can't be bothered.

• 39:09Billy Corgan?

  But I think it's so cool that you guys weren't, so many bands were influenced by The Beatles' Titanic success that they kind of, you know, like famously The Stones did the psychedelic record.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  We were trying to still learn how to play.

• 39:27Billy Corgan?

  It seems around Village Green, there's the shift in the writing and the shift to the focus. Was that something you guys talked about or has it just happened?

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Village Green, no, let me see.

• 39:39Billy Corgan?

  The writing seems to become more introspective.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm just trying to think when we got that band in America.

• 39:47Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I think sixty-six, somewhere around there.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  The Village Group, was it Village Group?

• 39:53Billy Corgan?

  A little after, but what I'm saying is there seems to be this shift in the writing. Was that influenced by something? Because sometimes, you know, you talked to famous musicians and you're saying, oh, when this thing happened, they go, I wasn't thinking about anything, I was just doing the next thing.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, I don't know.

• 40:11Billy Corgan?

  Would you guys, would you guys talk about directional changes? Would you sit around a table and say, I want to do this?

• 40:16Speaker 01

  Talk about, about what came up.

• 40:21Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  What, what?

• 40:22Billy Corgan?

  Whatever was.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Ray was writing or what I was writing or, or whatever area we got into.

• 40:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  It wasn't, you can't just, oh.

• 40:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  It has to, you know, it has to affect you in a certain way.

• 40:41Billy Corgan?

  But if you look at the evolutionary change of the band's music from sixty-four to sixty-seven, sixty-eight, I mean, it changes radically. The writing gets more intellectual, more introspective.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe, I don't.

• 40:55Billy Corgan?

  I don't know, yeah. Because I'm often surprised when bands, when I talk to guys whose music I grew up really respecting, I always think there's more talking. And they're like, no, we didn't talk, we just kind of got on with it, yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  We just did stuff.

• 41:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I get it, yeah.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  And we thought, oh, it's historical, why not?

• 41:18Billy Corgan?

  Was there, because some of those records weren't as commercial as some of the earlier records.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 41:23Billy Corgan?

  But you, was that something you cared about, thought about?

• 41:26Speaker 01

  Well, the things I'm trying to put together apart here were, we.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  We kind of crashed a bit because of the American Dad.

• 41:37Billy Corgan?

  Ah.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  We kind of thought.

• 41:40Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  We thought more inward than.

• 41:42Billy Corgan?

  Ah, okay, that makes sense.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  And it it did affect us.

• 41:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I bet. I mean.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:51Billy Corgan?

  You're looking at the possible, you know, the cliff.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:54Billy Corgan?

  Coming.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  And we thought it. I thought that I'm trying to say the name of the, you know, Don Michael.

• 42:06Billy Corgan?

  Well, there was Mazel Hillbillies, there was Arthur.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  I've told you it's Arthur.

• 42:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, Arthur seems about right.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Same.

• 42:13Billy Corgan?

  Cause Mazel Hillbillies was kind of more of a lark.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Felt like it could be the end.

• 42:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, because Mazel Hillbillies seems like more of the way you guys were going with Autumn Almanack and.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:23Billy Corgan?

  Kind of having a laugh and a lark and I'm not saying it wasn't serious, but there's a lightheartedness.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  A lighthearted.

• 42:29Billy Corgan?

  And Arthur seems to start, you know, it gets it gets into something deeper, yeah.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  And it, I'm sure you know more about than me.

• 42:40Billy Corgan?

  It's me job, you know?

• 42:41Speaker 01

  No, it's like, well.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  We never used to, we never took things too lightly. Or I know that we wrote funny songs, but they were all based on a deep feeling.

• 42:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  And it was never a throwaway.

• 43:03Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  So.

• 43:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  And we wrote songs based on humor.

• 43:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  How we felt.

• 43:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  About things.

• 43:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, well, always, really.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, most things.

• 43:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Um, yeah. Right, and Rome was so prolific.

• 43:24Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  That we could do that.

• 43:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:29Billy Corgan?

  It it, you know, in the history of brother duos, you know, the Gallaghers come to mind, but

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:35Billy Corgan?

  God bless them, but

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:37Billy Corgan?

  It it seems, because I'm obviously focused on you in this equation. I never got a sense that you were jealous of your brother in any way, or you felt overshadowed by him or any way.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:48Billy Corgan?

  I I I get the sense as a fan, there's only only love.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that is very, very true with nothing ever. I don't think it was the other way around.

• 44:00Billy Corgan?

  Well, you tell me.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 44:03Billy Corgan?

  Did you, okay, let me, let me throw a a a a question of conjecture.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:10Billy Corgan?

  Um. Did you feel at any point that your brother didn't like that he was relying on you?

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Uh, I I can't answer that.

• 44:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. But you ever it.

• 44:25Billy Corgan?

  I mean, I don't care about the gossip. It's just more how you felt.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Gossip really.

• 44:29Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  It's it's, I always felt that I'm a supportive of him.

• 44:36Billy Corgan?

  Oh, okay.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  And I never felt in competition with him. And I I don't know why, I must be mad, but. But um. But I I I always liked a lot of what he did.

• 44:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's like.

• 44:56Billy Corgan?

  It's cool.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  It's gotta do it.

• 44:57Billy Corgan?

  What a cool band to be in.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's like, you know, the Kinks is an enigma of the way, you know, why why it's that the people shouldn't even be in a in a band. It's like.

• 45:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Like Misfits, they should be called us the Misfits. And like, and it was incredible how music came out the the walls.

• 45:29Billy Corgan?

  And fast.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  And fast, yeah.

• 45:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  Right. There were times early on when I'm really in those, how Brian was working, that um.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  He didn't want to stop. I was trying to find, you know, I think it was because for those years of having to quit and then stopping.

• 45:54Billy Corgan?

  Then when you finally have the ability to go.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  I had to keep going.

• 45:57Billy Corgan?

  Ah, I see.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  And I thought, well, why did it stop now? Stop. And we had quite a few arguments.

• 46:06Billy Corgan?

  Because he would want to keep fussing and you were like, it's great. Let's just go.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Turn and changing and but, oh, but, um, everything happens for a reason.

• 46:16Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  That's what we don't realize. All this stuff happens for a purpose.

• 46:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  There's a purpose behind it. Even when you're upset and angry.

• 46:27Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  But it has a, it's a reason behind that.

• 46:32Billy Corgan?

  Was having your own studio conch, which I was surprised to see is still in operation.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 46:37Billy Corgan?

  Did, did that, do you feel that opened up kind of a greater level art, artistry or?

• 46:41Speaker 01

  It did, and it didn't.

• 46:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, because it got to be too fussy.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  It got too, um.

• 46:48Billy Corgan?

  Were you, were you, when you recorded, were you, were you a fussy musician or you were like, I'll let them handle it?

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Actually, when we got, had come together, I became more into the sound.

• 47:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  And I got into the, what the instruments do.

• 47:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  What do they do? But.

• 47:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  And I, I became much more involved in sound, but.

• 47:13Billy Corgan?

  Can you, do you remember when that, was that like Lola times or was like, when, when was that? Do you have a memory on?

• 47:19Speaker 01

  God, Lola seemed like a thousand years ago.

• 47:22Billy Corgan?

  But, but, but there's, there's a point where your guitar work becomes more articulated and the sound seems to come forward.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Well, you got, you got, you press.

• 47:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but I'm saying it's

• 47:35Speaker 01

  This instrument, you've got to learn something.

• 47:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  From that, yeah, scales and

• 47:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  You try and

• 47:43Billy Corgan?

  We started doing kind of more cool overdub work and

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Obviously, yeah.

• 47:47Billy Corgan?

  Some cool stuff.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did a lot.

• 47:49Billy Corgan?

  Double tracking leads and

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:51Billy Corgan?

  Cool stuffs. Guitar stuff, you know?

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, but at the beginning I didn't

• 47:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Know what I'm doing, but you did as you progress further on. You do learn scales.

• 48:04Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  And although I was never trained, I was never a trained musician.

• 48:11Billy Corgan?

  But some people it works for in a weird way.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  I can't, if I'm lucky, I can't.

• 48:16Billy Corgan?

  I have no training either.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 48:17Billy Corgan?

  None.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Good thing.

• 48:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, here we are. Uh, when the band shifted to what seems to be more theatrical.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, very, that's mad, very. Yeah, just

• 48:31Billy Corgan?

  Did he, okay, but did he, did he tell you that part? Did he say, I've got this idea?

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Well, no.

• 48:36Billy Corgan?

  Or did you find out later?

• 48:37Speaker 01

  He found out afterwards.

• 48:41Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  I was saying, get something working.

• 48:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  I don't

• 48:44Billy Corgan?

  Did you could tell right away the audience sort of wasn't really understanding what was happening?

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Right, right, I was going through mad brain.

• 48:51Billy Corgan?

  Okay. Yeah.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  What it was doing.

• 48:54Billy Corgan?

  Do you, do you have a sense of what inspired that from him? Cause from a, from a US perspective, it feels very English.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 49:02Billy Corgan?

  And you guys were always kind of English, but it was like really

• 49:04Speaker 01

  For really English.

• 49:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, like English overload, dan- you know, dance hall stuff and like stuff that

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:10Billy Corgan?

  An American wouldn't sort of translate necessarily.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I don't want to speak for right, but

• 49:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  I just think a lot of it goes back to, to the music hall. We're going through, that's a musical thing. What was I inviting then? You know, and then we're going through.

• 49:30Billy Corgan?

  How did you, how did you? Process that people weren't understanding what you guys were putting out there. Cause that was a sort of a strange time for the band.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, but I didn't mind.

• 49:43Billy Corgan?

  You were cool.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  I was cool with it because I, I wasn't into the, what we're gonna do next thing. I wasn't bothered with going in with fashion or instrumentation or I just wanted to get it done.

• 49:59Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  And, uh, and, uh, that was the drive and force.

• 50:04Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  It's meant to get things, things done.

• 50:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  And, uh.

• 50:09Billy Corgan?

  Do you have a fond memory of that period?

• 50:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  For good memories.

• 50:18Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  A good memories, they can't, they can't not be good, but some of them were really good.

• 50:25Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  And, and, um, some of them.

• 50:28Billy Corgan?

  I've seen some video of you guys playing in the time and the audience does seem to sort of enjoy the spirit of what you're trying to do, even if they don't always get the musical part of it.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Yes, that was important.

• 50:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  And that's what I was saying earlier. It was like, when it was happening right about us, it was funny because you're there enjoying it.

• 50:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  But you can't strike up. Yes, I was saying earlier, when you try and do that, it doesn't come across.

• 51:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  If you're involved in it.

• 51:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  You could make anything sound funny.

• 51:08Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  It's always.

• 51:10Billy Corgan?

  I get it. I get it. Um.

• 51:15Billy Corgan?

  I thought to ask you this, and if it's too personal, we can skip it, but

• 51:22Billy Corgan?

  I've only had one interaction with your brother. I don't think you know the story, but I'll tell you here.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't know.

• 51:29Billy Corgan?

  You don't want to know? You want to skip?

• 51:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 51:32Billy Corgan?

  No, it's okay.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  No, I'm just good.

• 51:33Billy Corgan?

  It wasn't negative.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  No, I'm just my god.

• 51:36Billy Corgan?

  So, uh, at one point he was doing a record, uh, collaborations.

• 51:42Billy Corgan?

  Uh, you know, his most famous songs with guest people. So I did a combination with him. You know, he sent me the tracks and I played guitar and it was a combination of All Day of All of the Night and Destroyer. Kind of put into one song.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:01Billy Corgan?

  And, uh, and Ray emailed me and said, I'd like you to be on this record and wrote back, thank you so much.

• 52:11Billy Corgan?

  I'm such a fan. It's a total honor. Thank you very much. And I said, it's so funny. I just, two days ago, I bought this pie single of one of your single, one of your 45s, a vintage copy.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:23Billy Corgan?

  And I sent him the picture. Never heard from him again.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  I don't, Ray's a funny guy because he's, he's, uh,

• 52:34Speaker 01

  he's funny.

• 52:35Billy Corgan?

  Right. And other people I know that know your brother say that's just kind of how he is. It's not, it's not negative. It's he's kind of a funny guy.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  You've got to know, know him.

• 52:45Billy Corgan?

  So, so tell me from, from the perspective of, of loving brother, which you obviously are, what's something that people, you would want people to understand about your brother? Because you know the.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  It's that you don't, about my brother is that you don't,

• 53:01Speaker 01

  you have to let it go with the flow.

• 53:05Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  Because you don't, you don't know what's gonna happen. If you stop somebody, it might be about everything.

• 53:13Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  And, um, so if it's not the flow, let it go. Just keep going.

• 53:20Billy Corgan?

  Is it, is it, is it born of a certain trust that you have?

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 53:24Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  I think so that you have to, you've got to stop someone that end up dying of.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Misery. But he.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, you you've got to go with it.

• 53:44Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Because there's there's no other way of.

• 53:46Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  Saying.

• 53:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, some people are, they are just the way they are, and there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  And that's true.

• 53:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but that's what other people that know your brother well have told me.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have to go with it. If you start telling things for long, it might never harm.

• 54:05Billy Corgan?

  Ah. I get it.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  It's.

• 54:07Billy Corgan?

  I do.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  It's it's. Yeah, it's just the way it is, and I'm glad it is because.

• 54:14Billy Corgan?

  Well, we we were the beneficiaries of a lot of great art.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  I love God's great work.

• 54:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Um. Let's talk about spirituality. I know that's something that's dear to your heart.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Well, the thing is, I have had to become spiritual.

• 54:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  Because I was not going to a good place.

• 54:35Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  And I was going down. Um, because, yeah, because of all this. Why is free doing this? Why?

• 54:45Billy Corgan?

  Was it more of an existential crisis or?

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  It was happening in my own being.

• 54:55Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  It was going crazy in a different way. And um. But I I learned how to deal with freedom. It when I was searching for um.

• 55:11Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  An answer or a solution.

• 55:14Billy Corgan?

  Hmm. Was it was it in your mind dogmatic, or was it just I need to find the meaning of this?

• 55:19Speaker 01

  No, just to find a meaning.

• 55:22Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Behind it. What what's going on? Is it is all this stuff going crazy or what is it?

• 55:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So what was the rooted feeling for you that you found?

• 55:32Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  I think love is probably the only

• 55:42Speaker 01

  way of expressing it because you can't really express it in any other way. And a love that you have that's connected, you can't, there is no other way to express it.

• 55:58Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  And probably another person would have easier what, an easier way to explain it by that.

• 56:09Billy Corgan?

  Okay. I saw this thing once where somebody said, "Love is the only thing in the physical world where you don't have to subtract it to make more of it. Love makes more love." Where, like, energy, right? We play amplifiers that take electricity.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:27Billy Corgan?

  Well, you have to take energy from somewhere to give it to the amplifier. Because love is the one thing that if you, if you give love to another, it makes more love.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  It does.

• 56:35Billy Corgan?

  It belies, it belies the laws of physics.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  There's touch, you want to be touched, yeah? Be touched because love is goes through everything.

• 56:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  And it doesn't have a language.

• 56:51Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  It does, but it doesn't.

• 57:00Billy Corgan?

  I saw this, these lines that she wrote and I was taken by it. I think it's from your song, "God in My Brain", right? "I am paralyzed staring straight into space. I see your thoughts deep inside, know your ways. Stretching the mind to the edge of time, spirit explains what is real, what is right."

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Wow. Did I say that?

• 57:21Billy Corgan?

  You said that. Those are your lyrics. Is that born of this awakening that you had?

• 57:27Speaker 01

  With "God in My Brain", I had a spiritual kind of...

• 57:35Billy Corgan?

  Yes. Did you have an, do you have an agape moment where you felt sort of a greater...

• 57:41Speaker 01

  There was a, um, an often in Paris, and I felt there was a...

• 57:51Speaker 01

  A great thing inside me.

• 57:54Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  That I can.

• 57:58Billy Corgan?

  You wrote that. Now, I think what's beautiful, and the reason I bring it up is because people oftentimes associate peak experiences like fame or success as the path to salvation. And if there's any beauty to success, you and I know that that's not the path to salvation. It's like an inexhaustible thing. You can never have enough fame, enough money, enough success. It never fulfills what's really important.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Need, a need, yes. But um.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  I don't know, it's.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  It's like when you, when you think of, of those rewards, it's like you feel ancient.

• 58:43Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  It's like you feel old but young at the same time. It was like you kind of have never aged, but you have.

• 58:55Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  And you've really aged, but you don't realize it.

• 58:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  And it's those magic moments capture an awful lot about humanity. About human beings that are related to each other and, and et cetera.

• 59:15Billy Corgan?

  So having lived an incredible life. I mean, you have, I think.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:23Billy Corgan?

  Is there anything you want, what want people to understand about your journey? That you would want, you know, let's just call it one pearl of wisdom.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  Oh my, I can't, you know.

• 59:35Billy Corgan?

  Be happy, be in the moment.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  No, the thing is, is that you can't give somebody something like that.

• 59:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  It's something you want to know about or.

• 59:48Billy Corgan?

  I feel it. I get it.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  You know?

• 59:50Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  And.

• 59:51Billy Corgan?

  It's not up here, right?

• 59:52Speaker 01

  It's not.

• 59:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  A tangible thing. And that's why we need love.

• 1:00:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Is because

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  we can't express

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  it in a way.

• 1:00:09Billy Corgan?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  And and it's, you know, that's why there's so much.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 1:00:21Billy Corgan?

  Does the, does the world as is drive you mad?

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Of course it does.

• 1:00:24Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  You know, and when, when you think of it, it's so easy to sob.

• 1:00:31Billy Corgan?

  Love, yeah.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  You know, it's love, you know?

• 1:00:33Billy Corgan?

  Well, I think this is why the people that run the world don't want us thinking this way.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  They don't, they don't know why we're doing that.

• 1:00:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  And it doesn't make any sense. Any other way. It's like the touching.

• 1:00:50Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Knowing.

• 1:00:51Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  That love is the answer.

• 1:00:54Billy Corgan?

  Do you have a, do you, now that you've sort of had this awakening for many years and you've been through health struggles and do you, do you have a, do you have, do you have a conception of God or are you sort of more in the non dogmatic space?

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  I try to be in a non dogmatic state.

• 1:01:12Billy Corgan?

  I kind of got that feeling.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've kind of, you know. Because when you, when you feel like you come to a solution.

• 1:01:22Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  That's when you get into trouble.

• 1:01:24Billy Corgan?

  And limitation.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  In limitation.

• 1:01:26Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  And then come up to solutions that offer, don't really offer you an answer.

• 1:01:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  So you have to keep going.

• 1:01:36Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Through the awareness.

• 1:01:41Billy Corgan?

  See, you explaining this to me helps me understand your musical life so much better than I, than I could have ever understood just listening.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:01:50Billy Corgan?

  Does it make sense the way I mean it? Yeah?

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. The freedom, the freedom in your music, I think it makes sense to me more.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, good, good, good.

• 1:01:58Billy Corgan?

  Because, you know, again, musicians in basements, we think, you know, oh, I know why they're doing this.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool.

• 1:02:06Billy Corgan?

  I, I was, a couple more things. I, I was having a tea today with a friend of mine. And I told her I was going to be sitting and talking to you. And she said, what's your favorite kink song? And that's an almost impossible question because there's so many great songs. And I thought and I thought and I said, I'm not like everybody else.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Oh, it's funny to say that because it's my personal.

• 1:02:31Billy Corgan?

  I didn't know that.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Favorite song. I'm not like everybody else.

• 1:02:35Billy Corgan?

  And okay, so she said to me, why is it your favorite Kink song? And I said, it's alternative music, which is what my generation is associated with. Forty years before alternative music. It's basically an alternative. It could have been a Nirvana song or a Smashing Pumpkins song. It's almost like with the songs we wrote in our generation, but you were writing those songs. In sixty, whatever.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  I do like Nirvana.

• 1:03:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, great band, yeah.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  I do love that band and it's funny you mention it, but.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  But yeah, it's interesting. This is like curious. Where does it come from? Where does this stuff come from? Where's it going?

• 1:03:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, maybe, maybe not up there, you know, it's like everywhere, right?

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe it's everywhere.

• 1:03:24Billy Corgan?

  Okay, last thing. Tell me about this, the art show that you're doing.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  We have an artist called Chris Ginfer. Who contributed to a piece of art that I made.

• 1:03:40Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  And that raised but together. And it's quite exceptional. It's quite an exceptional piece of art.

• 1:03:49Billy Corgan?

  Is this a singular piece of art? Or is it like a, like a collection of things or is it one piece of?

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  It's, um. Which I had a joke there.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  It's a, it's, it's a, it's sort of as a, as a piece of art. We just, one, one person could put together.

• 1:04:12Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  And it's taken on a really great.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  Feeling.

• 1:04:22Billy Corgan?

  Do you get the same buzz working together on something non-musical?

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  Actually, I do. It's weird. Yeah, I really do. It's funny. And.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  And it's not I hope it too well when it comes out.

• 1:04:40Billy Corgan?

  Okay, thank you, thank you. God bless you.