Corey Feldman | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

In this episode, Billy Corgan welcomes Corey Feldman for a raw, often eye-opening conversation that transcends Corey’s iconic 80s filmography and exposes the deeper realities of life in the spotlight. Feldman shares intimate stories of survival—addiction, broken industry promises, and tabloid oversimplifications—while describing his unshakable creative passion for music. Billy digs into the near-miss roles, business pitfalls, and the resolve that drives Corey’s artistry while Feldman reflects on standing his ground after childhood fame robbed him of normalcy, grappling with public sobriety, and forging a musical path—critics be damned. If you think you already know Corey Feldman, this conversation will make you reconsider. Watch The Magnificent Others on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices 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

  I'll tell you what it's about. I mean, if we want to get deep.

• 0:02Billy Corgan?

  That's good, that's why we're here.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  This is the first time I've ever telling this story, so I'm sure I'm gonna get hung.

• 0:08Billy Corgan?

  Did they push you out, or?

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, he said I was a junkie and that he didn't work with junkies. Michael Jackson tells me my song is going to be a number one hit. And by the way, Howard Stern just, you know, smashed it like a pumpkin. Now we're on the Today Show, we got these big moments.

• 0:23Billy Corgan?

  You're definitely cracking the zeitgeist.

• 0:24Speaker 00

  Right, but am I gonna get away with it? Coonies never say die.

• 0:30Billy Corgan?

  Thank you for being here.

• 0:31Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me.

• 0:32Billy Corgan?

  Nice to see you again.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  Thank you, good to see you again. Although we've only met once.

• 0:35Billy Corgan?

  Not true.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  Okay, give me the second time.

• 0:38Billy Corgan?

  No, we've met probably 10 or 12 times.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  What?

• 0:41Billy Corgan?

  Oh yeah.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  No way.

• 0:42Billy Corgan?

  Absolutely, swear to God.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  That's impossible.

• 0:45Billy Corgan?

  Swear to God. Hand on heart.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  Okay, I can tell you the first time, which was with Manson, which, you know, I choose to try to forget. The second time would have been, I think, also with Manson at a little dingy, I think that the Sunset Marquee?

• 1:05Billy Corgan?

  What you probably don't remember is, at different times, we would come across each other just in the...

• 1:10Speaker 00

  Okay, in passing.

• 1:11Billy Corgan?

  In passing, and we always would talk for a minute, two, five minutes. But we always had these nice exchanges, and I always walked away impressed with you as a person outside of what people think or... You know, because when you're a child star and people have their opinions and stuff like that.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:28Billy Corgan?

  My interactions with you have always been great. I always found you very nice, found you funny, charming, all those things, so...

• 1:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would say the same.

• 1:36Billy Corgan?

  Thank you. So, because I've had those personal interactions with you, whether they were two or 12, it doesn't matter. My vibe on you has always been very positive.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:45Billy Corgan?

  So when I've seen you go through different variations of public whatever, and I've had my own versions too, so I'm maybe more sympathetic or empathetic than most people are to know what that feels like when people are kind of coming at you from different angles. I always think that's not the guy I know. So that's kinda where

• 2:01Speaker 00

  I appreciate that.

• 2:01Billy Corgan?

  we're sitting here today because I wouldn't mind introducing that person that I think I know a little bit.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:07Billy Corgan?

  Because I think that's the guy behind the other things, so that's what I wanna try to talk about. Does that make sense?

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that, I appreciate that. And, and I will, since we're, we're opening that can of words.

• 2:17Billy Corgan?

  Sure, let's, let's open them all, yeah.

• 2:19Speaker 00

  Uh, I will put that back on you and say, I, you know, my, my, uh, interactions with you have been positive as well. I never thought anything negative, uh, other than you're, you know, obviously a very intelligent man, obviously an artist, very creative. Uh, but you know, this, this Manson thing is kinda hung over your shoulder, unfortunately, and that's because it was, it was-

• 2:39Billy Corgan?

  What's the old saying, "I am not my brother's keeper."

• 2:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay. Well, might as well state some biblical proportions when it comes down to-

• 2:47Billy Corgan?

  Somewhere in the recesses of my memory are me, you, Marilyn Manson, and Vern Troyer.

• 2:52Speaker 00

  Really?

• 2:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, somewhere-

• 2:53Speaker 00

  I don't have that one, I don't have that one.

• 2:54Billy Corgan?

  So that's, I'm saying, I might have made that one up.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 2:57Billy Corgan?

  That's possible.

• 2:58Speaker 00

  Well, maybe Playboy Mansion would be the only place I could have been.

• 3:01Billy Corgan?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  That, that is possible.

• 3:03Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 3:04Speaker 00

  Uh, but that said, it was, no, it's the fact that it was, uh, epitomized in, you know, perpetuity by being a part of his book.

• 3:12Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I see, I see.

• 3:14Speaker 00

  And, and kind of, you know, uh, iconizing, I guess you would say, that moment in, in time, crystallizing in time.

• 3:21Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 3:22Speaker 00

  By saying that, that what, me and-

• 3:24Billy Corgan?

  Snorting sea monkeys or something?

• 3:26Speaker 00

  I didn't get that part.

• 3:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  No, it was that me and, and, uh, and, and Sherman Hemsley meeting, cause he introduced us, "Over your bald head," was, I believe, the words that he used in his book so poetically.

• 3:39Billy Corgan?

  Was this at the, was that the Howard Stern movie premiere?

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 3:42Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Yes. So that's the official time that I feel like we actually spoke and-

• 3:46Billy Corgan?

  Flav or Flav, you, me, Marilyn Manson, Sherman Hemsley.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:52Billy Corgan?

  Like, somehow we were all together when-

• 3:54Speaker 00

  Vern, Vern Troyer, I don't know.

• 3:55Billy Corgan?

  But somehow we were all in the same-

• 3:57Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 3:58Billy Corgan?

  Room.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, but this happens a lot. That's Hollywood, right?

• 4:01Billy Corgan?

  Well, you grew up in that, so I didn't grow up in that.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  Right.

• 4:03Billy Corgan?

  So, to me-

• 4:04Speaker 00

  For you, you were probably still a bit in, in Sean, shock and awe.

• 4:07Billy Corgan?

  Now I wouldn't even-

• 4:08Speaker 00

  Now you don't flinch.

• 4:09Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but I'm saying, you grew up in that, so that's a different thing. When you're like nerdy Chicago suburbs, you're like, "Oh my god, it's the guy from..."

• 4:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 4:15Billy Corgan?

  Doesn't matter if they're like in the worst TV show ever, it's like, "It's the guy from..."

• 4:19Speaker 00

  Right, right, right, you're still there in the moment.

• 4:20Billy Corgan?

  I remember the first time the Pumpkins went to Europe, we saw, um, I think her name was Bonnie Tyler. Total Eclipse of the Heart.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Total Eclipse of the Heart.

• 4:28Billy Corgan?

  We saw her at a hotel and was like, "Oh my god, it's that woman." We didn't even like the song.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  Right, right, right, right. Such a big deal.

• 4:35Billy Corgan?

  Just all four punkers like geeking out, right? And I'm sure you've experienced that many times.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  Oh my god, it's... Hey, yeah. I mean, I remember the first time I saw Ringo in the same hotel as me and I was like, "Oh my god, I'm in the same hotel as Ringo."

• 4:46Billy Corgan?

  So, I get that you're the Rat in the Cage guy. What do you get?

• 4:50Speaker 00

  You know...

• 4:53Billy Corgan?

  Do they call you by like a character name?

• 4:55Speaker 00

  No, it's changed so much through the years. I mean, through the years. You know, it started, when I was a little kid, you gotta realize, I was being recognized before people knew the hell I was. So, I was...

• 5:05Billy Corgan?

  Oh, are you that kid? I knew who you were.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  No, before that.

• 5:09Billy Corgan?

  But I'm saying, I have the same experience.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  What do you mean?

• 5:12Billy Corgan?

  What I'm saying is I knew who you were without even knowing who you were because you were on TV.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  Right, right, but you didn't know my name, is my point. Like, so, right, in the beginning, I was just on everything, right? So, people just go, "Oh, you're that kid."

• 5:24Billy Corgan?

  Ubiquitous is the word.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay, there you go. You've been around. We've seen you here and there. But, that said, that quickly shifted into, "Aren't you the kid from The Shining?" Which I got a lot, by the way. From, I think, seven years old until ten or eleven. Right around the time Friday the 17th came out, that's when I finally started to solidify like, "Oh, he's that guy." But, before that, everybody thought I was Danny Lloyd. And it got so bad that it actually got to the point where I started signing autographs as Danny Lloyd because I was like, "Fine, whatever, I'll just say I'm Danny Lloyd, here you go." But, that's because they didn't know who the hell I was and I didn't even know how to sign my own name and wasn't really sure if my name was my name yet. So, you know, I was only signing.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  But, that said, I did actually sign autographs as Danny Lloyd because it happened so concurrently. And, the other thing about that is, I was up for that role. So, it was very ironic that, you know...

• 6:20Billy Corgan?

  Did you not get the role or it just didn't work out?

• 6:22Speaker 00

  It was down to the two of us.

• 6:24Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, so it was supposed to be me originally. I had the offer. But then on second thought, they were like, "He's just a little bit young" because I was like a year younger than him. Same haircut, same big wheel...

• 6:36Speaker 00

  Same everything, but just.

• 6:38Billy Corgan?

  Did you audition for Kubrick?

• 6:39Speaker 00

  I must have, I would have to have, yeah.

• 6:41Billy Corgan?

  You don't remember?

• 6:42Speaker 00

  I don't remember. I mean, I would have been five.

• 6:44Billy Corgan?

  Okay, right, that's pretty young.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, but the point is, is that I almost got it. It was supposed to be mine. I was a little bit too small, a little bit too young. So then, two years later, this movie comes out and it's like the biggest thing ever. And then, within that year, that's when it started. Hey, aren't you the kid from The Shining? Aren't you the kid from The Shining? I mean, I heard it every day.

• 7:02Billy Corgan?

  There was a rumor at one point that I was the kid from The Wonderyears?

• 7:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, I remember that. I remember that. Which kid was it?

• 7:09Billy Corgan?

  I don't know. Cause I never watched the show.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 7:13Billy Corgan?

  Tell me some movies that you could have done, should have done, didn't do.

• 7:17Speaker 00

  Okay, so I think the worst one. If we're gonna go right to the heart of the matter, and this is probably gonna piss off some people, but, you know, hey, sometimes you gotta do it.

• 7:27Billy Corgan?

  Have you ever pissed off anyone?

• 7:28Speaker 00

  A lot of people, a lot of times.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Honesty is never really a welcomed trait in most.

• 7:36Billy Corgan?

  I find it admirable.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, thank you. I appreciate it. It's ballsy, it's risky, but I have no choice.

• 7:42Billy Corgan?

  You've gone too far.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  No, it's not even that, it's that, you know, honestly, Billy, when I decided to be sober, when I got clean, back in 1989, 1990, when I, you know, kind of made the identification of this is who I am, this is a life choice, and even though I had a relapse in 93 that was short-lived, but I, I still kind of made that solemn oath to myself that if I'm going to be able to do this, the only way to be able to stay sober, to stay clean, to be okay inside, is to literally create a constitution, which is that I am going to be continuously honest in all of my dealings. I have to be, I have no choice.

• 8:25Speaker 00

  But to be forthcoming, because if I don't, then, you know, what is any of it worth? We're only as good as our word. And if all of a sudden you're one of those people that, you know, oh, well, I can go back to this interview and you said exactly the opposite. You won't find that with me.

• 8:39Billy Corgan?

  What's fascinating about that is, is you're a person who's very skilled at artifice.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  I don't know, explain that.

• 8:45Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's, isn't that the medal of being an actor?

• 8:49Speaker 00

  I guess.

• 8:50Billy Corgan?

  At a very young age, somebody identified you could act.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  Right, but they didn't, I don't think they knew that. I think that it was the voice, you know, they heard my voice, at least this is the way it was told to me, was that I was in the, you know, the rooms, while my sister was in the Mickey Mouse Club at Disney, I was in the rooms, you know, whatever, being a kid and jumping around, and they were like, "Who's that lady next door? Tell her to shut up, we're trying to shoot in here." And my mom would say, "No, no, it's not a lady, it's my son." You know, he's got a voice like he's an older woman or something, but you know, it's a kid. And, uh, and so when they go, "Oh, well, let's see this kid," and they couldn't believe that it was like a little four-year-old that had this grus- gruff, rus- gruff?

• 9:28Billy Corgan?

  Gruff.

• 9:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, what is the word I'm looking for? Gruff, but, but, uh, Ruskie? Does that make sense?

• 9:33Billy Corgan?

  Husky.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  Husky voice, there you go. Uh, and it was, yeah, it was very like, and that's why I got the part of Fox and the Hound, playing the hound dog at four years old, because I sounded like a baby hound dog.

• 9:45Billy Corgan?

  Right, but, but fortuitously, you can't act, so I'm saying is,

• 9:49Speaker 00

  Luckily.

• 9:49Billy Corgan?

  You could be acting, you could be acting now, and most people would not be able to denote it.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  Well, I,

• 9:55Billy Corgan?

  I'm not using you about it.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  I would hope not.

• 9:57Billy Corgan?

  Okay, well, that gets to my little questions, so we'll get to that.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  Now, we're getting deep, because at the end of the day, people will think that about you as an actor, and that's a downside, that is actually a downside.

• 10:06Billy Corgan?

  It does get to one of these magical questions I have.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  Okay, fine, then I'll save it.

• 10:09Billy Corgan?

  Well, so what was one of the movies that you said was gonna make people mad?

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Uh, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

• 10:14Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  So, I was actually cast to play Leonardo DiCaprio's role.

• 10:20Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  I never saw the film, because I still bitter, bitter leaf in that one. But, um, but yes, I was, I was originally cast for that role.

• 10:28Billy Corgan?

  Did they push you out, or?

• 10:29Speaker 00

  Johnny Depp.

• 10:32Billy Corgan?

  I don't know.

• 10:32Speaker 00

  He was cast after I was, and apparently whispered into the producer's ear that he wasn't fond of me and thought that I was,

• 10:40Billy Corgan?

  Was there a reason he wasn't fond of you?

• 10:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, he said I was a junkie and that he didn't work with junkies, and this is the first time I remember ever telling this story, so I'm sure I'm gonna get hung by this one, but yeah, anyway.

• 10:51Billy Corgan?

  Were you using drugs, or?

• 10:53Speaker 00

  No, I was sober. I'd just gotten sober, I'd just gotten out of rehab, I'd turned my life around, and in fact, was trying to help River at the time.

• 11:01Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Uh, who he was running with at the time.

• 11:04Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  As we all know, River's Last Night on Earth was at Johnny's establishment.

• 11:09Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 11:09Speaker 00

  So, as you can imagine, there was a bit of a thorn in the side on that one.

• 11:13Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Um, and, Had I not been pushed out and done that role, who knows what would have happened from that point forward.

• 11:21Billy Corgan?

  That was kind of one of those watershed moment movies, right?

• 11:24Speaker 00

  That gave Leonardo his first nomination.

• 11:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  Yes, so.

• 11:32Billy Corgan?

  Welcome to the Wood It Could've Shooted Podcast.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Exactly. So, I mean, there was a bitter tea there, but that said, you know, I mean, you don't hang on those, you get past them. And then ironically, just a couple of years later, I also was up for Titanic. So there was kind of a double banger with Leo. But that was okay, because that one I wasn't as close. Like, I was up for it, I read for it, I know that I was in the contention somewhere. Another one was Lord of the Rings. I was actually up for Sean's role, and I heard I got pretty close on that as well, and then.

• 12:05Billy Corgan?

  That would have been a perfect movie for you.

• 12:06Speaker 00

  It would have, although I couldn't have gained the weight. So I'll give him that. He did a great job aesthetically, being able to add that weight. It's something I cannot physically do.

• 12:16Billy Corgan?

  I wish I had your problem.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Even if I stuffed myself with donuts and, you know, ice cream and all the crap you want.

• 12:22Billy Corgan?

  You're telling me, this is my dream, I wish I could eat whatever I want.

• 12:25Speaker 00

  I can teach you, I can teach, I could change your entire thing. I mean, literally, I could, just because I've been doing it my whole life, but.

• 12:33Billy Corgan?

  What would you change?

• 12:34Speaker 00

  Well, I don't know that much about you, so I'd have to ask a few questions. But what are your diet, what's your diet?

• 12:39Billy Corgan?

  I'm a vegan.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  You are a vegan?

• 12:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  And you still struggle?

• 12:43Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah. I even own a vegan tea house.

• 12:46Speaker 00

  I did not know that.

• 12:47Billy Corgan?

  North of Chicago.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Wow, well, good job.

• 12:49Billy Corgan?

  We'll have to have you come in sometime.

• 12:50Speaker 00

  I would love to, maybe when we're playing.

• 12:52Billy Corgan?

  Are you vegan? I thought I read that, but I never trust anything.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Vegetarian, eighty percent vegan. I still do butter, because I just, I like cooking with butter. It gives the authenticity.

• 13:01Billy Corgan?

  I grew up in Chicago, it's all about the butter.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  Exactly, right? I don't do milk at all anymore, so I cut out all the dairy mostly. But I do cheese and butter, those are my two cheats.

• 13:13Billy Corgan?

  Okay, well, I'm vegan. I can't be thin to save my life.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  Ah, what do you drink? Do you drink alcohol?

• 13:18Billy Corgan?

  I do not.

• 13:19Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 13:20Billy Corgan?

  Stone Cold Sober, pretty much for about 20 years.

• 13:23Speaker 00

  You are an anomaly, literally.

• 13:25Billy Corgan?

  Vampire is the word.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  He said it, I didn't. Okay.

• 13:29Billy Corgan?

  You touring with Limp Bizkit?

• 13:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:32Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 13:32Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:33Billy Corgan?

  Very exciting.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  Yes, should be fun.

• 13:34Billy Corgan?

  I saw Bizkit when they kind of had their comeback show recently, a couple of years ago with the Troubadour. I think it was when they kind of had the original lineup back together.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:43Billy Corgan?

  And I talked to Fred for a while, even talked about maybe even producing some stuff for them. It didn't work out. Love the band, love Fred.

• 13:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's amazing. He's amazing. Well, he just directed my new video, so...

• 13:53Billy Corgan?

  Haven't seen the video yet. I heard the song.

• 13:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:56Billy Corgan?

  Do you want to talk about the song at all?

• 13:57Speaker 00

  We can, if you want to, but he directed the video. It's a lot of fun. It's a goof. I mean, obviously, the song's called "The Joke," so, yeah.

• 14:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I want to talk about the lyrics on the song for a second, but I love that you're in Fred's world, if that makes any sense, because I know you'll be well taken care of. Does that make sense?

• 14:13Speaker 00

  I appreciate you saying that. Listen, he's a wild guy. I mean...

• 14:19Billy Corgan?

  He's all heart.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Yes, we've been friends for a long time.

• 14:22Billy Corgan?

  As we're saying, you know that, so I'm not telling you anything you know, but I'm saying it maybe for the benefit of anybody watching, because I know Fred. If Fred wants you there, it's because he wants you there.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, no, he's a beautiful man. And people don't realize that about him, you know, they really don't. They just see the hard-ass, you know, kind of troublestarter, troublemaker, you know? But he's not that guy. I mean, that's more...

• 14:42Billy Corgan?

  He's more like a master of ceremonies.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 14:45Billy Corgan?

  He's like the master of disasters.

• 14:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, but eloquently, you know, he does it all with great stride. And the thing is, it's half self-aware of the fact that he's causing the mess, you know what I mean?

• 14:58Billy Corgan?

  But isn't it kind of beautiful about the Bizkit that he's been proven right over time?

• 15:02Speaker 00

  Well, you know what? Here's something really interesting, and I think you're gonna appreciate this, going back to my song "The Joke," and why he's the perfect person to direct the video, is the fact that what I didn't know until just very recently is that Limp Bizkit was not started as a band. Limp Bizkit was started as a joke.

• 15:21Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Did you know that?

• 15:22Billy Corgan?

  I did not know that.

• 15:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, so apparently, he was always a director. And he liked acting, and he was into film work. That was his thing, he loved film work. And he, I think, I don't know if it was actually directly related to his appreciation for Spinal Tap, or along those lines.

• 15:37Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  But he wanted to create a mock rock band. And that was the idea.

• 15:42Billy Corgan?

  It does make sense in a kind of weird meta.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, because if you think about Wes Borland and the fact that, you know, nobody really knows who the guy is.

• 15:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  You know, the constant changing of the characters and the comedy value of their songs, and like, what's being said. It kind of all makes sense.

• 15:56Billy Corgan?

  Very, very modern.

• 15:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:58Billy Corgan?

  Very modern.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  So he was really ahead of his time in all of that.

• 16:01Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 16:03Speaker 00

  And by the way.

• 16:04Billy Corgan?

  Go please.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  Fred and I, this, this is not our first collaboration.

• 16:07Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  Uh, we actually worked together on the Angel To The Core album. I don't know if you know that, but we did a song together called Seamless.

• 16:13Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 16:14Speaker 00

  Uh, which we, uh, wrote with Scott Page from Pink Floyd, playing sax.

• 16:18Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  And, uh, it's a great song, so.

• 16:20Billy Corgan?

  I have to look that up.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's cool.

• 16:22Billy Corgan?

  So, the joke? The key line is, is it, "I'm not the joke, you are," or?

• 16:29Speaker 00

  I wouldn't say that.

• 16:30Billy Corgan?

  No, no, but what's the key line, sorry?

• 16:31Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 16:31Billy Corgan?

  No, the actual lyric.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  The joke is on you.

• 16:34Billy Corgan?

  Sorry, my, my, this is my bad paraphrase.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  Hope you like my drip from the tomatoes you threw.

• 16:39Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  That's the, the opening line.

• 16:40Billy Corgan?

  But are you, are you, are you doing some kind of, you know, modern life commentary, you know, like, "I'm the mirror," or?

• 16:49Speaker 00

  Well, maybe a little bit, but I don't think it's really about that. It's more about literally hitting it on the head of... So we were touring last year, and, you know, look, we're, you know, obviously I've been doing this for a very long time. Uh, I've been putting out music for thirty-five years. And it's been a very slow build. You know, I like to say I'm an overnight success after thirty-five years. Uh, but, you know, literally, it was like, nobody cared, nobody cared, nobody cared. And I was just making these songs for film soundtracks and putting out these little indie albums. And I had a small little, you know, following, and every show we played was sold out, but we could never play bigger than like a twelve-hundred seater.

• 17:26Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 17:26Speaker 00

  Um, and nobody would give me that time. Nobody would give me that space. I had so many doors slammed in my face. "Oh, you're an actor, nobody will take you seriously. Nobody will ever take you seriously."

• 17:34Billy Corgan?

  And that was just... Was this coming from the music business?

• 17:36Speaker 00

  Yes, from the music business, and, you know, the film business. Everybody just wanted to not give me that shot. It was very, very known.

• 17:44Billy Corgan?

  Do you feel at some point it becomes kind of, because I've been through this, and I'm not trying to project my shit on you, but do you feel at some point it almost becomes like strangely personal?

• 17:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh, it was very personal.

• 17:54Billy Corgan?

  And by the way, and let me, I'm asking in this context and I hope you understand that just the way I'm asking. When you feel like it's personal, I oftentimes find myself wondering, what's the crime?

• 18:05Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:06Billy Corgan?

  So like, what crime have you committed?

• 18:08Speaker 00

  Being a child of Hollywood. I mean, that's the crime. The crime is, there's, what I've come to realize, I don't know if you got to see my film when I put it out, My Truth.

• 18:20Billy Corgan?

  I've not seen it.

• 18:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, unfortunately, it's hard to find since we don't allow it to be out there anymore because it was stolen, it was pirated, and it was given out.

• 18:30Billy Corgan?

  I did read about that.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  And all of this stuff. I mean, it was, it was, it was one of the most heinous, horrendous, horrible receptions of a cry for help that I've ever seen in my life, and Hollywood should be ashamed of it. But.

• 18:44Billy Corgan?

  That's your crime?

• 18:46Speaker 00

  Well, my crime was that I was a kid who was molested, who was given drugs, and so what do they do to those kids? They make sure that they don't have the power of voice when they get older. So that basically, you're, you know, the unsung hero, you're everybody's favorite, you're the future of Hollywood, you're the golden child, and then you turn eighteen and it's like, oh, remember when he had a career? And you're like, wait, what? Six months ago, I was the golden child. What happened? Oh, well, he got arrested for drugs. His career is over. What do you, what? What do you mean? I'm eighteen years old. I'm just getting started. Yes, I did have a drug problem because you people gave me drugs.

• 19:25Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 19:26Speaker 00

  Tend to get addicted when you're given drugs as a kid, right?

• 19:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  And especially if you've got years and years of abuse that you're trying to squelch the pain from, it's kind of obvious that there's going to be a problem, and they know this. You know, this isn't the first time this has happened. It's a systematic, systemic issue.

• 19:43Billy Corgan?

  I say this in sort of brotherhood, not to glom onto your story, but like, if we're playing the game on what's your crime? My crime was telling the truth about my generation.

• 19:52Speaker 00

  Right, and my crime was the same, I guess.

• 19:55Billy Corgan?

  They hated that I told the truth, that this generation that was presented as integral and everybody was too cool for school. I kept saying, no, this is totally foolish.

• 20:05Billy Corgan?

  These people are performers just like anybody else, any other generation. You can put a stripy, cool, grunge shirt on it, but we're all ambitious and everybody wants to win and. Kurt Cobain was as ambitious as everybody else.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 20:17Billy Corgan?

  You can, you can assign these like, let's call it comic book personalities to people who are really good skilled people, who are good at convincing you of certain things about themselves, but it wasn't true.

• 20:27Speaker 00

  Right. And that, and, and in that.

• 20:30Billy Corgan?

  And you knew that, let's call you knew the Hollywood version.

• 20:32Speaker 00

  Of course, but not only the Hollywood version, the music version too, because not only that, you have to realize, I'm coming from the eighties where Michael Jackson tells me my song, What's Up With The Youth, is going to be a number one hit. I played it for him in the car, you know, he said, this song is incredible, Corey. This is a number one song. If I walk this into Tommy Mottola right now at CBS Records, I can get you a number one song. And I said, thank you anyway.

• 20:57Billy Corgan?

  How old were you at that?

• 20:59Speaker 00

  Eighteen.

• 21:00Billy Corgan?

  Okay, that's pretty eddy.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I was like, thank you, but no. Because number one, I'm your friend, and I don't want you to think I'm just another guy trying to get some out of you.

• 21:11Billy Corgan?

  Which would have been everybody in the world at that point.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  Exactly. And number two, if I do it that way, then it's, you're the Michael Jackson protege. I'll be a one-hit wonder, everybody will compare me to you for the rest of my life, and then what? You know, where do you go from there as an artist? You're done.

• 21:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  So I thought, if I'm gonna do this, I've gotta do it myself. It's gotta be legitimate, and I've gotta earn my stripes, and if that means playing sh** holes for the next twenty years, then so be it. I'll play the sh** holes for the next twenty years, which brings us up to where we were. And by the way, Howard Stern just, you know, smashed it like a pumpkin with everything by bringing me on his show with that song that Michael guessed would become number one, and making a joke out of it. Making a fraud out of it.

• 21:58Billy Corgan?

  Why did that happen, sorry?

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Um, because he said, hey, I want you to come on my new show, and I said, well, I'm trying to push this new single, you know, is it a, like, what's the format? I'd never seen the show. I just assumed he's like any other radio host. Now, I did his radio show prior to that where everybody had warned me, you know, Howard Stern, he's really mean, he's really cruel, he'll do really awful things. And I was like, oh god, I was terrified, but Sam kept saying, you gotta do it. I was very good friends with Sam Kinison. He'd say, you gotta do it, you gotta do it, you gotta do it. Okay, fine. So I did it when he died. So the day that Sam died was the first time I did Howard. And Howard was very sweet, he was very welcoming, he was very warm, we had an immediate bond.

• 22:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 22:37Speaker 00

  And so I did the show two or three times in succession. And he said, "Come out to New York, come do the TV show too, it'll be great." So I'm going with the idea that he's been really sweet, he's been great. I came in through Sam, so he knows not to mess with me, everything will be fine. And I get there and they said, "We're gonna do a skit, it's called Club Howie. And you're gonna perform, but we're gonna act like it's Club MTV. But, you know, I'm dressed as Right Said Fred, and so it'll be kinda funny. But it'll be like you performing, and the performance won't be funny, it'll just be you performing." Okay, I can go with that. So I do it. And I walk out on stage and there's a midget in a hula skirt. And there's guys passing blow up dolls in front of me and acting like they're mentally impaired.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  And like, I'm going, "What is this? What is this? This mockery?" So they took my music and they made it a form of mockery. And that was the initial launch. I mean, the only thing that I had televised prior to that was an amazing reception when I performed as the first performance at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards back in nineteen eighty-eight or eighty-nine. Where, you know, I came out, the fans were going crazy, and the kids were screaming. And it was like The Beatles, and it was nuts, and it was great. And every show that I'd done privately was exactly like that. But all of a sudden now Howard put this whole other spin on it to make it a joke.

• 23:58Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 23:59Speaker 00

  Fast forward to...

• 24:00Billy Corgan?

  Do you think...

• 24:01Speaker 00

  I've been fighting that stigma on and off.

• 24:04Billy Corgan?

  But just, cause I don't know the moment. But in hindsight, do you think it was just they thought they were having a bit of fun? Or you think it was purposely mean spirited?

• 24:11Speaker 00

  I think it was very mean spirited. And I know this because the, one of the producers who wrote that sketch was Mark Cronin. And Mark Cronin went on to pretend to be my friend years later when he approached me and said, "Hey, we've got this new concept, we're gonna put seven legends, icons, together in a ho- in a house, in a home. And watch what happens when we put these amazing people together. And see how they bond, how they form a friendship."

• 24:37Billy Corgan?

  What was that show called? I can't remember.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  The Surreal Life.

• 24:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  Which of course was not putting seven icons in a house, but let's put seven guys we used to think were cool in a house and make fun of them.

• 24:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:50Speaker 00

  So they didn't tell us what the real goal of the show was. In fact, they promised us to the moon and back that it wasn't that show.

• 24:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  And we'd never seen reality TV before. This had never happened.

• 25:00Billy Corgan?

  That was kind of the, kind of in a way, that was like one of the first.

• 25:02Speaker 00

  It was the first celebrity reality show.

• 25:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I never, I didn't really watch that stuff back then.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Neither did I.

• 25:08Billy Corgan?

  I can't remember.

• 25:09Speaker 00

  Well, it wasn't on.

• 25:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  So it was like when that stuff launched, I'm sure you would have been busy doing more important things and as would I.

• 25:16Billy Corgan?

  But to be fair to you, my perception of it very much in hindsight was like, you know, they just round up a couple of names and they kind of throw, throw them at the wall and see what happens, right?

• 25:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 25:26Billy Corgan?

  So it, obviously it's negative to the...

• 25:28Speaker 00

  Not only that, but it's about Frankenbiting, which is what they call it in reality television.

• 25:33Billy Corgan?

  Can you explain? I don't know that term.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  Frankenbiting is where they basically set you up by saying, "Okay, you're gonna answer these questions on an interview much like this, but we're gonna deliver the questions to you and you have to repeat the questions back to us to get the answers so that we know where you're at for editing points and we know how, you know, what point in the conversation we're at and blah, blah, blah. So just repeat the questions back." So they would frame things in a way so that when you repeated it back, now they have you saying their statement of whatever it is that you're talking about.

• 26:01Billy Corgan?

  So you're agreeing with it?

• 26:02Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 26:03Billy Corgan?

  You don't agree with it?

• 26:04Speaker 00

  And then they cut out the fact that it was ever a question and now it becomes your statement.

• 26:09Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  So the very first thing was, at the beginning of each episode, "I'm Corey Feldman, I'm an icon, I'm an artist, I'm more than an icon, I'm an industry." I never said those words, but that became my famous quote when you searched my name in Google.

• 26:24Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 26:25Speaker 00

  That was my quote. Like, what a dick this guy is, right? It was a Frankenbit sentence that they literally cut together out of three or four words.

• 26:33Billy Corgan?

  It does get into some of the stuff I wanted to ask you, but do you think that kind of cruelty, and I've experienced my own version of it, do you think that cruelty is, is just the nature of the cruelty of this business, or do you think people were purposely targeting you?

• 26:48Speaker 00

  No, there's specific people that are targeted and framed to be put in that light and to be put in that position. And I was one of those, and especially pertaining to my music industry career.

• 26:58Billy Corgan?

  To be, to be fair to you, and of course, that's why we're here, but... There are times in my life where I found myself in rooms with certain people being interviewed. And I thought, this is not, this is not real. Like, this is like a setup. But I didn't know what the setup was for. Like, why are they trying to assassinate me?

• 27:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 27:20Billy Corgan?

  Like, what is that about?

• 27:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 27:22Billy Corgan?

  Again, what was the crime?

• 27:24Speaker 00

  I'll tell you what it's about. I mean, if we wanna get deep.

• 27:26Billy Corgan?

  That's good, that's why we're here.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  There's a good side and there's a dark side, just like Star Wars. You know?

• 27:34Billy Corgan?

  Well, what's, what's interesting, I think, about your journey in this lifetime is, did you ever see the, it was a movie, but it was also a famous book, Day of the Locust? Do you know this book?

• 27:44Speaker 00

  I don't.

• 27:45Billy Corgan?

  Uh, Nathaniel West was a writer, I think thirties, forties Hollywood. He only wrote a couple of famous books, and I think he either killed himself or something happened. But one of the movies was made, uh, into a movie around nineteen seventy-five. It's about a guy who's like an art director working in thirties Hollywood. And there's a cast of characters. And he goes crazy at the end of the movie. But like, one of the characters in the movie is like a Shirley Temple-type character with a, like a child star, but it's a wannabe situation. He falls in love with like an ingenue who's hoping to make it in Hollywood. And he gets to see, so imagine a thirties take on Dark Hollywood before there was ever such a thing as the take of Dark Hollywood. Does that make sense, the way I'm explaining it?

• 28:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:24Billy Corgan?

  Imagine somebody writing way back then about Dark Hollywood before anybody even knew about Dark Hollywood.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 28:30Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  Because it existed.

• 28:31Billy Corgan?

  Yes, what I'm saying is, I can read that book, or I can see some documentary, but you've lived Dark Hollywood.

• 28:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:38Billy Corgan?

  Like, not the mythology version, like, the real version of Dark Hollywood.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  And I didn't even realize it until I put my documentary out. And it wasn't until that moment that I realized how real it really was. How much of a force it really was.

• 28:54Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  And how much power and control they have over media, technology, everything that we do. And the reason that I learned this the very hard way was because in the moment that I premiered my film, which I did completely on my own because I knew they would never give me the shot. I knew that I, I went to a few of the big places like Netflix and blah, blah, blah to try to get distribution deals. Nobody wanted to touch it. Nobody wanted to look at it. I'm like, but you're doing the Epstein documentary.

• 29:20Billy Corgan?

  Or murder porn.

• 29:21Speaker 00

  You're doing this, right. But what's wrong with what I'm talking about?

• 29:24Billy Corgan?

  You didn't murder anybody.

• 29:25Speaker 00

  Right. But also, it's about kids being victims. That's the part they don't want to admit. Like, yeah, we can talk about Harvey Weinstein raping women. We can talk about the fact that there's terrible people that sometimes get away with stuff. But we don't want to admit that there's kids that are getting molested in our business. God forbid.

• 29:47Billy Corgan?

  As much as I've been behind the wizard's curtain in thirty-plus years in coming to this town,

• 29:53Billy Corgan?

  there are powerful forces at play that I don't understand, but I know they exist. So when you tell me what you're telling me, without knowing any specifics, without knowing any of the specific people, I know what you're saying is true. Does that make sense? And I hope that translates to anybody I would say it for.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  I hope so, too.

• 30:09Billy Corgan?

  Because to people who don't know it, it just sounds like kind of a weird fairy tale. Because who wants to believe?

• 30:16Speaker 00

  And not only that, but they're gonna, they're gonna write a hundred stories that play to the idea that it is a weird fairy.

• 30:20Billy Corgan?

  But I think we're savvy enough in the world, given the political seasons of the last ten years, that people are starting to really understand the difference between, let's call it, the media propaganda narratives. But it's hard for people to believe that The Magic Factory, which is what this town is, that there's this other side to The Magic Factory.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  There's an alchemy behind it, right?

• 30:39Billy Corgan?

  Well, that gets into a lot of different things, right? Let's stay on the positive for a minute.

• 30:44Speaker 00

  I like it. So let me go back to,

• 30:46Billy Corgan?

  Please, yeah.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  since we were kind of going naturally to where the joke came from.

• 30:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  Which brings us up to that.

• 30:50Billy Corgan?

  That's why, okay, that, that takes me exactly where I want to go. Thank you.

• 30:53Speaker 00

  So, yes, there was that kind of, always that, that little knife in my side, right? Ever since Howard Stern, I knew the beast I was fighting, which is that they're always going to try to point. Point me and paint me into this box, into this corner of being a not real artist. I'm not a legitimate artist.

• 31:12Billy Corgan?

  Are you fighting the perception?

• 31:13Speaker 00

  I was, I was, for many, many years. It was like, come on, see me, see me, see me, feel me, I'm real. And then it was like, okay, you know what? Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go make a whole other band, not put my name on it, not put my face on it. It's gonna be called Truth Movement. And maybe if I just put out music as a piece and it's art and I keep my name away from it, I can see what people really think. And it worked. We got really good reviews for the first Truth Movement album. Very few people even noticed it was me because it's only like, okay, it's in writing, but it's like gold writing Corey Feldman's Truth Movement. But you really see Truth Movement as like the big letters.

• 31:50Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 31:51Speaker 00

  And then for the second album, I took my name off it completely, so it just said Truth Movement. Now I had the confidence to do it on the second album because I had the likes of John Karen, Scott Page, Mark Karen. I mean, these are some of the greatest musicians in the industry as far as session players and live touring guys. I don't know if you know who they are, but all of them come from Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead. So John Karen is co-produced, co-written, uh, and been a utility player for Pink Floyd for thirty-five years, forty years.

• 32:19Billy Corgan?

  Is he the guy who plays keyboards? I definitely know who he is, yeah.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  Great guy. Uh, so he co-wrote and co-produced seven of the songs with me on that album.

• 32:27Billy Corgan?

  Yes, I see. I don't know his name, but I definitely know who he is.

• 32:29Speaker 00

  Right, and that's a way of saying like, okay, this isn't a joke, right? We all get it, because like, somebody like that isn't gonna take his time to work on this project.

• 32:38Billy Corgan?

  This gets into some of the conceptual work with the pumpkins. Basically, it's, it's, it's a certain concept, by offering yourself up for sacrifice, you can invert the energy.

• 32:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:49Billy Corgan?

  So is that what you're doing?

• 32:50Speaker 00

  In essence, because what I said is, I'm taking my name out of it, I'm taking my face out of it. Judge it for what you will, but I'm gonna put together the best team that I can.

• 32:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:00Speaker 00

  That believe in what I'm doing.

• 33:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:02Speaker 00

  And try to emulate this idea of art.

• 33:05Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but you're still...

• 33:06Speaker 00

  Receive it or not.

• 33:07Billy Corgan?

  I follow that one hundred percent, but... From a thematic thing when you're singing, you know, again, remind me of the lyric, because I don't want to-

• 33:14Speaker 00

  Well, this is different. No, so I'm going back still. We're still in the past.

• 33:17Billy Corgan?

  Okay, my apologies.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  We're at 2010 here. So in 2010, I put out this very poignant, very powerful album that's very similar to the sound of a Pink Floyd album.

• 33:25Billy Corgan?

  Okay, good.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  It's got that vibe, it's got that feel. In fact, we got Storm Thurgerson as his last concept album piece of artwork to do all of our art, all of the-

• 33:35Billy Corgan?

  That's pretty cool.

• 33:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, the logos, the branding, everything.

• 33:37Billy Corgan?

  That's cool.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  It was all Storm Studios. God bless them. So that really put the stamp on it, as far as I was concerned. And then, to make it even further accentuated, I went to David Gilmour and went to Roger and I got their blessings. I gave them both a copy of the CD, made sure that they weren't offended or mad at it. You know what I mean? Like, I really did everything I could to keep it as authentic as possible-

• 33:59Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  -as an extension or a sister band or whatever you want to think of it as, as some connection to my tribute to Pink Floyd without stealing from them in any way.

• 34:08Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 34:09Speaker 00

  Um, and then after that, you know, it was like, okay, I think people kind of started to get like, he's serious about music. He's not playing.

• 34:16Billy Corgan?

  You've definitely gotten that point across.

• 34:18Speaker 00

  Right. So then I go back into the solo stuff, and then I'm like, okay, now I kind of have the license to do what I want. Now I can be creative and-

• 34:24Billy Corgan?

  Did it work?

• 34:25Speaker 00

  It did. Well, yeah, "A Century Millennium" went viral and, you know, that was my first hit on MTV and it was like, you know, 2 million views in like a day or something. It was great. I mean, it was like, okay, we did it, you know, here we are. And the video was cool because it was a breakthrough video, you know, back when they did breakthrough videos. And, you know, it was one continuous moving shot that never had a break, that never had any kind of stop or edit. So people were very impressed by the interview.

• 34:50Billy Corgan?

  But take me back to the joke. You're just, I'm still-

• 34:52Speaker 00

  I know, I know, I get caught. I know, I'm sorry. I'm like that. But I always will come back. Uh, so anyway, so I went through a series. Okay, now we got top 40 Billboard hits. Now we're on the Today Show. We got the most views ever in the history of Today Show. These big moments that most artists would be like, holy sh- And I'm still going.

• 35:09Billy Corgan?

  You're definitely cracking the zeitgeist.

• 35:10Speaker 00

  Right, but am I gonna get away with it? You know, so the moment that Today Show was over, every headline, Corey Feldman's bizarre performance. Corey Feldman was terrible. What's wrong with this guy? You know what I mean? It was like they just nailed me to the cross. And the more they nailed me to the cross, what I found, the bigger the reception, the bigger the audience, the more people wanted to love me. Because they saw me, or they heard me. They liked the music just for what it was.

• 35:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 35:36Speaker 00

  And it was like, you can't tell me that I hate this music. You can't tell me I hate this performance. Fuck you. I like it, and I'm gonna stand by that. And that became a thing all in and of itself. Which is that suddenly you've got like a real force of fans that are standing up in my favor saying, "Stop messing with this guy."

• 35:56Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  And that started to change the schematics. Now, last year, we play Riot Fest. Twenty thousand people showed up just to hear our set.

• 36:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  That was powerful. That made me go, "Oh, okay, this is working." Like, we're finally starting to get somewhere with this. So, then shortly after that, they saw that it was working too. And their response was, "Let's take it back to making fun of him. Let's get rid of all this serious credibility."

• 36:28Billy Corgan?

  So you think it started anew?

• 36:29Speaker 00

  Yes, it did start anew. Because all of a sudden, literally, there was this guy, and I don't even know his name, but he's some English dude who sits there with a guitar and talks crap about people, or talks well about them, but he's a critique of all music.

• 36:42Billy Corgan?

  There's a lot of hot takes on you on YouTube. I noticed that.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  Exactly. And by the way, you can get tickets to my recent show at, da-da-da-da-da, right? So they're like plugging themselves as they're trying to desecrate my career. But this guy who came out after the Today Show, and he stood up for me and he said, "You know what? It was art. It wasn't bad. People tried to think it was bad. It wasn't. Let's look deeper at what he's doing here. This is ingenious. This is great. This is da-da-da." And I was like, "Wow, look, somebody gets it. This is awesome." I was all excited. That same guy comes back. Five years, seven years later and goes, "I figured out the Corey Feldman thing." "It's all a joke." "Nobody can be this terrible all the time."

• 37:24Billy Corgan?

  I got to the end of the movie.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  But now you're understanding.

• 37:28Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 37:28Speaker 00

  It's this guy, the same guy that was praising me and saying how great the things were that I was doing because they were so different and edgy and whatever. He's now coming back on to be saying-

• 37:36Billy Corgan?

  Because I saw this in getting ready for this interview.

• 37:38Speaker 00

  So you know what I'm talking about.

• 37:39Billy Corgan?

  I saw where people were openly questioning whether you're doing some kind of weird performance.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  Right, because they're taking clips. Okay, I'm sorry, but you've toured for 30 years. When you've toured for 30 years, how many times has the sound gone out? How many times has the lighting guy missed a cue?

• 37:53Billy Corgan?

  Oh my god, if you just took my bad moments, I mean-

• 37:55Speaker 00

  That's what I'm saying. Like, how many times have you hit your tooth into the mic? How many times, I mean, it's just this shit that just happens. It's called being a rock and roll guy. It's what you do.

• 38:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  So, we deal with stuff. Stuff goes wrong constantly. And we're constantly having meltdowns and we're constantly acting like everything's okay to get out there in front of the audience and put on a smile.

• 38:14Billy Corgan?

  But for the sake of this, and I feel like this is even so beneath us, but can you tell me definitively, there's nothing performative about what you're doing? You are doing what you want to do.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  It's all performative.

• 38:25Billy Corgan?

  No, but I mean, performative meaning you're playing Corey Feldman, the crazy rocker guy as-

• 38:30Speaker 00

  I'm not, I'm just me, man. I'm just me.

• 38:33Billy Corgan?

  I know that because I-

• 38:34Speaker 00

  I'm just the artist, I'm just doing what I do.

• 38:36Billy Corgan?

  Even though we've had these two encounters.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 38:39Billy Corgan?

  Two to 12 encounters.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  Whatever they might be, yeah.

• 38:42Billy Corgan?

  But my point is, is I know that's you being you because I've had the pleasure of getting to know you a little bit.

• 38:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 38:48Billy Corgan?

  So when I see you on television-

• 38:50Speaker 00

  Hey guys, guess what?

• 38:51Billy Corgan?

  I know that.

• 38:52Speaker 00

  I'm not perfect. I'm goofy. I'm awkward.

• 38:55Billy Corgan?

  But I'm saying-

• 38:55Speaker 00

  I am as imperfect as God made me.

• 38:57Billy Corgan?

  I like the idea of you, maybe it's vainglorious, but I like the idea of you putting on the record, "No, there's nothing fake about what I'm doing. I am doing my thing."

• 39:05Speaker 00

  Right.

• 39:06Billy Corgan?

  That's it, right?

• 39:06Speaker 00

  I mean, it is what it is.

• 39:08Billy Corgan?

  That's, I love it. No, because I can't believe there's like these hot takes where it's like, "Oh, it's an act." And I'm thinking, if he's doing an act, this is like, it's pretty out there act.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  Right, like, yeah, the act that nobody knows is a joke, right?

• 39:20Billy Corgan?

  No, but I get that too sometimes, and I'm like, trust me, if I was faking it, I wouldn't be in this fucking band.

• 39:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 39:26Billy Corgan?

  I would have faked a better band. Right?

• 39:30Speaker 00

  I think your band's pretty good, yeah.

• 39:31Billy Corgan?

  Thank you. What I'm saying is, I, I, sometimes I, cause I get this kind of vibe from journalists, sometimes I'm like, the band's called The Smashing Pumpkins, like, don't you get it? It's all sourced to be kind of a fun take.

• 39:42Speaker 00

  Tongue in cheek a little bit?

• 39:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it's, yeah. I mean, we're not-

• 39:44Speaker 00

  But that doesn't mean the art doesn't speak for itself.

• 39:46Billy Corgan?

  That's what I'm saying, it's just like-

• 39:47Speaker 00

  It's stupid.

• 39:49Billy Corgan?

  You, you've certainly taken enough slings and arrows through the years to denote that you're serious about what you're doing.

• 39:55Speaker 00

  Right, so now it's like, you know what, fine. How about this? If you wanna see it as a joke, you go right ahead, and you keep propagating that. While I'll keep making my songs, and we'll keep getting more and more followers and audience members and-

• 40:09Billy Corgan?

  What's the, is the goal to just-

• 40:10Speaker 00

  And bigger venues and, and, and, and spreading the love.

• 40:13Billy Corgan?

  So what's the, what's the dream goal?

• 40:15Speaker 00

  It's spreading the love, that's it. You know, I want to write positive music that means something. I want people to be inspired by the words, and, and the feelings that they get, and the musicality. I mean, that's what matters to me. I want people to, first of all, come to the show and have a great time, no matter what you're getting out of it, at least, whether you wanna laugh at me, whether you wanna scream and, and cry and say it's the most exciting thing you've ever seen, or whether you just wanna stand there like, in awe, I don't care.

• 40:44Billy Corgan?

  But walk me through this, okay?

• 40:45Speaker 00

  But enjoy this, enjoy the show.

• 40:47Billy Corgan?

  Understood. Walk me through this. You're on stage, and, you know, we all see who's in the crowd, right? And I, I definitely can tell when people are there, not because they're in love with my, my band.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 40:59Billy Corgan?

  Right? Arms crossed.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:01Billy Corgan?

  Hipster beard.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 41:04Billy Corgan?

  What's your inner psychology at that moment? When you're dealing, well, let's call it an overt negative and an overt positive? Like, how do you balance that in your mind?

• 41:13Speaker 00

  Watch till, wa- watch what happens in the end.

• 41:16Billy Corgan?

  Which is?

• 41:17Speaker 00

  They always walk out with a smile.

• 41:20Speaker 00

  Now, either they walk out, or they walk out with a smile.

• 41:24Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  They walk out because a lot of times they're overpowered. So, in the beginning days, or the early days, I should say, and I don't wanna say early days, because the early days, it was all love. It wasn't until the Howard Stern era, that, you know, them throwing these tags on me, that people started doing the cross-armed, you know, side-eye stuff. But, once that started, yeah, it was real obvious. And it was fifty-fifty.

• 41:48Billy Corgan?

  So...

• 41:49Speaker 00

  So I would say, half the audience is that.

• 41:50Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 41:51Speaker 00

  And then half the audience is going crazy and crying and loving it, and like, totally there, right? So you go, okay, guess what? We're all gonna have fun today. We're all gonna have a good time. It's gonna be a great show for everyone. And if you still don't get it by the time you're done, it's not gonna be me that drives you out of the room. It's gonna be the joy and the love.

• 42:11Billy Corgan?

  I love that.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  And the positive feeling from the rest of the energy that makes you feel impish and insecure for trying to hate on something so positive.

• 42:19Billy Corgan?

  So, in that way, you see music less as a sort of atavistic, it's about Corey Feldman, and more as it's the instrument by which you translate.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 42:27Billy Corgan?

  What you want people to understand about your love of life.

• 42:31Speaker 00

  Or the universe. Maybe it's not even about me. You know, in most cases, it's me trying to convey some sort of message that's coming from the ether. I don't know if it's God, I don't know if it's, you know, life forces beyond us, or whatever. But I know that I don't, I don't claim responsibility for writing these hit songs. I don't think you probably would either. Like, it comes from somewhere else, we pull it, and then we get lucky enough to

• 42:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 42:53Speaker 00

  transmute it.

• 42:54Billy Corgan?

  I have these early memories of playing in the late eighties, early nineties, when we were doing things that you weren't supposed to do at that time in alternative music, like guitar solos, and we were very aggressive, and, I mean, these are things that are like...

• 43:06Speaker 00

  Well, you had big orchestration and things like that.

• 43:08Billy Corgan?

  Right, but I'm saying, we got this vibe from the history community, like, let's call it, "You're not supposed to do that."

• 43:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 43:14Billy Corgan?

  Right? You know that vibe?

• 43:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:15Billy Corgan?

  That's not cool.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Right. It's against the grain.

• 43:17Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 43:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:18Billy Corgan?

  And, and I have these very early memories of people almost kind of pulling me aside, and I'm not saying this has happened to you, but maybe you relate, where they pull you aside, and they're like, you know, they're kind of laughing at you. You know what I mean? And you're like, "I don't give a..."

• 43:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 43:33Billy Corgan?

  Can you explain your version of that?

• 43:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's called the joke.

• 43:37Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but I'm saying, I want people to understand that.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 43:41Billy Corgan?

  Because that's something I understand about you.

• 43:43Speaker 00

  Well, it's, it's, look, as an artist, you're bearing your heart and your soul. No matter what anybody thinks. You're taking the gonads to get up there, to expose yourself, to be raw, to be naked.

• 43:57Billy Corgan?

  You go there, man.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  Right, well, yeah.

• 44:00Billy Corgan?

  You are a raw performer.

• 44:01Speaker 00

  Because it comes from the gut, it comes from the soul.

• 44:04Billy Corgan?

  First chakra, right?

• 44:05Speaker 00

  Wherever it is, you know, whatever your chakras are, wherever the light.

• 44:08Billy Corgan?

  Well, this is one right there.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, that's the taint, the taint.

• 44:13Billy Corgan?

  That might be minus one.

• 44:16Speaker 00

  But, yes, it's whatever, wherever part of you it comes from, and wherever you pull from.

• 44:22Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 44:23Speaker 00

  That's an individual quest, it's an individual choice. But, for me personally, it's a very honest and virtuous experience. It's, I'm going to give you all I have. Now, of course, it's all choreographed, of course, we try to play the same set every night, of course, the lighting cues and the film cues and all that stuff is production.

• 44:42Billy Corgan?

  That's where the punters get lost in.

• 44:43Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:44Billy Corgan?

  You understand, and I understand, that performing is becoming a vehicle for whatever's happening. The script, the stand here, do that, that's, that's just part of the show.

• 44:54Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 44:55Billy Corgan?

  That's not why people go to see the show.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:57Billy Corgan?

  That's the thing that most people do not understand.

• 44:58Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:59Billy Corgan?

  People go there to see something within the performer.

• 45:01Speaker 00

  Right, and they want to see where your heart is, and where your soul is, when you're transcribing or transposing these ideas.

• 45:09Billy Corgan?

  Couldn't agree with you more.

• 45:10Speaker 00

  Okay. So, where I come from is, I'm gonna go out there and do my job the best that I can do it every day. And when they love it, I love them back, when they hate it, I love them anyways. How about that? I'm not mad at anybody that spends tickets, spends money on tickets to my show. I'm not mad at the guys that want to put on the Corey Feldman rocks, tank top for girls, and booty shorts, and stand there in the front row with a beard going, "Yeah, man, yeah!", you know? Cool, that's your trip, do it up.

• 45:42Billy Corgan?

  So, off of this, do you have a life philosophy? Because it seems to me, you're indomitable, indomitable?

• 45:52Speaker 00

  Indomitable.

• 45:53Billy Corgan?

  Thank you. Your spirit is indomitable? So, do you have a formed life philosophy at this point?

• 46:02Speaker 00

  Um.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  If I do, I'll probably change it tomorrow. Just because we continue, hopefully, to keep growing and learning.

• 46:13Billy Corgan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:14Speaker 00

  The second we think we know everything, we're screwed.

• 46:17Billy Corgan?

  Right. But you've faced very unique levels of adversity and doubt. And, and, you know, sitting here, you don't come off like a victim. Right? Which is pretty rare.

• 46:29Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 46:29Billy Corgan?

  Right?

• 46:30Speaker 00

  I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor.

• 46:32Billy Corgan?

  Okay, right, but I'm saying is, we've all met victims. You know what I mean? And I've certainly played the part plenty in my life, but I'm saying.

• 46:39Speaker 00

  I'm sure I have too.

• 46:40Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but it's sitting here now, you don't present yourself as a victim, you're not... I mean, you point fingers, but it's not the pointing fingers of like, "They owe me something," or, or, you know what I'm saying?

• 46:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:50Billy Corgan?

  It's, it's, you're owning your thing, right?

• 46:53Speaker 00

  I made my mistakes, like I said, I'm not perfect.

• 46:55Billy Corgan?

  Sure, yeah. But I'm saying is like, what would you share in terms of like, life philosophy? Because I think it's, you and I have had such unique life experiences, and most people don't know what that feels like.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 47:07Billy Corgan?

  But, but, but, but it is, it is a kind of weird, kind of Zen Buddhist living lesson kind of thing that people like us go through. And I don't mean that in some sort of like, "We're blessed."

• 47:17Speaker 00

  Well, we may be blessed.

• 47:18Billy Corgan?

  We could argue, we have, well, yes, but we could argue we also have weird karma too.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 47:22Billy Corgan?

  Because it's a singular existence.

• 47:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:24Billy Corgan?

  You know what I mean?

• 47:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:25Billy Corgan?

  Like, when you've been memed, you've been memed, I've been memed. When you've been mocked, or whatever, you know, you, you're held up as an object of derision, or...

• 47:33Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:34Billy Corgan?

  You know, even like, the joke of the day, right? You know what I mean? I've been there, you know, Family Guy, or whatever, right?

• 47:39Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:40Billy Corgan?

  I'm saying is, you have to have some form of inner tenet that keeps you.

• 47:45Speaker 00

  It's called, it's called a deep fortitude.

• 47:47Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 47:47Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 47:48Billy Corgan?

  Is it, is it a "Fuck you, I'm gonna keep at it," or is, what is?

• 47:51Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 47:52Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 47:52Speaker 00

  It's, for me, it's like, look. You built this thing, okay? I am a product of your creation.

• 48:01Billy Corgan?

  Who, when you say "you," who's you?

• 48:03Speaker 00

  The universe. The world.

• 48:05Billy Corgan?

  But are you talking material or spiritual?

• 48:07Speaker 00

  Spiritual.

• 48:08Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  And material, both.

• 48:09Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 48:10Speaker 00

  Because look, I didn't choose to be an actor.

• 48:12Billy Corgan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  I didn't choose to be famous.

• 48:14Billy Corgan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:15Speaker 00

  None of these were my thoughts, my, my hopes.

• 48:17Billy Corgan?

  Do you remember acting that young?

• 48:18Speaker 00

  I remember all of it. But my point is, my grandparents said, we're gonna come and babysit your sister so you can go to the set today, or, you know, my grandmother would say, I'm picking you up to take you on an audition, or I'm, but this was like, this is what you're going to do. This is your life.

• 48:35Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 48:36Speaker 00

  You are going to do this.

• 48:36Billy Corgan?

  Somebody made that choice for you.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  I didn't choose to be famous. I would have never chosen to be famous. Knowing what I'm up against. I would have looked at all this and gone, no thanks, I'm good. I'll stay in the background, painting pictures or something, you know, I don't even do that well. But, something. Maybe I'd been a lawyer, maybe I'd been a doctor, who knows? But, I probably would have ended up in entertainment, just because I love art. And I'm always gonna have that artist in me, because that's part of whom I am, that's my makeup, right? But, that doesn't mean I would have been the guy in front of the camera. It doesn't mean that I would have been on everybody's T-shirts, you know what I mean? Like, I may have wanted to just be that private guy that sits in the closet and does his art and puts it out and doesn't tell anybody who the hell he is. Who knows?

• 49:19Billy Corgan?

  So, okay.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  But I was never given the chance.

• 49:21Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but when you say fortitude, like, how does that apply, then?

• 49:25Speaker 00

  Because my point is, is that at a certain point, you accept that this is your life. It was chosen for you, and that's just.

• 49:31Billy Corgan?

  So, what, at what age did that happen?

• 49:34Speaker 00

  Uh, I think eighteen, when I got sober, you know, because when I got sober, there was the question of, do I continue? You know, or do I, because I thought my career was over. I thought at that point, you know, I've been blacklisted.

• 49:45Billy Corgan?

  There's the classic, and there's the classic child star problem, right?

• 49:48Speaker 00

  Anyways, right, but now I solidified that by putting the nail in the coffin, by getting arrested for drugs. And not just drugs, but heroin. I mean, it was pretty serious stuff in nineteen eighty-nine.

• 49:57Billy Corgan?

  If you're gonna party.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  If you're gonna go for it, go for the top. Um, but no, seriously, so, so, you know, I was in a really bad place. I mean, I was, I'd done a lot of damage, a lot of damage to my career, and I take responsibility for that. I was the one partying on the set, I get it, I wasn't being professional, I was showing up late, I wasn't knowing my lines. I deserved to get my ass kicked a bit. That was fair.

• 50:19Billy Corgan?

  Uh-huh.

• 50:20Speaker 00

  You know? But where it wasn't fair was when I did get my life together. I showed up, I suited up, I did what I was supposed to. I met the call. And I was still kicked in the face. That was the part that hurt. So, once I realized, you know what, you're never going to win because they're going to give you that, you know, ladder.

• 50:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  They're gonna throw you the, the safety net. So, instead, I've gotta survive. And it becomes about survival.

• 50:47Billy Corgan?

  Like Courtney Love once told me she was in actor jail.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 50:51Billy Corgan?

  Because of her issues with Hollywood.

• 50:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 50:53Billy Corgan?

  She called it actor jail. She once said to me, "When do I get out of actor jail?" I don't know if the joke translates, but, but I'm saying,

• 51:03Billy Corgan?

  whatever happened to you-

• 51:03Speaker 00

  I've been in industry jail.

• 51:05Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but I'm saying is, where do you think that comes from? Was it a collective thing, or they just, do they move on, or-

• 51:12Speaker 00

  Again, I think it's systemic. I do. I think that no matter whether you're a prince or you're a pauper, at the end of the day, if they fear that you're going to come to terms with the things that you've been through and speak on them, and make a vocal presence about them, they wanna stifle your voice, they wanna nullify you, and they wanna squash you as much as possible until they make you the offer. Are you going to be part of the big kids' club, or are you gonna be in that little box?

• 51:39Billy Corgan?

  So, eighteen, nineteen, did you start, did you start letting people know your feelings about what had happened?

• 51:44Speaker 00

  No. At eighteen, nineteen, I said, "I'm gonna get sober. I'm going to try and make enough money to pay off these debts that I incurred."

• 51:51Billy Corgan?

  So, you're sober and you go, "I'm ready to go back to work," and what happened?

• 51:54Speaker 00

  And I got B-movies up the ass.

• 51:56Billy Corgan?

  Why didn't they let you back in the kingdom?

• 51:58Speaker 00

  Because they didn't know which way I was gonna go.

• 52:02Billy Corgan?

  Did they tell you anything at that point? I guess that's a collective day.

• 52:05Speaker 00

  But, the, the, what it is-

• 52:07Billy Corgan?

  You definitely felt the cold wind blowing.

• 52:08Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, I mean, there was no, like I said, I was auditioning for these major roles, for these major films, and I was getting shut down every time. Either I would get-

• 52:16Billy Corgan?

  So, they still let you come audition?

• 52:18Speaker 00

  Right.

• 52:18Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 52:18Speaker 00

  But then, and then that became a thing. Because then I started getting so, like, insecure, they're like, "Well, I'm not getting the parts anymore." I used to walk in the rooms and I'd get every part I went on. Now, I walk in the room and I'm laughed at, or I'm feeling like I'm being mocked. So, then I felt very worthless. So, it was like, okay, well, if I can't be this guy anymore, then I guess I just have to make- Enough great independent art films to prove to everybody they're serious. So I did the schlock movies in the beginning, getting out of rehab to pay off my debts. Then I realized that was only a detriment to my career.

• 52:50Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 52:50Speaker 00

  So then I said, okay, can't do that anymore. I'm, if it's not art, I'm not doing it.

• 52:55Billy Corgan?

  Cause you could have done that into infinity.

• 52:57Speaker 00

  Of course, but then it would just keep getting like B movies, C movies, D movies.

• 53:01Billy Corgan?

  Isn't interesting about the media is that they never give you credit for what you don't do.

• 53:04Speaker 00

  Exactly. That's right. That's right. And that's when I started to realize. I will get huge money offers to make fun of myself. Huge money offers to patronize myself, to mock myself, but. If I wanted to do something that's gonna excel my career because it's art, because I believe in it, because it's passionate to me. That'll have to pay a price for it. And those are always the ones where it's like, I'm sorry, all we can pay is scale. I mean, if you're willing to do it.

• 53:32Billy Corgan?

  How old are you when that, when that, when that thought hits you like?

• 53:35Speaker 00

  Twenty-two, twenty-three.

• 53:36Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 53:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. So at that point, I start to realize this isn't a no-win situation. They may never let me back into the big leagues. This may be, I'm the independent art guy for the rest of my life, and that's okay.

• 53:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  Cause as long as it's art, I'll be okay with it.

• 53:51Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 53:52Speaker 00

  No more with the B movies, no more with the schlocky stuff. I'm done. Unless it's a wink and a nod to.

• 53:58Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 53:58Speaker 00

  Making fun of it, but I'm not doing it for real. And that started in ninety-five. And from ninety-five on, you can look at the catalog.

• 54:05Billy Corgan?

  Around the time when I first met you.

• 54:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so it was right around there that I was probably getting a bit of, um. Intuitive like insight to where I was at or what I wanted.

• 54:14Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 54:15Speaker 00

  And at that point, it was like, okay, I think it's time to just lock it down.

• 54:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  From now on, my music or films, whatever I do, if I don't respect it, if I can't eat the character, if I can't own it, if I can't become something. Completely removed from myself, because they're gonna wanna keep putting me in that box of being the schlocky jerk guy that I was in the Goonies, that I was in License and Drive. They want that character over and over and over. I'm not doing it ever again.

• 54:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 54:40Speaker 00

  Never again.

• 54:41Billy Corgan?

  So in terms of, uh, let's call it rating the success of that journey that you've been on since that age, twenty-two, twenty-three. Where are you at on that?

• 54:48Speaker 00

  Oh, man, it's been like a roller coaster.

• 54:50Billy Corgan?

  But where are you at on the roller coaster right now?

• 54:52Speaker 00

  I'm pretty high.

• 54:53Billy Corgan?

  Feels like it, right?

• 54:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, I feel like I'm.

• 54:55Billy Corgan?

  That's why I like talking to you at this moment because. Because I, like I said, I've had little insights along the way.

• 55:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:03Billy Corgan?

  And.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  I feel like I've finally like actually accomplished something in my life. And I mean, obviously spiritually.

• 55:10Billy Corgan?

  Stop for a second. And that's yours.

• 55:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 55:13Billy Corgan?

  That's yours.

• 55:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 55:14Billy Corgan?

  Not reading somebody else's lines.

• 55:16Speaker 00

  Right.

• 55:17Billy Corgan?

  Not being pushed into something by forces that you don't understand.

• 55:20Speaker 00

  Right. And the biggest accomplishment out of all of them is my beautiful son.

• 55:26Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 55:27Speaker 00

  That's the greatest part. Because it's authentic, it's real, and he's a beautiful guy. So pleased, so grateful.

• 55:36Billy Corgan?

  How old's your son?

• 55:37Speaker 00

  He's nineteen.

• 55:37Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  And he's a spiritualist. His name is Zen, so he was kind of built into it.

• 55:43Billy Corgan?

  Well, you backed him into that.

• 55:44Speaker 00

  It was a prerequisite.

• 55:45Billy Corgan?

  Where'd he go? Where'd he go with the name Zen?

• 55:48Speaker 00

  Right. I mean, he loves playing the, you know, the tin pan, you know what I mean? Like, that's kind of his, the talking drums and all that kind of, I mean.

• 55:54Billy Corgan?

  He's a musician?

• 55:55Speaker 00

  He's getting that direction, he's going that direction, but he's really into meditation and spirituality and just reading about chakras and, you know, becoming a breath coach is his new thing. He's becoming certified for breath work and, you know,

• 56:11Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 56:11Speaker 00

  sound baths and that sort of thing. So, yes, he's definitely on that journey.

• 56:15Billy Corgan?

  Speaking as a father, I have an eight and a five-year-old.

• 56:17Speaker 00

  Oh, congrats.

• 56:18Billy Corgan?

  Late in life here.

• 56:18Speaker 00

  Nice. I plan to have another when I'm sixty. I want to go the McCartney route.

• 56:25Billy Corgan?

  I think Anthony Quinn had a child when he was eighty-one.

• 56:27Speaker 00

  I know. Well, look at Pacino and De Niro. They're both having new kids and they're eighty.

• 56:31Billy Corgan?

  There you go. So, we all should be so lucky.

• 56:33Speaker 00

  I know. I love that.

• 56:34Billy Corgan?

  Um, have you, this is a personal question, and if it's too personal, you can just skip it, but do you feel you've been able to help your son avoid some of the stuff that you've been through?

• 56:45Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 56:46Billy Corgan?

  Isn't that, in a weird way, the most healing thing?

• 56:48Speaker 00

  It's amazing. The last thing he wants is to be an actor. It's the last thing he wants.

• 56:53Billy Corgan?

  But even like, let's call it like sending him into the

• 56:55Speaker 00

  All of it, man.

• 56:56Billy Corgan?

  Into the abyss, right?

• 56:57Speaker 00

  Listen, he's never had to do blow. He's never had to do glow. I mean, just saving him from that journey.

• 57:03Billy Corgan?

  There's the line for the T-shirt.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  Exactly. Or there is no more lines for the T-shirt. But anyway, sorry.

• 57:11Billy Corgan?

  No, no, I love, I love, this is, this is the conversation I hoped we'd have, so I'm really enjoying it. Because one of my pet peeves in American culture.

• 57:23Billy Corgan?

  Is when people decide that people of ability, people of great spirit, they sort of make up kind of a story. And, you know, when I first met you mid nineties, you know, there was always this, there was this story about you. You were this and you were only that.

• 57:40Speaker 00

  What was the story?

• 57:41Billy Corgan?

  You know, the typical child actor, a little bit lost. You know, had some issues.

• 57:47Speaker 00

  Shame that that one couldn't get it together, right? What a tragic loss. He's nineteen, his life's over.

• 57:53Billy Corgan?

  But that was the vibe.

• 57:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:54Billy Corgan?

  Right, that's the vibe.

• 57:55Speaker 00

  And that was the agenda.

• 57:57Billy Corgan?

  Right, okay. But, you know, I'm a typical American at that point. You know, this is all pre-internet.

• 58:04Speaker 00

  Well.

• 58:04Billy Corgan?

  Well, no, but what I'm, what I'm saying, okay, what I'm saying is, I grew up in Chicago and, you know, you know, I'm meeting this.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  Up until that point, you had a fairly normal.

• 58:12Billy Corgan?

  Famous actor, up until the time I met you in the flesh, you know, you're just, you might as well be a two dimensional cartoon character that I've seen in some movies. And I mean, you're not a real person to me. It was only when I met you that you started becoming a real person to me. And I started looking at your story through the lens of like, I've actually shook this man's hand and I, and I feel like I have some understanding of who this person is as a spirit, not as a thing.

• 58:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 58:38Billy Corgan?

  And objectified, yes, thank you. And there's no better, let's call it objectification factory than Hollywood when it comes to the movies. I mean, let's face it, being in a movie is fucking immortality. I mean, you have a certain immortality because you've been in some of these incredibly classic, I don't like kids movies, but I mean, that's, but I mean those.

• 58:58Speaker 00

  Movies in general.

• 59:00Billy Corgan?

  I mean, I have a friend, I work with in professional wrestling. His bedroom is completely devoted to The Goonies.

• 59:06Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 59:07Billy Corgan?

  And he's forty years old.

• 59:08Speaker 00

  That's funny.

• 59:09Billy Corgan?

  But that's his favorite movie.

• 59:11Speaker 00

  Goonies never say die, that's my friend. Um, well, uh, yeah, I hear you. I mean, look, for me, it's kind of like, oh, that thing, you know? Like, I don't really spend much time thinking about it.

• 59:20Billy Corgan?

  But, but let's, let's, let's try to flip it on its head because obviously we talked a lot about a lot of hard stuff.

• 59:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:26Billy Corgan?

  Do you feel good about the art of it all?

• 59:29Speaker 00

  To be honest, no. And I'll tell you why. I'll tell you.

• 59:33Billy Corgan?

  Because I want to understand. I don't want to be that guy, be like, I like the movies, so you should too.

• 59:37Speaker 00

  Right. No, no, I mean, Good News is a good movie. Don't get me wrong. Lost Boys, great movie. Stand by Me, I'm just, you know, 18 number one films. They weren't number one for a mistake. They were number one because they were great films. But that said, when you look at success as a kid, you're looking at success through the lens of this is what mommy and daddy told me to do. This is why I do what I do. I am being a good boy and I'm doing what I'm told.

• 1:00:03Billy Corgan?

  And by the way, and you're winning.

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  I don't even think of it that way, though.

• 1:00:07Billy Corgan?

  I understand, but I'm saying if your kid's trying to make a parent happy and you're doing a great job, like you're...

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  But they don't tell me I'm doing a great job. They're beating me, they're taking my money, they're locking me in a cage. I mean, it was, you know, everything you could imagine without the actual physical cage. But the cage was a bunk bed that I was tied to while I was being beaten. So, I mean, yes, it was basically like a cage. And was not allowed to go out, was not allowed to have sleepovers, was not allowed to have other friends, was not allowed to ride my bike because I might fall and hurt myself.

• 1:00:36Billy Corgan?

  Okay, this is a strange way to come at this.

• 1:00:39Speaker 00

  I'm just saying I had a really tormented childhood to get to the point where everybody was entertained. When people go, oh, but you made all these great movies and look at these accomplishments. No, those weren't accomplishments. Those were doing what I was told all the way through. It wasn't until I made a choice that I'm going to continue this career. I'm going to find challenging work that interests me, that excites me. And I'm trying to convey a message of positive energy and love because I had to go through hell. And I hope that people can understand from my pain, from what I had to go through. That you should never make a child go through this.

• 1:01:23Speaker 00

  You should never go down these roads and make those same mistakes.

• 1:01:26Billy Corgan?

  I want to belabor it just one more time. And I hear what you're saying. I mean, I feel emotional.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  So, when I look at the work, okay, I think this is where you're going.

• 1:01:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:34Speaker 00

  When I look at the work, I go, well, that's great for what it was. But what's an accomplishment to me? An accomplishment to me would be, right now, making a film that everybody appreciates and goes, this guy's a brilliant actor. That's an accomplishment.

• 1:01:49Billy Corgan?

  But those movies were successful because you were a brilliant actor when you were a kid?

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  No, because I was one of many brilliant actors. And I was part of a very brilliant crew with a brilliant director.

• 1:01:59Billy Corgan?

  I guess so.

• 1:01:59Speaker 00

  Brilliant producer and brilliant writer.

• 1:02:01Billy Corgan?

  I'm not trying to be your therapist, but I...

• 1:02:03Speaker 00

  What I'm saying is, this, what matters now is what matters now.

• 1:02:06Billy Corgan?

  Totally agree with you.

• 1:02:07Speaker 00

  And, and I have a movie coming out, by the way. It's a film that I shot 20 years ago.

• 1:02:12Billy Corgan?

  I read about this.

• 1:02:13Speaker 00

  It's called The Birthday, yeah.

• 1:02:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, see, I know, I did my research.

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  Good job. And this is a brilliant work.

• 1:02:18Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  And I'm very proud. And, no matter what happens...

• 1:02:22Billy Corgan?

  Has it not had US distribution or something?

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  It was shut down, it was shelved intentionally.

• 1:02:27Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:02:27Speaker 00

  And this was at the point where I could've...

• 1:02:29Billy Corgan?

  So this is something you're proud of?

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  This is at the point where I could've turned it all around as a young actor.

• 1:02:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  And I could've been that guy, still. This was like my last chance to really do that.

• 1:02:38Billy Corgan?

  Your aspiration is that people will see this and understand that...

• 1:02:41Speaker 00

  Well, that it's art, first of all, it's a beautiful piece of art.

• 1:02:43Billy Corgan?

  But there also is proof to the case you're making.

• 1:02:45Speaker 00

  Right, which is that I was always there. So, it's not like I lost my talent all this...

• 1:02:50Billy Corgan?

  Okay, can I...

• 1:02:50Speaker 00

  A lot of people try to frame that. They say, oh, well then, you know, he became an adult and he just couldn't act anymore. That's what it was.

• 1:02:56Billy Corgan?

  I love when people try that shit with me.

• 1:02:58Speaker 00

  Oh, really? Well, then go watch this. You know what I'm saying? Because this is such a breakthrough film. And so groundbreaking and captivating as a piece of art.

• 1:03:09Billy Corgan?

  The Birthday.

• 1:03:10Speaker 00

  The Birthday, because the director is a freaking genius. He wrote and directed it. He's like the, he's, he's the Stanley Kubrick of Spain. He's the Quentin Tarantino of Spain. His name is Eugenio Mira.

• 1:03:22Billy Corgan?

  Okay, can I make this point one more time? I'm not trying to be your therapist. I swear to God.

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  Go ahead.

• 1:03:29Billy Corgan?

  Riddle me this, Batman.

• 1:03:30Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:03:30Billy Corgan?

  Okay. Would not, on some level, making peace with your childhood work be healing for you?

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  I meant peace with it. I meant peace with it. I have no negative connotation. Because you asked me, was there something redeeming about it?

• 1:03:49Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  There was something, we never got to that. The love. The love.

• 1:03:54Billy Corgan?

  The love, the love in the work, or the love that people have for the work?

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  No, no, no, the love in the work, the love in the moment, the love is the fact that I'm still friends today with Keely Kwan, with Sean Astin, with Carrie Green, with Josh Brolin, with Jerry O'Connell, with Will Wheaton, like these

• 1:04:14Billy Corgan?

  So you have that.

• 1:04:15Speaker 00

  Jameson Newlander, these kids that you grew up with, and not just the kids, Richard Donner became a father to me. He was the closest thing to a father that I ever knew.

• 1:04:23Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so that's what I was trying, I was trying to see if there was something that you held on.

• 1:04:26Speaker 00

  Oh yeah.

• 1:04:27Billy Corgan?

  Okay, that's it.

• 1:04:27Speaker 00

  There were some beautiful people.

• 1:04:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I mean, who gives a about a movie?

• 1:04:30Speaker 00

  And that's the thing, is like, yes, for all the, the fact that there is this dark power that controls things in the industry, or in politics, or in wherever you want to go with it, there is this darkness that looms over, but there's also this beautiful, amazing light.

• 1:04:43Billy Corgan?

  That's all I was after.

• 1:04:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I mean, it goes both ways.

• 1:04:47Billy Corgan?

  So at least you understand why I was harping on.

• 1:04:48Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 1:04:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:49Speaker 00

  And let me tell you, I'm so eternally grateful for those connections that I made. I mean, Steven Spielberg treated me beautifully. Just today, Stephen King tweeted a picture of him holding my Funko Pop that I gave to you, and he's like, "I got a signed Corey Feldman Funko Pop." He spelled my name wrong, but that's okay. It's the fact that Stephen King, one of the greatest writers in the world, is, you know, flaunting his, his proud possession of my signed doll.

• 1:05:17Billy Corgan?

  Now you should retweet it and then misspell his name.

• 1:05:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. You know, those are little victories. Those are little victories. Just the fact that people care enough to, to remember, and the fact that we made some lifelong, lasting friendships that actually have meaning and value. That's my family, because I don't know anything else. I didn't have a real family. I haven't spoken to my mom or dad in 30 years, 20 years.

• 1:05:40Billy Corgan?

  Because of the exploitation?

• 1:05:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:42Billy Corgan?

  Part of it?

• 1:05:44Speaker 00

  Since the book came out, so maybe not 30 years, 15 years.

• 1:05:47Billy Corgan?

  How much, in terms of financial loss, do you think you suffered?

• 1:05:52Speaker 00

  Which part?

• 1:05:54Billy Corgan?

  Tell me, I don't know.

• 1:05:55Speaker 00

  My money was always taken. It was always taken.

• 1:05:57Billy Corgan?

  Do you have an estimate of that?

• 1:05:58Speaker 00

  Millions.

• 1:05:59Billy Corgan?

  I mean, yeah.

• 1:06:00Speaker 00

  I made a million by the time I was fourteen years old. I went to the producers, had pension, health and welfare. Uh, cause I wanted to get emancipated and get away from the slave trade. And I said, what's my buyout? You know, what have I made so far? What do I have left? How do I get out? And they said, well, you've earned a million dollars up until the point that you were thirteen. Now you're fourteen. And what's left in your account? Forty thousand dollars. So I went to start the emancipation process, which by the way, was gilded by and championed by the pedophile who was in my life that my father assigned to me through his work. So this pedophile comes in and, hey, we gotta get you free of these awful parents. They're terrible.

• 1:06:41Speaker 00

  You know, let's do drugs and I'll, you know, take advantage of you when you're sleeping. And then we can use the daytime to go and hire a lawyer and find you some clear defense. So how screwed up is your head then? When the guy who's the bad guy is the one that's saving you?

• 1:06:55Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Speaker 00

  Right. So anyway, so he, you know, he got me through getting the lawyer, getting to the emancipation part, and then proving to the courts that I was able to sustain a life without being supported by parents, cause I was never supported by parents.

• 1:07:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:10Speaker 00

  I've never known what it's like to have a mom or dad bail you out. I will never know what it's like to have your parents pay for your school. I will never know what it's like to run home when you're in trouble. I don't understand those concepts.

• 1:07:25Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:26Speaker 00

  I'll never have that experience in this life. But what I do have is the beautiful experience of being all of that for my kid. And these beautiful people who saw the pain that I was in, people like Richard Donner, like Joe Dante. You know, beautiful Joel Schumacher to some extent tried to help me.

• 1:07:44Billy Corgan?

  I know Joel, I love it.

• 1:07:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, these were.

• 1:07:46Billy Corgan?

  Beautiful man.

• 1:07:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, and these were real people, you know, that in spite of the fact that we were in this machine of dark and, and light, this good and evil balance of, of egotistical, maniacal monotony. Yet.

• 1:08:01Billy Corgan?

  There's a lyric.

• 1:08:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. But yet there was still this beauty and essence of, of authenticity and humanity behind it. And that is where I found my niche.

• 1:08:15Billy Corgan?

  Last thing. We live in this crazy country, which is so in love with its own culture. We've been able to export this culture to the world. You working in movies and music, me working in music. And yet, like we've talked about, we both experienced, let's call it the darker underbelly of what really can happen to sensitive people in a very brutal game.

• 1:08:40Speaker 00

  All artists are sensitive.

• 1:08:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but some are really sociopathic and are able to navigate.

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  I'm not mentioning our common friend, but go ahead.

• 1:08:53Billy Corgan?

  My point being is, it's very hard for, let's call it, people who grew up under, you know, a normal circumstance, working class, you know. I know you didn't have that, but I grew up working class, you know. My father was a musician, but you know, he was playing the holiday in it like that.

• 1:09:11Speaker 00

  Me too.

• 1:09:11Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:09:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. My dad played amusement parks.

• 1:09:14Billy Corgan?

  So it's very hard when people like us, and I'm putting myself next to you in this, is when we go to the American public and we say, hey, have some empathy or have some understanding for our journey and how it's kind of knocked us around. Because there's always this vibe that comes back, well, you got lucky.

• 1:09:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:34Billy Corgan?

  Like, don't complain.

• 1:09:35Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:09:36Billy Corgan?

  Right? I'm sure you've had some of that.

• 1:09:37Speaker 00

  Plenty.

• 1:09:38Billy Corgan?

  But if anybody's made it to the end of this thing, I think they have gotten to see the person that I met years ago and you.

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:09:46Billy Corgan?

  So, I guess as a last way to put it, when people get caught up in, let's call it, the thing, the interview, the song, the movie, and they don't, they get lost in the sauce and they don't realize it's really the people that animate these things. If anything, a movie is a byproduct of a collective effort, good or bad.

• 1:10:07Speaker 00

  Bringing it to life.

• 1:10:08Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 1:10:10Billy Corgan?

  People who work in the arts understand it's really about the sort of inner passion of the people at play. And when it's really beautiful, you have these incredible moments like Casablanca or something where it's supposed to be like, not an important picture and ends up being one of the most important movies of all time. It's like a miracle, right? It just, things click. Are you following me where I'm going with this? Okay, good. So. I'm not putting you on the court of public opinion because I don't think you shouldn't be on trial.

• 1:10:36Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:10:36Billy Corgan?

  You know what I mean? But I see where people do that to you.

• 1:10:39Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:10:40Billy Corgan?

  And I know from my own experiences, when I have tried to go to the American public and say, hey, cut me a little slack, give me a little bit of wiggle room, you know, I'm just a human being here, you know, I play vampire on TV, but you know, at the end of the day, I'm, you know, I still gotta get up and like, navigate whatever the this is.

• 1:10:57Speaker 00

  I still gotta be able to look myself in the mirror in the morning.

• 1:11:00Billy Corgan?

  And, and.

• 1:11:01Speaker 00

  And put my pants on when they get in time.

• 1:11:02Billy Corgan?

  And, you know, you can take this or not, but I mean, you know, I was born a weirdo, you're born a bit of a weirdo, you know what I mean? We're like, we are just who we are.

• 1:11:09Speaker 00

  I go with eccentric, but go ahead.

• 1:11:11Billy Corgan?

  Okay. So my point is, is

• 1:11:15Billy Corgan?

  having said all these things and explored all these things, what would you like people to understand is the most important thing that you want them to understand? I've, I've gone after what I wanted to understand and you've been very transparent and I appreciate you for that. But what do you want people to understand?

• 1:11:30Speaker 00

  Um.

• 1:11:32Speaker 00

  I guess that it's all, it's all authentic. It's all real. What you see is what you get. I don't play games, I don't put on phony personas. I don't play a character. You know, the love that you see in my heart is pure. The anger that you feel is justified.

• 1:11:49Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 1:11:50Speaker 00

  And the pain is, is weathered. But I'm still here.

• 1:11:56Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 1:11:57Speaker 00

  And I plan to still keep doing what I do until God chooses to remove me from the scene.

• 1:12:03Billy Corgan?

  What strikes me when you say that in a lot of our conversation is

• 1:12:08Billy Corgan?

  it's almost hard for people to navigate living in a culture of falsehood that there are people who are actually real people.

• 1:12:14Speaker 00

  Authentic, yeah. It's hard. And I guess, you know, I did Howie Mandel's podcast as part of this launch of the new single. And the tour, Low Servill, by the way. Go get your tickets.

• 1:12:28Billy Corgan?

  Low Servill?

• 1:12:29Speaker 00

  Low Servill, that's the name of the tour. You know, like, we're gonna give you a low serve and it's gonna be ill. Anyway, so, that's, uh, that's gonna be all over the country. You can get tickets, VIP tickets, at my website.

• 1:12:40Billy Corgan?

  I saw the tour dates, that's a big tour.

• 1:12:42Speaker 00

  Or you can come get VIP tickets only at my website, which is not being advertised on the Live Nation sites. Corey Feldman dot net, that's the place where you can come and get your...

• 1:12:52Billy Corgan?

  You didn't get dot com, somebody stole it from you?

• 1:12:54Speaker 00

  Nah, somebody stole it, yeah, squatters, you know how that goes.

• 1:12:56Billy Corgan?

  I've been there.

• 1:12:57Speaker 00

  Uh, but, I was trying to get to the end of this.

• 1:12:59Billy Corgan?

  Sorry.

• 1:12:59Speaker 00

  Now I forgot where I was going. What was the point?

• 1:13:01Billy Corgan?

  Authenticity.

• 1:13:02Speaker 00

  Authenticity, right, right, wait, self, self is shameless, self-promotion.

• 1:13:06Billy Corgan?

  Shameless self-promotion, mixed with authenticity.

• 1:13:08Speaker 00

  Right, of course. Uh, the authenticity is, I am a workaholic. I love helping people. And I get pure joy out of enlightening others. So, if I can prevent somebody else from having to experience pain

• 1:13:24Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 1:13:25Speaker 00

  that I've already struggled through, because they're willing to listen, and not too bullheaded to think, "Oh, he doesn't know what he's talking about," but, you know, they actually take the time to listen.

• 1:13:36Speaker 00

  Hopefully, I can save them some pain, some heartache, and, and help people who need that and are ready for that help.

• 1:13:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:43Speaker 00

  And if I can accomplish that in some small way, saving people from pain, making the journey a little bit easier, and realizing that, look, what we do is not rocket science, we're not, we're not solving cancer, we're not changing the world by, um...

• 1:14:01Billy Corgan?

  A dance.

• 1:14:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, or by, or by making, you know, we're, we're not politicians, we can't, we can't change the laws, we can't change the way things go down, we're still all subject to the fact that our democracy is at stake. All of these things are real.

• 1:14:14Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:15Speaker 00

  But what we can give is the gift of enlightenment and entertainment to help soothe the rough days that we all have to live through.

• 1:14:24Billy Corgan?

  And last thing.

• 1:14:26Billy Corgan?

  You didn't choose to be an actor?

• 1:14:27Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:14:28Billy Corgan?

  Right? So what do you choose to do now?

• 1:14:32Speaker 00

  Write beautiful music and inspire.

• 1:14:35Billy Corgan?

  Awesome. Thank you.

• 1:14:36Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:14:39Speaker 00

  And there we have it. Should I, should I?

• 1:14:41Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:14:41Speaker 00

  What is real big?

• 1:14:43Billy Corgan?

  Shape.

• 1:14:43Speaker 00

  Dun-dun-dun, shameless self-promotion. This is my box set. It is available only at CoreyFeldman.net. It comes with four CDs, two DVDs, a documentary about how I got into the music industry and why, and a full 50-page color magazine that looks like a teen magazine, complete with a pair of wafer-style sunglasses and some musical picks and backstage passes and all kinds of fun stuff. That box set, new album, Love Left Two. Army with love. There you have it.

• 1:15:13Billy Corgan?

  Awesome.