Paul Anka | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Billy Corgan welcomes legendary songwriter and entertainer Paul Anka for a masterclass on longevity, songwriting, and surviving every era of music. From writing his first hit as a teenager in 1957 to buying back his own masters decades before "owning your masters" was a movement, Anka reflects on friendships with Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Sammy Davis Jr., and The Beatles, and explains why great songs always outlive trends. He tells the real story behind writing the English lyrics to "My Way" for Sinatra, remembers touring with Chuck Berry and Fats Domino, and recalls watching a Jimi Hendrix leave Clapton, Page, and Beck speechless in a tiny London club. Along the way, Billy and Paul dive into the Great American Songbook, and what today's artists often miss about performance and craftsmanship closing on Anka's simple philosophy for a long, fulfilled life: no rearview mirror. 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

  It wasn't about just getting up there and singing. You had to entertain people.

• 0:08Billy Corgan?

  These incredible lyrics, these incredible songs, I mean, the absolute height of American songwriting.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  I sat in my basement, people laughed at me. I was spending my time just writing, you know?

• 0:21Billy Corgan?

  Where I think it's interesting with you is you actually bridged these two worlds.

• 0:25Speaker 00

  We, as Asian teenagers, we shifted the culture.

• 0:29Billy Corgan?

  Here you are, a teen idol, playing, basically, you know, the beginning of rock and roll.

• 0:34Speaker 00

  You know, I was an international creature.

• 0:36Billy Corgan?

  Did your parents know what you were up to?

• 0:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 0:43Billy Corgan?

  Paul Anka, I feel I should call you Mr. Anka, Paul Anka. Thank you for being on my podcast.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  Well, I'll call you Bill and you're gonna call me Paul.

• 0:50Billy Corgan?

  You know, grown men like yourself, they have a hard time calling me Billy, so I'm actually William now, but they still wanna call me Bill, so I don't know what that's about.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  What would you like me to call you?

• 0:59Billy Corgan?

  William.

• 1:00Speaker 00

  I'm gonna call you William. What's your middle name?

• 1:03Billy Corgan?

  Patrick.

• 1:04Speaker 00

  Patrick.

• 1:04Billy Corgan?

  I was born on St. Patrick's Day, so.

• 1:06Speaker 00

  Lucky you, huh?

• 1:07Billy Corgan?

  William Patrick.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  All right, William. Good to meet you.

• 1:10Billy Corgan?

  Thank you, sir. Um, do you remember where you were August 24th, 1956?

• 1:17Speaker 00

  American Bandstand?

• 1:18Billy Corgan?

  No. Uh, you were singing the song "I Confess."

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Oh, "Blow Wild the Beast Fontaine." You're digging holes here now, huh?

• 1:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  So, well, that, you know, I came out to LA to visit a, an uncle. And, um, I started in Canada as a writer. You know, I wrote short stories and won awards in school and then I went and worked as a cub reporter at a local newspaper. And, uh, got thrown into shorthand, took music, so that was my first taste. And then I came out to Los Angeles and I used to be... Absolutely enamored with the whole black culture of music. And I listened to it all the time.

• 1:58Billy Corgan?

  Who were some of your favorites at that time?

• 2:00Speaker 00

  I'd go back to the Satins, the Moon Glows, all of that, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, all of them. And I'd leave my uncle's house on Sunset and go down to Wallex Music City. Wallex was the music store, probably the biggest in the West Coast. And you'd go in and it had these little booths and you'd go in and you'd take your vinyl and you'd go in and listen to the records all day.

• 2:23Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  And there was one record I loved. It was the number one record in the country. It was called Stranded in the Jungle by the Cadets. Now, I know you know your music, but I don't know that you remember that one.

• 2:32Billy Corgan?

  I don't know that one.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  Okay. So Stranded in the Jungle was huge. And in the interim, I was reading a book. When I had to go back to Canada, I had this book for a book report that I had to write out the whole essay on. And it was called Prester John. And the premise was a town in Africa called Bla Wall de Beesfontein. And I was fascinated by this little village, Bla Wall de Beesfontein. And one day I got up and I had, Bla Wall de Beesfontein, Bla Wall de Beesfontein. Where love is so splendor and no one could surrender. I'm going, I just wrote my first song, right? Now, it's in my head. I'm in Los Angeles. I'm reading the book report and I'm in Wallex and I'm listening to this record.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  And I read on the label, uh, Modern Records RPM, Culver City. And it was a chip shot from where my uncle was. And I had the song finished. I said, you know what? I'm gonna go to this record company.

• 3:30Billy Corgan?

  Had you ever written a song before?

• 3:32Speaker 00

  No.

• 3:32Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  So I take the song, I think I hitchhiked out there. I'm like 14, 15. And it's a little, it's like this building here, little one-story, little garage front, nothing to it. And I walk in and there's two guys and a female. And it was the Bahari brothers and their sisters and they owned this little record company. You know, back then, there were a few indies, but not a lot.

• 3:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 00

  I said, hey, guys, you're delivering something? I said, no, no, I got a song I wanna sing to you. Looked at me. So what have you got a song?

• 4:08Billy Corgan?

  Had you sung before?

• 4:09Speaker 00

  Never to a record company.

• 4:11Billy Corgan?

  No.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  Oh, in school, I was in the choir. I sang in school plays.

• 4:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  You know, I had a voice.

• 4:16Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  So. I sang on the song. I guess they had nothing to do and they had no other artists. They said, can you come back in two weeks? We're going to record you.

• 4:26Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  And they gave me another song for the flip side called I Confess.

• 4:32Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  And I came back, I'd learnt the song. I walk in a garage and there's four guys standing there and like a rhythm section. And the four guys were the cadets who had the number one record in the country, who were gonna sing with me. I mean, that's for openers, right? I'm like, what? Anyway, we finished the date. I do I Confess, Blah, Wah, The Beast Fontaine. It came out. It was a failure at fourteen.

• 4:59Billy Corgan?

  Number one.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Number one in my head. That's where it was. I go back to Canada, my relatives bought it. Nothing happened, but it was my first taste of being in a studio.

• 5:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  And getting close to that dream, which happened the following year when I went to New York.

• 5:16Billy Corgan?

  So this is live recording, live vocal, no overdubs?

• 5:21Speaker 00

  William, I try to tell all the young people I work with today, and they don't get it. You have no idea what it was like. If you didn't have decent pitch and the tone.

• 5:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  You walked in a studio, you rehearsed for an hour, and maybe you got it in three, four, or five takes.

• 5:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 5:42Speaker 00

  And when you were done, if you didn't like something, they took a razor blade and a piece of tape, and they would cut the tape on a piece of metal and put it back on and tape it with Scotch tape. That was it. And you sang till you got it. And that's how it happened when I wound up in New York.

• 6:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Cause I listened to I Confess this morning and I was like, wow, your voice hadn't even broken yet.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  You know, when you go back to the 50s.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  Everybody had to have that high pitched sound. It even evolved into today. A lot of us, you, a lot of the guys post the 50s. It's what they were about, searching for who they were as a person or an artist. And everybody had to sing up the octave. They're always maximizing.

• 6:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  So you heard all this, everyone had a high voice. The only guys that didn't, indigenous to that group, were Sinatra, Sammy and Dean. Their talking voices.

• 6:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Were their singing voices.

• 6:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  But somehow it evolved into that anyone that wanted to sing.

• 6:47Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 6:48Speaker 00

  Even into the 70s and 80s, you had to have that screaming on the edge voice.

• 6:53Billy Corgan?

  Oh, Barry Gibb and.

• 6:54Speaker 00

  Well, Barry, they took it to another level. You know, it was like I marveled as a kid just to have all that happen. And then to be around all of these young artists.

• 7:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 7:06Speaker 00

  You know, I like to say I, I, but it isn't I, I. I'm meaningless. It's we, we. If you think of your community of artists as we, you know, we as these young teenagers, we shifted the culture. We were aware of it, but we weren't accepted within it. But we, everybody had to have a certain ingredients and part of it was that high false settle.

• 7:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  Sound, I'll never forget, I went to London, I spent a lot of time over there. And as part of that whole British thing, before they started stealing everything from us, which we'll get to in a second. And I got on a plane, I'm flying back with, uh, with Mick Jagger. They were just starting to bust out, you know. And I'm on a plane with this guy, I knew he was, you know, I was, I'm talking to him. When I was familiar with his record, he's going, well, you know, when we make a record, you know, it's kind of only if it is giving me this noble sounding posse, you know, some noble guy. I'm saying, here's a guy that sings black and wants to be black. All of those groups over there, you know, I knew the Beatles and I was part of that

• 8:14Speaker 00

  whole scene with them. They all took what we did. I mean, they were all looking at. Muddy waters, they're all our great guitar players. They were, they were copying every lick from every, every great guitar.

• 8:29Billy Corgan?

  In a way, they did it not better than we did it, but they'd made it popular.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, they made it popular for them, but they were copying us.

• 8:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 8:35Speaker 00

  You know, they all loved Chuck Berry. Now Chuck wasn't a great guitar player, you and I know. He was grew great.

• 8:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  But it was a combination of what he played and his songs.

• 8:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  But they emulated him because when I went to England, none of them were on the charts. It was me and it was Presley. They, they weren't even on the charts. So we started to really get into what we're about.

• 8:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Copped it, made it their own. And I'll never forget, you had Clapton, you had Page, Clapton, Page and Beck, right? Those were the cats.

• 9:05Billy Corgan?

  The three.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  The three biggies.

• 9:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  They were it. And I'm in England, I live in there, and then the word was out that there was this guy. He was gonna open at this little club in London, guitar player. And everybody showed up. They went, they saw this guy and then they went home wanting to cut their wrists.

• 9:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:23Speaker 00

  Hendrix.

• 9:23Billy Corgan?

  Hendrix.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  Hendrix, every time you talked to them after they discovered Hendrix, they were like God had arisen, right? And the sad part of it, Hendrix had a three year period.

• 9:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:37Speaker 00

  How sad. But he was the guy, when you listen to him.

• 9:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  The editing, the economizing of the notes. These guys, Page, Beck and Clapton, you know, Clapton got very poppy, but he's still a great guitar player. Always was. It was Hendrix that they looked up to.

• 9:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. And, and an American from Seattle.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Seattle.

• 9:58Billy Corgan?

  Who'd played on the, what they call the Chitlin circuit with, you know, Little Richard and the Isleys.

• 10:02Speaker 00

  I traveled, I traveled with Little Richard, I traveled with James Brown. I traveled with all the guys that all these young new artists are, are copying. You know, Michael took a little, Bruno's taking a little, it's from Jackie Wilson, it's from James.

• 10:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  Those guys, they were the core and the pillars of what we see today.

• 10:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  Even as, as it evolved.

• 10:25Billy Corgan?

  At that time, I mean, at that time, did you have a sense that these, these men, like in, in particular, once you mentioned, that they would go on to be legends? Did you have a sense of that at the time, or was it just exciting and everybody's kind of in the moment?

• 10:40Speaker 00

  We were all in the moment. We had nothing to look up to. You know, all of us only could look up to these cool guys in Vegas.

• 10:50Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  Rat Pack, Vegas Mafia.

• 10:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  That was it. But we were all just working and happy to be doing it. It was we again. We were, we were a collective little band of artists. They were just finding our way. None of us were sophisticated.

• 11:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  None of us came from wealthy families. We were given whatever, and I don't get to sit there and go get it. I was given a gift and whatever we were given.

• 11:16Billy Corgan?

  Whatever you got, yeah.

• 11:17Speaker 00

  From that universe, and you can identify, you're a writer. You're a great writer.

• 11:21Billy Corgan?

  Thank you.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  I almost did a couple of your songs on Rock Swings.

• 11:23Billy Corgan?

  Oh, my God, I wish you would have.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  I couldn't break the code. Tonight, tonight. And Butterfly, I just couldn't.

• 11:30Billy Corgan?

  Next time you gotta call me.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  I went through 200 songs, right? Anyway, back to the point. We were these guys that were in such a minority.

• 11:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it's true.

• 11:41Speaker 00

  Of what was going on and always looked at was, can we have another hit record?

• 11:46Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  To sustain it?

• 11:47Billy Corgan?

  It was very hand to mouth.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  Oh, we were earning 200 bucks a week.

• 11:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  You know, we were traveling on a bus together.

• 11:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 00

  The big dilemma was getting our hair right. Took us an hour to get our hair right.

• 11:57Billy Corgan?

  You had great hair. You had great hair.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  Back then, not now. But back then, you know, we'd spend more time getting ready.

• 12:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  And we'd all do one or two songs.

• 12:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:07Speaker 00

  Chuck and Fats would close the show or Screamin' Jay Hawkins. And that was it. You didn't have any vision or sense of where it was going.

• 12:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Of, of the, of the artists that you toured with back then, who was like your, your favorite? Looking back now?

• 12:23Speaker 00

  Look, I admired guys like Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Jackie Wilson.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  I looked at what they were doing, but I looked at the, because they were writers.

• 12:36Billy Corgan?

  Ah.

• 12:36Speaker 00

  Because when I started, and the people I listened to, that my parents played at home, they were pop singers, Perry Como, you know, that old group. They weren't writers, were they?

• 12:47Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  The guys that were writers were the ones that I admired, because I realized, kind of early in my career, the only gravitas that I may have in the future is if I do what I feel I do best, and that was a writer. I had this squeaky little voice.

• 13:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:04Speaker 00

  Nobody wanted to help me, so I just started writing.

• 13:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:08Speaker 00

  But I admired the guys that wrote, because I figured out there'd be no business, no record companies, no managers, no agents, nothing.

• 13:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  If the writer wasn't in first place.

• 13:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:23Speaker 00

  The writer was what's important for all of us.

• 13:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  Look, look what you did. You were writing all that stuff.

• 13:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:30Speaker 00

  You could never do what you did if you weren't the writer.

• 13:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  When I sat with the Beatles in Europe, when I first met them, all they talked about with me is, oh, we want to write like you're doing and publish and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, they were a cover band when I saw them, but the writer, and I respected everybody that wrote.

• 13:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:48Speaker 00

  Always did.

• 13:49Billy Corgan?

  You're really touching my heart, because there was this moment in my life where I was living with my father. My father was a musician and I was kind of in this, like, sort of like the basement, you know? And I was trying to learn a song.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:04Billy Corgan?

  And I'm not good at learning other people's songs. I don't know why. I just don't have a good ear for it.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:08Billy Corgan?

  And my daddy came down, he said, what are you doing? I said, I'm trying to figure this song out. And he occasionally would come help me learn something. And he said, don't bother. And I was like, but I got a gig. I gotta kind of learn this song. He said, if you ever want to really be successful in the music business, write your own songs.

• 14:26Speaker 00

  He was right. I was in my basement.

• 14:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 00

  And my dad bought me an old piano.

• 14:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  And he knew I could sing, but he ultimately knew I wanted to write. And I sat in my basement. People laughed at me. I was spending my time just writing, you know, writing what I felt new. I mean, is there anything more stupid than I'm so young and you're so old this might? I mean, today it's I'm so old and you're so young. But back then, I was just writing what I felt. I'm sitting in church, looking at this girl who wouldn't pay attention to me. And that was it, man. It was just the writer.

• 15:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 00

  Became so important in my life. And then I slowly evolved. It gets you to nature or nurture.

• 15:08Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  When you get on the topic of nurture and nature, what was it? Did you get it from your parents?

• 15:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  Because it's a great discussion to think of where did that come from? What influenced you to build you into the character and what you've got?

• 15:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Well, the thing that all writers share is at some point, we're alone in a room.

• 15:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:28Billy Corgan?

  With a blank piece of paper.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  That's correct.

• 15:29Billy Corgan?

  There's no chord, there's no melody, there's no lyric. And somehow we've got to figure this little universe out.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  That's correct. And the voice.

• 15:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, whatever that is.

• 15:39Speaker 00

  It's getting better.

• 15:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  That's it. I mean, you know, it gets you to a point early for me where good was the enemy of great. I always lived by that. You know, you, you've got so, think about it this way, William. There's millions of people out there today that want to sing and can. Back when I started, uh-uh.

• 16:00Billy Corgan?

  Probably more great singers now than ever. If you just want to go on voice, yeah.

• 16:04Speaker 00

  I always said, there's got to be somebody better than me. But when you think about, I've got a theory, it's called the wow theory.

• 16:11Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Guy wants to build a luxury building, a resort. Guy wants to do what you do, wants to do what I do. And we sit and you're gracious and I'm giving and I try to teach them. You know, you sit and you talk and you know instinctively, they're not ever going to be or get to where, however this universe has given us, they'll never get there. Because ultimately, if you don't get to, whatever your finished product is, or that building that you want to build, that, that group, it can't.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  You get to the point where you hear something and go, wow. When you can get to the wow in life.

• 16:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 16:53Speaker 00

  Whether it's developing something and there's few people that can do it. You can't teach it.

• 16:58Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 16:58Speaker 00

  You can't teach it, William.

• 17:00Billy Corgan?

  Well, it's a form of madness if you really look at it on paper. Bad analogy, but like a therapist once told me, you know, he said, everyone that sits in the chair, meaning the therapist, you know, patient chair. He said, they're all delusional and you're delusional too. The only difference is your delusion came true.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the only difference is they're wearing a white coat.

• 17:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. God bless.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:22Billy Corgan?

  Talk a little bit, if you could, because I love these

• 17:27Billy Corgan?

  personalities in our, in our shared world and Don Costa.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 17:32Billy Corgan?

  Can you talk about Don Costa a bit? Because Don Costa basically changes your life.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  He was the guy.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  I only got myself in the door. He brought me in, put me in the bed. You know, those are the unsung heroes for all of us.

• 17:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 17:48Speaker 00

  I've always said it, the Don Costas, the Nelson Riddles, the Quincy Jones, people that I knew that I admired, because when they looked at, unlike you and I, at a blank piece of paper, they're looking at a score sheet like this.

• 18:03Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  And they're going to put every note from every aspect of an orchestra. You and I can't do that.

• 18:10Billy Corgan?

  I can't.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  I would sit with him with his guitar and his piano. And I would just go, I'm just so, ooh. And he'd take, I could never do what the Don Costas of the world.

• 18:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  Or the Nelson Riddles. I introduced it to Sinatra and he worked with me in Sinatra for years. But here was one of the guys of the many who absolutely studied the art of arranging.

• 18:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  And knew what to do with somebody like a green kid like me that walked in banging at a piano, pouring his heart out, and that was it.

• 18:46Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  He was responsible for making me who I am. Nelson Riddle was responsible for putting Sinatra in the framework. And I learned at an early age. That you've got to put the best around you, whether it's Panama Francis, Milt Hinton. You know, back when I started, electric guitars were, huh? There was no electric bass, you know?

• 19:09Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 19:09Speaker 00

  When I started, it was a whole new thing. It was stand up. But the Costas of the world knew how to take those artists and frame them up with those arrangers. They were the two geniuses. The two geniuses are those arrangers.

• 19:24Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So Don Costa is the one who sort of saw Diana and sort of made that all happen, right?

• 19:30Speaker 00

  I sat there singing licks.

• 19:35Speaker 00

  You know, I put your leg, my original title was put your legs on my shoulder. So I was messing around with lyrics, but with shoulder, I'd go, put your legs on my shoulder.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  He would write, listen, he was the guy responsible, you know? Because that's what it was back then. You had to have an arranger, the great, you look at even how it evolved out of that. The guys like Michael Amadian, I don't know if that means anything.

• 20:03Billy Corgan?

  I know who that is, yes.

• 20:03Speaker 00

  There's like guys like Michael, the Randy Kerbers, all those great keyboard players. When you listen to Steely Dan.

• 20:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  You know, one of my favorite groups, you know, great musicians, flawless albums. We all know what it is, but you look at those guys that contributed.

• 20:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  The unsung heroes.

• 20:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 20:22Speaker 00

  Michael, you know, Jeff Picaro, all those guys were musicians for me in the studio. And I knew that if I never surrounded myself with guys that were better than I was, you're dead.

• 20:34Billy Corgan?

  Well, you, you have such an interesting thing, cause

• 20:39Billy Corgan?

  was it you that sort of had the vision that you could cross over into the kind of the Sinatra? You know, the, the crooner world? Cause most guys who sort of got the teen idol thing, they kind of went the one way, which let's call it the Elvis lane. Here's your audience. It's about mass popularity. Who was the, was it you or your manager? Who was the person that said, no, you have this other? Cause of all the artists that had popularity in, in the times that you did. You were the only one who really were, was able to reach back into this other world, which certainly wasn't fading. But it was on its, it's on its like kind of last decade.

• 21:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:20Billy Corgan?

  You know, before disco took over, whatever, right?

• 21:22Speaker 00

  Well.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  When it hit and I had the taste of it, I didn't want it to leave. And I said, well, I can't have hits all the time.

• 21:34Billy Corgan?

  Can you stop for a second? You were aware that you you had to build other base of popularity, not born on hits. Where did that come from? Just street smarts?

• 21:45Speaker 00

  Whatever it was, the tenacity I had to leave Canada and was hungry for it. I was just, I was sponging everything up because I knew I wanted this in my life. But I knew that even though I'm crawling along this journey of success, trying to achieve some wisdom to deal with it and not be an that it couldn't last because I saw it all around me. And the only reason I kept saying, I've got to keep writing because I felt it would be the tool that would allow me to last. Thus Buddy Holly that I wrote for, I mean, all the things I started giving away. But I knew that when's the voice going to change? I had this kid's voice, you know? And everybody was copying.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  Everybody felt they had to sing to their margin, you know? And I said, but when it changes, really, where do I want to be? Going, I can't have the hits. And back to our little milieu of guys, Frankie Avalon, Bobby Darin. We all knew each other. It was a small community. It was the essence of it was New York, a little bit of Nashville, Philly, no Chicago and a touch of

• 22:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, we had nobody in Chicago.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  Chess records, that was it, right?

• 23:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but we were blues, but we had no, no pop guys came out of Chicago in the late 50s, early 60s.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  So back to the question, all I saw were these cool guys, the coolest guys I'd ever seen. And Bobby and I'd say, look at those guys in Vegas. They're drinking and smoking and the chicks and they're dressing and cool. And I'm going, I want to be like them. We didn't see anything past that, obviously.

• 23:27Billy Corgan?

  Was it because the world you came from? You know, you know what I'm saying? Was there something about the world that you came?

• 23:33Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 23:34Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  It was a world I walked into.

• 23:36Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  I was a kid with jeans, a T-shirt and a dream and a bunch of songs, right? But when I started working for the boys, I hate the word mafia. But I started working for the boys. And I knew that in Chicago and New York and Vegas, these guys ran the record business. They ran the nightclubs, they ran the discs. And I'm working for them.

• 23:58Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:59Speaker 00

  And, and no one was shy to say, that's who you're working for. Just keep your nose clean. And I'm running around going yes sir, no sir. I'm shaking hands and seeing whoever. But I wind up in Vegas. I was the first guy there. I was in 1958 with Sophie Tucker. Elvis had tried it.

• 24:16Billy Corgan?

  Sophie Tucker. Now there's a name you don't hear every day.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  And you won't.

• 24:21Billy Corgan?

  God bless Sophie Tucker.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  God bless Sophie, as the Beatles called her America's favorite group.

• 24:27Billy Corgan?

  Amazing.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  When they told me that, I laughed, but she was a wonderful woman. Anyway, I'm among these guys. And you know, not unlike today, and it's kind of stupid in a way today. We all had stylists, but they weren't stylists. You know, we all had to wear shirt and ties. The British guys, shirt and tie, shirt and tie, shirt.

• 24:48Billy Corgan?

  True. Even early Stones, what are they wearing?

• 24:50Speaker 00

  Shirt and tie. Today, you don't get an artist out of a room for eight hours or in there clamming and just so nothing. It's the same bullshit, more light.

• 24:58Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:58Speaker 00

  Frankly. So back then, we looked at these guys. We started working for them. And it was the shirts, the ties and sponging up a kind of intelligence. That was the template of how you deal with life. Cause they were smart. They were Jews and Italians. Old bookmakers, mafia guys from each city. But there's something about their intelligence and their integrity that you were attracted to. And that's what it was. I said, I want to be like them. Because that was the maturity factor that I felt would help me last.

• 25:37Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  In an industry where all my friends, they were one hit wonders. And Bobby and I would talk about it and we evolved.

• 25:45Billy Corgan?

  Okay. Yeah, cuz there's this, uh, I found that documentary of you like about sixty-two. It's, it's, it's, you're playing an amusement park.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Lonely boy.

• 25:56Billy Corgan?

  Lonely boy.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  With the horse that jumped off and wouldn't jump half the time.

• 26:00Billy Corgan?

  But such a cool.

• 26:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:01Billy Corgan?

  Almost like French New Wave.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  It was.

• 26:04Billy Corgan?

  Cinema, you know, you in the dressing room, you with like the, the guy running the Copa.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  That's it.

• 26:10Billy Corgan?

  That guy.

• 26:12Speaker 00

  He ran it for the boys.

• 26:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  Julie Baudel with the ring.

• 26:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 26:15Speaker 00

  But you know.

• 26:16Billy Corgan?

  You give him a pic, you give him a gift of a picture of yourself.

• 26:19Speaker 00

  And then the cameraman said, kiss him again. It was classic woman. You know, for those guys, but you know, it just shows you the, kind of the power of celebrity, which we all in it. Even those guys soften up, whether it was with Putin or what, if they love celebrity.

• 26:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  You know, that mask comes off. But back then, I was working at a place in Atlantic City, what you're referring to. Where the diving horse would jump at nine. I'd go on after the horse, then the movie would go on, and we did that five times a day.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  And I made about, I don't know, thirteen thousand dollars in a month.

• 26:54Billy Corgan?

  So the horse opened for you.

• 26:55Speaker 00

  The horse opened for me. I followed the horse. And sort of didn't jump. I had to get dressed real quick.

• 27:03Billy Corgan?

  Oh, that's what that scene is. There's a scene in the movie where you're having to get dressed really fast.

• 27:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, the horse wouldn't jump.

• 27:08Billy Corgan?

  Oh, it was the horse. Oh, okay.

• 27:14Billy Corgan?

  I guess the, you know, the, the most comparable current example would be somebody like Justin Bieber. I mean, you were basically in that jet stream.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:23Billy Corgan?

  At that age, that young age.

• 27:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:26Billy Corgan?

  I'm not asking for like, you know, stories of excess, but how did you

• 27:32Billy Corgan?

  manage that level of idolatry? Cause there's scenes even in that documentary, uh, it's about twenty minutes long. It's on YouTube if people want to watch it, but like, where you're like, you're literally talking to like forty young girls and they're crying and you know, shaking in front of you. I mean, that's gotta go to your head, or maybe it didn't.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  You know, even when Justin hit, it was all over Canada, the paper, they had a picture of me and a picture of him. Cause we both lived here. So there was a comparison of, you know, people that like to compartmentalize in society today. Nobody can live on their own. It's always a comparison. So when it hit for me, you know, I was a young kid with this dream. I wasn't, I didn't have any great looks. I didn't have any height. I was, I was an athlete, but it stopped because then I stopped growing. Yes. So I found something that really turned my life upside down. So when you're in the middle of all of that action, and I had a good upbringing, I had a great father, I had a great mother,

• 28:37Speaker 00

  you know, who was an ally of mine, who, you know, I lost at 18, and that was the toughest part of my life. But, you know, they were always around me to keep me as level as one could, keeping that in mind. And somehow, even though I looked at it with amazement and I enjoyed it, I wouldn't let it go to my head. You know, I just, I really felt that I was always in fear of losing it. And if you had any way of being not grateful for what you're giving or misbehaving, you would lose it. So to answer your question, it was challenging many times.

• 29:19Speaker 00

  I always, all of a sudden had a lot of money, you know, and I all of a sudden went out and bought custom shirts and nice suits, everything I didn't have, but I never let the other go to my head. The only way that I really bought into it was I was really very active sexually.

• 29:40Speaker 00

  I said, you know what, the money, the fame, I want what I couldn't have as a kid. And I was nailing everything that I could, you know, and you know, I was an international creature. I was in Japan in 57. I was all over the world. So all of a sudden this door opened of these flavors and I went, who do I give the money back to?

• 30:03Speaker 00

  And that's the one, the one overdose of all that.

• 30:07Billy Corgan?

  Did your parents know what you were up to?

• 30:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. I used to bring them home.

• 30:14Billy Corgan?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 30:18Billy Corgan?

  I was poking around your catalog and I, I found something that I, that I enjoyed. So I wanted to ask you and take it however you want. You did this album Songs I Wish I'd Written.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 30:30Billy Corgan?

  And I, I was looking at some of the choices. Did you, did you personally, I got the feeling you chose the songs you wanted to sing. So I love that you picked Can't Stop Loving You, which Don Gibson.

• 30:41Speaker 00

  Great writer.

• 30:42Billy Corgan?

  End of the World, Skeeter Davis had that hit with, I don't know if she wrote that, but.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  No, she didn't.

• 30:47Billy Corgan?

  Maybe Chet Atkins wrote that.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  No, Chet didn't write that either.

• 30:51Billy Corgan?

  Can't Get Used to Loving You, Andy Williams, great song. I thought it was cool. I got something from you in looking at the songs you were attracted to at that.

• 30:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well, again, because of that background and where I came from, I just realized I'm just a little part

• 31:11Speaker 00

  of all of this, you know, I mean, it's great to sit and.

• 31:14Billy Corgan?

  Do you know how rare that is to think like that at that age?

• 31:17Speaker 00

  Well, okay. But the point was,

• 31:23Speaker 00

  maybe it was because I was always the youngest kid and I was writing these silly little songs. Like when I met the Beatles, you know, Off Point Pivot, even though they were into the fact that I wrote, I don't know that they idolized what I did. I sing in these little teeny songs, big orchestra. That wasn't their thing, right? But I realized early that, you know, I'm just a small part and, and thought that for years of all of this, you know, you could sit down and people kiss your ass and they have your, your lyrics are made. But you and I know there's other guys doing it, but we're all part of this.

• 32:03Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  So when I sat down and said, I want to do an album of songs I wish I'd written, I admired all those other.

• 32:09Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  You know, the one regret I had, William, I started taking piano and I had Mrs. Reese, who was my teacher. This is like 13, 14, just like you with your guitar, you know? And. My dad was sending me to Juilliard. This is before I hit. I was going to Juilliard in New York because I was doing this, I was singing in school and I was getting it. What gets in the way? I'm so young and you're so old, you know? Four chords, if you had four chords, knew how to use them, a guitar, a piano, you could write hit songs.

• 32:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 32:42Speaker 00

  That was it. And I'm banging away. I never got to Juilliard and I never learned how to really be the musician I wanted to be. Knowing that, I was so proud of a guy where my uncle lived and he was a Canadian, Oscar Peterson.

• 32:58Billy Corgan?

  Oh, okay.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  You want to talk about great keyboard players?

• 33:00Billy Corgan?

  Did you know Oscar?

• 33:01Speaker 00

  Met him once.

• 33:01Billy Corgan?

  Oh, what incredible.

• 33:04Speaker 00

  Was there anybody? You could talk about them all, right? And we know all the pianos.

• 33:08Billy Corgan?

  Probably the greatest.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. And my parents would say, Oscar Peterson. And we're so proud of him. And that was always in my head.

• 33:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  But I knew at some point I could never be any of that. And I also learned that when I started working with great arrangers, because they were so schooled and knew all of it and could play all of it, they couldn't write hit songs.

• 33:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. There's something about not knowing what you're doing that is a certain advantage.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure.

• 33:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, because I can't read music either. It's like everything's up here, yeah.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I was the same, but I did learn to read music.

• 33:46Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 33:47Speaker 00

  You know, I learned to read from leeches and all of that. I found it was important that I did. But other than that, I just wrote songs, you know? I could write songs, but I would never be Oscar Peterson.

• 33:57Billy Corgan?

  I was stunned by the fact that, I think, if I'm, correct me if the date's wrong, 1963, you purchased your publishing back.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  I purchased everything back.

• 34:07Billy Corgan?

  That is, and you would have been, how old in 63 you would have been?

• 34:10Speaker 00

  Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three.

• 34:13Billy Corgan?

  To have the prescience to think these songs are valuable and I'm gonna...

• 34:19Speaker 00

  Well, I also realized that you got to learn the business. You got to know the business.

• 34:26Billy Corgan?

  Did some, did somebody wise you up to the business?

• 34:31Billy Corgan?

  Like kid, this is how it really runs type thing.

• 34:34Speaker 00

  When I started, there was two guys in Washington called the Feld brothers, Izzy and Irving.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  And they had drugstores, but in the drugstores, they racked the top forty record, these vinyl. And they would see what was selling. Then they formed this little company and started booking whoever was on the top twenty, they'd reach out. And they'd hire all of us, two hundred bucks a week and throw us on a bus.

• 35:06Billy Corgan?

  And then?

• 35:07Speaker 00

  And they'd take us all around this great country.

• 35:09Billy Corgan?

  Was there a name to it? Calvakeda Stars?

• 35:10Speaker 00

  Calvakeda Stars.

• 35:11Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 35:12Speaker 00

  And that was it. All of us kids were together, shifting the culture, but loving what we were doing. But I realized it was a business. When I went back to Canada, I wrote my second hit, which was You're My Destiny for my mother. And it became a hit. And the Felds called and said, we want to take you on tour. I said, okay. My dad said, no, you're going to finish school. And I said, no, I gotta go do this, this guy. And I said to Irving Feld, I said, you know, you're a smart guy. You paid me two hundred bucks the last time. And I'm worth more than, that was a very, not that I was in, because of the lack of help that I had. When pop music was in this infancy stage, I had to fend for myself.

• 35:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  So I would say, I'm worth more than, I said, if you become my partner, I'll, I'll come and work for you. And I talked him into being my partner.

• 36:06Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  I moved to Washington and I was brought up in a Yiddish home for three, four years. And this guy was my partner.

• 36:14Billy Corgan?

  That's amazing.

• 36:14Speaker 00

  And he was smart. And he taught me a lot of business acumen. And I would sponge it off of him. And I attribute him, and I'm still friendly with his son.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Kenny Felton, who was my roommate then, who now runs the circus and all that enterprise.

• 36:33Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  Out of Sarasota. So I learned a lot from him to where as I would evolve, I'd say, hey, Irv, you know, I'm traveling all over the world with my music. And you know, my records aren't in these hardware stores and they're not in these stores and these people aren't distributing. But I see RCA Victor. Everywhere I go, I see RCA Victor, washing machines, toasters, records. I said, I want to be with them because I knew that ABC Paramount that I was with stopped believing because the voice was changing. I was cranking, you know, you lived rock and roll back then. Those of us that wrote all the time, I was paid a hundred dollars a month and you had to crank

• 37:12Speaker 00

  out three or four albums a year, every year. They felt I was running dry. They didn't know what the future was. I was disenchanted. And I said, I have 250,000, 300,000 in the bank. I want to buy everything back. They don't believe in me. And nobody had the vision of where this was going, William. And I gave him 300,000 and I bought the publishing, the masters.

• 37:38Billy Corgan?

  Which in today's money would be.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  It's millions of dollars.

• 37:41Billy Corgan?

  Three, five million dollars.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  So I own all my masters and I own all my publishing.

• 37:46Billy Corgan?

  That's crazy.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  And then when, when I ran into Ray Charles and his manager, because I loved Ray Charles.

• 37:51Billy Corgan?

  He was on ABC Paramount too, right?

• 37:53Speaker 00

  He came to ABC Paramount.

• 37:54Billy Corgan?

  Oh, okay.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  Oh, no, no. No, no, it was me.

• 37:58Billy Corgan?

  Okay, you know the story.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  No, he came over and I loved, to me to this day, there's nobody like Ray Charles.

• 38:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  Okay. And I said, own your masters, own your masters. And he made a deal with them to get his masters. No one had done it back then. Yeah.

• 38:15Billy Corgan?

  Wow. You've told this story many times about My Way and Frank. So it's certainly a fascinating story for people to know. You wrote the lyrics to My Way.

• 38:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:28Billy Corgan?

  You purchased the rights to the song.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:30Billy Corgan?

  It was just this kind of song in France, right?

• 38:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:33Billy Corgan?

  So I thought to try to come at it slightly differently.

• 38:39Billy Corgan?

  Certainly in his time and in your youth, Frank was a Titanic figure on the American cultural scene.

• 38:46Speaker 00

  He was it.

• 38:47Billy Corgan?

  I mean.

• 38:48Speaker 00

  That was it.

• 38:48Billy Corgan?

  Movie star, you name it.

• 38:52Billy Corgan?

  So, start here. Does it surprise you that Frank still, to this day, is still a top artist? Does that surprise you?

• 39:03Speaker 00

  It doesn't surprise me. I think you can never underestimate the consumer. They ultimately are going to seek out what's good.

• 39:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  Sinatra, as you stated, he was it. And when Presley came along, he became the potential it, but certainly not in the genre of Sinatra.

• 39:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 39:28Speaker 00

  Sinatra did not like Presley. He didn't like, I don't think, what I was doing. He embraced me because I was making money for the boys, who he was making money for the boys. So they mentored me, looked after me. But I heard all this stuff. I was around all this stuff. You know, I was the young kid in a steam room with Sammy Davis, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra on a slab of marble, nude. And I'm this young kid.

• 39:56Billy Corgan?

  But listening.

• 39:57Speaker 00

  And I'm having trouble with eye contact.

• 40:01Speaker 00

  But you know, he never liked any of that stuff.

• 40:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 00

  He was the guy. He continued to be the guy. Only till he started buying into the fact, and had his own record company, that things were changing, did he start getting a sense for pop music, the modern music, right? And started doing it.

• 40:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  But up until then, he was the guy, and an important guy. He's important today because he's one of those caissons in this industry

• 40:35Speaker 00

  that really was the basis of everything that we're doing today, in a sense, okay? And you can't ever take away any of the greats in any field, from Shakespeare on to writers to... When you are the absolute best and top, you evolve and you... Because art has no time.

• 40:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  And Frank Sinatra today, but there are some young people that don't know who he is, or Johnny Carson, or Paul Anka.

• 41:08Speaker 00

  You know, he and Elvis, to me, were the two important towers.

• 41:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 41:13Speaker 00

  When Elvis was around...

• 41:17Speaker 00

  He just, they both owned a room. And they were both given that it factor. You know, if Elvis were a five foot four overweight guy, singing with that black voice, we wouldn't be talking about him. I hate to put it that way. But when you think of how the United States and its culture, it's emanated all over the world as to the importance of aesthetics, how you look and what you are. And I saw it in countries that I go to, from Israel to Asia. And they say, why are they sending this stuff over? We don't believe in looking great. But those two guys had the totality.

• 41:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  And the content of what it takes to be everything.

• 42:03Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  And Elvis worked his off. This was a shy guy. I would sit with him like this. Hey, Paulie, how you doing, man? Hey, Paulie, one day I'm gonna do that my way. I love that my way. Elvis, Elvis, you don't wanna do my way. It's not your kind of... Me, me, me, a lot of... He was this shy guy that probably couldn't live with the enormity of the success and the pressure every day. But what an amazing force to watch and be around it.

• 42:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  And sit there and watch show after show, as I did, and to discuss with him. You know, what we learnt, he and I, it wasn't about just getting up there and singing. You had to entertain people. And to this day, whether it's subliminal or not, you've got to entertain people.

• 43:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:02Speaker 00

  They don't wanna sit up there and just watch you.

• 43:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  You know, it's a case in point. I love Dylan. We get it. You know, some nights Bob gets up there, he couldn't give a... You know, look at the back. And people walk out, what the... If you don't entertain people.

• 43:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  You're dead. But back to Sinatra, the force will get bigger. Young people will learn exactly what true quality is. You know, at a time when there's no autotune. Think about the difference. I don't know who the f**king is doing the singing today, do you?

• 43:35Billy Corgan?

  Not really, no.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  I don't know. Can you imagine back then? If you said the Sinatra were gonna give you an autotune, you would have thrown a chair at you.

• 43:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:43Speaker 00

  You walked in a studio after rehearsing, as I stated earlier, and you kept singing and that band kept playing till you got perfect.

• 43:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:53Speaker 00

  That was it. And he was the guy. He made it tough for anybody to ever stand in front of a band again. You all came second. But he was the guy we emulated.

• 44:03Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  Now, let me just add.

• 44:08Billy Corgan?

  No, please, yeah.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  The short-changed guy was Sammy Davis. To Frank and Dean and to all of us, he was the most talented.

• 44:16Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 44:16Speaker 00

  Sammy Davis Jr. To this day, and they've taken from him. I'd sit and watch him from a young kid. He was a v- I was as close to him as I was to Sinatra.

• 44:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 44:28Speaker 00

  That was the most talented guy. He was a musician. Played drums, he played disney, he sang great. He was the guy that I hope today. Somehow, they put him back in the forefront. And Dean was an underrated singer.

• 44:44Billy Corgan?

  But let's talk about Sammy for a second, cuz my manager, Bruce Eskovitz, told me this story where I guess at some point Sammy was preparing to do some kind of book or something. So they have all these tapes of Sammy telling his true story. Not, you know, the uncensored, the unvarnished, where he talks about what he really went through. And, and my manager said they cannot get anybody to, to do, to do Sammy's story. That's insane to me.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  Well, he had Yes, I Can, which was the book. I've heard the romings about that. Everything is timing.

• 45:24Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 45:24Speaker 00

  And I will say to you that ultimately, they will do the Sammy story.

• 45:30Billy Corgan?

  I hope so.

• 45:30Speaker 00

  Without doubt, without question. And the one song that I do. You know, people say, what's your favorite moment, favorite song? You know, songs like your kids. But the one song that I get off on every night is singing with Sammy Davis, him on the screen for a song that I wrote for him, that- When he recorded and I was at the studio that night, that was as important to me as My Way with Sinatra.

• 45:57Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 45:58Speaker 00

  And you will hear and see something on Sammy in these coming years.

• 46:03Billy Corgan?

  I hope so.

• 46:04Speaker 00

  If this alien door that's all thrown at us today doesn't open and we start to just, you know, I'm a big reader and I believe it's all out there, you know, and I, and I don't question the fact that there is no God, but I need some proof. But things are going to change in the next four years where all of us are going to have to get into a new mental state.

• 46:28Billy Corgan?

  One thing I was going to say on Mr. Sinatra.

• 46:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:31Billy Corgan?

  Like a lot of people of my generation, we would hear the stories about Frank because growing up in the seventies, you know, Frank was on TV, you were on TV a lot. So you were always presented as great stars, but you know, you were, you were something that our, that our, our parents or our grandparents would say, oh, you, this guy. So you almost like inherit the vibe on an artist, but you don't have a personal relationship. I didn't have a personal relationship with Mr. Sinatra, other than he was, oh my God, Frank Sinatra's, you could tell by everybody's body language.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:05Billy Corgan?

  Frank, the way Frank moved, the whole thing.

• 47:08Billy Corgan?

  So like a lot of people in my generation, we would hear this, this, what people would say about Frank was like, he hates rock and roll, or he doesn't like rock and roll.

• 47:20Billy Corgan?

  And, and, but of course I saw at some point where he, you know, he did, he did, uh, Something by The Beatles, but it's only Frank would, something in the way, she moves.

• 47:29Speaker 00

  He did Frank.

• 47:30Billy Corgan?

  He do Frank.

• 47:30Speaker 00

  And stuff before that.

• 47:31Billy Corgan?

  Sure. But I have to say, as somebody who, uh, came later in life to the great American songbook, the Harry Warrens, the, the, the Gershwin's.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  Sammy Conn's.

• 47:44Billy Corgan?

  These incredible songs.

• 47:45Speaker 00

  Julius Stein's, yeah.

• 47:49Billy Corgan?

  Johnny Mercer, right?

• 47:51Speaker 00

  Hoagie Carmichael, a whole bunch of them.

• 47:52Billy Corgan?

  If you, if you, and I say this to people who are rock fans, I mean, I've made my life in rock and roll. Until you really understand the great American songbook, what Sinatra said makes total sense. How are we going from, you know, some of these incredible charts that, you know,

• 48:12Speaker 00

  Nelson Riddle.

• 48:13Billy Corgan?

  Nelson Riddle wrote, "I got the world on a string." These incredible lyrics, these incredible songs, I mean, the absolute height of American songwriting.

• 48:23Billy Corgan?

  So of course, to that guy, who was the great interpreter of that song, or a Garland, you look at rock and roll and go, what?

• 48:32Speaker 00

  Can't invest in it.

• 48:34Billy Corgan?

  How could I possibly even understand, what is this? So I get it now, where as a kid, I was like, oh, that's just old people talk, right? Where I think it's interesting with you is you actually bridged these two worlds. I mean, you had one foot in the Rat Pack world, and then here you are, a teen idol, playing basically, you know, the beginning of rock and roll. I mean, that's, I can't think of anybody else that's in the both worlds, can you?

• 49:03Speaker 00

  Okay, no, I'm just one individual that continued to get lucky, that applied himself with hard work.

• 49:10Billy Corgan?

  You must have a lot of luck. I want to know what horse you're betting on.

• 49:14Speaker 00

  Well, it's football and hockey, a little NBA. You know, I don't know that I'm.

• 49:20Billy Corgan?

  Who bets on hockey? You bet on hockey?

• 49:22Speaker 00

  Oh, I love hockey. I was growing up on hockey. I played hockey. I helped bring the Ottawa Senators.

• 49:26Billy Corgan?

  That's right, you're Canadian, you can't help it, yeah.

• 49:28Speaker 00

  Never forget my Canadian blood. I played it as a kid. I wanted to keep going, but as I said earlier.

• 49:33Billy Corgan?

  Okay, here's, here's a little connection we can make.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 49:36Billy Corgan?

  Within a few days, I'm actually singing at one of the Wirtz family's weddings.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  Chicago? Yeah.

• 49:42Billy Corgan?

  The Wirtz, of course, own the Blackhawks.

• 49:44Speaker 00

  The Blackhawks.

• 49:45Billy Corgan?

  So.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:46Billy Corgan?

  It's my little connection there with.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Well, you know, Canada, it was all hockey. We did it all, it was only Canadians.

• 49:51Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's all you guys have.

• 49:52Speaker 00

  That's all we had, and moose jerky.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  But you know, then it's evolved into what it is.

• 50:00Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  But, you know, look. When you're an individual who has work ethic, you know, work ethic is so important. And you find something you love doing, and I can only speak as a humble individual. There's nothing great about what I did. You know, you think I'm the only success story in the world? There's so much of it out there. I just didn't want to lose this passion that I had, and I don't overdo passion. It's something that you do well, that you continue on to. The evolution, and you can't, you know, Darren made the transition with me. You know, he and I would talk about, and Darren was more musical than Sinatra. Darren was a musician.

• 50:39Billy Corgan?

  A dynamic performer, dynamic singer.

• 50:42Speaker 00

  Absolutely, and he evolved with me, and you know, I was with him four months before his death.

• 50:47Billy Corgan?

  But you had hits in rock, that's the interesting thing.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  Well, because that's, listen, there were times I'd sit and say, I'm getting rid of this tuxedo. And I know if I get up there, I can do what they're doing. And I'd say to myself, no, don't do it. You know, Bobby tried it, he did it with the jeans and the Dylan thing. I'd say, Bobby, I don't know if it's really good. I just stayed with what I knew and wanted to continue. And what kept the chain going from the rock where I started was being the writer. You know, to wind up in the eighties and with the last three Michael Jackson hits, I sit there and go, I gotta be kidding, I'm singing these songs I wrote with this kid that was talented.

• 51:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 51:28Speaker 00

  You know, and I was so fortunate, I wrote with great writers. Burt Bacharach was my buddy all my life and loved his work, and nobody could ever emulate him.

• 51:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  He was, him and Hal David, never forget the lyricists, right? And I was around a guy like Burt and continued to say, keep writing, keep writing. And that was the core of my longevity.

• 51:49Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 51:50Speaker 00

  Whether it was That, She's a Lady with Jones, but to work, to work with the Michael McDonald's and Kenny Loggins and to wind up working with Michael, you know, that was a huge leap.

• 52:02Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  Because his family would bring him to see me at Caesar's Palace. And, you know, those of us in the music business, we don't have crystal balls, but you had a sense that this kid was gonna bust out.

• 52:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 52:13Speaker 00

  And he was working with me as Thriller was just coming out. I had three tracks with him.

• 52:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 52:20Speaker 00

  On my duets album on Sony, we were both on Sony.

• 52:25Speaker 00

  And the timing of it, we were just gonna finish it. Thriller takes off and he took the tapes out of the studio. I don't wanna say he stole them, but he stole them.

• 52:34Billy Corgan?

  That's nice, yeah.

• 52:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, I laugh about it because I think it's funny.

• 52:39Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 52:40Speaker 00

  And, you know, I didn't wanna litigate because I don't believe in that.

• 52:42Billy Corgan?

  Did you forget about the songs and when they came out, you were like, oh, there they are?

• 52:47Speaker 00

  I was aware of them, but I couldn't do anything with them.

• 52:49Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  And there were little outings with them. The point was, when he passed and they found them.

• 52:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 52:57Speaker 00

  And they were building the This Is It tour.

• 53:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  And they found This Is It in the drawer. Cause he took the tapes, re-recorded them, and through the lawyers, I got them back not knowing.

• 53:10Billy Corgan?

  Ah.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  And they found everything. So they found this song with my original title was, "I never heard a single word about you." And that was the title. Harvey Levin, who's on Top of Everything, I love those guys. He called up and said, "There's a song coming out called This Is It, Michael Jackson." And somehow, someone said, "You wrote it." I said, "I wrote some songs, but This Is It doesn't ring a bell."

• 53:39Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 53:40Speaker 00

  "How can I hear it?" And he sent it to me. What they did was, whoever were around him at the time, uh, his music group, they took the very first word, "This is it," and they changed the song and changed the title. There they were, a week before release, a week before the tour, and they were in a bind. I went, "Uh-huh." So we're on the phone with lawyers. I said, "Look, ain't gonna hold you up, I just want half of everything." Same I did with Johnny Carson, with the Johnny Carson theme. And that was it, the Michael Jackson story. But to work with him.

• 54:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  You know? When you listen to a lot of the tracks on some of those albums, they're not amazing tracks. Talented guys putting them together.

• 54:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 54:29Speaker 00

  But don't ever think that Michael's contribution, he made sounds. When I would work with him, I'm at the piano.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  I never worked with anybody like that.

• 54:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 54:45Speaker 00

  And he would do it.

• 54:49Speaker 00

  He was a bass user.

• 54:52Speaker 00

  Whatever. I knew the kid was so talented and I had to work from that.

• 54:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 54:58Speaker 00

  So the collaborations, which I loved, with working with people because there's people more talented than me. And I want to see whatever he brings to the table. But he was the experience of all the people I've written with and working with Bacharak, my very dear buddy, right down to the end.

• 55:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. I got a nice compliment recently. I was work, I wrote some songs with Paul Williams.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  Wonderful writer.

• 55:20Billy Corgan?

  Oh.

• 55:21Speaker 00

  You know, the only thing I have over Paul Williams is I'm taller.

• 55:26Speaker 00

  But he's so talented.

• 55:28Billy Corgan?

  Very talented.

• 55:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:29Billy Corgan?

  But he paid me a great compliment. And this is somebody I know that you worked with. After we, we wrote this second song together, he turned to me and says, I like working with you. You work fast. He goes, you remind me of Roger, Roger Nichols.

• 55:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, Roger was really fast. Yeah.

• 55:47Billy Corgan?

  And I took that as such a great compliment.

• 55:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I had the same experience with Richard Marx. Another talented guy, Chicago boy. And.

• 55:55Billy Corgan?

  I don't know Richard, that's so funny. We've never, we've never crossed paths.

• 55:58Speaker 00

  And so talented. I mean, around him in the beginning, when no one believed, you know, David Foster said, you'll never make it, which broke his heart. And I nurtured him and spent time with him.

• 56:07Billy Corgan?

  Okay, I didn't know that.

• 56:08Speaker 00

  And we wrote songs, like a ton of songs. And I called record to whatever. I loved helping new talent, you know, I just, because I remember how it was tough for me.

• 56:16Billy Corgan?

  But yeah.

• 56:17Speaker 00

  Another talented guy was Richard Marx. But we were knocking it off. He says, God, you write fast.

• 56:22Billy Corgan?

  I enjoyed these recent albums that you, there was the Anka Sessions, Inspirations of Life and Love, which came out this year.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:31Billy Corgan?

  Because I woke up this morning at 4:00 AM listening to you sing at 15 years old or whatever. I was struck by you.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  Painful. How can you get up at 4:00 in the morning and listen to that kid?

• 56:42Billy Corgan?

  Well, I did. But, but, but I was, I sort of love that through it all, you, you, you, you became the crooner that you, you know, you grew up in the shadow of these great crooners.

• 56:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:56Billy Corgan?

  I mean, just Dean Martin alone is a crooner. I mean, I mean, Elvis is the secret in, uh, Dean Martin is the secret influence on Elvis. If you really listen to Elvis sing ballads, he's doing Dean.

• 57:07Speaker 00

  Well, Dean emulated the Mills Brothers. He loved the Mills Brothers.

• 57:11Billy Corgan?

  You ever see that clip where he's got the Mills Brothers on his show with him?

• 57:14Speaker 00

  Yes. He loved the Mills Brothers.

• 57:17Billy Corgan?

  The Mills Brothers were unbelievable.

• 57:19Speaker 00

  Elvis was driven, and when we, when we talked, it was that black experience for him. Little Richard. It was all of the, uh, the spiritual stuff, all of those, uh,

• 57:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 57:30Speaker 00

  That's, he would only talk about that.

• 57:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 57:33Speaker 00

  You know, the only time I felt he got a little tested maybe was Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, which were a huge force when they hit.

• 57:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:42Speaker 00

  But they were doing him.

• 57:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 57:43Speaker 00

  They were doing Elvis, but you know, to sit with him, it was always that, he had that amazing black voice in that white body.

• 57:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 57:52Speaker 00

  And he put his soul into it. And, you know, back to what I said before, you know, sitting and talking to you, and then when I listened to your music, when I was putting rock swings, there's two different people there.

• 58:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  You know, you've got that guy with that voice, those great lyrics, and yet you're like a Wikipedia, you know? And when I sat with Elvis.

• 58:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 58:16Speaker 00

  This was this shy guy that we would talk about limited issue type things, but certainly about his career, who, you know, wouldn't just go to dinner with me. Or when we ran into him in Vail, Colorado, he'd only go out at night on more, snowmobiles with lights, wouldn't go out in the day. But you knew that his whole thing was that whole black experience that he grew up around.

• 58:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 58:40Speaker 00

  That gospel world.

• 58:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it's powerful.

• 58:44Speaker 00

  Real, and he was powerful.

• 58:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I, I was, uh, when Lisa Marie passed, his daughter, I was friends with Lisa and I sang at the funeral.

• 58:56Billy Corgan?

  But what I really remember about that day of the funeral was, was the vocal group, I think it was the Jordanaires.

• 59:04Speaker 00

  Jordanaires, yeah.

• 59:05Billy Corgan?

  Got up and, you know, the, when the, the, the young man who leads the group, well, he's not young, but I mean, he was a young man when, when his father was leading the group. He was like the high tenor gentleman. And he, he, he spoke so deeply and passionately about what Elvis had done for his family, how Elvis really loved to sing gospel and would call them and want them to come over and sing gospel.

• 59:30Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 59:31Billy Corgan?

  And I really understood the depth of Elvis's love of gospel by this man's eulogy.

• 59:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:39Billy Corgan?

  He said, "You don't understand how powerful the spiritual song was to Elvis."

• 59:45Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 59:45Billy Corgan?

  There'd be no Elvis without this, this connection to his, this, the spiritual root. And to see the emotion in the man's voice and body, and he broke down crying. That's the part about our, our biz. Everybody likes to talk about hits and it's those rooted experiences, the passion.

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:05Billy Corgan?

  You know, that, that, that deeper sense of the song, I guess.

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:07Billy Corgan?

  Maybe the journey of the song.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:10Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:00:10Speaker 00

  He was very giving, you know? He was very giving.

• 1:00:16Billy Corgan?

  Couple, couple more things.

• 1:00:17Speaker 00

  Take your time. I'm having fun.

• 1:00:19Billy Corgan?

  Thank you, thank you.

• 1:00:19Speaker 00

  You can edit what you want.

• 1:00:21Billy Corgan?

  Oh, no, we don't edit anything.

• 1:00:22Speaker 00

  I'm here already. Just go, take it all.

• 1:00:25Billy Corgan?

  We just have to bleep your F-bombs.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, really? You don't bleep my F-bombs?

• 1:00:28Billy Corgan?

  We do bleep. Couple of things. I think, I'm 59 years old and, and I've been very blessed to have success for many years in the, in the rock business. But I have such respect now for the, for the great singers of the American song. I know we've touched on it before. Do you, do you miss that, that, that world? Do you miss that world at all? I know you're like, you know, like you sang that on your recent records, that it was a very good year, you know?

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  I changed all that. I took that to life. Changed them.

• 1:01:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Billy Corgan?

  But I'm saying, do you miss that world?

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:01:04Billy Corgan?

  With those types of singers?

• 1:01:06Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:01:06Billy Corgan?

  Okay, tell me why.

• 1:01:08Speaker 00

  I'm not wired that way. I don't miss.

• 1:01:13Speaker 00

  I have no rear view mirror. I don't believe in it. I think it's wonderful to draw from. I look at it as part of the totality of what I've been through. But there's no way that I would return to it.

• 1:01:26Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:01:26Speaker 00

  Can I be articulate in terms of the differences of Vegas then and five little hotels and a airport not bigger than this and these great guys that I worked for and were just running the world of show business? Sure. But do I want to go back to that? No. Why would you want to go back to in life? To anything that you experienced other than drawing the great memory and the moments of it? That fuel what you're living today?

• 1:01:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:00Speaker 00

  The importance of life. And I try to stress this to my kids, to anyone I can speak with. Understand the importance of the moment that you are living in. The necessity of respecting the asset of time. You are wasting time to ever want to go back to anything. Your time is your best asset. You know nothing about tomorrow.

• 1:02:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:26Speaker 00

  But no, there's no way I would want to go back. I live for now. There's no flag in the mountain for me yet. I got the Broadway show I want to do. I got projects I'm doing. I want to live in the moment. I've got still something to give. I still write, I still do. I'm out touring. Just left Mexico City. You know, to go out there at my age and play 10,000 people in a stadium. I'm sorry, that'll humble you. Because I'm up there almost laughing. And because of TikTok, I got young kids running with albums. I'm going, this is ridiculous. I mean, you know, I'm humbled by it and I'm gracious with it. But you need to live in the moment to understand you still have something to give. I'm not going to dwell on ageism

• 1:03:11Speaker 00

  because I don't believe in it. I think everybody has just got to live that moment, stay healthy, and forget yesterday. Just learn from it and cherish the memories. I got great memories of Sinatra, Sammy and Dean and everything I did with them. But no, I don't want to go back. I'm having too much fun now.

• 1:03:30Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  I'm fortunate that, and I'm probably not the only one. You know, when you peel the onion off of a ball, there's smart guys out there and women.

• 1:03:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:39Speaker 00

  That are learning to live their lives and yesterday is yesterday.

• 1:03:42Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:03:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:44Billy Corgan?

  You know, the number one topic in the entertainment business is AI. So I usually just toss it up as a, as a ticket where you want to take it.

• 1:03:55Speaker 00

  Okay, I'll drop just a name because I love him. Warren Buffett called me a few years ago.

• 1:03:59Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:03:59Speaker 00

  He's one of the smartest guys, the most humble and I, I, I love him. He said, Paulie, Bill Gates is here and he gave me this machine. It's a GP. GP or whatever that thing is, four or five years. And I said to the machine, give me four versions of my way. And it did it in one minute. I said, wow, Warren, that's unbelievable. That's the first time I heard of it, right?

• 1:04:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:23Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:04:25Speaker 00

  Of course, there's a lot of antrepation, a lot of fear with AI. I'm not afraid of it. It's moving quicker than you can imagine. I'm an avid reader. I'm never the smart person in the room. So the crowd I'm around. It is indeed, has been changing everything. It will change everything. We will have to adapt to it. There will still be that human element. When you really look at it, you know, the guys that are going to flourish. A plumber is going to become very important now. Because a plumber and what he does.

• 1:05:04Billy Corgan?

  Can't be replaced.

• 1:05:05Speaker 00

  And a robot cannot replace.

• 1:05:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:07Speaker 00

  So till that field, that level playing field occurs. When we realize that, you know, I go to Asia a lot. They've got robots walking around everywhere. You check into a hotel. China has thousands. I mean, it's all on the landscape. It's indeed coming.

• 1:05:27Speaker 00

  Big business that runs the world with government. Let's be aware, folks. They run the world and as bright as we all think we are, there's a backroom dialogue and plan in place as to what's going to be implemented. Sure. And AI will take us to an absolute new level in society. Companies and government must take care of the people and they'll come up with a formula because their upside will be so huge in how much they'll make. But they'll go to a guy that is not blessed with some huge career windfall. That's making eighty, ninety a year. And you say, you're going to work two, three days a week and we're going to give you the rest of the money and blah, blah, blah.

• 1:06:11Speaker 00

  And they will set forth a format that will exist. Because what will he do with that money? He'll go out and spend it again. Yeah. So it's here. Okay, where am I concerned? You and I as writers, we know what's going on. Yeah. Right? We know what was the last big country hit number one, AI. Let's sit and wait and collectively, so it's not ever I, I, I. It's we, as a writing community and artists will sit down and at the right time, go to whomever and say, here's what you have to implement to make it fair. I see. So that this functions properly. You accept it because if you read history enough, this great country, this breadbasket of US,

• 1:06:56Speaker 00

  Canada, South America against Europe, which is a waning society and the power of Asia. We've always balanced things out. That's how great this country is. When you look at its assets, it will balance out when people speak up collectively. When you look at the great revolts. Yeah. The young people of today. Look how they revolted with Coca-Cola put out this new Diet Coke years ago. Millions gonna... So what I'm saying is it will level off. Yes. I'm concerned as to the applications in our field. I want what's coming to you. I want what's coming to everybody else.

• 1:07:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:38Speaker 00

  There should be enough in there for all of us to say, listen, we got screwed for years anyway. Do you think artists and writers have always had the fair share? It's always been corporate. It's always been record company. It's always been these agents. But never lose the fact, as I said earlier, without us as writers, humbly, there ain't none of them. They need to take care of my fellow artists.

• 1:08:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:01Speaker 00

  And writers, even with AI. Now, I don't use AI when I record. I don't know what you do. One day, for some reason, if I want to separate a file and come up with, okay, I get the usage. But I'm not afraid of it, okay? I'm more afraid of mankind and politicians and the wealth, the pockets of wealth, that minority group of people that are making the changes.

• 1:08:28Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 1:08:28Speaker 00

  That are not helping the common man.

• 1:08:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Yeah, I think one interesting wrinkle in all this, because there's lots to consider, will be the ability to go back and take older recordings and kind of spruce them up.

• 1:08:44Speaker 00

  Yes, they're doing it. They're doing it with Michael Jackson right now.

• 1:08:47Billy Corgan?

  But I'm talking about even to your catalog.

• 1:08:50Speaker 00

  Okay. Sit down, have a meeting with me. What do you want to do? There's no question, they're doing it now.

• 1:08:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Speaker 00

  What I'm saying is, you got to control the who and the they.

• 1:09:01Billy Corgan?

  I see, yeah.

• 1:09:02Speaker 00

  And great, show me, I get it. I see it. I want it. But just make sure that everyone is properly taken care of for those intellectual rights. It's only fair.

• 1:09:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:14Speaker 00

  I want a bunch of hucksters running around taking advantage.

• 1:09:17Billy Corgan?

  Okay, last thing. Any word, any words of wisdom? You've lived an incredible life, so it's almost hard to sum up in an hour and a half, but.

• 1:09:25Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:09:27Billy Corgan?

  Words, how about this? Words to live by. I love what you said about being in the present. I mean, I got that. Because I'm a person who sometimes can over dwell.

• 1:09:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:37Billy Corgan?

  Even being romantic about other times.

• 1:09:40Speaker 00

  I think the important thing to achieve, if you stay smart and you're not acting from emotion all the time, and you have kindness and understand that karma has everybody's address.

• 1:09:58Speaker 00

  Which I believe in is be kind to yourself and your health. You know, I taught my daughters years ago, they're all Vedans. I take them to restaurants when they were teenagers. They'd go in the kitchen and make sure there was no meat near their plate. I eat healthy, okay? You must be healthy to maximize anything that you're looking to excel in in life or how you live. So, the real key issue and wisdom from me is learn how to eat properly and know that half that crap that you've been putting in your body ain't good.

• 1:10:40Speaker 00

  Then you will function as a human being with the intelligence that you may have or whatever you have, has to make the right decisions, not emotionally, and to be kind. Be kind to people.

• 1:10:54Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:55Speaker 00

  And you'll be fine. And be careful of how you open your big mouth politically and who you pick a fight with, because it is not the right time for that.

• 1:11:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:06Speaker 00

  There was a day and age, no matter what your political persuasion was, you could sit at a dinner table, you could... The example, let me give you an example. I was the first to go to the communist country. I was getting on a plane in Europe, in Switzerland, and they had these dogs and these militia guys with guns, and they brought this guy on the plane. Pig, formidable guy, no hair, well dressed, sits across from me. And I find out he's the Prime Minister of Poland. I'm on the plane, I, you know, this is, I'm learning every day, I'm curious. And I find out he's a Prime Minister, and he starts talking to me.

• 1:11:51Speaker 00

  "Witaj, witaj, do... Polanki, you Polanki, yes?" He said, "Would you ever come to my country?" And I got guards around me, dog, I would say no. I said, "Yes, I'd love to come to your country." And I'm aware of communism, because prior to that, years ago, I'm, where we had like bomb tests at school, we knew about communism. So, fade out, fade in.

• 1:12:19Speaker 00

  I get a phone call from the State Department. "Mr. Anker, did you meet the President of Poland?" Yeah.

• 1:12:29Speaker 00

  "Did you promise you'd go to his country?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Well, there's $15,000 in the Bank of America, and we'd like you to go and represent the country." I said, "What?" I get my band together. We go to Poland. I'm in a communist country. Now, there I am, where there's no lights. There's one bathroom on every floor. I'm in an environment that I only heard of, and I'm playing to people that are so gracious and so giving. I can't believe it, right? I go from there, because of my success in Poland. I get to go to Czechoslovakia.

• 1:13:11Speaker 00

  And I'm giving this woman, Natalie, who's a card-carrying communist. Now, in those communist countries, they weren't all communists. The people weren't all communists. Yeah. And she would show me her card. There's only maybe 700,000 communists in Czechoslovakia. And we would sit every night, her and I, after the concert, and talk about the difference. In a country she hated, the US, and one that I was very dogmatic about as to how her people were, the communist life against the America. And we'd go through this every night, nicely, but firm.

• 1:13:54Speaker 00

  And it was an experience for me to really say, "There's a world out here," right? Yeah. Okay, the point of all this. I'm telling you what a great country the US was, and what we're like and how we're raised. I leave Czechoslovakia. The Russians, who had a real stronghold on Czechoslovakia, as they did Poland, they invade Czechoslovakia. If you remember, they went in with tanks and took over Prague. Yeah.

• 1:14:26Speaker 00

  And that was a huge upheaval for the Czech people. I get a letter from this woman, Natalie Rajovia. Dear Mr. Anka, as you can see, the current event, blah, blah, blah, and the Russian and now I listen, I go back to all our conversations. You were so right, blah, blah, blah. She said, I had to smuggle my daughter, whom you met, to Belgium to put her through school, and I have no money. Can you help me?

• 1:14:59Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 1:15:01Speaker 00

  And I put the kid through school. I sent her a check. I said, this is from the United States of America.

• 1:15:07Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 1:15:09Speaker 00

  Politics.

• 1:15:09Billy Corgan?

  Love it. Thank you, sir.

• 1:15:12Speaker 00

  Thank you.