Producer/Musician Shooter Jennings | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Producer/musician Shooter Jennings joins Billy Corgan on The Magnificent Others to trace his unconventional path from recording artist to acclaimed producer. Shooter discusses his disastrous Rick Rubin showcase, jamming with the band that became Velvet Revolver and producing Tanya Tucker, Charley Crockett and Brandi Carlile. He also recounts restoring a vault of unreleased Waylon Jennings recordings for Songbird and Diamonds, while reflecting on the musical legacy of his mother, Jessi Colter. Billy and Shooter debate AI, the disappearance of classic albums, and the importance of preserving the human element in music—before veering into Art Bell, ancient aliens, and dinosaur skepticism. 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

  I pour like water on top of my head because I think I'm being rock and roll and I fling my hair around and I jump off the drum riser and immediately slip in the pool of water that I've just created below my feet.

• 1:19Billy Corgan?

  You couldn't get signed to save your life, no matter what you tried.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Oh, music is subjective and objective.

• 1:24Billy Corgan?

  But I listened to Stargun.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Oh, no gosh. You're gonna have to undo some of your good music knowledge by listening to that stuff.

• 1:31Billy Corgan?

  I mean, yes, your dad, yes, your mom, yes, music, but let's talk about what really matters. Art Bell.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  I'm sure a million people on the internet are going to scream at me over this in my ignorance, but I don't care.

• 1:41Billy Corgan?

  And so I'm gonna go home. You know, a couple of days, I'm gonna tell them Shooter doesn't bleed jazz.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47Billy Corgan?

  Shooter Jennings, so good to see you.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  So nice to be here.

• 1:52Billy Corgan?

  I was watching a clip this morning, because I'm a Waylon guy. I keep getting recommended these clips. And it was a clip I'd never seen before where it's your dad's sitting playing acoustic and he's doing way more blues.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05Billy Corgan?

  And your mom's sitting there.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, at Jack Clement's studio when they did that.

• 2:08Billy Corgan?

  It's kind of, I don't know what the context is, so, but, but he kind of is playing the song and your mom's kind of almost talking, commenting. You know what I mean? And I enjoyed it because I, because it's your dad, but, but also it's like, it was cool to see the interaction of your parents.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he says that, "I was trifling when I met her and I'm trifling again." And, you know, he says poetic license or something.

• 2:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, she goes, "You're gonna need a lot of, you're gonna need a lot of poetic license."

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that was the great Jack Clement who produced the album that that was on, Dreaming My Dreams. Like, he had a film studio also, and he was really into filming stuff. And I think, I think there were a couple of specials and things he made that never came out till later, but he definitely made like a whole special on himself that I think you can find, Jack Clement on the, on the internet.

• 2:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  But that's what that's from. And yeah, they had a cool relationship like that. Like, he knew he'd write something that she'd get mad about and then she'd kind of laugh and laugh at him, which would be worse than being mad at.

• 3:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, there's a, uh, because I do want to talk about both your parents, but there's this bit in the book where your dad's talking about his, his excesses in life, particularly as it pertains to drugs.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:20Billy Corgan?

  And he basically says, "I don't know how she did it, but my wife," meaning your mother, Jessie, "she just didn't judge me."

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:27Billy Corgan?

  He's almost like talking like it blew his mind.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:30Billy Corgan?

  That he could have a woman that just didn't judge him.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't, you know, I mean, I've read the book. I have my experiences with my mom and dad and the stories that my mom, in my mom's book and stuff, but, but like, they really had, I think that's how they made it, you know, because like, she always said, you know, "If we had waited 10 years to get married, it would have been a little smoother in the beginning," you know, "because I think he just wasn't ready to settle down." And she was kind of willing to kind of not, you know, this is the thing that, that in, when people die, people like to like, talk for them on the internet. Like, and I remember someone made some post about Waylon, I think it might have been Charlie, and somebody's comment was about like, "Well, he didn't treat Jessie that good." And it's like, "Man, you weren't there. You have no idea what you're talking about."

• 4:16Speaker 01

  And in their relationship, it wasn't like she let him walk all over, you know, she just understood. She understood the type of guy he was, understood that if she tried to like, round it, build the walls around him, he was gonna fly, you know? So I think she understood that she had to kind of let him be himself and figure out his way in life before she could kind of like make him be, behave a certain way.

• 4:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  And that was a love thing and she had faith. And so that was, she was religious through a lot of it. And I think that really kind of gave her a separate kind of strength in a way.

• 4:47Billy Corgan?

  There's a, there's a through line that I get from listening to your father sing, particularly when he sings about women. And obviously, you know, you're a singer, I'm a singer. We, not everything we're singing is autobiographical.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:59Billy Corgan?

  But I always get this sense that he, he had a, he had a deep understanding of love. That I don't know how to phrase it other than that.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:09Billy Corgan?

  Like, when he sings about love, I like, I believe him.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, it, you know, it's, Charlie Crockett and I talk about this a lot because the kind of concept of what a cowboy singer is, is kind of different that, because, you know, you have these guys that didn't really, they weren't cowboys, but they, they dress like that. Because they're, because their, their heroes were the TV cowboys, you know?

• 5:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  And, and the, the book cowboys, you know, and, and the stories of the old times. So there, there was something about the masculinity and sensitivity of a cowboy. If you read like Louis Lamour books or like Larry McMurtry books and they paint these, these portraits of these kind of men that are living out and, and living by themselves on their, on their own, you know, a kind of outside of society and slower than society a little bit. And I think that there was a romance to that and there was a, in, in country music, there was just so much in the songs at the time. And, you know, there was nothing cooler than hearing Willie or Waylon or Merle sing this like beautiful, like tender, vulnerable love song. It was like the most manly thing in the world in a weird way.

• 6:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's kind of what I'm after, yeah.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It's, I think it's a big part of what is missing in, in a lot of country now. And, you know, is that kind of like tender masculine juxtaposition, you know?

• 6:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, well, it's also particular to that generation because, you know, the, the baby boomer generation, or I guess the post-war. Your dad was born what year?

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Thirty-seven.

• 6:40Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so he, at least he grew up in that, in that, he wasn't a baby boomer baby, but he grew up in that.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:47Billy Corgan?

  At least what I saw, and you're a decade younger than me plus, um, those guys that came out of that era, they were really shut down.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:56Billy Corgan?

  There was a lot of alcohol going on because they just, whether it was the war or whatever had gone on with the Great Depression or whatever, there was just a lot of shut down men.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:06Billy Corgan?

  I remember being in a lot of rooms where it was like, like you had no idea what was going on in there.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:13Billy Corgan?

  And now that I'm an adult and I have kids, I think like, wow, they must have been going through a lot of, but they didn't show any of it.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:19Billy Corgan?

  It was this stoic.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  You're right. That's like, it was really a, a way of being.

• 7:24Billy Corgan?

  Yes, and you were expected to suck it up or be tough or whatever.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:29Billy Corgan?

  So the idea of a man's man sort of open in his heart, there's a, there's a sort of poignancy there, but it's also, it's also, maybe we don't have it anymore because everybody just talks about their feelings all the time.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:42Billy Corgan?

  But back, back then, talking about your feelings was sort of poo-pooed, as it was.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  That's, that's such an interesting point, you know, because it, you know, my dad and I like had a great relationship. But my mom talks about me as a father all the time and says like, you know, your dad, because I'm, I was just very hands-on, you know, I'm kind of a big kid that never grew up, so I kind of just played with my kids like for, you know, their whole childhoods. And she was just always like, you know, "He could never do that because it was just, he didn't come from that." He didn't come from like, but he, he did engage a lot with me, so I didn't always quite feel that way. But he, of course, maybe he wasn't crawling around the ground playing G.I. Joe every day with me. But, but at the same time, you know, that, they just, they came, like you said, they came from a different time and their parents were like these incredibly strong people that like worked all the, you know,

• 8:31Speaker 01

  like my dad was like sharecroppers, like, and they would just live in the, the house they were given that had dirt on the floor and they had six of them in there and, you know?

• 8:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you and I in, in private have talked about it. I think this is why we have sort of at least a certain understanding with each other because both musician fathers.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:49Billy Corgan?

  Both had their wild, kind of crazy times. Both came from that other world, whatever that world was. It's long gone now.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:56Billy Corgan?

  And, and this idea of sort of trying to find some emotional connection when we're sensitive people.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:03Billy Corgan?

  And trying to figure that through line back through our, our parents and.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it is interesting. It is interesting because, because, you know, we grew up in a world that was much more open than theirs was. And also, we grew up in a world in which we had television, you know? And we had these communication.

• 9:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  The systems that were in our houses that changed the way people saw the world.

• 9:25Billy Corgan?

  Well, it might even surprise you because again, you're a bit younger, but like, when I first started talking about, what I was talking about in my music in the early 90s, I was attacked for being overly sensitive.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Wow, really?

• 9:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Like, like in what way?

• 9:38Billy Corgan?

  Like, uh, why are you talking about things like child abuse? Or why are you talking about things like violence in the home? Or why are you talking about?

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Wow. That's such a strength to your music. I mean.

• 9:49Billy Corgan?

  Yes, but it was at the time, it was perceived as sort of almost exploitative.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 9:53Billy Corgan?

  Or overly raw, especially coming from a male.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Right. That's kind of, that's wild. That's wild.

• 9:58Billy Corgan?

  In fact, to this day, sorry, but to this day, the most vehement attacks I get in, in, let's call it digital life, are usually from emasculated men who have a problem with me being an emotional male.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Wow. Wow, that says a lot.

• 10:13Billy Corgan?

  But they, they also never seem to leave.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:16Billy Corgan?

  They're sort of obsessed with the idea of a, of a, of a man who's an alpha male in life. You know what I mean?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:24Billy Corgan?

  But, but, but, but can talk about things that are uncomfortable. And that seems to ignite some sort of inner, I call it beta male. It's like a beta male struggle.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  I mean, that makes sense. I mean, honestly.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  I mean, that's, that's funny that you get, you still get any kind of pushback.

• 10:43Billy Corgan?

  Oh, still, yeah.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  I feel like.

• 10:44Billy Corgan?

  Less so, but, but still, yeah.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:47Billy Corgan?

  Um, sorry, got off on a digression.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  No, it's, it's interesting to me because, because culturally, culturally, you know, the masculine role has been a kind of a weird spot for a while. So I think a lot of people.

• 10:58Billy Corgan?

  When you raise kids for thirty, forty years and tell them that, that just the, the act of masculinity is, is in and of itself toxic.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:07Billy Corgan?

  You're inviting, like, let's say, let's say that's even true, which I don't necessarily agree, but let's say it's true. And we, we all have known our toxic males and I'm sure, I don't want to speak for you. I've certainly engaged in my own version of toxicity.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:19Billy Corgan?

  Sure. But the point is, is even if that's true, that's half the population of the world.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:24Billy Corgan?

  Like, what are you, what are you supposed to do with that? In essence, if you believe that masculinity is in and of itself toxic, well, I think you need to give it, let's.

• 11:34Billy Corgan?

  The withdrawal of masculine power in the arts, for example, it should be replaced by something.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:40Billy Corgan?

  Weakness is not replacement.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:43Billy Corgan?

  You know, by saying you need to be lesser than in order to like do something else. I think that's sort of counterintuitive.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 11:49Billy Corgan?

  And as parents, right? You want to give your kids healthy.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Advice and life examples.

• 11:54Billy Corgan?

  Happily married. So you're, you're showing your kids this is love. This is, we're in this holy covenant. You know what I mean?

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, it's so true. I mean, I think it's so important for, for, you know, kids now to have that kind of example in their life because there's so much on the internet. It's like, that's the thing that's so crazy about it. I mean, that's all their conversation, but, but like the, the exposure to so much at such an early age, even myself, like when I walk. Like I find myself trying to solve like five or six different things that I need to do on my phone, like while I'm like walking my dog while I'm doing something and then I'm like not paying attention or I'm not, I'm like. Did he pee? Like, I'm not, do you know what I mean? That's, I mean, it's a trivial thing, but it's like, like I find me thinking about.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  All of the things that I've been absorbing on the internet or on the phone or through culture or that people are talking about over the last day or two. And it gets me into a frantic spot and I am, and I thought this morning about that. And I go like, man, I can't imagine from birth getting this much information.

• 12:59Billy Corgan?

  At least you remember what it used to be like.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:01Billy Corgan?

  For our kids, they only know the one gear.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  We the last, we're like almost.

• 13:04Billy Corgan?

  We're the last, yeah, we're the last.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  That's so crazy.

• 13:07Billy Corgan?

  Um, remind me again, because I, I remember having a conversation with you about, I guess, four or five months ago, but it's this idea of the, there were these tapes. Where were, where, where were these tapes that, that you now, you've brought out the two albums of your, of your father's unreleased music, but like, and there's still a third album to come, but like, where were the tapes? Like physically, were they in?

• 13:26Speaker 01

  In our, in our house that I grew up in, in Nashville, there was a locked room, a room that was always locked that had like his guitars and from the road and it had just lots of stuff and kids weren't supposed to be messed around there. So anytime that, that I'd go in there, you know, there, there, there was a whole wall that had been, had like cubby holes of may built that had reels of tape in it, you know, just like tons of them and rows and rows of them. And, you know, I think. He was, there was a point in time where he was, he wasn't allowed to, to, to book his own sessions with the people he wanted, let alone take the tape home all the way until like he, nineteen seventy-five.

• 14:06Billy Corgan?

  Wow, that late.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was right. And once he won this like battle, he cut the nineteen seventy-four, he cut, uh, the album this time. And it was basically the label giving him enough rope to hang himself with. And it ended up being his like first number one hit and a big record and, and, and he had cut that independently and him doing that caused all these contracts to go void because. Nobody was supposed to be working, not with the producers and engineers that RCA had in the studios. And they kind of thought he was gonna fall on his face. So it wouldn't cause any problems. And it became big and then everybody wanted that freedom and they got it and all this. But, you know, it, it was, once he got that, he, once he won that battle.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  He started recording, he rented studios year round and started recording and the tapes came home, you know, and he would decide what.

• 14:57Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  He would decide what went on a record at the last moment. And when he was putting it together and he'd, he'd make a, a transfer tape and give that to the, to the label, but keep whatever he didn't use.

• 15:08Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  At home. So when two thousand and eight, he died in two thousand and two, in two thousand and eight, um, some folks from his band, Richie, Richie Albright, who, who was his drummer and, and a few other guys who. Had their own stashes of tapes too, from the years. They kind of pooled it all together and digitized it with Iron Mountain. So I've had it. I've had it on drives. At first it was ten firewire drives, like this big. And, and now we got it down to like a raid array. And so I, I had that on myself, but I just didn't really have the equipment or time to go through.

• 15:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  You know?

• 15:42Billy Corgan?

  Was it hard for you even with your father passing? It's like, is it hard to get into just even emotionally?

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I was excited, you know? I, I, I'd opened it once, um, just briefly, a glance in there and saw that it was, that none of it was labeled. So it was just like, so I was like, oh no, this is gonna be a big undertaking. But, but immediately when I opened it up, I found something pretty cool. And. And, and so I knew it was there. It was just kind of like, what do I, what do I do? I'd like to just kind of get a bird's eye view of what I have. And it turned out I had a month, I moved into the studio at Sunset and I had a month free. And during that month, uh, I was like, let's do it. It like, somebody canceled a whole month's record and, and instead of.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Worrying, I just said, well, we're gonna use it to do this. And we dived in, it took a whole, took a whole month. And with Nate Haisley, who was an assistant with me, and we, we both were going through it and just figuring out what it was. And then once we had a list of it, I went through it a couple more times and re-familiarized myself with what it was.

• 16:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So Songbird was the first one that came out.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Songbird. Songbird was the first one that came out last year and Diamonds comes out in November.

• 16:45Billy Corgan?

  Of twenty twenty-six as we talk.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Twenty twenty-six, as we talk, yeah.

• 16:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So just the singles out, which is the song Diamonds.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  The song Diamonds has Glen Campbell on guitar.

• 16:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. It's so interesting because.

• 16:59Billy Corgan?

  Your dad's such a supreme artist. It's like, it's like getting like another Picasso or something. You know what I mean?

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. It, that especially because it's that period where he was like on top of the world.

• 17:08Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  It, it really, it was wild. Like the song Songbird and the cover of Leon Russell's She Smiles Like a River were the first two things that I found when I opened it up. And I was like. Like, whoa, like, and they were like done, you know, they had all the backgrounds on them and everything. And I was just like.

• 17:24Billy Corgan?

  Well, he is, I, I, what would you peg the years on? Because there's like somewhere in there, like he gets this thing where it's like. Everything sounds finished when, as soon as he opens his mouth.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 17:36Billy Corgan?

  He gets that thing where it's like, he's so on point.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the band too.

• 17:40Billy Corgan?

  You watch live recordings. He's just on a roll, like whatever that is. He's on that like crazy roll.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  It, it is, you know, and that's this period. And it's wild because if you, it's, it really seventy-four, like this time sounds a little different because they cut that at Tom Paul Glazer's and Willie co-produced it. But once you get past that and you get into nineteen seventy-five. Which is like, I've always been crazy and it goes all the way. Like these tapes, these tapes go further than this, but the bulk of them are like seventy-four to like eighty-two.

• 18:16Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  That's kind of the period where he was constantly running a studio, constantly recording. And then maybe it goes a little further. And then Richie and him split up for a while. Richie took a break. And when that happened, it's, it starts being a little more scattered and, and disparate, you know, in there. But, um. But, uh, that period where they, where they were really all in, all the band guys, Ralph Mooney, Richie, they were just on fire and they could really cut any song. And it just sounded great. And it was what they were doing.

• 18:47Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So it's, it doesn't feel, listening, it doesn't feel like, uh, you know, scraping some bottom of some barrel.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah.

• 18:55Billy Corgan?

  It's like, it's like, it's like treasure or something.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was like that. Going home every day, uh, I would just bring to my wife, Misty, I'd be, be like, man, today I found this and you'll never believe it. I found this crazy song with like Glen Campbell on it. And like, it just, it felt like I was in like a musical Da Vinci Code or something, you know? And, and as I would, there was a lot, a lot of mysteries, you know, I wouldn't. I wouldn't be able to find, I had documentation. I had some documentation and I, but it was hard to figure things out. In fact, one thing I didn't figure out until, uh, until I put out a billboard with the lyrics to this song. I did not know Johnny Rodriguez wrote it. I thought it had to be an original or something.

• 19:37Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  And then I, and then when I, we put up a billboard in Littlefield with the, the first line of it, some press article goes, it was the first line of Johnny Rodriguez is a cowboy. And I was like. It's not on the internet. Like I had to find it.

• 19:49Billy Corgan?

  Couldn't find it, yeah.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  There's one on YouTube. It's from like a weird vinyl transfer or something, but it, I didn't, couldn't find it at first.

• 19:56Billy Corgan?

  Oh, wow. Um. This might be a bridge too far, but you take it how you want. Um.

• 20:06Billy Corgan?

  My father passed away, maybe like, I guess about four years ago now, something like that. And there's not a lot of ways I could honor my father, you know, I mean, there's obviously the memory of things and I could say things, but it's like, there's nothing I could physically do.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:19Billy Corgan?

  So this seems to me, the act of doing this is a really beautiful way of you honoring your dad.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  I appreciate you saying that. I mean, it definitely is that. Like, I definitely am so proud of his legacy and just the guy he was and knowing, you know, and the older I get and the more people I've met and I see their family dynamics, I can really appreciate, you know, how open he was. So there's definitely, the big part of it is, is me wanting to honor him and know, and knowing that like, he kind of had a rough ride on the way out, like, you know, he didn't live long enough to have like, what kind of cash had in a way and all that.

• 20:56Billy Corgan?

  He certainly deserved it.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, I felt, you know, they were all kind of lost in that period. Like, he was, you know, going indie record label to indie record label and stuff. And same with Willie and Cash for a minute, like in the eighties, you know, and all that. So, you know, he always kind of wanted like, one last ride or something.

• 21:16Billy Corgan?

  Who doesn't? Yeah.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. That's what they all, that's what they all said. But, but going in there and seeing it, you know, my intention when I did it, I didn't think I was gonna be able to have all this material. I just thought, my idea was maybe I'd find one or two new songs and I'd find some like, alternate versions or alternate takes that I could throw together and make just a cool, like, make it feel like you're in the studio kind of vibe, you know. But then, once I, I saw how much great stuff there was, I was like, oh, this is gonna be great. This is gonna be really fun. And I knew there'd be some, some older fans that have been there from the beginning that would be just like, there's three more, I'm gonna stay alive for three more years for this, you know, like, they were, they would just feel excited about it. So.

• 21:59Billy Corgan?

  This, this might be a nerd question, but I thought it'd be interesting to ask you. Because you've become such an accomplished producer.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 22:08Billy Corgan?

  And it's hard because he's your dad, but, but break your dad down as an artist. If we were just talking about your dad, like, as people who produce records, right?

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:18Billy Corgan?

  Like, just break your dad down as an artist. I'm kind of curious for your take on him as an artist.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  That's really interesting because, you know, like, knowing him personally kind of changes the perception, but you know, he was very much in real life, like a little kid. Like, when he was excited about a song, like, he didn't, he didn't walk around and like, sit, sit me down and play me songs of his or anything like that. Like, he was, he was really into listening to other people's music, I think. He, you know, he was, if he found a song he liked, he would listen to it over and over and over and over again. And, you know, one of those was My Name Is Mud by Primus. Like, he.

• 22:58Billy Corgan?

  I know, you told me this.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Loved it. Yeah. And another one was, it was Smuggler's Blues by Glenn Frey, you know, that he just played over and over and over, just couldn't get enough of it, you know. So he, he had a kind of reaction to music, like, I think that, that was from his childhood that he retained the whole way through, right? Where something just, every, excited. Like, you know, I remember when he, he loved Dire Straits, when On Every Street came out, when the album came out, he was very excited and he wanted me to hear the record. He wanted me to play it when there was a song called The Bug he loved on there. And then, like, he would, you know, so, so his vision of music was that of like, a conceptualist, I think, you know.

• 23:43Billy Corgan?

  That's interesting.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Someone who like, gets an idea and then, then wants to create it, as opposed to someone who just like, sits and writes a song every day, or like, maybe meticulously plots out that it, he would get an idea. He described it in his book, like, you know, a lot of people do, like, you're kind of tuning into a different radio station and some days it's there, some days it's not, but when you get an idea, they like, oh, you can, you can bring it to fruition. And, you know, a good example of this is, is there was a book, a short story called The Old Timer, and I wish I knew the guy who wrote it. But I don't. But my dad loved this little book. It was only about that thick. And he loved it so much that he bought it for everybody for Christmas. He did the same thing with

• 24:25Speaker 01

  one Christmas for the, with the, the Jesko, the Dancing Outlaw, you know, that guy? The Wonderful Whites of West Virginia? You've never seen that? Oh, my Lord, dude, this is a Pandora's box to open for you. Guy who thinks he's Elvis and he dances. Anyway, that's a whole other thing that will blow your mind. But when, anyway, so he, you know, he, this, there was a videotape of Jesko that he sent to everybody for Christmas. And this little book, he, he just loved this story about an old man who was in love with this younger woman, but, but he watched her live her life and just kind of watched her from far, form under land and all this, but never got to be with her, but was just always in love with her. And so he ended up turning around and writing that into the song and

• 25:08Speaker 01

  on one of these albums, the way he did it was so interesting. He made it go from like a waltz to like, a straight time thing, back and forth. And, and, and you know, it was, he was so interested in figuring out a way to tell that story lyrically and, you know, but, and musically. But it all came at the same time to him. It was ideas and it was music and the Buddy Holly thing excited him, you know, the energy of music excited him. He wasn't just a songwriter. It was all of it, you know?

• 25:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  But it's hard to break him down, though. I don't know if I can properly do that, but I think, I think.

• 25:39Billy Corgan?

  With him, I always start with the voice.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, his.

• 25:43Billy Corgan?

  I, I, I told you when we got to know each other a little bit, that I was, I was pretty late to hear your dad. I kept hearing about, because my father didn't like country music because he associated with the world that he grew up in.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:55Billy Corgan?

  Hick, kick, redneck music.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 25:57Billy Corgan?

  So I just had a natural allergy to country music, thinking like, well, if my dad doesn't like it, there's a good reason.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:03Billy Corgan?

  So I came very late to country music. And then, of course, you know, once you start getting into it, everyone's like, oh, you gotta listen to this, you gotta listen to that. And your dad was always one of those names that you'd always hear.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:11Billy Corgan?

  Because I didn't grow up with country music, I just didn't get it. You know, like, to, you know, a guy listening to Sabbath or something, it's like, you know.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I felt the same way, man. I mean, I grew up on MTV. I loved his music. I was familiar with that.

• 26:24Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  But the other music that I heard in the world of country music was totally different than that. So.

• 26:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So, but it to, to, and I'm certainly, certainly no historian, but like, once you understand, like, the Farren Youngs and the Carl Smiths and, you know, the, you know, like, the people that your dad was influenced by, including obviously rock and roll from the one side and all that. Once you start to understand his place in it, and then you see how cool he is even in this genre that doesn't necessarily have a lot of cool associating with it.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Right, right. Yeah. That's so true. I was just talking about that yesterday because it's like, there really wasn't a cool factor. I mean, because Hank Williams was not cool. He was.

• 27:05Billy Corgan?

  Oh, he was straight up, he was straight up hick. To America, he was straight up hick.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:09Billy Corgan?

  And he was proudly a hick, you know what I mean? He was, he wore that like a flag.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so for it to be, you know, for there to be this kind of natural, I'm sorry, national cultural moment where like, rock and roll and, rock and roll was paying attention to country and all that was, was the kind of the first time, you know? So it, I, I understand because like, country is such an odd genre, because you can have Waylon and then six years later have like Garth Brooks flying from the, from the ceilings. And it's like a totally different type of music.

• 27:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  And back then, when Garth Brooks came out, you're like, this is pop? This is sacrilegious? This is nothing, you know? And now you listen to him and he's so far, like, the Overton window of pop country has moved so far that he's like a traditionalist, you know?

• 27:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. I look back with your dad, like, when he, you know, like, he covered like, Dylan or something, like, he had it, he, he was showing even early on when he was still in that kind of controlled studio record company system.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:06Billy Corgan?

  He was like, I'm just gonna do it my way.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:08Billy Corgan?

  I'm gonna walk the way I wanna walk, look the way I wanna look. It's like, he, his vibe was always like, I'm my own, I'm my own animal.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  He really was. And he, and he also, you know, and he was always sneaking it in because they would, you know, they, they'd want him to do this song and this song and this song. He'd be like, well, can I do the Dylan song? Or can I do my song or whatever? You know, and that, that whole thing was, Nashville was just crazy back then. It was such a club that you really could not operate outside of it unless you were in LA or New York. But once you got inside of Nashville, it was like, controlled.

• 28:39Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. I mean, it's kind of still like that in its own weird way.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, it changes, but it's still the same.

• 28:45Billy Corgan?

  So can you talk about some of your early awareness of growing up in a musical family?

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:50Billy Corgan?

  You know, because your mom was successful too. So it's, you know.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they're both on the road singing together. So it was like, when I was really little, I was traveling with them. So I was kind of growing up in the buses.

• 29:01Billy Corgan?

  Tour, tour bus.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Tour bus and all that stuff. And, you know, then once I.

• 29:06Billy Corgan?

  Can I stop you real quick? Because, because this is my understanding. This is, at least this is the way it used to be. It was like, they would tour like, three, four days a week, and then you'd be home back in Nashville, right? Is that?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Yes. A lot, I mean, when I was really young, there was some Waylon and Willie tours going on that were like, longer. And there was the first Highwayman when I was like, four, which was like Germany and like, they went all this over there.

• 29:28Billy Corgan?

  That was sweet.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Which I, I went with them for that. And actually, the Berlin Wall was still up. And I remember seeing that as a little kid. But I was very little. I was scared to death because they brought dogs on the, on the bus. And I didn't understand why there were like, three dogs on the bus and all this stuff, you know? But, but yeah, like, I grew up on the bus. Really? Yeah. And on the road in hotels.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  When we were in Nashville, the normal Nashville routine would be like you leave on Wednesday or Thursday, play through the weekend, come back.

• 30:00Billy Corgan?

  And you're back home Monday morning.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Right. And he'd go in the studio, right? But, you know, doing that, I was aware, but I kind of wasn't aware of what everybody else was like. Like, I kind of was aware of that until I got to, like, regular school. I was in kindergarten, you know, my dad used to joke, tell the story because there was a kid named Cliff, and I went over to this kid's house, uh, like first grade or something, or maybe even kindergarten. And, um, his dad was a doctor. So when my dad came to pick me up,

• 30:29Speaker 01

  he said, hello, Dr. Jennings. And he, because he thought everybody's dad was a doctor, you know? So, uh, it was kind of like that in a weird way, you know? But it was interesting because like real kids were fine, but they were mean. I was like, oh, people are really mean outside of the like kind of musician-y circles, you know what I mean? It was like when you go to, I went to like the one school that was pretty, it was like a private school in Nashville. And actually, like, looking back on it was a, was a fairly, it was a good experience. But the, there were some kids that were real pieces of shit in this class, you know, picking, aiming right at me. Cause, cause I didn't understand, like Nashville was like very old money. It's like Bell Need. It's like this generational wealth. And we were like, like poor people who got money.

• 31:13Billy Corgan?

  This is probably a discussion that we have not here, but like, you know, there's that old Illuminati money in Nashville. Why do you think they built that Parthenon thing in Nashville?

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Dude, yeah, the Parthenon is wild. Yeah. I know we should, we should talk about that. But yeah, it's like, you know.

• 31:32Billy Corgan?

  So when, that's weird. Cause like Memphis too, there's that old money that's still kind of there.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It's there and it's, and it's weird. It's like a weird energy to it. The people who are a part of those families.

• 31:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  You know, there were, there were some wonderful kids, but there were a few where I was getting to understand that. I didn't understand how those dynamics worked. And, you know, I, I, you know how it is. But, but like, either way, you know, once I kind of got into school, I, I really kind of could, could, could kind of understand how all of this worked. And, you know, I, I actually kind of, after a while, I, he would, he'd take me on the road every summer. And I think by the time I got to about 16, I was like, can I stay home? I was like, can I have a girlfriend? I was like, can I have a band? You know, and I, I kind of just did not want to go back on the road, you know? But, uh, but I, I did enjoy it, man. When I was like, my favorite thing to do is we'd pull up into town and me and my friend, who was, uh, my dad's steel player, Robbie Turner's son,

• 32:26Speaker 01

  we would go find a record store and go buy your records or go buy records just based on the album cover. You know, like that was a time to be alive. Hopping record store in every town.

• 32:36Billy Corgan?

  But did you, did you, did you grow up loving the atmosphere of music or?

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Yes, I did.

• 32:42Billy Corgan?

  Cause you have a life in music now. That's pretty obvious.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  As a kid, I didn't really start, I, I started playing drums when I was young, um, and was.

• 32:50Billy Corgan?

  How's your drumming?

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Man, now I, I tell you, all of this is great, is good. And my, my foot is what I, I've never been pleased with my foot. I just feel like I can never get the swing and pocket. And there's just much better players, but I do love playing some, some drums just for fun, you know? But I, I did that and, and got, took piano and stuff, but I, I didn't really think I was gonna play music. I thought I would be maybe more into art. I was really infatuated by cell animation process at a young age. I wanted to learn, learn how to do cell animation and all that before computers, you know, and, but, uh, at one point around 13 or 14, I, around the time I start buying records and I start really

• 33:33Speaker 01

  watching MTV and I'm watching it all the time and watching every band and, you know, and doing all that. Uh, I, that's all I wanted to do. That's, I was like, that's, that's the road.

• 33:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  That's the road. Like, I think the MTV gave me my road because I don't know, I never felt, I love country music now, but there I didn't feel like I belonged in that town. And I, there weren't any cool rock bands. I mean, there was literally like BR549, which is pretty cool hanging around, burgeoning Hank III, which they were all in the kind of different scene than I was. And there was like the Scream and Cheetah Wheelies and Jason and the Scorchers, which were pretty cool bands. And, but I remember being like, but out in LA is where all those people live. Like in New York, you know, that felt like the place you gotta go.

• 34:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Even like in Chicago, we kept being told you're gonna have to get out if you want to do anything.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:20Billy Corgan?

  It can never happen in Chicago.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  So much history in Chicago with music. That's so crazy.

• 34:24Billy Corgan?

  But at that point, the Chicago music thing had kind of fallen into a weird.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Right. There was the Wax Trax thing happening, which was.

• 34:30Billy Corgan?

  Well, that was interesting. That, that's the one thing that you can look back and see there was really something important going on. But at the time it was just, it seemed local.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 34:38Billy Corgan?

  You know, you'd see Al Jurgensen in the bar, looking like Satan. In fact, uh, uh, not too long ago, uh, Al and his, uh, wife reached out. They were doing like a ministry book and they said, can you share a story or something for this book?

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 34:53Billy Corgan?

  And I told, and I told the story about how I was in this bar one time and I was tripping my brains out on LSD. And I had gone, gone into this corner to kind of hide because I was just so overwhelmed. And I looked, I felt this like presence, you know? Like somebody's just standing there. They're just ordering a drink or whatever. And I looked up and it was Al when he looked like Satan.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 35:13Billy Corgan?

  And I mean, I thought, I was like, I knew it was Al.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:16Billy Corgan?

  And I was like, oh my God, he really is Satan.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Oh, no. What a, what a cra- had you met him before him?

• 35:21Billy Corgan?

  No, I never met him. I was a fan, so I knew who he was.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  Tripping when he walks up like, oh my God, I don't know what I would do.

• 35:27Billy Corgan?

  You look up and there's like flashing lights and it's like Al looks like Satan. And he wants you to think he's Satan, you know what I mean? And I'd seen them before when he had like the slicked back blonde hair and.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Wow, yeah.

• 35:37Billy Corgan?

  So I, I was aware of the evolution because I've been sort of following.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:41Billy Corgan?

  You know what I mean? So.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Man, I loved that man.

• 35:43Billy Corgan?

  Like, you know, Chicago had like, you know, a couple of local legends.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:48Billy Corgan?

  We had a, we had a fake Bootsy Collins.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Really?

• 35:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. We had a guy who walked around town and told everyone he was Bootsy Collins, but he was a fake Bootsy Collins.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Wow. That's incredible.

• 35:57Billy Corgan?

  Buddy, Buddy, Buddy Miles lived in Chicago.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:59Billy Corgan?

  Jimi Hendrix's former drummer and obviously a great solo artist. So Buddy was around. He did like a kind of, every Tuesday night, he had kind of like a jam session, probably make some bread. And that was kind of it. Everybody else would get out.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 36:12Billy Corgan?

  So there really was, and everybody else was like, you know, like how local scenes can be with like, like, it was all inward facing.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah.

• 36:19Billy Corgan?

  And we were so different. We were treated like we weren't from Chicago, which was weird because we were from Chicago.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Man, what year, what, did you, would you, what year did you come here first from Chicago? Like?

• 36:31Billy Corgan?

  To play or just to be around?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Well, to play and be around, to like, to, to kind of, what was your decision to leave Chicago and go, I need to go find? Did you find your?

• 36:40Billy Corgan?

  No, we never left. No.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  You never left? You were signed out of Chicago?

• 36:43Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  That's so cool. That's so cool. So then you became one of the local legends of Chicago.

• 36:47Billy Corgan?

  We were told, we were told over and over again, you'll never get signed out of Chicago.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  I thought for some reason you got signed out of New York or LA or something.

• 36:54Billy Corgan?

  Well, we did in the sense that we had to come out here to get signed, but.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:58Billy Corgan?

  No, uh, they would come to see us and they kept saying it's too weird. It's too weird. We were rejected by everybody.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 37:03Billy Corgan?

  And we were eventually, we were signed to Virgin out here.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Right. Which was like a great label at the time, really.

• 37:08Billy Corgan?

  Amazing. Yeah. Kind of a boutique. Richard Branson, you know, was kind of his boutique thing. And, uh, we were sort of weird enough or whatever. It just sort of worked, but, um.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 37:20Billy Corgan?

  But yeah, I remember even the first time we played in Nashville, which would have been like 91. I mean, it was literally like tumbling tumbleweeds down the middle of the road.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 37:27Billy Corgan?

  Whatever was old Nashville was gone.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 37:30Billy Corgan?

  You know, it wasn't really the tourist street, wasn't really the tourist street. We were just like, this is Nashville.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was really kind of in a weird lull back then.

• 37:37Billy Corgan?

  It was like.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. It.

• 37:39Billy Corgan?

  I remember, here's how you know, right? Cause think of Nashville now.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:43Billy Corgan?

  We were, we, we were, uh, we were in Chic, we were in Nashville in the early nineties and for whatever reason I had a car or something. And we drove downtown and just parked, like there was plenty of parking spaces. And I was like, what city in America could you just go downtown and like find a parking spot? It's like, that's now Nashville, you, you don't mean, it's like it's.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  It's ridiculous. It's insanity. Well, they never planned for it. The, the roads cannot be expanded, you know?

• 38:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  But I mean, it's unrecognizable and it, and it's all Jack White's fault. If he hadn't moved there.

• 38:12Billy Corgan?

  Are you blaming Jack?

• 38:13Speaker 01

  I'm blaming, no, I like that he'd moved there because it was exciting for the town, but it's the, the gate, the floodgates opened at that minute and it was like everyone started going there. And then the pandemic like doubled that down.

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• 39:12Speaker 03

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• 39:25Billy Corgan?

  Fun fact, I did not know that your mother was married to Dwayne Eddie.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:29Billy Corgan?

  I learned that today.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 39:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I did not know. I'm a huge Dwayne Eddie fan.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  I feel like we should have crossed that in our conversations about Lee Hazelwood and all that. Cause like, you know.

• 39:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, yeah, she was married.

• 39:39Billy Corgan?

  I literally have every Dwayne Eddie record.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Really?

• 39:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 39:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, like I have like all of them. I just love the sound of his records.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Oh, man, so do I. And I love like, you know, it's so wild that Lee like had the vision for him to be the this guitar player and built that tank, the original.

• 39:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Uh, reverb chamber thing and all, like crazy person, but wow, just like created this whole genre of music that is that's really kind of echoed forever, you know?

• 40:07Billy Corgan?

  Have you ever heard Dwayne Eddie's cover of, um, it's a Beatles song. Now I'm escaping me. He covers something like, he covers something that's kind of unexpected, like a later Beatles song.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't think I have. I need to do.

• 40:20Billy Corgan?

  Like Come Together or something.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Really?

• 40:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I gotta do that. I gotta check that out.

• 40:25Billy Corgan?

  And he's on a psychedelic label at the time, which is, I can't think of the name of the label at the time. It's like a very colorful label.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  What years of?

• 40:32Billy Corgan?

  It'd be like 67, 68.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Wow, that's so cool. Like.

• 40:36Billy Corgan?

  So he's doing Dwayne Eddie, but he's doing like some weird Beatles song? Like Come Together or something?

• 40:41Speaker 01

  I've gotta listen to that.

• 40:42Billy Corgan?

  I gotta find it for you.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Dwayne was always really nice to me. Like he was around a lot. Um, you know, when I was young, his, my sister is his daughter. And, uh, and my nephew, Struggle.

• 40:53Billy Corgan?

  Your sister is his daughter.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, my mom, my mom had a daughter. Yeah, who's, who's, but you know.

• 40:59Billy Corgan?

  So basically he was kin.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And, and her son, who's a, an artist named Struggle Jennings, who's out there. He's like one year younger than me. He's my nephew, but he's one year younger than me and he's Dwayne's grandson. So we would go to Dwayne's house.

• 41:15Billy Corgan?

  That's some southern stuff you got going on.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, it's hillbilly. It's all, I got, yeah, I got a bunch of nephews that are only one year younger than me.

• 41:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's so cool. Um, I want to talk a little about your mom.

• 41:28Billy Corgan?

  You know, being, being a fanboy, you know, whenever I'm pestering about your father, we've talked about your dad, but, um, your mom had a really cool kind of run there. It's, it's an interesting thing. I know she still makes music here and there, but can you, for people who would know your mom's musical life, can you kind of quantify it?

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know what's, what's really interesting about my mom is she.

• 41:49Billy Corgan?

  By people, if people know your mom's professional name, Jesse Colter.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Jesse Colter, yeah. She was, she, her name is Miriam, her real name, and she grew up in a church in Mesa, Arizona. Uh, her mom was a preacher. Her father built race car engines and she grew up playing piano in the church and met Dwayne at one point, got married. And like, what's funny about my mom is she gets, she gets mad at me because I never tell, I never tell anybody when I'm going to be on TV or something like if we, back when I'd play and we'd do like Letterman, I'd kind of forget to tell everybody. I would just, whatever reason she'd get really upset with me. But she's the same way because I'm sitting there talking to her about, I was looking at, um, we had so many conversations about, about Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra and Dwayne Eddie, because she has, she has all these memories of hanging out with Lee Hazelwood

• 42:35Speaker 01

  and hanging out with all these guys around the Dwayne years, you know?

• 42:38Billy Corgan?

  Those sessions.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, those sessions and stuff and Phil Spector and stuff, you know? And so I'm sitting there looking at, at Boots and there's a song on there that says Miriam Eddie, written by Miriam Eddie. And I was like, Mom, you wrote a song on Nancy Sinatra's Boots album, like by herself? I, and it's totally her style. And she was like, oh, yeah. I'm like, well, you don't tell me anything either, you know what I mean? But, because she just hides all this really cool stuff. But yeah, so she, you know, she became Jesse Colter after she got with my dad and they got married and she started, you know, writing, like what's interesting about her is she comes from that gospel piano thing. And she, she knows so much country music. She grew up listening to country music, but, but knew so much more, um,

• 43:23Speaker 01

  music and, and stuff through, through the gospel thing and through all of the, the musicians that would play and stuff at her church. So she has really kind of unique feel to piano playing and even the way she sang, you know, and sings. And it's funny because she doesn't care. Like she likes, loves making music, but she could care less about like her career or like whatever. Like I, she's not in the Country Music Hall of Fame. I'm trying to get her in there, but like she could care less, right? But, um, but yeah, she, she got on this run of like these records and, and Richie Albright was producing some of it and playing on it. My dad was playing on a lot of it and it kind of had this really unique gospel bouncy country thing that really complimented his thing. And she didn't want to go tour her by herself. So she would just join his show, come out and do some songs.

• 44:08Billy Corgan?

  Couple of songs, yeah.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  You know, and it kind of became a thing like that. But it was interesting because she had a hit before he did. I'm Not Lisa was like an AM radio.

• 44:18Billy Corgan?

  That's like a classic, yeah.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was on all those pop collections. When I was a kid growing up, you'd watch the 800 number and they'd be like solid soft gold from the, you know, the seventies. And I'm Not Lisa would always be on that. But, but you know, uh, it was funny because like, uh, the press asked her one time. They're like, what do you, what do you think about your being more successful than your husband? And she was like, well, I write hits. He writes standards. That was her response. And I was like, that's a good response.

• 44:45Billy Corgan?

  That's a good response. Very beautifully put. Have you, have you ever recorded your mom?

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Uh, man, I have. At one time I did, uh, I did, uh, when I was 20, about 20 years old, this is such a random thing, but, um, someone who was involved with the Passion of the Christ, reached out to my mom and wanted her to, they were doing an accompaniment like Faith CD, kind of like, um, to go with it. And asked her to come up with something. And, uh, and I, and we already told her like, we're, this is even before my first record. And I was like, let's, let's record it together. We'll record it in Nashville. And I was excited to just record something.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  I hadn't really ever done it like on my own. And so we went into, um, the Starstruck Studios there and kind of wrote a song on the spot. That we were looking at other ones, but they were just too long and too like old and boring. And so we wrote this song called Please Carry Me Home on the spot and cut it together and both had verses and, and everything. And that was the first time I recorded her. And then that, you know, I've never gotten to do an album on her. I've wanted to, I tried to at one point and it didn't come together. It was years ago. And then she did something with Don Was. And then recently she did one with Margot Price and I mixed that, but I didn't, I didn't work on the record. So I'm, I'm, it's hard to get her to motivate to do another album, but I, I am on her about it because I'm like.

• 46:18Billy Corgan?

  You gotta, you gotta get me in the mix. I'll.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:20Billy Corgan?

  I'll get in her ear.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Dude, I would love that.

• 46:21Billy Corgan?

  Cause I, I listened to some recent stuff that she'd done, maybe in the last couple of years. Her voice is completely intact.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's got, she really can sing so great.

• 46:30Billy Corgan?

  Great. Like some people's voices don't age.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:34Billy Corgan?

  I don't know how else to put that. Some people like they retain their youthful kind of sound.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:38Billy Corgan?

  She's still got her voice, like.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  It's, it's wild because she's got so much, you know, she can sing so airy and yet have like diaphragm pushing going on. And it's like both sides of that are still really strong. So it's like, yeah.

• 46:51Billy Corgan?

  Seems like a no brainer.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  I know, I know. It's just, it's weird because it's, you know, for her to get into a music mode is like, and she'll sit and play on the daily, just by herself, but to get into like, thinking that way, I've seen her do it. Like when she, the Margot record was stuff that Margot picked. And I don't think she was as motivated, but she had like a stockpile of stuff she'd written that she hadn't done anything with. And, but like the record she did with Don Was a few years, years before that, or maybe about really 10 years ago. She was very motivated. She had a lot of feelings about my dad and everything and had been writing about all that. And that was kind of her, her expression of it.

• 47:34Billy Corgan?

  I get it, yeah.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  And now she's like remarried, happily remarried to this guy, Arlen. And, and they have like this really quiet kind of cowboy life that she likes. And she still writes and stuff, but I think she's still living and then digesting. And I think it hasn't come out in songs yet, you know? Some, sometimes you, sometimes you have to kind of just live for a minute to get the songs.

• 47:55Billy Corgan?

  This might be too esoteric a question, but. You know, much is made about outlaw country.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:02Billy Corgan?

  You know, um, and then, you know, I'm thinking like, like you were, it was, it was, it was a little before your time.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:10Billy Corgan?

  But you grew up in the, in the sort of the aftermath.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Right. That is such a good way of putting it.

• 48:16Billy Corgan?

  Thank you. Uh, so I guess what I would say is because every great scene, every great movement has its mythology. But people who are really interested in it really want to know, okay, well, I certainly see the, the positive result of that moment of time, these personalities coming together and working together.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:38Billy Corgan?

  Like you talked about highwaymen and like, things happen, relationships are formed.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:42Billy Corgan?

  And they're deeper, you know, there's, your dad told that famous story about George Jones coming over and acting crazy and he had to tie, I think tie him up.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  And tie, he tied him to the couch once and a tree once.

• 48:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, right. So, so exactly. So, but, but, but behind all the mythology, there's real people and there's real, like there's the reality of what went on.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:03Billy Corgan?

  So, growing up, let's call it in the, in the aftermath of outlaw country, like at least give me a little snapshot between the mythology and the reality of those things.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Man, that will, you know, there's two parts to what you're saying that are so important because that mythology takes over when they die a lot. And that's part of the why, why this, this collection and honoring him is so important to me because at least as someone who knew him, who's still alive, I can kind of try and paint him the way I knew him, you know, because he wasn't a, a rough and rowdy kind of character, like you would think when I, when it, a different period in time he was. But like, by the time I was, you know, four or five years old, he had, he had stopped. Uh, the only thing he did was, was he didn't drink, right? He was, didn't even know how to drink. Like our, our liquor cabinet was pathetic, but, um, but like he,

• 49:56Speaker 01

  you know, was on amphetamines and was on pills before that and, and had had years of really kind of being charged. And I think there's a reason, you know, that that stuff was actually necessary. He was, you know, ashamed of it when I was little because he was afraid somebody at school would tell me about his notorious habit or whatever, but I'd never, it never affected me as a kid or anything. But, but a lot of times that stuff takes over and you, all you have is people on the internet. And they're what they say about him, you know, who didn't know him. So, so a lot in this, in this, going through this material, one thing that I saw that was so real about it was that it was really all about the music. Like there was no tough guy bits in all of this. There was no like, you know,

• 50:40Speaker 01

  material that was anything but just kind of, um, really kind of real music. Like the fact that the Fleetwood Mac song that he chooses to do is Chrissy McVie's song at the end of the album, you know, Songbird, as opposed to like something that would be more manly or more like expected of him to do, you know?

• 50:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  So, so there's a side of that, which unfortunately happens after they go away and it kind of gets washed. Like the actual person gets washed away. Um, but to answer your question, like growing up, see, I remember, I remember Cash, Willie, Kristofferson being around vividly, you know, in different parts, like, uh, Willie, I, I remember when he came over to my house, our house one time and we were in Nashville and he was in the basement letting me play with his pigtails. He was under the table. Like he was like, he would get like, get stoned and then go play with me and he'd be really nice, you know, and, and, and, uh, and so I remember him being, feeling always kind of warm or whatever. And, and Cash was also the same way.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  At one point I, my dad, my godfather was, uh, his manager and they had a falling out and he let me pick another godfather, which was kind of an interesting thing. And I picked Cash. And so like Cash threw a roller skating party for me and all my friends. And there's a picture I have in my house of them, of Cash, my dad lacing up roller skates and my dad's smoking. And, you know, and so like, and then Cash had the same thing like my dad did where like, when he came in a room, they would like set the room at ease because they, because they're intimidating big figures, but they would immediately joke or cut up with like a little kid or like a lady that's in the room or something in a way that would set everybody at ease. And, and then you would kind of see that they were like big kids.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  You know, um, Kristofferson, on the other hand, was as a little kid, like I remember him, but getting older, he was, he was the one, like the first Father's Day after my dad died, he called me, which I did not expect. And it was very nice. And, you know, and those kind of gestures throughout life, which were very, very sweet, um, from him, you know, it's, it's kind of interesting because I, I have different experiences with all of those guys. But the one thing is they were all really warm. It was all, they were all really warm and they were really brothers because they had all been through different journeys.

• 52:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  But come to the kind of same place and just been in each other's backyards the whole time.

• 53:04Billy Corgan?

  See, uh, this is an aside, but I know you love your alternative music.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:10Billy Corgan?

  Somewhere in the late nineties, early two thousands, when I saw that the business was changing.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:17Billy Corgan?

  I actually reached out to some of the top managers in, in the biz. And I said, and I use country music as an example, but also rap at the time. And I said,

• 53:30Billy Corgan?

  where they're smarter than us is they form these relationships. Maybe some are professional, obviously not in the case of the highwaymen guys, but by working together as opposed to oppositionally, you can create new opportunities, new music and new sustain. And I pitched like, like an alternative super tour.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Man.

• 53:50Billy Corgan?

  End of two thousand.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  So smart and ahead of its time for that, but you were so right. And I remember that period of time when Brock was so like, I mean, all the way through the nineties, it was so like, everybody was competing with each other.

• 54:04Billy Corgan?

  So I don't want to say any names because I, I sort of out of respect for everybody, but, but you can guess some of the names that I called. And my idea was we should really try to work together because pop is coming. And we, and just like the country guys, you know, or some of the rap guys, if you work together, you create like amazing different musical opportunities.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:25Billy Corgan?

  And maybe we can create different type of musical moments that'll benefit everybody.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:31Billy Corgan?

  And literally everybody said no.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Wild.

• 54:36Billy Corgan?

  Because alternative music is so based on, I'm my own thing. I don't need anybody. I'm not part of this. You know, I'm, I'm like, I'm in my own little space capsule.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Right. Like everybody's in their own world. They don't, they don't collide.

• 54:47Billy Corgan?

  And, and, and, and I'm not saying I'm a genius. I'm saying is I saw where there's something that goes on, you know, all the way going back to the sixties with like duets, even like, uh, you know, uh, June Carter Cash used to do duets, I think with like Red Foley or something, you know what I mean?

• 55:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:06Billy Corgan?

  Like they, they would put these pairs together.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:08Billy Corgan?

  Or famously Dolly and Porter Wagner.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:11Billy Corgan?

  Right. And they would have hits.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  And then later.

• 55:13Billy Corgan?

  And then they go solo and then they have other hits.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:16Billy Corgan?

  So I was like pitching this idea, you know, we should try to work together and not be so separate. Because how are we going to compete against pop?

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:24Billy Corgan?

  And everybody told me to take a walk and pounce.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  That's so crazy to me because it, it seems like your scene that, that, that came out around the time you did was so vivid with color and imagery and new sounds. And it was like the, really the last era of new sonics, I think. I don't think we've had a new era, an era of new sonics in music since then, you know?

• 55:47Billy Corgan?

  Especially for the guitar, from the point of view of the guitar.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:49Billy Corgan?

  I mean, everybody was kind of doing their own thing and it collectively added up to this mighty roar of, of

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:54Billy Corgan?

  new music, you know?

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it like, to me, like it's that, that, that bonded everybody together in a way that should have been the same as like Waylon and Willie and Cash and those guys in terms of.

• 56:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So, so, and what I guess I'm saying even beyond like, it's called just the obvious capitalistic business part of it all is, is that, you know, I never had that. I never, you know, I'm really envious of those types of relationships.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:17Billy Corgan?

  I'm not bonded with anybody and I'm, maybe it's because they didn't want to bond with me. That's totally an acceptable reason, but, but, but I'm saying is, is, as I look romantically at those types of bonds.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:30Billy Corgan?

  Because now that I'm 59 years old, I don't have any of those bonds.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Right, right. I understand that, you know, but I also think like, you know, the time, by the time that like the, the culture of the business was so much different, you know, back then, because they really were.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Like, there wasn't a successful example of them in a way, and not like there wasn't either for you. But what I, what I guess I mean is, when you guys came, came out, the, the system had now been figured out and geared to bet you guys against each other, you know? Back then, I don't think that any, they thought any of those people would even meet each other, you know, or, or would have success independently and then come together or whatever.

• 57:13Billy Corgan?

  You'd play a festival and nobody would even talk.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  That's so crazy. That is so crazy to me. I mean, it seems like a, that just seems like a bummer. Like, if we, if we get offstage and you can't go see your friends.

• 57:26Billy Corgan?

  Now, there's a, there's a, there's a book that came out about Lollapalooza. I declined to participate because I, I could just smell a rat on the whole thing. So I declined to participate. But there's a mythological set of stories in there about me that, that not only are not true, they're sort of totally fabricated.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Really?

• 57:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. But one of the stories is, involves Wayne from The Flaming Lips basically saying that I used to come lurk around their dressing room and they didn't want me in their dressing room and they used to make fun of me. And, and it's told, and of course, when the, when the, when the story came out in the book, first of all, I've never had a negative encounter with Wayne Coyne in my life.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:06Billy Corgan?

  Ever, ever.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  So bizarre.

• 58:08Billy Corgan?

  Uh, in fact, in, in the nineties, we went, I think when we were on Lollapalooza, we actually went over to their house where they all lived in the same house and hung out one day. Never had a negative encounter with him in my entire life. Never an argument, never a fight, always totally pleasant exchanges.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  I mean, do you think some of those guys like that might have been a little jealous of your success?

• 58:26Billy Corgan?

  I, I like to, I, there's a guy I used to listen to on the internet, he's passed away now, but he used to say, I'm not a mind reader.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:32Billy Corgan?

  But, but basically, I can, I can sort of, you can do certain math.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:37Billy Corgan?

  Right?

• 58:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:38Billy Corgan?

  Um, and maybe jealousy is a factor in that, but I don't, if put this way, even if it was, I don't care.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:45Billy Corgan?

  But what's so, what's so interesting, because, and I'm only telling this story because I'm sort of trying to get a different point, which is like, so, uh, first of all, the story's not true, but, but, but even if it was, how am I the bad guy if I'm trying to be friendly with people?

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 59:00Billy Corgan?

  So the story's told to make fun of me, that I so was desperate to like, I don't know, hang out with the indie band that's selling one eighteenth of the number of records I am, that, that I'm, that I'm, you know, I'm held up as an object of derision. This is classic alternative mindset.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 59:17Billy Corgan?

  The, the, the people who don't sell records make fun of the people who do, because it's better to be cool than to tend to be popular.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:25Billy Corgan?

  It's better to write one hit than 40.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  That's right. I mean, in the culture of like, oh, their first album is their best album.

• 59:33Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I still get that.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, that, that didn't exist in country, like.

• 59:36Billy Corgan?

  That's, that's kind of what I'm trying to say. Maybe for, maybe in the case of the people we're talking about, maybe men who grew up in a system that was highly capitalistic.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:46Billy Corgan?

  They had survived it, had changed the business and found a, a brotherhood that was above the stupidity of the whole thing.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:54Billy Corgan?

  Which is like, we're singing real songs for real people.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  That would track with a lot of hip hop too, you know, because a lot of.

• 1:00:00Billy Corgan?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, that's like, because they, they had, out of adversity, they, they had, they were united when they came out of the scene.

• 1:00:06Billy Corgan?

  That's, you know, one example I make sometimes is, is, you know, UFC lifted the, the, the promotional model of wrestling.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:15Billy Corgan?

  Right? I'm gonna beat you up, you're gonna beat me. And they lifted a whole cloth and for many years, wrestling had a hard time responding because UFC stole the heat of wrestling.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:25Billy Corgan?

  Right? And basically glommed it onto something that's real, a, a true physical fight, not a staged contest.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:31Billy Corgan?

  Alternative music was slow to understand that once the world went pop, these old value systems of like, you know, I'm my little artist in my little bubble doesn't mean anything.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:40Billy Corgan?

  And since you've seen the, the collapse of the gatekeeper class, the pitchforks of the world, those people don't really know how to compete.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48Billy Corgan?

  And saying my album's cooler than your album.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Right. That's such a good way of putting it. I mean, and especially with the, with, you know, the, the internet and the just millions of, it's just like the reason why everyone is clawing and dying to have their, their, their song on a commercial when it would, it was the ultimate sin in, in back in the day, to have like a Coca-Cola commercial. But now it's like, well, it's the only way to make money, so this is how we gotta do it.

• 1:01:13Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's the, they, in fact, Pitchfork started writing articles how it was okay that they were doing it now, because it was the only way they could get money.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Because they have a paywall and a half and they have, they have politically motivated content.

• 1:01:25Billy Corgan?

  Back to your pop for a second. So I remember reading his book and, and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember him saying, you know, uh, you know, I, I knew I had to quit, I was doing a lot of, I was blowing a lot of money, but man, I sure loved something like that, right? Am I right? Is there?

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:43Billy Corgan?

  He was kind of like, I sure loved it though.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh yeah, he'll still talk.

• 1:01:46Billy Corgan?

  He would, he would, he wouldn't go to like, how he did.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  And, yeah.

• 1:01:51Billy Corgan?

  And I, I have that right, right?

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, he didn't look at any, you know, it was really wild, but I mean, he was, he was proud of himself for kicking it. He would get mad at the other guys if anybody claimed to be sober and then he knew they kind of weren't totally sober, you know, because he'd be like, hey, like, I'm, I'm over here not having any fun. But, but yeah, I think there was a, there was a certain part of the, you know, I had a, there was a guy, and he's unfortunately not involved with it anymore. He was a fantastic writer and we were working on a, a script for like a.

• 1:02:19Billy Corgan?

  Oh, you told me about that.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he, he had a really interesting take on the drugs. And it was like, he's like, you know, he's like, after the Buddy Holly thing, you gotta imagine, this is a dude who believes he's a dead man walking, like he shouldn't be alive. And this, this whole thing has affected him so dramatically. And then he goes into this system where he's like, you know, fighting against something. And it's like, in a weird way, like all the drugs was like, almost like a necessary armor for him to kind of do what he needed to do to get, to get through all of that. Because like, had he not, if, he's a one drinker, I think that would have been a bad mix. Uh, but you know, just, it was how he plowed through, was he did uppers and just, and people would say, you know, there's engineers that say, and I'm not making excuses, but I heard this many times, that their engineers

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  say the more he did, the better he sounded. It was like, they said, we'd never worked with anyone where it was like that, but.

• 1:03:09Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  It's like, wow.

• 1:03:11Billy Corgan?

  I wonder what that was.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:15Billy Corgan?

  Right?

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  I need some of that.

• 1:03:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  Whatever that was.

• 1:03:19Speaker 04

  The world is a vampire.

• 1:03:24Speaker 04

  Sent to drain. Secret destroyer.

• 1:03:33Speaker 04

  Hold you up to the flames.

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  Betrayed desire.

• 1:03:53Speaker 04

  Under peace of the gun.

• 1:03:59Speaker 04

  Even though I know.

• 1:04:03Speaker 04

  I suppose I'll show.

• 1:04:08Speaker 04

  I'm very cool.

• 1:04:13Speaker 04

  Despite all that rage, I'm still just riding on.

• 1:04:31Billy Corgan?

  So you, you catch, you catch the music bug kind of in your teens, like you said.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Billy Corgan?

  When, when did it become, okay, I want to be a musician, I want to like.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  I tried to start my first band with a friend when I was like 14, and then.

• 1:04:45Billy Corgan?

  What was the name of the band?

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  Baxter.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  A horrible name. Baxter. Uh, I don't know why we.

• 1:04:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, where, where did that come from?

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  I have no idea. It was me and, me and Bobby Turner. Um, and you know, and I was playing some keyboards and he was playing some guitar and we're in, and I was playing a little drums. But then I like started building a home studio. I got like, it was really Resner, man, because I was really into the, the industrial scene and all the stuff for Resner, but you know, uh, with him, Pretty Ape Machine, I know everybody loves that record, but it was kind of not my bag as much. Like, it wasn't until I heard Broken and, and then, uh, when the downward spiral came, then I was just like, whoa, this is the coolest stuff I've ever heard.

• 1:05:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, see, so, so we were working with Flood.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  During that, during the broken, yeah.

• 1:05:33Billy Corgan?

  Or sort of just after that. So I was hearing all the stories. And then even infamously, I went and visited, uh, Alan Mulder was working with Trent up at the, what, you know, we commonly called the, the Manson house.

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:05:47Billy Corgan?

  Where the Tate murders had happened.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 1:05:49Billy Corgan?

  Uh, and Trent was in there, ensconced, you know, recording. So I even went to that house during that period. And so I was hearing stuff before it came out.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 1:05:59Billy Corgan?

  And, uh.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, that, I mean, it was such a wild, like that, he never really went back there. The, the downward spiral itself to me sits in a spot because he was just using all those 12 bit samplers and just found sounds. It was so many recorded.

• 1:06:13Billy Corgan?

  The, the REX 50, do you know about that? That's, that's the sort of the secret sauce on that record.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 1:06:18Billy Corgan?

  At least what I was told.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:06:20Billy Corgan?

  The Yamaha REX 50, it was a tabletop, multi effects processor that Yamaha put out late eighties.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:06:27Billy Corgan?

  Had a really kind of like scratchy digital distortion.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  That's cool. I gotta, gotta get into that for sure. I've, I've collected.

• 1:06:34Billy Corgan?

  I think that's part of that, kind of, that, that's certain distortion sound is that.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he, he kind of did something with that record. And, and that was the record where I go, okay. And I was already a computer nerd a little bit. I could play keys. I'm like, I read an, an article, found out what software he used and I like started messing with, with Studio Vision Pro. And I was like.

• 1:06:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  So that kind of got me off the ground. And then now all of a sudden, I was like, hey, I could actually have a band now because I can like, we don't have to have a drummer right now. I can like, figure it out, you know?

• 1:07:02Billy Corgan?

  Baxter.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, Baxter. Now, so then Baxter's gone.

• 1:07:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  Now it's Kill Raven or something like that. And then, you know, that, and then I discovered Bowie, that eventually. Morphs into Stargun because

• 1:07:15Billy Corgan?

  It's just, just cause, just skip ahead, cause, cause, cause I, I, this really touched me when you told me this, that your, your dad was incredibly supportive.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, very supportive.

• 1:07:23Billy Corgan?

  And not, no judgment on your musical choice.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  No, I mean, he thought, you know, he, I remember he did, this was so mortifying to me. Can you imagine as a kid who's, who's really into like, you know, I was really into your band. I was really into Night of Snails. I'm really into Manson. I'm really into all of that stuff during that period. And, and I played my dad, the Darren Spiral, and he, he liked it, but he, he was worried about the lyrical content on it. He, cause I'm 15.

• 1:07:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  And you know, and, and I'm, I'm loving it. I think it's so killer, you know, but, but he's, but he doesn't say anything about it really. He just, you know, but he, he was so blown away by what the music sounded like, just cause he'd never really heard anything like that before. And he goes and does an interview and somebody asks him, uh, he said, your son likes Night of Snails. And he says, I think he's a musical genius, but a lyrical idiot. And in a magazine. And I was like, Dad, what have you done?

• 1:08:14Billy Corgan?

  Oh, no.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  What have you done?

• 1:08:16Billy Corgan?

  Oh, no.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  This guy's gonna hate, hate us now, you know?

• 1:08:19Billy Corgan?

  Oh, no.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  So, uh, I remember, but I understood that was his, that was his reaction to, to his worry about it having undue influence on me.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  But, um, but yeah, so, so he was very supportive and, and you know, he wanted, when I got into the studio gear, he was like, why don't we build a studio together? Cause he, he had a little rig that he was recording demos on, but he thought we could really do something at home, you know? So he, so he, he bought a Mackie 24 track mixer. And I had my computer rig and we had a keyboard that he had and

• 1:08:52Billy Corgan?

  Is this the, the Phoenix Sun album?

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Yes, that was when we did that. We made

• 1:08:57Billy Corgan?

  I didn't know about this record until recently.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  We made it then, back then. And, and in fact, even one of the songs was in the running for, um, the outlaw song was almost gonna make the soundtrack for the Romeo Juliet movie, the

• 1:09:11Billy Corgan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  The big one. And it, cause some guy had worked it and then it got, it got taken down. And we even sent, uh, our, we sent that record to, to John Malm at Nothing Records, uh, to get signed.

• 1:09:22Billy Corgan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  You know, which was like an industrial Waylon and this kid album. But, um, but yeah, that was the first thing recorded in there. And then I started working with the band and, and then, um, after I got into Bowie and the Beatles, and then I about that time, it was, I was 20 and I was like, I'm not gonna go to college, Dad. I'm gonna go to LA. And he was worried, but he let me go.

• 1:09:42Billy Corgan?

  Stargun?

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  Stargun.

• 1:09:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. I listened to Stargun.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  Oh, no. Gosh, you're gonna have to, you're gonna undo some of your good music knowledge by listening to that stuff.

• 1:09:53Billy Corgan?

  Well, I think, I think what I'm after, I mean, we don't have to go everything. I, I mean, at this point you, you had the, let's call it the quintessential LA band.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:00Billy Corgan?

  Right? You know, the Sunset Strip kind of vibe.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  Exactly. Exactly. You play in the Viper Room once a week.

• 1:10:04Billy Corgan?

  And you said, I think, am I accurate? You said you couldn't, you couldn't get signed to save your life, no matter what you tried.

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  No matter what, no matter what, even Tom Morello.

• 1:10:11Billy Corgan?

  Can you tell the story about when, uh, Rick Rubin came to see you?

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. Tom got us, uh, uh, cause Tom became a fan really fast and was really supportive. And got us a, a showcase for Rick Rubin.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  And it was in SIR here and we get there and, uh, it's only it's, no, it's, it's so funny. I mean, Rick is alone with his assistants sitting next to him and, uh, and we play this show and you know, he's just sitting there by himself and man, we are, we're just overhyped, under, under experienced, like, and at one point I, I jump up on the drum riser and I pour like water on top of my head, cause I think I'm being rock and roll. And I fling my hair around. And I jump off the drum, drum riser and immediately slip in the pool of water that I've just created below my feet.

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  And I fall down like mid-song and pop up and say, I'm okay. Like mid-song, Rick's just still looking there like this, just not flinching.

• 1:11:12Billy Corgan?

  I guess you wow.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  Wow, man. Wow. Yeah. Oh, man. And then, and then my guitar player unplugged his guitar and right after that happened, he couldn't figure out why it wasn't making any noise. And, uh, his response was yick. That's what he said to Tom was yick. He said, tell him to call me when, when they're, they change their name to Platinum Stargun. That was his response.

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  He said, hey, Rick, I never called you, cause it never happened.

• 1:11:35Billy Corgan?

  So, um, and again, I'm not trying to jump past all this, but it, you, you know, you've put out seven albums under your own name.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:45Billy Corgan?

  But the, the most curious thing to me, uh, and you know, okay, let's start here. Um,

• 1:11:53Billy Corgan?

  when you, you're like, right, I'm gonna be Shooter Jennings.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:56Billy Corgan?

  You know what I mean? I'm gonna have the family name and, and I know what's coming, the expectations and especially if you're gonna do anything remotely country.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:03Billy Corgan?

  Right?

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:04Billy Corgan?

  So what's the thinking at that point? Like?

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  You know what's weird about it is I had been here so long at that point, like, so I moved here in 2000 and I didn't start working on that first record until about 2003. I was rehearsing meeting a band and it didn't come out till 2005. So I think I, and I, and I didn't really have any musical experience in Nashville, cause I was so young. So like, I kind of didn't know. I was kind of dumb about it. Like, I kind of didn't.

• 1:12:31Billy Corgan?

  Oh, okay. So it wasn't like you

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  I didn't feel pressure at the moment, at the moment. I felt actually like I, I had to do some, I felt like I wanted to do something like my, my, my mental thinking is I'm a really, I'm really snobby. When it comes to music and if something like, it sounds, sounds too poppy or too corny, like it's just sounds done, especially when I was younger, I was very snobby about it. Uh, but so I thought country music at the time, and, and remember this is like Rascal Flatts is, is the time when, when my first album came out.

• 1:13:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  They were on top of the world and, and it sounded like Backstreet Boy, like they had literally, like, unfortunately, uh, that group, um, by Rascal Flatts canonized the boy, Backstreet Boy, like boy band type pop writing that was really kind of isolated to that style of, of like the N-Syncs and all that. And

• 1:13:24Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  I can't really put my finger on what, what that actually is musically. It's just once you had a group that kind of had that boy band vibe in the country lane, it started, this led to what is like the Post Malone record. Like there's a lot of those writers and those same guys.

• 1:13:41Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  Have canonized that style where, where now it's like

• 1:13:44Billy Corgan?

  It's just pop with a band.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's basically like, like it could have been on a N-Sync record, but anyway.

• 1:13:49Billy Corgan?

  And to be fair to all those people, maybe it was just inevitable.

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:52Billy Corgan?

  The way the world was going.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  Totally, totally, totally inevitable. Um, but at the time, we were all very judgy. So the concept of that first record was like, let's do something that kind of brings in all of our influences and sounds cool to us, which basically cool to us would mean tinge of seventies rock, seventies folk, and then like psychedelic rock from the sixties.

• 1:14:13Billy Corgan?

  So it wasn't really an intellectual thing. You're like, I'm just gonna kind of just chase whatever I feel.

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, I felt like doing a, a solo thing, I had had a bad experience with the band thing. And I had like mutinies at the end of it and, and you know,

• 1:14:26Billy Corgan?

  Sorry to laugh.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  And, and, oh no, a bunch of them pressured me to fire the manager, which I did, who I, who was not the problem.

• 1:14:31Billy Corgan?

  Was it also true you got offered to be the singer for Velvet Revolver?

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  Not as straight up as like, you can have the job, but they, uh, I played a show with those guys here at town, in town, basically like my band opened for Duff's Band Loaded at the Key Club and, um, and

• 1:14:48Billy Corgan?

  Cause you can sing rock, no problem. So I could kind of see it.

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  They, they asked me to sing three songs with them that night. It was gonna be Slash, uh, and, and Duff and, um, Matt Sorum and Keith Nelson from, uh, Buck Cherry played guitar. And, and I came back, I came out and did three songs with them. I'm like 22. I couldn't believe this happened. One of my favorite bands when I was really young and, and then I got an email like a couple of weeks later. I don't really know any of these guys. I met them at a party once before, you know? And, uh, and that show went good, I guess, for the three songs or whatever. And I got like an email saying like, would you, would you like to jam with these guys? And I was like, nah, I'm okay. My band's doing, I'm still working on my band. And

• 1:15:31Speaker 01

  I mean, that was so nerve wracking. Like in, in Rockstar, the movie had just come out and I'm like, in the event that I did do well, I don't know that I wanted to start my career off this way, or

• 1:15:39Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  I also can't sing that high and would be expected to hold very high, long notes if I'm replacing Axl, like, or whatever, you know, or that kind of a vibe. And it was Velvet Revolver, but like all that was just kind of happening. So I kind of passed on it and didn't even know that, it didn't even come from somebody that, that was authoritative. So I kind of thought that must've been something else. And then later, Matt Sorum made fun of me when they were like playing at Madison Square Garden. And I was like, man, I would have blown this. I would have absolutely blown this. I was too young and too young. But they were nice about, you know?

• 1:16:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So I guess, so guess what I'm saying is, is, is, is the curious thing is, uh, and maybe it starts you working with Dave Cobb out of Nashville, the producer, but like this, this transition into production where you, where I feel, at least from a personal perspective, you really found your lane.

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  Yes, I very much feel that way. And I feel like when I look back at my life, like I'm telling you a little studio we built at home and the way I was doing all that, it was like very much what I'm, I think I was wanting to, I was just had to use myself as the artist, you know? I wanted to explore music in ways to do it. But the way, I only way, I knew how to do it was to be the artist.

• 1:16:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Cause, cause, cause maybe if you're, if you're a cynical observer, which I'm not generally, but if you're cynical observer, you think like, oh, he tried to do the music thing. It didn't work. And then he went to production. And it seems to me it's like a, a natural evolution of like, you just kind of feeling your way through it.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it definitely felt that way. And, um, I had met a, there was a guy named the Colonel John Hensley, who was a manager ad who unfortunately passed away, but he, for the very small period of time that, that we were friends and manager, you know, he, he was like, you need to be producing other people. Like he, and he, he wanted us to start a label, which we did, like a third man type thing and

• 1:17:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:27Speaker 01

  produce things for other things. And he, he, he could see that I was, that I was really interested in that. And I was kind of limited because I was, every time I would do something for me, it would always get hit with all this other, like if I went away from what I was normally doing, I'd get, if it was more electronic or if I, you know, the Waylon crowd or the non-Waylon crowd, we're just, it always felt like here I was doing some really cool stuff, but nobody's getting it. Like, or no, or no one's not necessarily getting it, but just, you know, there, I, I'm just kind of all over the place as an artist, but, but if I extract myself as the artist and I work with like an electronic guy over here, or like a rock guy over here, this thing, like I'm getting to do that. I'm getting to explore it, you know?

• 1:18:10Billy Corgan?

  Without all that.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and something, you know, I always I hate to say this, but it's like, I've never really felt very comfortable on stage. Like I'm as a little kid, piano recitals, I hate, I like run off stage. Even to this point in, in, in time, I always felt like shows felt like, cause I'm like really prone to fuck up my lyrics. I'm really prone to like sing off key, like whatever. And I'm very hard on myself. So like every show would be a struggle session to like get through it and it be all right. Judgment wise, and then I would just want to party afterwards. Cause I'd be like, oh, I did it, you know? But every day, like leading up to the show was just like hours of stress and hours of like, I, I don't, you know, and I couldn't get anything done on the road. Like I can never write a song on the road.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  I can never work. Yeah. And I just felt like, I felt like my creativity was dying or something.

• 1:19:01Billy Corgan?

  I think of all the songs I've lost by being on the road.

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 1:19:05Billy Corgan?

  Cause I can't write for on the road.

• 1:19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't, I can't do anything. Cause I'm thinking about the show I got coming up. And then like I said, when I'm done, I don't want to go write, I want to go party. And so, so it's like, I, there was just a struggle with it all. So I was gravitating. I'd already started producing other people. A few people asked me in like 2012. So 2012, 13 is when I really started. And then when the pandemic hit, I had already kind of gotten a flow, but I was balancing both things. And I was like, this is my chance. I'm going to get out of the road now. I'm going to cancel all the forthcoming shows and I'm going to completely pivot to production. So it kind of gave me the opportunity to do, to do that. So I was grateful for it in that sense.

• 1:19:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So, uh, for people who don't know your production, I mean, you know, when we first met, I brought up the Tanya Tucker record, which you know, was like album of the year in, in Nashville. And it seems like a big deal. I don't know.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was really, that was such a, the Tanya record was really amazing. It was, she didn't want to do it. Everybody thought me and Brandy were crazy. Uh,

• 1:20:07Billy Corgan?

  So wait, can I stop you for a second?

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:09Billy Corgan?

  One of the great voices, one of the great personalities, like what's crazy about making a record with somebody like that? But I'm saying, just saying it just as an observer.

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  Well, you know, the Nashville system is really messed up. And what's really, really cool about it is we kind of stomped out this part. Because prior to this, she got a reputation for like, just not being ladylike, as they would say. It's ridiculous, but like in the, she was hanging with Waylon, all those guys. And she was kind of wild and she was doing her thing. And you know, they really kind of like blackballed her in a lot of ways. And she had to, not, not, not her fans. She always has had a career. I just mean in terms of like Nashville and the music business and getting a record deal.

• 1:20:52Billy Corgan?

  The word, the word that comes to mind is parochial. It feels very parochial there.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yes. And, and, and you know, and they just were disrespectful. And so what was really good about it was even, and she was, she didn't know that I knew enough about it, I think is why she was doubting it. But she trusted me, but she didn't even know at all who Brandy was and was, and Brandy's huge fan hers. So it was, it was a lot of talking into it. And she was asking, you know, cause I think in her mind, like a lot of older artists, and she's not really that, that much older. She was so young starting, but, um, but with a lot of the artists that come from, um, the old model is they kind of are stuck in that, that mindset of like, must be a major label, must be like the biggest,

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  like Rick Rubin, it must be at this studio, you know, whatever.

• 1:21:42Billy Corgan?

  Well, money, money follows form or something.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. And, and, and so, you know, a lot of labels, it's all changed. And what was really good is it caught fantasy records at a very good moment. And they signed her and were able to like, kind of go around Nashville and do it on the national stage, which really kind of helped. And it, and it changed, it changed a lot for Tanya, which made us very happy. And we had to do a second record with her and I love her. I really want to go in again with her and do a really honky tonk record. Cause the last two were like emotional and kind of more, more stoic storytelling. And, and she, she's so good at that, like kind of upbeats country, you know?

• 1:22:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Rowdy kind of thing.

• 1:22:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  But love her.

• 1:22:25Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Can you, uh, I, I don't, I don't know if I have the right words, but can, can you, can you give me what, how you estimate your production approach?

• 1:22:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, I, I kind of don't, I kind of thought it was one thing until I had done it enough where I kind of, now I, I start to, to realize what it is more. But you know, I, I think, first of all, I've had some experiences where I just felt like that you would kind of get in a situation. And now I got very lucky to work with Dave Cobb for a bunch of records when he lived out here. And that was my first four records were with him. And, um, you know, so I got to see somebody who likes, likes to make music in an enjoyable fashion, not, not someone who's like

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  an abusive personality or something. Cause I know it's, it's, I, it's being a music producer, I'll, I'm, I imagine it's the same in the movie business. It gives you a lot of license if you want to be a dickhead. You know, if you're a type of person that, that, that feeds on, on power dynamics, it is, it is a, you're kind of almost protected if you're that type of person, because you know, the labels and things that are involved. You could, the artist a lot of times doesn't know what they're getting into.

• 1:23:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  So I felt to me, I'm like, you know, when it comes to my judgment about things, like some producers, I got into some situations where, you know, they see it one way. Uh, and a lot of times they're a musician and they want to play. And, and they, they kind of see it like, well, I know better. This is what we should be doing, you know? And like for me, I feel like I, my judgment is not better than the artist that I'm working with about what they're looking to do. Like in my mind, it's my job, I'm being led into the band in a way, more psychologically than musically most of the time. But, um, you know, I'm kind of being led in the group and I feel my job is to land the ship, you know?

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  And to accomplish what the artist wants to accomplish, um, and distill it, not in a way that colors it differently, but makes it achievable and through whatever knowledge we learned in the process. So, so I often feel like I'm, like if someone plays me a song, my first instinct is not going to be that I, I don't like it. It will usually, if I, if I do like it a lot or something, I'll say it if I like it. But if I don't get it, yeah, I will feel that I need to hear it more until I understand it. Because I just don't think that, that judgment, that, you know, music is subjective and objective in different ways. Like you can't tell Michael Jackson

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  that you know better what's in his head when he's a young guy trying to write something and do it. You have to like figure out what it is and help him get it out there, you know?

• 1:25:17Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  Or something. So to me, I feel, I definitely don't like to like put my mark on stuff. And I don't like to like, like, oh, when you're doing a record with me, it's, it's going to be in this direction. Like I really like to go into it and, and, and hear what they want to do. And then try and figure out a way to do it and be excited about it together.

• 1:25:36Billy Corgan?

  But it seems like you're very attracted, is it, is it something you've evolved to, but you seem to be attracted to very, uh, warm, clear and, and slightly romantic recording. Is that, is that a fair way to put it?

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  In a sonic sense, yes. I, I, and you know, you and I bonded immediately over our love of like all of those great sixties and seventies recordings that are so lush and done in some, you know, as many of them done at Sunset Sound or studios like that. And so for me, I, I love, I love really beautiful recordings. So when we're going to record a band, like we're going to attempt to go and do it like they used to do it, like the, the proper way and, and find, find the right drum sounds.

• 1:26:18Billy Corgan?

  Do you see it anecdotal though, to, to where we've gone in modern terms? I mean, cause obviously, you know, you could do it the other way. And you've made records like that. And you even like electronics and stuff. So,

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:29Billy Corgan?

  You know, is it, is it, is there somewhat a reaction or is it just something that you've been led to?

• 1:26:34Speaker 01

  I think it's both. I think, I think that's a really interesting way of phrasing it because it is, you're right. There is an anecdotal point to it because now with the introduction of AI and the kind of exhaustion on electronics and, and kind of all of that that's happening.

• 1:26:48Billy Corgan?

  Pitch correction and everything.

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, all of that. It's like, to me, I, I feel, well, we have to do none of it, you know? And I feel like that it's, there's a side of me, I guess the anecdotal side in ways like a preservationist in a weird way. Like, okay, I have this studio that I'm currently working out of, that has these mics, has this room, has this great board. Like I'm, I need to treat it like they treated it back then.

• 1:27:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  And, and kind of do it from that perspective. Not to go on a total tangent, but I'm reading this really great book about the making of The Shining that my daughter got me for, uh, Father's Day, that is just so fascinating. And, and it really goes through his entire process. You see all his notes, like from the beginning of when he got the first script, manuscript to, to when he finishes. And, and it's so awesome. And when I, when I read it, I was like, oh, cause it really, really quantifies his process. It seems so mysterious up until I, when I read this. And it's just so, it's methodical and it's very much easygoing. And it's very much like, it reminded me of when I'm in the studio a little,

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  in the sense that he would expect someone, like he would hire a lighting guy and he would hire this actor, he'd hire this person. And he lets them do exactly what they want to do, because he wants to see what they come up with first. And then he can just say like, oh, hey, what if you make that one just a little quiet, you know, that, turn that light now just a little bit. Or like, that seems way off. Like just try it one more time. You know, or even with the takes, like, we don't do that, you know, hundreds of takes ever, because it, it usually is the capture is in the moments. But the way he was doing all those takes and they were upsetting people and stuff. It was because he was trying to let them, at some point they, their guard comes down. And then there's a moment when he's, he can capture in that and there and visually to him, that was what he was looking for, you know?

• 1:28:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  So it, it just, I feel when I'm in there, like I want, I love working with bands that are not the people I put together. I used to hate that. I used to think I hated that, but I love it because now I get to see the dynamic at play. And, and I can really work with the different members of the band to try and like encourage them, you know?

• 1:28:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. I have this feeling and I, I'm, I'm still figuring it out for myself, which is like, We've had 20, maybe even 30 years of digital technology.

• 1:29:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:08Billy Corgan?

  And of course, there's going to be evolution in digital technology, but like the bloom is off that rose. We know the good of it and we know the bad of it.

• 1:29:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:29:17Billy Corgan?

  You know, you could take somebody off the street and make them sound like a pop singer. I mean, we know all that stuff now.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:29:22Billy Corgan?

  And of course, there's a convulsive reaction, which is like, well, we can make records the old fashioned way. Just the people in a room, record them live. Somewhere in there, in between those two polarities, I feel is going to be a sort of a new form of truth. But I don't think we've gotten there yet, but I don't, I don't know what that is.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  That's really.

• 1:29:38Billy Corgan?

  You're in a lot, you know, I mean, you're working a lot.

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:41Billy Corgan?

  And so I feel like, I don't know how you even articulate it. I wish I had the right way to put it, but I feel like we're, we're coming into a new kind of age of recording.

• 1:29:52Speaker 01

  I think so too, because I, I just wonder, you know, there's so many facets of the actual technology of capturing video or sound that are changing with the, you know, evolution of AI and stuff. So it's like, I, I kind of wonder how far it's going to go, how, what kind of different directions. AI such it's, you know, it's at this point, it's an exhaustive conversation, but it's like, what's interesting about it is, is the reaction to it is really like what I feel is interesting. So when I said, read something today, someone was saying, he goes, by the way, this AI business, they would be charging a lot more for it if it was actually that productive of a product. So just everybody does.

• 1:30:32Billy Corgan?

  Well, they're, it's free because they're, they're learning off us. That's, that's really what's going.

• 1:30:36Speaker 01

  That's really the intake of all of our, our art. But yeah, like I, I wonder where it's going to go. I feel like I, it's interesting because like the things I find getting older in life that I'm interested in, just hobby wise, are usually technology that's older technology that people have continued to develop, even though it was abandoned by culture.

• 1:30:58Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  Like for good examples, like old computers, old video games, those kinds of things. Like there's people, I collect like, you know, 1992 Gateway 46 computer, because I love all the old games and old stuff. And there's people that have developed new technology for those devices.

• 1:31:16Billy Corgan?

  That's interesting.

• 1:31:17Speaker 01

  There's ways to do like Bitcoin transactions, using old modems and, and things. And so there, there's, I, I'm fascinated. I think there's a side of that that's coming. Because if you've just seen like some of the newer tech and just like, there's, there's some people now recently that have been making new space echoes. There are these really awesome, because they also have a spring, they've got a delay, they've got all these other things, but they're an advancement on the space echo, but they're, but they're still that same technology. Like they've improved some of the faults of the tape and stuff, but they've kind of advanced it. And like that teenage engineering company has just made a lathe, which is really exciting. It's like a totally modernized lathe to make records on.

• 1:32:02Billy Corgan?

  And has acetates or, or, or pressings.

• 1:32:05Speaker 01

  Actually pressings. And it's, it's pretty cool. It's, and like, you know, they're, they're, they're improving upon some technologies from that period. So.

• 1:32:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, maybe that's what I'm saying is that maybe it's, there's nothing new under the sun, but we're going to find some new evolution because there's, there's not the sort of holy faith in digital technology that there was even five years ago. Because the, the, the end result seems to be there, there doesn't seem to be as many classic records being made.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:32:32Billy Corgan?

  And why is that? And if you want to say, well, you're old and, you know, that's what bitter old artists say. But, but, but, but it's empirically provable that there are less classic records made in this generation and the generation before than there were every other generation before.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  Films too, which is a weird thing.

• 1:32:50Billy Corgan?

  Saying, so something's going on culturally that's sort of created a flattening effect.

• 1:32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:55Billy Corgan?

  And maybe, maybe like, maybe too much good is less great or something.

• 1:33:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, but just the music, that's such a good point though, because you know, it's even in, it's across all genres, which is really strange. Like, because if you look into in country, like you could find probably in the country worlds, where you're going to find the most emotionally impactful stuff these days, like when it comes to, you know, I guess, rock is interesting because it's split up. So you like, like, you know, if you want to listen to active rock, you want to listen to alternative rock. Yeah, it's like all that kind of stuff, you know? But, but like this, there's just not songs that are like really that original sounding anymore. It's like you, new sounds in hip hop, it's like they, they've gone extremely minimal, right? Where it's just kind of like strings and.

• 1:33:41Billy Corgan?

  Well, even Olivia Rodrigo put out this new song. People were writing me saying, I think it's influenced by one of your songs. And she's talked about being a fan, so I listened to it. It's a really good song. I think it's called The Clap maybe or something or.

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:33:56Billy Corgan?

  The Cure, not The Clap.

• 1:33:58Speaker 01

  The Clap.

• 1:33:59Billy Corgan?

  But, um, but the first minute or so of the song, it's just, it's just literally just vocal. And I think maybe like a piano or no, a piano, it's a vocal and acoustic.

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:34:08Billy Corgan?

  There's nothing for like a minute.

• 1:34:09Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:34:10Billy Corgan?

  And this is one of the biggest pop singers in the world.

• 1:34:12Speaker 01

  That's cool though.

• 1:34:13Billy Corgan?

  It's cool. It's, and it goes somewhere. So it's, it's not, you know, it's not just this minimalistic thing.

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:17Billy Corgan?

  But the, even for a top flight pop artist in 2026 to make a decision that the first minute of the record is literally just acoustic and vocal.

• 1:34:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:27Billy Corgan?

  And it's not strummy acoustic, it's like very kind of da, da, da, da, da.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:34:30Billy Corgan?

  Very interesting choices. So maybe it's just a swing back somewhere between organic and inorganic or.

• 1:34:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's got to be, yeah, it's weird because I do feel like so many people are aiming organic. Like you look at the, like the, the gorillas, right? They, they put out that, that hand drawn animated movie that went along with their album. And that was like, they said it was in response to the AI. They wanted to like do a hand drawn cell animation thing, you know? And I think that's cool. There's definitely like the boomer response, which is like my response, which is like, I want no part of it. You know, and then there's people like, man, everybody telling me I'm an old man, you know?

• 1:35:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:06Speaker 01

  But, but there's also like the people like that are young, that are having a negative reaction to it or, or whatever. And then I meet, I meet a friend, I'll meet a friend of mine who I just, I can't approve of it, but he just uses it all the time to write songs, to write, make demos or to like do art, which is fine. But it's like, I love what you said about it. You like leaning into the thing that's going to destroy you is what I feel. And I feel like that someone who's a casual musician or casual music fan isn't affected by that. But someone who's like dedicated their life to it, not to be like, you know, whatever. I just feel like it's, you are leaning, you are signing something, some kind of a deal.

• 1:35:44Billy Corgan?

  I think it's just, the deeper point I'm making, I think is, is it's like, um, it's like, you're a married man, I'm a married man. It's like telling yourself that cheating once a year is okay.

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:35:58Billy Corgan?

  Once you open that door, you're no longer in the covenant between you and the song.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:03Billy Corgan?

  You're literally inviting somebody else in the room and it ain't, they're not going to ask you for 5%.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:36:08Billy Corgan?

  In fact, you're going to be able to justify that they don't get any percent.

• 1:36:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:36:11Billy Corgan?

  Which is also part of the temptation.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  Right. And you see now, there's so many layers, like you never, you, you can never really know if it was used now. There's just no way in mind.

• 1:36:20Billy Corgan?

  That's, that ship has sailed.

• 1:36:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, because the first, the first.

• 1:36:22Billy Corgan?

  Somebody told me three years ago that they didn't think there was one lyric coming out of Nashville that wasn't AI.

• 1:36:29Billy Corgan?

  Had some AI. They said, normal writing session in Nashville, I heard this three years ago, was they'd write lyrics like they normally would. And there's, you know, three, four people in a room, they'd feed an AI and let it spit some stuff out and then kind of recalibrate the lyric based on what AI would suggest.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, see that's again, it's like, that's, I guess that's the work of someone who's trying to make something that's perfect. You know, I don't know.

• 1:36:52Billy Corgan?

  Well, what's the, what's the great folly, thinking you're God?

• 1:36:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 1:36:56Billy Corgan?

  All right. So thank you. A, a couple more things.

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  Thank you, man. Thank you for having me here. I love it. Oh, that's cool.

• 1:37:04Billy Corgan?

  Cubs, you got.

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:08Billy Corgan?

  I mean, yes, your dad, yes, your mom, yes, music, but let's talk about what really matters. Art Bell.

• 1:37:13Speaker 01

  Art Bell, yes.

• 1:37:16Billy Corgan?

  Happy to find that you're a fellow traveler in, in the, in the dark shadows of conspiracy and, and secret knowledge and histories. And if you wanted to, I just thought I'd throw that up.

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  Dude, I love it. I love that you even opened the door. I, I have, over the years, watched you have very interesting interviews. I know everyone asks you about the shapeshifter from Howard Stern and all that stuff, but, but what has been so cool is like, you know, there's not very many people who have been willing to go out there and talk about stuff like this. For the, just, let's talk about even prior to this political period that we're in that like where everything has to be one's color or the other.

• 1:37:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  But, but back like, you know, 15, 20 years ago, you were talking about all this stuff. So it's like, to me, uh, I grew up listening to Art Bell. My dad had Chariots of the Gods on the bus, the VHS, and we watched it all the time. He bought all the Time Life books on the paranormal. We watched Unsolved Mysteries every Sunday, you know? So that stuff has ate me up my whole life. I mean, you know, I made that Black Ribbons record in, in the spirit of that stuff. But the older I get, it's like, I, I get just more and more fascinated by it. It was so funny because you and I had this talk, we had dinner and you brought up the Zacharias Sitchin stuff. And I had not read that stuff yet.

• 1:38:33Speaker 01

  And I got this other book that Glenn Danzig told me to get about Atlantis and, and the Nazis and Hitler's obsession with the Atlantean power tools that he was searching for. And then Low and Bold, it gets right into all that and all the inky stuff. And man, I couldn't put that book down. I've got like a stack of like six more. I bought a Sitchin book the other, just two days ago at Barnes and Noble. Cause there's just like, there's something about the quest for, for that kind of knowledge that makes the finding it unimportant in a weird way. Like the more knowledge I can find about it, it doesn't have to tell me what the end thing is. It's just interesting.

• 1:39:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. What, what I find that people who are cynical or skeptical, they want proof. And I think that misses the point entirely.

• 1:39:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:21Billy Corgan?

  I think, um, here's, here's, you know, because obviously once you get into this, let's call it the shadow world of ideas.

• 1:39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:29Billy Corgan?

  You can go any direction you want, but here's, here's something I find really interesting.

• 1:39:34Billy Corgan?

  And there's something I read somewhere, it might even have been a psychic talking about it, but it was,

• 1:39:39Billy Corgan?

  the person was basically saying.

• 1:39:42Billy Corgan?

  The reason people are so obsessed with Star Wars, the Star Wars stories is actually our story.

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  Right. Wow.

• 1:39:50Billy Corgan?

  That we were, we were this, you know, we were these humanoids on this planet. And at some point, somebody shows up 150,000 years ago, whatever is the number, and they start messing with us.

• 1:40:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:02Billy Corgan?

  And they come here for their own, their own reasons. And for whatever reason, probably because they were superior intelligence, they decided to hide all that from us.

• 1:40:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:12Billy Corgan?

  Or they told us a story that was, we're the gods.

• 1:40:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:16Billy Corgan?

  You know, pillar of fire, you read in the Bible, right?

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  I'm so fascinated. See, like, man, I, this is exactly what that book was dealing with too. Especially the, the pillar of fire and the gateway to Atlantis and the Book of Enoch and all that stuff.

• 1:40:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:30Billy Corgan?

  So, so, so the idea is like, and I'm speaking more as sort of like, let's call it the artistic mind.

• 1:40:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:36Billy Corgan?

  Why are we obsessed with gold?

• 1:40:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:39Billy Corgan?

  Right? It's a common understood thing, going back to ancient cultures, the obsession with gold.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:45Billy Corgan?

  Right? Why are there so comparative, if you go back to ancient religions, or, you know, monotheistic or not, why was, why are there similar stories? Why is it the flood story that runs through everything?

• 1:40:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:58Billy Corgan?

  People even like to basically say Jesus was just a mythology because there were other iterations of Jesus before.

• 1:41:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:05Billy Corgan?

  And Ishtar this and all this stuff. Well, if you take all that just at face value, and you don't have to believe and you don't have to disbelieve, what is, what is the common currency of the human obsession with these stories?

• 1:41:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:41:16Billy Corgan?

  Why don't we just come over the different story? Why do we come back to the same story? Good versus evil?

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, it's so much of it. I mean, you know, a lot of people are going to say like religion is crowd control and it's like establishing narratives, you know, or a value system, moral system. In this book, I mean, it talks about that, the, the Inky and Enlil idea is like that Inky's the one that flooded the earth, I'm sorry, Enlil's the one who flooded the earth and Inky's the one who told him to build the raft, right? That they were like battling and all that. So there's always like a, but then you're like, well, their dad's a god, like, well, who's that guy? You know, they never really talked too much about Anu beyond the beginning of this stuff. So when it comes to, to all the stories and myth stories, it seems to me, I, just from my point of view,

• 1:42:06Speaker 01

  that there is a story that is true in all of it, that I wouldn't believe that there's a bunch of iterations or whatever, but I believe that there is a story that's true across all of it that is being told in a lot of different ways or translated in different ways. But there's so much of what we've been told that I just now, the older I get, I just don't believe. Like, I'm starting to get off the dinosaur train, man. I mean, I am, I'm just saying it, man. You know, there's not any real complete bones. If you look at most of those ones that they have, they're little pieces of them. And, and I don't know, man, it kind of, it kind of is a very convenient. It's kind of a convenient deterrent.

• 1:42:48Billy Corgan?

  My, so everybody, my kids know Shooter, and so I'm going to go home, you know, a couple of days, I'm going to tell them Shooter doesn't believe in dinosaurs.

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. My, my, my Misty too, it's like, we've had all these conversations. She's like, you know, she's like, how does a T-Rex reproduce? And I'm like, you know, I'm not sure. How do they?

• 1:43:06Billy Corgan?

  That's a great question.

• 1:43:07Speaker 01

  How would a brontosaurus reproduce, you know?

• 1:43:10Billy Corgan?

  What does that look like?

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. What does that look like? And then, and then when you realize how little bones are actually out there, because you, you, you grow up seeing these giant dinosaurs in museums and everything, and like 99% of those are just fake, and they just have a couple of bones that are real.

• 1:43:25Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:25Speaker 01

  Then it's like, then, then if you really want to get weird, it's like, you want to start talking about giants and all that stuff. We want to talk about the Nephilim and, and all that. You're like, are those bones, do those kind of fit in any range of that stuff? Is there?

• 1:43:39Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I see.

• 1:43:40Speaker 01

  I would love to see what, what actually, like, I'm sure a million people on the internet are going to scream at me over this in my ignorance, but I don't care. I'd love to see an actual chart of what bones have been found specifically versus, you know, because we, we just always kind of assume they've had a lot of them or something.

• 1:43:57Billy Corgan?

  Well, here's one thing I, I can at least say with some level of assurance. Whatever is known by whoever would know it, they're not telling us.

• 1:44:05Speaker 01

  Oh, that's right.

• 1:44:06Billy Corgan?

  They know.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  It would have to be a lie agreed upon by a large group of people to hold on to it. Because like even with the Giza thing, you know, they're saying they found those columns that go down under it, but they won't let them dig up under there. They don't know if there's, could be the Hall of Records. It could be all of that, you know? And so it's like.

• 1:44:23Billy Corgan?

  We need to do our own podcast just on this.

• 1:44:26Speaker 01

  Yes, it would be fun. We should, we should go, go down the rabbit hole.

• 1:44:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So I guess, uh, uh, two things. One is I, I've, I've been saying it lately, which is like, when I die, I just hope when I get wherever I'm going, hopefully heaven, they're going to tell me, hey, by the way.

• 1:44:44Speaker 01

  That's all I want to know.

• 1:44:45Billy Corgan?

  They're going to be like, Shooter was right. No dinosaurs. You know what I mean? Like, oh my God, really? He knew, he knew.

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  You're like, well, P Diddy killed both Tupac.

• 1:44:55Billy Corgan?

  Wow. Okay. Now we're, yeah. Yeah. Like JFK, I want to know it all.

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  I want to know it all. I want to know it all.

• 1:45:01Billy Corgan?

  Last thing, because we obviously talking a lot about your dad with the, the record coming out, the Diamonds record. And I knew this story and I think I even saw a clip of him talking about it, but I, I saw it in doing my research, getting ready to talk to you. And I just, I'm so touched by the story of that your dad later in life decided to get his GED.

• 1:45:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:20Billy Corgan?

  Because he didn't want to set a bad example, or he wanted to set a good example.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:23Billy Corgan?

  He used to tell that because I, I just, I just find that so touching.

• 1:45:27Speaker 01

  It's so funny. Uh, you brought, we talked about that a little bit and, and then I found something recently. I think it was a, I don't know what it was I found. I think it was, I think I saw him on YouTube or something recently talking where he was talking after that. But yeah, I remember when he did it. He, he was ashamed that he didn't graduate from high school and he wanted that, to get that, that GED.

• 1:45:48Billy Corgan?

  See, that's that generation, you see?

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause we.

• 1:45:51Billy Corgan?

  Our generation, we'd be like, yeah, whatever. It just didn't happen.

• 1:45:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:54Billy Corgan?

  That generation, it was still this value system.

• 1:45:56Speaker 01

  That's really true. I didn't even ever think of it that way, but you are right, you know? But in, in, I think at the same time, I think he looked at it like, he, he knew he was an intelligent guy and he didn't want to, he didn't want to be branded as like a dumb hillbilly too. There's probably that pride part of it.

• 1:46:09Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:09Speaker 01

  But like, I, I remember him studying and he was getting frustrated and stuff, and I would try to help him with the math and the science and stuff and.

• 1:46:17Billy Corgan?

  I just, I'm so touched by that story.

• 1:46:18Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:46:19Billy Corgan?

  I just think it's such a tremendous story.

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. He, he did, he was a funny character, man. Like when we went to go, uh, I remember we were friends with Carol Spiny, who does Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. And like, you know, he would come over to our house because my dad was in a, one of those movies and he went to the set. I remember he went to the set of Sesame Street. And he did, did a song on Sesame Street, but because he didn't want to be seen in glasses, because he thought he'd make him look old, he's like this. A whole episode, if you can find it, he's squinting because he's trying to read the cue cards to the, till they'd rewritten one of his songs, you know, and all that. And it was so funny. And I was like, you should have just worn the glasses, you know?

• 1:46:58Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  But it was kind of that, that pride thing where he just didn't want to, you know?

• 1:47:01Billy Corgan?

  All right.

• 1:47:02Speaker 01

  Hey dude, thank you so much for doing this. I love being on here.

• 1:47:05Billy Corgan?

  Next, next, next one will just go all conspiracy.