Mark Laita - Soft White Underbelly | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Billy Corgan sits down with Soft White Underbelly creator Mark Laita for a probing, in‑depth talk about why Laita documents society’s “invisible” people. Laita traces the project back to his Chicago‑area upbringing, teen fascination with street life, and long career as an ad and music photographer. He describes approaching subjects without judgment, the adrenaline of gaining their trust, and the hard lesson that most don’t want help. The pair dig into systemic roots of homelessness and addiction, the fentanyl surge, why real reform must start with kids’ self‑worth, and the limits of charity. They also touch on ethics, Studs Terkel’s influence, and Laita’s plan to broaden his lens beyond Skid Row. The conversation ends on lighter ground with shared memories of Chicago rock shows, cheap‑ticket discoveries like Cheap Trick, and a jaw‑dropping early Van Halen set—underscoring how music and storytelling intertwine in both of their lives. 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.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:30Billy Corgan?

  So if your work didn't exist, what happens? Are these people in a better situation? Does the world get better without your work?

• 0:38Speaker 02

  They stay there.

• 0:39Billy Corgan?

  Like, at least to me, your work is one step in the right direction. They act like they want help, or you think they need help, but at the end of the day, they really don't. What is the default there? Is it a lack of self-worth?

• 0:48Speaker 02

  That's really why I'm doing this. That's really the core of it. The solution is not going to be fixing all these people that are already broken.

• 1:00Billy Corgan?

  Thank you so much for being here.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:03Billy Corgan?

  I've been obsessed with your channel. I found it on YouTube, which is Softweight Underbelly, but you also have SoftweightUnderbelly.com.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  I do.

• 1:10Billy Corgan?

  Which is the subscription portal. For those that don't know, and I'm obsessed with your channel, and everybody I've talked to, because I said I was going to interview you, that knows your channel is obsessed with it too. So I don't know what it is about your channel, but like...

• 1:24Speaker 02

  It's pretty funny.

• 1:24Billy Corgan?

  It's like, once you go in, you can't get out.

• 1:26Speaker 02

  I try to keep myself off-camera as much as possible. And I don't really let anybody know who I am, but I still get recognized now.

• 1:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, well, your voice is very distinctive. So I was in the... getting ready, and I heard your voice in the hallway, and I knew you were here, because I know that voice. But for those that don't know, your channel... And I'm going to give you my characterization, but I want you to correct me.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:49Billy Corgan?

  You basically talk to people who don't get paid any attention to. I mean, we know there are people who are homeless. We know there are people who are drug addicts. We know there are pimps. Heck, the cops in every city know where the prostitutes and the pimps hang out. It's not a secret. And you give them a voice, and to me, a very warm, open...

• 2:12Billy Corgan?

  way to tell their story, which is sort of surprising. There's no judgment. It's just to share your story. And I was taken by that because it was nothing to me that felt exploitative. It's like, this is the real world that operates on the edge of the other world that we all pretend that we're in. Is that a fair?

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a good, that's one of the best assessments of what I do.

• 2:34Billy Corgan?

  Oh, thank you.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  That I've heard.

• 2:36Billy Corgan?

  And I really, not to make it about me, but I really resonate. Some people know my father used to deal drugs. So I kind of lived at different times in that world, not me personally. But, you know, I would be in the kitchen and open a bag, looking for something. There'd be 14 pounds of weed, you know? And we lived always.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  Which was illegal back then?

• 2:58Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Very illegal.

• 2:59Billy Corgan?

  It's probably still legal.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  You might as well say it was cocaine.

• 3:02Billy Corgan?

  Well, well, there was that too, but he tried to hide that. But I would go, you know, I would be told as a kid, go in the basement and they would party all night in the basement or something. I'd go in the basement and there would be like a black Sabbath mirror with coke and a rolled up $20 bill. And I was, you know, was nine years old, but I was told to clean up. But it would became this thing I knew enough to know that the powder on this was like, I would be in trouble if I got rid of that. So it's this weird thing of like, and then I would ask my dad questions like, what is that? Oh, we were playing a game or, you know, just lie to me. But, you know, eventually you figure out what's going on.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Did you ever get tempted by that stuff?

• 3:37Billy Corgan?

  No, not really. When I come on your show, we'll talk about my, my issues with drugs.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  I would love to.

• 3:42Billy Corgan?

  I want to talk about your, your work. So I know that you were born in Chicago, I'm sorry, born in Detroit?

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Born in Detroit, but I moved to Chicago right after the Tigers won the World Series in 68. So I was a little kid. So I moved to Chicago in 68, 69. We moved to what was Hinsdale at the time, but it was actually Darien.

• 4:02Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  It wasn't, you know, Hinsdale is a very wealthy suburb. It wasn't that. It was the exact opposite. And they've since changed the name to Hinsdale isn't wanted anymore, so now it's Dair.

• 4:11Billy Corgan?

  Is this a parents needed for move for work or type?

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, my dad used to work at General Motors, General Motors styling in Detroit and then he quit that job to become a sales rep for industrial racks. And that's what he was doing and he had to be based in Chicago.

• 4:24Billy Corgan?

  So even though we're slightly different ages, we grew up in the same world, which is this kind of?

• 4:28Speaker 02

  No, very, what suburb did you grow up in?

• 4:30Billy Corgan?

  Glendale Heights.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you're, you're a bike ride away from where I grew up.

• 4:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  I grew up in Southern Elmhurst, which is just a bike ride from Glendale.

• 4:38Billy Corgan?

  So, so I think that maybe that's partially why I vibe with your work because we grew up in the, the suburban sprawl of the 60s, 70s, the promise of the suburb.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  There's something.

• 4:52Billy Corgan?

  Get your, get your family out of the city, get away from all the danger.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, but there's something magical about being in a city, like Chicago shares this with maybe New Jersey, in that we're not New York City, we are not the king, we're second rate. And because you're second rate, you're, you're, you're focused on what is.

• 5:12Billy Corgan?

  Well, it's also, sorry to interrupt you, but it's also the thing with, you know, when we were growing up, especially when you only had four channels or three, you know, all you ever heard about was what New York cared about and what LA cared about.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:25Billy Corgan?

  And so you grew up with sort of a little bit of a chip on your shoulder, like that's not how we're doing it here, we do it differently here.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Chicago's got a big chip on the.

• 5:31Billy Corgan?

  And when did you first get interested in photography?

• 5:38Speaker 02

  I was always in art, like into art, since I was, since I was walking, basically. And at 14, I discovered photography. My dad had a camera in his bottom drawer and by the, under the stereo and say, hey, can I, can I borrow that? And he goes, yeah, sure, go ahead. So I got some film and I started playing around and I just loved how photography captured.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  You know, it was like a scientific document. Like if I take a photo of you today, that's what you look like on this day.

• 6:08Billy Corgan?

  Ah, okay.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  It's a representat-- it's almost a scientific representation of who you are. But then if you put a beautiful backdrop, or certain lighting, or whatever, then you're stylizing it. So it's a little bit of art mixed with science.

• 6:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, if I can give you a compliment.

• 6:23Billy Corgan?

  You always do this bit in your videos, and they're varying lengths. They could be 15 minutes, they could be longer. There's always that moment where you do the photo reveal.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:33Billy Corgan?

  And it's so interesting to me, and I love photography myself, that you'll hear the person talking and you show this photo. I end up with a different, more humanistic perception of the person talking than I did watching them talk.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Well, a photograph of somebody is such a different thing than a-- seeing them in person.

• 6:55Billy Corgan?

  But it's so remarkable, because I've just watched this person talk for 10 minutes or 15 minutes. And then you flash that photograph, usually doing it in slow motion.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:02Billy Corgan?

  It's like a kind of a-- the Ken Burns crawl down, right? And I'm always struck that I end up feeling more empathy for the person. And I feel like that's the real person.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  That's interesting.

• 7:14Billy Corgan?

  Like somehow you capture, and that's why you're a good photographer, but I'm saying that's-- you capture something that even them talking doesn't.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, photography is still--

• 7:22Billy Corgan?

  Very powerful, right?

• 7:23Speaker 02

  Very powerful. I mean, I'm still a photographer, and these are still, in my view, these are still photographs.

• 7:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  I'm just-- like my first book of portraits, because I've always been a-- I worked in advertising my whole career for decades, and then I realized-- like I was always into people and photographing people, but I never did it professionally. I was always shooting products. And finally, I decided to do a little side project. My first book, which was titled Create Equal, which is a collection of American portraits. Went to each of the lower 48 states and photographed everything that exists in the US. All the iconic, like a cowboy, ballerina, auto mechanic--

• 8:02Billy Corgan?

  Oh, like kind of American iconography?

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, basically. And a polygamist in Utah paired with a pimp from Chicago. You know, a pimp with his three girls and a polygamist with his two wives. Or there was some kind of pairing that was poignant, hopefully. Or just funny or interesting.

• 8:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  And--

• 8:21Speaker 02

  After that book came out, I would see people look at it and they would just be like, "Oh, what does he look like? I want to hear what he sounds like. I want to know his story." Like, "How did he become a cowboy?"

• 8:28Billy Corgan?

  Ah.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  You want to know more. You want to hear more.

• 8:31Billy Corgan?

  Was that the sort of the germ for doing video?

• 8:32Speaker 02

  That was, that was the... And I realized if I ever do this again, it was a monumental project. It cost me tons of... Took years off my life. It was so difficult. But I said, "If I ever do that again, if I ever get the gumption to do that again, I'm gonna have to do some kind of written word or video or something..."

• 8:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  "...that explains who the person is."

• 8:53Billy Corgan?

  Oh, interesting.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  So that's, then I kind of quit my advertising career and I'm selling a house. I just sold it recently and I figure, you know, once I sell that house, I probably won't have to do a whole lot more in terms of making money, but I just wanted to do something to occupy my, the three or four years. It was a spec house. So it's gonna take three or four years to build. And while that was being built, I said, "Let me, let me start this soft one underbelly thing." Let me just, I was playing around with video before that.

• 9:20Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  But never did anything with it. And then I started this and it just, I honestly thought, "I'm just doing this for the fun of it. Fifteen people are gonna discover it and think it's cool." And then next thing you know, I've got a thousand people. A thousand people find this shit interesting?

• 9:35Billy Corgan?

  (laughing)

• 9:36Speaker 02

  I just like, it's so dark and so...

• 9:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Like, I just didn't think an interview of a pimp would be anything, but that's, that was, that one got a hundred thousand views and, and I didn't look. And then I looked like a year later and it had a hundred thousand views. I'm like, "I should do more of these."

• 9:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  So then, when I started selling the house, I started building the house. I got serious about it and just started shooting every day.

• 9:54Billy Corgan?

  You shot how many videos at this point?

• 9:56Speaker 02

  I've done like, over eight thousand. In five, five and a half years.

• 10:00Billy Corgan?

  One step back. I read that you started shooting people in kind of underrepresented communities when you were a teenager.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  When I was like, a teenager, just getting into photography, I was fascinated. We, we grew up in Chicago. I'm sure you were downtown all the time like I was.

• 10:14Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  So, you'd go downtown. You wouldn't see this in the suburbs, but downtown you'd see, at the time, this is seventies, mid seventies, late seventies, you'd see these alcoholics on the street, sitting on a...

• 10:24Billy Corgan?

  Cardboard.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, just sitting on whatever with their paper bag with alcohol on it. I'm like, what? Like, I didn't grow up like that. I didn't grow up like, like the childhood you had. I had really solid parents, for the most part. My dad was a little rough at times, but I'd see that, and like, that's fascinating to me. I wanna know more. I'm just, I just, I was fascinated, but I was also too immature.

• 10:45Billy Corgan?

  Did you see other photographers who'd shot stuff like that?

• 10:47Speaker 02

  I don't think it was that.

• 10:48Billy Corgan?

  Did you have any influence there?

• 10:49Speaker 02

  I don't think it was that. It was just, I saw them on the street. Because you see them every time you go downtown. Kinda like you see homeless people now. And I would just remember being fascinated by it. And I'm like, I would, I would steal photographs from them. Sometimes they'd see me and they'd get upset or whatever. But it was always just like, oh my god.

• 11:02Billy Corgan?

  How did you? Because I was gonna ask you this in, in a different way, but I think it's worth talking about now. It's like, um, when you see people on the street, would you approach them?

• 11:13Speaker 02

  No. No, I was, I was too immature to do that.

• 11:15Billy Corgan?

  Would you do that now?

• 11:16Speaker 02

  Now, I, now, I, I've, I think I've told this story before. And I, I went to the Hells Angels Clubhouse in Oakland and just knocked on their door in the morning, woke them up, and still got them to...

• 11:27Billy Corgan?

  That's a good trick.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  Do what I wanted. So I, I'm willing, I can go to anybody now. I can go to absolutely anybody.

• 11:32Billy Corgan?

  Do you find if you just ask them directly, "Can I take your photo?", they're cool with it?

• 11:36Speaker 02

  There's something about when you believe that what you're doing is good for them, and good for you, and good for the world, then there's nothing to slow you down. There's nothing, like, people can really, like, if I'm, if I'm here to, like, figure out how I can get money out of you, you're gonna feel that.

• 11:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  But if I'm here just to honor you, who you are, and where you come from, and who, like, what you want in the world, I know that, I believe, deep down in my subconscious, that I'm doing something that's good for you.

• 12:03Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  And, and that will be, you'll pick up on that.

• 12:06Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  When I approach you. And that makes the whole thing flow. That's why everybody says yes.

• 12:10Billy Corgan?

  So as you mentioned, you walk away from this kind of career in commercial photography. And I don't know much about it, but I know enough about it to like, you know, some guy over your shoulder going, you know, "The shoe doesn't look quite good enough."

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what it turned into, for sure.

• 12:24Billy Corgan?

  And, like you said, you end up doing this work, and it kinda takes on an organic life of its own. When you first started kind of like, let's call it, pulling back the Band-Aid a bit on this, let's call it a subculture, I don't even know what it's called. I think we all know it's there. We all see it when we're at the highway exit or something.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  The underworld of...

• 12:44Billy Corgan?

  The underworld, and even I was struck the first time I sort of traipsed into your world. You know, the soft white underbelly, it's like, it's a provocative title, you know, because it really is. It is, it's this underbelly of the world. And I've had experiences in that world and and even there were times in my life where I was in a, not a great circumstance and I would encounter people who are doing sex works and stuff like that and talk to them. And it's fascinating because there's this whole kind of hustle thing, there's this whole kind of microeconomy that goes on and of course, you often refer to the danger that these people are in. And how they'll put themselves in this kind of extreme circumstance. But what was your first reaction when you really started pulling back that, did you find yourself?

• 13:29Billy Corgan?

  How can I put it?

• 13:32Billy Corgan?

  There's a voyeuristic aspect to the thing, right?

• 13:34Speaker 02

  For sure, for sure.

• 13:36Billy Corgan?

  Tell me about these crazy things and you're, you're still a passenger behind a window on some level, right?

• 13:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:42Billy Corgan?

  But how did you start to, did it affect you? Did you feel like, I have to do more? Or like, what was the emotional?

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Well, see, I'm an adrenaline junkie. That, that's my, if I have a...

• 13:51Billy Corgan?

  You're a dopamine guy?

• 13:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, like interviewing a...

• 13:55Billy Corgan?

  Are you a rock climber and?

• 13:56Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, see, I'm not into any of that. Like, jumping from planes and all that, that doesn't do it for me, but going across the country to connect with some pimp that I know will be fascinating and he doesn't want to talk about it, but if I offer him enough money, he just might. That, that, there's nothing I'd rather do in the world than that. Or, and it doesn't have to be a pimp, it could be the Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee, or it could be, it could be a pedophile and...

• 14:23Billy Corgan?

  But is the, is the dopamine rush because you're, because you're, it's not, I'm not saying it's the danger of it, because it's not quite the right word, but is it?

• 14:31Speaker 02

  It's like, finding something that other people...

• 14:36Speaker 02

  There's always something to learn from everybody, even the Klansmen. Like, what the [__] are we gonna learn? We're gonna learn that he probably was raised in a way that they were very closed-minded, he's not very open to like other cultures, other lifestyles. So he just sees things this way and that's it, and we're gonna learn from that. And I just think that's fascinating. And to do it with no judgment makes it free for, like, he almost thinks I'm one of them.

• 14:59Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's what makes it remarkable is you really resist the urge to proselytize or overly nut.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, people, like, I see it sometimes in the comments. "Mark, how can you, like, not condemn him for all the terrible things he's done?" That's not my job.

• 15:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  That's your job, as a viewer. You can do that in the comments. That's what the comments are for, full of hate. What I'm here to do is just make him feel comfortable.

• 15:20Billy Corgan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  And you tell your story.

• 15:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  So when I talk about, like, you're doing things with a young child, I'm not gonna say, "So what do you do when you rape that child?"

• 15:29Billy Corgan?

  Oh.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  That's not gonna get anywhere. He's just gonna close off and that's gonna be the end of any kind of interesting conversation. But if I say, if I use a word like, you know, like, "So you're seducing this kid."

• 15:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  I'm not approving of any of this behavior in any way, but I'm just, like, trying to open up the conversation, to think, to show how he thinks.

• 15:46Billy Corgan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  And we're gonna learn from how he thinks.

• 15:48Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  And it's, and as 10 times out of 10, it stems from something that happened to him when he was six years old.

• 15:54Billy Corgan?

  Is there, is there an altruistic sense that,

• 15:58Billy Corgan?

  like, you know, what's the, "Sunshine is the best disinfectant"? Are you, is, do you have a kind of a moral or altruistic hope?

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. I'm definitely an optimist and I believe,

• 16:10Speaker 02

  I believe in everybody and everything and I think it's all gonna work out. Which is apollyanna.

• 16:15Billy Corgan?

  It is, but, but, but, but the thing I would say, and I, and I saw where in some instances people were critical of your work.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  A lot of people are critical of my work.

• 16:24Billy Corgan?

  Sure. I'm not, I'm not actually, um, obviously I'm asking you questions, but I'm not, actually not that interested in people's criticisms of your work. I don't find that very interesting because

• 16:36Billy Corgan?

  Because I deal with this a lot in my own thing. It's like, well, what do you get in the, what do you get in the absence of? So if your work didn't exist, what happens? Are these people in a better situation? Does the world get better without your work? Like, at least to me, your work is one step in the right direction. Even if it's just to confront the fact that we oftentimes in our beautiful, you know, air-conditioned SUVs just roll past people without any consideration for how are, how are these people ending up in these situations? And particularly out here in California, homelessness is a huge, huge issue. And obviously, controversially, state-supported in many ways.

• 17:16Billy Corgan?

  You know, because there's a lot of controversy about whether it makes it worse or better. I was reading something recently, Paul Theroux's books about, a book about his travels through Africa. I don't know if you know that author.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't know the name.

• 17:31Billy Corgan?

  He's a famed travel writer. And he had spent time in Africa in, like, maybe the 60s and then early 2000s. He wrote a book, and he's very critical in the book of the, of the African aid agencies. Because he's basically saying they make the problem worse because the, the, the microeconomy just sort of figures out, oh, these people are passing out free money. So in a way, we get more money if our situation is worse. So they just sit around and just wait for the money to flow.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, you're damned either way.

• 18:00Billy Corgan?

  Right, so that's what I'm saying. And back to any kind of criticism of your work, and I'm not here to defend you because I don't know you, but as somebody who's a fan of your work, to me, again, what happens if your work doesn't exist? Nothing happens.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  The girl, the 13-year-old girl stays on the streets, controlled by a gang member pimp.

• 18:17Billy Corgan?

  Right. Have you seen, have you seen any social or political action in reaction to your work?

• 18:25Speaker 02

  Uh, it'd be nice if you saw some people say, like, what can we do? And I really think the solution would require some major changes. Like, like, like, just look at, like, Chicago or LA has these, and I'm sure every big city has a...

• 18:46Speaker 02

  A community that is poverty stricken. And very often, that's African American, or maybe Hispanic too. And you look at the... Let's look at one family. You just plug one of the people I interview. Dad was in prison. Mom was on drugs, or she was a sex worker. Sister was a sex worker. What am I gonna do? My brother's a gang member, so it's like, I'm just gonna become a working girl.

• 19:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  There's no other options. There's no role models. There's no education. There's no option. She never saw a neighbor who was a nurse. She never saw somebody who became a lawyer, or anything like that.

• 19:21Billy Corgan?

  Now, I've seen where... And I don't totally understand, so I need you to illustrate it. But you'll understand what I'm leading to. Where you've gotten personally involved and tried to help people. There's GoFundMes.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:31Billy Corgan?

  I'm not interested in some of the noise around that. I'm more interested in the... You know, like, obviously, and I know you have children. You go home to your wife. You go home to your kids. Like, what are you telling them? You know what I mean? Because now you're taking... Now you're stepping past the camera. Now you're not a passive.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I mean...

• 19:48Billy Corgan?

  And who do you... And how do you choose who to help?

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Well, I'm no longer married, and that helps.

• 19:52Billy Corgan?

  Okay, I didn't know that, so I'm sorry.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. But even so, I started doing these kind of talks when I was still married. And this project was not the problem with the divorce at all, so...

• 20:03Billy Corgan?

  I wasn't gonna ask that question.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  No, it wasn't. But there are a handful of people who have gotten better, either on their own or with my help.

• 20:12Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  But you have to be really selective, because for every of those 8,000 people, I can find maybe a handful that, like, really had potential to go from the situation they were in to a situation that is really remarkable, remarkably different.

• 20:26Billy Corgan?

  But do you have to... In that case, do you just trust your gut on that?

• 20:28Speaker 02

  You have to trust your gut.

• 20:29Billy Corgan?

  Is it a spiritual issue for you?

• 20:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like, you just... I'm not a spiritual person. I'm just like... I don't believe in any...

• 20:36Billy Corgan?

  I'm not trying to put anything out. But I find your work very spiritual.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I believe in the things that Jesus taught, but I am the last person you'll see in a church.

• 20:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I get it. But I'm saying, there's... It's a humanistic thing you're doing.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. It's like, I want other people to do better. I wanna save them. But it's like, you can only save so many, and you'll go broke trying to save everybody. So I'll find somebody who I think really has potential, and I'll give them the housing, the support, the therapy, the...

• 21:02Billy Corgan?

  I think you'll know, because I don't remember this young lady's name, but there was a young lady that you tried to help. And then there was a follow-up video where you basically, she tells you that you're being bilked for thousands of dollars by her and her-

• 21:15Speaker 02

  A pimp.

• 21:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:18Billy Corgan?

  Can you talk about that a little bit?

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 21:20Billy Corgan?

  Because I think that would help people understand the dynamic of it.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  That's a great, that's a great example. You, you, you're, you do watch my channel. So this girl was a prostitute, you know, and I have people on the streets who bring me people. So one day, like every day, people would just bring me people. And this one girl gets brought in, she's a very pretty, young-

• 21:37Billy Corgan?

  And she was a very beautiful girl.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  Beautiful, probably, well, here, I'll tell you what happened when I posted her video and you'll get an idea of how beautiful she was. You know, I did this interview with her and it was pretty boring, pretty straightforward, not as horrific as some of the other stories, not as tragic, but it was bad. She, she didn't have, like, her mom was a sex worker and she, she went to the foster system very early. I don't think her dad was even in her life, or whatever, but just a really rough childhood. She became a sex worker at 13, I believe, and got pregnant with a pet, with a sex, a guy who's a sex offender, he's in prison now. I think she had two kids with him, very early on. She has tattoos all over her beautiful face.

• 22:19Billy Corgan?

  Which is crazy.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  With, with the pimps' names on them.

• 22:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's the new thing, right? They, they get the pimp's name on their face?

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Well, it's, the pimps are very rarely branding these girls with their names. It's usually the girls are so like, "Oh, I just love you and I just want to worship you," and it's like, so I think it's that, more than the, the pimps are forcing it.

• 22:38Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  But it's, um, so I, I did this interview with her, it was pretty standard, nothing really out of the ordinary, but I posted it and it just took off. Ended up getting 20 million views, 20, 20 million.

• 22:50Billy Corgan?

  So I didn't know that part of the story.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, 20 million views, and she got five marriage proposals. One of them was a guy who just listed all of his assets, which were considerable. And he said, "I would like to marry," I, I offer, like-

• 23:02Billy Corgan?

  That's just as crazy in the opposite direction.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  People fell in love with this girl. And then they, you know, I had this go, I had, I no longer offer it, but I had a GoFundMe that was connected to my channel, where, where, you know, people watch these videos, they get heartbroken, "Oh my God, I want to send her five bucks," or 20 bucks, or whatever. So you can do that, and it kind of relieves the-

• 23:19Billy Corgan?

  Not to cut you off, but why'd you stop doing it?

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Because it just caused too many headaches and problems.

• 23:24Billy Corgan?

  That's...

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Too many.

• 23:25Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, so this leads into the story, right?

• 23:27Speaker 02

  I don't need what I'm doing to ruin my life. So, yeah, this is all connected. This was probably the first one that really went bad. And, uh...

• 23:35Billy Corgan?

  What's the young lady's name? Do you remember?

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Israea.

• 23:37Billy Corgan?

  Israea.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  But she went by the name Exotic. That was her

• 23:39Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  street name. Exotic was the very first video, but now I've done many more with her. And she goes by the name Israea. That's her real name. And, um... So I did that first video. It got tremendous amount of attention and she got sixty, something like sixty-five thousand dollars in donations. Every day, there'd be another three, four, five thousand dollars coming in for her. Every day. What do I do with this? And like, I wasn't as experienced. This is early on in my channel. I didn't know like what to do with this, but it's her money. It's not mine. So let me, let me give it to her, but I'm letting her know like, look, you... I'm giving this to you, but hopefully you're spending it in the right ways. And she would always tell me the right things.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  But I'm sure she was probably coached by her pimp. And then at one point, I got her housing. So she had a, like an apartment hotel type deal. So away from the neighborhood, so I'm thinking I'm getting her away from the, the bad. And I'm supporting her financially, so she doesn't really need to do anything other than take care of her kids and get her life straight. And then she starts asking for more and more money. And I'm like, how much money does a twenty-three-year-old kid need? Even though you have kids?

• 24:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  And I've, through some like just serendipitous things, I found out that there was a black guy who was coming and going in her apartment all the time and one thing led to another, and I find out she's got a pimp. And then I eventually offered him a lot of money to come in and do an interview with her. So they're both on camera talking about how they scam-

• 25:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's, that's the, that's the one I saw.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  How they scammed me.

• 25:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  And, so I had, it was her money. It was donated to her, so what am I gonna do? Not give it to her? So that's why I had to give her so much money.

• 25:18Billy Corgan?

  Well, what was hard to watch was not only watching her, and credit to her, she's at least seems very honest in admitting that she's been defrauding you.

• 25:31Billy Corgan?

  But you can hear your hurt behind the camera.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it's just, well, it wasn't my hurt. It's more my, I feel bad for my viewers who donated their own hard work, you know, hard earned money.

• 25:41Billy Corgan?

  The way I took it was, you know, and I've certainly been in these situations where you genuinely are trying to help somebody and then you come to this kind of moment of like, they don't really want to be helped.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  They don't want to be helped.

• 25:52Billy Corgan?

  It's a weird.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  I see that more often than, like, you take 20 people, 19 of them don't want to be helped. They'll say they want the help, "Oh yeah, I just want to get better, I just want to go to rehab, I just want to get my family back, I want to get, I want to get my life back together." But when they're given the opportunities, they self-destruct again.

• 26:09Billy Corgan?

  Why do you, it's probably too broad a question, but it's worth the softball. Because I've experienced it many, many times, you know, usually privately, where people reach out and ask for things.

• 26:23Billy Corgan?

  What do you think that is about the human condition where it's like they, they act like they want help or you think they need help, but at the end of the day, they really don't? What is, what is the default there? Is it a lack of self-worth?

• 26:33Speaker 02

  That's, that's really why I'm doing this. That's really the, the core of it. And I always like to get to the core of why people are doing what they're doing. And why I'm doing this project, I think, is because...

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Like, you look at a gambler, for example. But they're all the same, whether it's a heroin addict, or a gambler, or a sex worker, whatever. They're like, "Why would you do this to yourself? You, you work your ass off, you make a lot of money, and you're gambling it all and destroying your own life." Like, what is behind that?

• 27:03Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  That's just so fascinating to me.

• 27:05Billy Corgan?

  Do you have a, I mean, just, we're just talking, but I mean, do you have a sense of why that is?

• 27:11Speaker 02

  It's, it has to do with, like, how much love you received as a kid, how much, I mean, I think it's also some genetic component. Like, sometimes people have borderline personality disorder and they're just reckless with their own existence. But, but if you're loved in a...

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Like unconditionally by your parents.

• 27:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  You're less, much less likely to do some of these crazy things that are just gonna tear you down.

• 27:35Billy Corgan?

  So from your into, you know, because you obviously have a level of personal perspective because you are talking to these people on a nearly daily level. What is your sense of what the state can do? Because obviously, we're in a very progressive time in American politic. And certainly, the American public by and large seems to want to figure out how to support people, whether it's immigrants. And I'm not talking about the hyperbolic political football of it all. My sense of the American spirit is people genuinely do want to help people who need help.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure.

• 28:08Billy Corgan?

  Whether it's the religious foundation of this country or whatever. There is a sense that, you know, there's a charitable spirit in America that I always find sort of endearing. But what is the role in your estimation of the state? Because you're obviously dealing with people who are on state aid or bilking the state or, you know, like, I mean, if you were in front of a congressional committee, what would you want them to know?

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Here's what I would say. The solution is not gonna be fixing all these people that are already broken.

• 28:38Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Like, it'd be so much less effort to prevent these stories from happening than to try to fix probably a million drug-addicted people that are living in the country. That's a major, major undertaking. We would all need to quit our jobs and devote our lives to this. But if somehow we could pump a lot of resources, a lot of money, opportunities, education, just better, you know, creating these things in these rougher neighborhoods so that dad doesn't have to do things that end up getting put away in prison. And mom doesn't have to do what she's doing. And drugs are not controlling everything. And there's more hope in those communities. You're gonna see it in a generation or two.

• 29:23Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  Where the kids are gonna do better.

• 29:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  And then when the kids do better, it's like, you know, everything will heal and everything will get better. But it's not gonna happen in our lifetime. You know, it's not gonna happen.

• 29:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's the frustrating part.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  But, so, here, so you're gonna have to give away half your money to contribute to this gigantic undertaking.

• 29:42Billy Corgan?

  That you won't see the result of.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  That you will never see the result of.

• 29:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's where it's difficult, right?

• 29:45Speaker 02

  That's where it's, that's the problem right there.

• 29:47Billy Corgan?

  Wow. How do you decide?

• 29:54Billy Corgan?

  Obviously, there's people...

• 29:55Speaker 02

  But let me just...

• 29:55Billy Corgan?

  Please, please, yeah.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  On that negative thing that we just... We made it sound like it's terrible. There are people who have climbed out of it and are doing great now. And are doing beautiful things. But it takes a lot of financial help and patience. And sometimes it's rehab, or therapy, or medications, or whatever, to get them stable.

• 30:14Billy Corgan?

  How do you decide? I'm sure there are people come and you just think they're not right for your... I mean, you don't take everyone who walks in.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  For an interview?

• 30:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 30:24Billy Corgan?

  And I seem to remember you talking where there's a lot of people that you don't even air the interview.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I've done 8,000 and I've used about 2,000.

• 30:33Billy Corgan?

  So where's the... Walk me through sort of the process.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  They're on a hard drive that never will get used.

• 30:38Billy Corgan?

  Because...

• 30:39Speaker 02

  I'll probably delete them one day. It's just, some people are good storytellers. And some people are not good communicators and they just don't... They mumble, they're just... They tell their stories in disjointed, like, tangents and all kinds of... It's like, what the fuck are we listening to? You know? And really, what I... A lot... So what I'm doing is a mix of different things, but one of the things I'm doing is capturing great storytelling.

• 31:01Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  So that's why I'm, like, branching out now. Not just doing drug addicts and sex workers and gang members.

• 31:08Billy Corgan?

  So what's your vision going forward?

• 31:10Speaker 02

  Just get interesting life stories. That very often incorporate a lot of the same things that these people have in their...

• 31:18Billy Corgan?

  Are you familiar with Studs Terkel?

• 31:19Speaker 02

  I am Studs Terkel. Reincarnated. That's... I mean, the best compliment I ever saw on the comments on my channel, I think, Marcus, the new Studs Terkel.

• 31:28Billy Corgan?

  Did you ever meet Studs?

• 31:29Speaker 02

  I don't think I ever met him, but I feel like I knew him.

• 31:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  You know, we grew up in Chicago.

• 31:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I met him. Studs Terkel. I got to meet him.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  He's the greatest.

• 31:35Billy Corgan?

  He appeared in this thing that I was doing, but I haven't released it, so an unfinished document.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  He was, like, one of my heroes.

• 31:42Billy Corgan?

  Because Studs Terkel, even in presenting the show that I'm trying to do here, one of... I mentioned Studs Terkel because I feel there's a lot of American stories that aren't being told.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  Should we explain who Studs Terkel was for the younger...

• 31:54Billy Corgan?

  Sure, please, yeah.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  I mean, he was a writer who basically documented...

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Kind of similar stuff that I'm doing, but not so dark.

• 32:03Billy Corgan?

  Everyday American.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  Everyday Americans.

• 32:05Billy Corgan?

  He was just as happy to talk to the guy who repaired refrigerators.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 32:08Billy Corgan?

  The guy who got your ice cream.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, which I love.

• 32:10Billy Corgan?

  Or the lady who iron dresses for the rich person on Michigan Avenue.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  I loved everything about everything he did.

• 32:17Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  And the way he did it. With zero judgment, I just want to learn.

• 32:22Billy Corgan?

  Well, it's interesting that we're both sort of on that tangent. I mean, I literally mentioned Studs Terkel in pitching this show. So it's interesting you're coming at it from a different angle.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Studs Terkel was a genius.

• 32:32Billy Corgan?

  Because it's, again, repeating myself, but there's a lot of American stories that aren't being told.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 32:38Billy Corgan?

  And the problem with that is, is we're allowed to kind of live in this kind of fake version of reality. Like, your thing is more obvious, right? Which is, hey, we're ignoring these people who are over there on Skid Row.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  That's not really what I'm doing. That just is what's been put on me. And people say, oh, he's showing us the forgotten people of Skid Row. I'm like, I'm not doing that. It's just, Skid Row happens to be in LA, and I'm in LA, and it's a good one.

• 33:02Billy Corgan?

  Well, I came to that perception by watching these videos.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  It's not your fault.

• 33:05Billy Corgan?

  But I'm also the Rat in the Cage guy. You know what I'm saying? I get it. But I'm interested in your pivot.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, see, what I'm doing now is maybe, like, now I have a little more time and money to just like, I'm going to travel to, like, I just came back from New York a couple of days ago, and I was in Kentucky before that. And I'll probably go to Florida and Texas and Wyoming and who knows where to get other content. And it won't just be Skid Row drug addicts.

• 33:28Billy Corgan?

  It's fantastic.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  And it's just a little more varied. And I try to find interesting people, and I try to find things that are worth watching.

• 33:36Billy Corgan?

  Well, certainly in middle America, the, you know, the meth, fentanyl thing.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  It's everywhere, though. I mean, like, when I, like, I love Kentucky. Like, I remember as a kid, whether I was in Detroit or Chicago, my family would go to Florida or New Orleans for vacations. I remember going straight south, and we would go through Appalachia. And I just was fascinated. I could, my eyes could not absorb.

• 33:57Billy Corgan?

  That's where my family's from.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Kentucky?

• 33:59Billy Corgan?

  That's my, that's my root.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  Really?

• 34:01Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  What part?

• 34:02Billy Corgan?

  My grandmother was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 34:05Billy Corgan?

  She's, that's where she's buried.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 34:07Billy Corgan?

  So that's literally, and my grandma lived to like 103.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Oh, that's great.

• 34:12Billy Corgan?

  And she got dementia later in life, but, but she still remember her growing up. And she was telling me stories about literally living in shacks and picking cotton and.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  I did.

• 34:22Billy Corgan?

  But the whole, like, she literally grew up in that, you know, this, you know, Grapes of Wrath kind of world.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. It's still like that in parts.

• 34:30Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  And.

• 34:31Billy Corgan?

  Just, just add vaping and, and fentanyl and you're close.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, you add, you add drugs and here you go. But I remember driving down and just looking out the window and you see, you see this shack that like, how could somebody live in that? It's like, it's leaning and all the wood is warped and there's like, can't be somebody living in there.

• 34:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  But there's all this trash strewn down the hillside.

• 34:50Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  And it was just like, oh, my God. I'm fascinated with it, just like the, the alcoholic that's on the streets with the paper bag.

• 34:56Billy Corgan?

  I know your interest in the altruistic part, but are you also in some level fascinated by the decline of the American dream?

• 35:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. All, all, all, really what I think I'm doing, people like to decide what I'm doing, but what I think I'm.

• 35:10Billy Corgan?

  I want you to tell me what you're doing, because I, I have my own impression, but maybe that's because YouTube kept, keeps recommending, you know, all, all the, all the ones that got all the views.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, you watch, you watch a drug addict and you get more drug addicts. But really what I think I'm doing is just capturing the whole picture of everything. Like, I, I would interview a brain surgeon tomorrow. I would love that. A good brain surgeon who can tell a great story and talk about.

• 35:32Billy Corgan?

  I'm sure they have some good stories.

• 35:33Speaker 02

  Some of the dark stories, some of the sad ones, some of the beautiful ones. It's like, I would love that. There's nothing I would rather do than that. But I was going to Skid Row every day because it was just like, man, I keep going down there and getting great stuff. I keep going. Like, every day I would go down there and get more. So it's like, let me just do that again. I don't really have time to plan a trip. And, and if I plan a trip to Boston, I don't even know who I'm going to connect with. And I was like, so if I go to Skid Row, I know I'm going to find gold.

• 35:56Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  And the more I went down there, the more I got more integrated into that community.

• 36:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  And the more I got more good stuff. So then I became the Skid Row photographer and I'm, I'm no, I haven't been down there in months. I still get people that, I have people down there that are finding people and they bring them to me in Santa Monica now. But what I'm, what I think, what I think I'm doing is just capturing like all these stories of American life. Kind of like Sted's Turquoise doing, but probably with a darker.

• 36:20Billy Corgan?

  Well, it is a darker thing.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  It's a darker time, probably.

• 36:24Billy Corgan?

  Well, you and I grew up in, at least from a propaganda point of view, was presented as a more optimistic. We had Disney on television. We had people, you know.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  The 60s and 70s were much more.

• 36:35Billy Corgan?

  Even Mike Raico, who you would remember, was like, you know, there was a sort of, kind of a churlish. You know, we're still fighting for something. Post-war America. You know, we're redefining our place in the world and stuff like that. Now, I mean, the propaganda is, we're going the wrong way, we're going the wrong way, and they're just arguing about who's going the wrong way more, right?

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:56Billy Corgan?

  Do you get numb, or are you sick of having your heart broken? I mean, like, it's gotta be hard to hear some of these stories. And again, you're hearing them all, we're only seeing part of it.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm getting exposed to a lot more than other viewers do, perhaps. But I'm also not, like, I get criticized sometimes. Like, I'll be interviewing somebody and they tell me that they've got a brother and sister, or, like, and I'll ask them, "Do you have siblings?" Like, I make mistakes. Because I'm not, I'm doing so many, I'm doing six, seven, eight of these a day.

• 37:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  And sometime, like, the only way I can possibly do that, and that maintains the quality of content for me to post every day, which I probably don't have to do, but that's what I'm doing. That's what I decided when I started, is to not pay full attention, so I don't absorb all the trauma of your story.

• 37:41Billy Corgan?

  Interesting.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  Because I'd be suicidal. I would have been suicidal three years ago, if I just sit there and tell me everything. Tell me about how your dad raped you. Like, I can't listen to all that. It's like, it would kill me. I'd quit. So what I do is, I kind of like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm listening."

• 37:59Speaker 02

  I'm listening, but I'm kind of not listening.

• 38:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  I'm not really absorbing it. Because if you really absorb all that stuff, you're gonna...

• 38:05Billy Corgan?

  Well, it seems to me that some level of detachment is probably good, too, because I'm not accusing your subjects of lying, but everybody has a story, and a lot of times those stories are sort of in, I work in wrestling, we call it "worked."

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, embellished.

• 38:19Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  That's what I call it. And sometimes they're outright lies. There's one, there's one video of a war vet, he was in Afghanistan or Iraq, probably both. He lost an eye, he had shrapnel wounds all over his body. He was just, he was just torn up and he was homeless on the streets in Hollywood.

• 38:35Billy Corgan?

  Oh.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  And I do this story, it's a heartbreaking story, really well told as well. It was a beautiful, it's like, oh my god, what a heartbreaking story, really beautifully told. Both his kids died in terrible accidents afterwards. I'm like, this is horrific, man. This is, this is one of, this is perhaps the saddest video I've ever shot. And then after I was done with him and I edited it, I start, no, I gotta do a little bit of research just to make sure it's not bullshit. I couldn't find anything. If, if both your kids died the way his kids did, there'd be articles all over the internet about it. Like, one, one was, I think, his, his, his wife drove the car with the kid in it into the river and the kid drowned.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  That's like, you just cry.

• 39:17Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  But there's not a single article about it. And I, so I asked him, I, hey, hey Will, like, what's, you know, I looked up, I looked for your articles about your two kids' deaths, I couldn't find anything, I'm really nice about it. And he goes, oh, let me, let me look them up and I'll, I'll send you some. So he sends me two links of articles that are like 12 years off. So there are, it's all bullshit. But what he's done, he probably lost his eye in a fucking accident at work or got stabbed in the face or something.

• 39:45Billy Corgan?

  He's created this whole...

• 39:46Speaker 02

  He's created this whole thing about how he's a war vet, he's lost his kids, he's got the most, the saddest story you've ever heard. And I'm sure he gets people handing him money on the street. So he can spend it on drugs.

• 39:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm, I'm not saying that's what he's doing.

• 39:59Billy Corgan?

  Did you put the video out or...

• 40:01Speaker 02

  So I, I waited like a year or two before I put it out and I finally did put it out. Just, I think I even put a disclaimer saying that I don't know how much of this is real. I don't think much of it is, but some of it might be. And that's that. And I posted it. But, but since then, I've done a lot of war vet stories that are for real, you know, very real. And I feel bad sometimes that I'm posting this bullshit story that makes war vets look like they're not always honest.

• 40:25Billy Corgan?

  You know, again, I'm blaming the YouTube algorithm, but what do you hope someone like me takes from all this?

• 40:34Speaker 02

  That...

• 40:37Speaker 02

  The solution to our country's problems is it would look more like, like you know, racism is a huge problem. It really is. Like whether we want to say we're past it or not, we're just clearly not. And if you go into South Central LA, or South Side of Chicago, or West Side of Chicago, you see that it's, white people do not even go there, let alone help them. We don't, we don't want to do anything with them except like put them in a cage and like separate ourselves from them. And the solution to all that is going to be pumping a lot of time, effort, and money especially into them to, to help. And it's like, I don't know, that's such a huge ask. I don't even know if it's possible.

• 41:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, because I've had that experience where, you know, there's kind of an addictive quality. Maybe it's me, the artist or writer, you know, it's like there's, it becomes like a, like a level of material. And of course, I have my own personal.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  You like the darkness of it?

• 41:36Billy Corgan?

  No, no, I'm actually not that interested in the darkness. I've, I lived the darkness, you know. Somebody once asked me if I'd seen some Nirvana documentary or something. And I, and I said, no, I didn't watch it. And they said, don't you want to watch it? And I said, but I lived it. You know what I mean?

• 42:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:00Billy Corgan?

  So I think what I take from the videos is more, and maybe it's my own, my father passed away a couple of years ago, and he was, you know, a sociopathic drug addict, you know. Just because he was clean at different times doesn't mean he stopped being that guy, you know. And maybe it's a sort of internal struggle with trying to kind of understand the sociopathic mind, or, so I find myself sort of looking for the tells, trying to understand why somebody who has...

• 42:34Billy Corgan?

  Every advantage, you know, when you have people on who are like,

• 42:38Billy Corgan?

  mom's a sex worker, dad's a pimp and all this stuff, you think, oh, my God, this is all they know. But then you have somebody else on, it's like, no, my parents are great. I had everything and I just tried to immolate myself, like in slow motion for years. There's both. Right? You see both. Right, so what I'm saying is I find myself sort of fascinated with why somebody wants to light themselves on fire. And I had a therapist once, he, it was some sort of psychological device. And the rough version is there are people who light themselves on fire and Figuratively. inadvertently hurt others through the intensity of the flame.

• 43:22Billy Corgan?

  And there are other people who will let you on fire to avoid lighting themselves on fire. And there was a third version of it and I thought that was my father. He was more than happy to light me on fire. Really? Oh, yeah. And where was your mom? My mom, uh, see, now you're interviewing me. Uh, my mom was committed to an insane asylum when I was four. Oh, wow. And I never lived with her again, had a complete psychotic break. And when she came out, she was a totally different person. I don't know what happened to her. How'd you come out so good?

• 43:54Billy Corgan?

  People would argue I didn't, you know what I mean? I, in fact, I would say most of the What's your, what's your worst quality? My worst quality? Cause you have a lot of great ones. Now you're putting me on the spot. We'll save it for next time. Yeah, I'll answer your question though, cause I don't mind. What's my worst quality? What's your weakest, what's your biggest weakness?

• 44:17Billy Corgan?

  Needing to belong. Yeah, but that's all of us. Okay, but, but I have a heightened sense of it. And by the way, I'm a, I mean, you know, I can create whatever reality I want.

• 44:29Billy Corgan?

  Do you, do you think that the

• 44:33Speaker 02

  All the darkness, all the trauma, the obstacles that you went through as a kid are what created this intense ability to focus and create?

• 44:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do too.

• 44:43Billy Corgan?

  Absolutely.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  That's where it comes from.

• 44:45Billy Corgan?

  My daddy used to say...

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Pain, pain creates...

• 44:47Billy Corgan?

  Oh yeah. My daddy, my daddy used to say it's good you had a hard life because it made you a great rock star.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:52Billy Corgan?

  And I told him he was wrong. I mean, he was right in form because here I am. Thank you very much. But we'll never know who I could have been.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:07Billy Corgan?

  Because if you take someone who has a gift, in my case, I have a gift, say, for melody. Well, maybe if I wasn't abused, I'd be writing, you know, for the Berlin Symphony and not for disaffected goth girls in their basement. That's the, that's the, that's the, that's the heartache of anybody who comes from a hard circumstance.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I don't get the feeling you walk around with a chip on your shoulder because of what you went through.

• 45:31Billy Corgan?

  Not anymore.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  You did?

• 45:32Billy Corgan?

  Oh yeah. Oh yeah, I was very angry.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  I mean, like for me, like my, my mom loved me in a way that was just like, you couldn't, like it was perfect, just perfect. It was, it was one of the, it was probably the best thing that has ever or will ever...

• 45:48Billy Corgan?

  Are your parents still alive?

• 45:49Speaker 02

  My dad is, he's 95.

• 45:51Billy Corgan?

  What does he think about what you're doing? I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm just...

• 45:53Speaker 02

  He doesn't even, he doesn't even know, he doesn't even care, he just cares if I'm making money with it. And I tell him, "Yeah, I'm making a [bleep], don't worry about it."

• 45:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  And he, that's all he cares about. He's not really tuned into the subtlety or the inner workings of it all. He's just kind of like, "You're doing fine, you're okay, good."

• 46:13Billy Corgan?

  Do other family, like blood family, have any opinion?

• 46:16Speaker 02

  I only, I have a very small family, I just have a sister and now I have like a nephew, but in a...

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Brother-in-law. But they like what I'm doing, they support it, but they don't watch. They're not watching all the time. I have more friends who watch that...

• 46:34Billy Corgan?

  Isn't that interesting? Sorry to interject, but isn't it interesting? Because I go through the same thing in my own family. Your family knows you're doing something that's really important, and you have the public data to prove it. And they don't really give a shit.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  No, they don't. They don't. I don't think my mom, if she was alive, would be watching it either. It's just so dark. It's just so dark. My mom was never like a dark person. She was the opposite.

• 46:57Billy Corgan?

  So what's the... Because you deal with clicks, right? You know, like somebody has to watch.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:02Billy Corgan?

  What's the bright side of the dark side for you in this content game?

• 47:07Speaker 02

  That I'm educating people. I'm certain that people didn't...

• 47:10Billy Corgan?

  Sorry, I don't mean it in a... I'm saying is this like, you and I know, right? That the dark part is part of what attracts people.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure.

• 47:20Billy Corgan?

  Okay. So how do you get people to click just as much on the bright side of it all?

• 47:24Speaker 02

  You don't.

• 47:26Billy Corgan?

  You just accept that it's not gonna happen?

• 47:27Speaker 02

  You just accept that it's not gonna happen?

• 47:28Billy Corgan?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  Because I could do two videos. One is of a fentanyl addict who is... Can I swear?

• 47:36Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Sucking things to make a buck. And she's... She was molested when she was six years old, and she has been on the streets since she was 14. And she doesn't have a friend in the world, and she's homeless. And it's just horrific. I could do another one of a person who... You choose your flavor of positivity, but it's somebody who went to college and is now a successful accountant and whatever. It's like, nobody's gonna watch that video. But the first one? That'll get...

• 48:04Billy Corgan?

  So what... Okay. So we'll play it as a parlor game. Why... What is it about the human condition that would rather watch the negative story than the positive one?

• 48:12Speaker 02

  I mean, that's not why I do those stories. It's just...

• 48:14Billy Corgan?

  No, I get it.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  But I don't know. I don't know. We love darkness. Even when you're driving down the road and you see a 16-year-old driver driving perfectly, stopping, coming to a complete stop at every light, and driving perfectly, no problems. It's not interesting. But you see a head-on collision with like...

• 48:32Billy Corgan?

  Everybody slows down.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Everybody slows down. But I don't mean to be a...

• 48:38Speaker 02

  I'm not really looking for the trauma stories, that just seems to be what I've gone into. Because I do find the stories interesting, but I'm not really looking for darkness. But here I am, I'm like the, I'm just like, I've got a whole bunch of dark, dark stories on my channel.

• 48:52Billy Corgan?

  So that's using the aperture idea to widen the lens out here. There's plenty of historical documentation of the underclass, especially in the post-industrial, you know, era, going back to like 1870s London and stuff. So if you look at that, like 150, 170 years, we haven't solved this problem. You know, that there's this capitalism, and it's obviously a big political argument, that capitalism creates this underclass. Everybody's willing to look the other way as long as they can live behind their gated walls or something. Do you have a kind of a historical perspective on the underclass? Does that translate as a question?

• 49:37Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, what I see going on is that, you know, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And the divide just gets wider and wider.

• 49:46Billy Corgan?

  But, okay, I'll play devil's advocate, I'll play capitalist. Whose problem is that?

• 49:52Speaker 02

  It's all of our problems.

• 49:53Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 49:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, the wealthy don't want to do shit for people. They don't want to give away.

• 50:00Billy Corgan?

  Well, they want to go sip wine somewhere and donate and never have to talk to those people.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  Right, they want to avoid them.

• 50:06Billy Corgan?

  Sure, that's by and large the way it rolls.

• 50:09Speaker 02

  And that will serve them and their kids nicely, so they never have to deal with the riffraff. But if you want to help our country thrive and do better, the way to do that is to help a poor family. And if everybody had helped some poor families, the world would be a beautiful place.

• 50:29Billy Corgan?

  But back to the cynicism part of it, and you even said so yourself, you have to kind of pick and choose who you help. How does, let's say somebody's listened to this interview and they feel really inspired. They want to help somebody.

• 50:43Billy Corgan?

  Where would you even put that effort? Like, do you want them to go down and meet people? Do you want them to work for the agency?

• 50:49Speaker 02

  It's not like what I want, but...

• 50:50Billy Corgan?

  No, no, but you are in contact with this community.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  If I was gonna try to help somebody, I would take them out of the community they're in, put them in a safer neighborhood where the problems are not around them surrounding, like drugs and prostitution and all that kind of stuff, gangs and all that stuff. Take them out of that community, give them what they need to take care of them or their kids or their future. It's gonna take a lot of money and a lot of patience, and you get them to therapy, you get them whatever they need to rebuild, and you have to have a lot of patience.

• 51:22Billy Corgan?

  It's funny, because you're triggering a memory. We had a recent employee in one of my various businesses, and we convinced the person to move out of the gang neighborhood, gave them a job, moved the family up with the kids, and within nine months blew the whole thing up. And the daughter, one of the daughters was back with the gang.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, see, you really cannot change that subconscious view of yourself so easily. If you have a view of yourself that you don't deserve anything better, all the help and propping up and good luck in the world is not gonna change.

• 51:58Billy Corgan?

  So when you say patience, is that a financial patience or is that a social patience?

• 52:02Speaker 02

  It's all of it. It's all of it. It's like all the... That's what I'm saying.

• 52:06Billy Corgan?

  I call it wave a magic wand. I'm sorry, I'm the worst interrupter. But if you could wave a magic wand, what would you fix?

• 52:13Speaker 02

  The self-worth of everybody.

• 52:14Billy Corgan?

  Right. Okay, so if you can't do that, what is it? Like, do you get the government to get involved?

• 52:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, get the government to get involved to really, seriously pump a bunch of education, support, job opportunities into the rough neighborhoods.

• 52:30Billy Corgan?

  I feel like as far as we are down the road as a country, especially these Western countries... It seems like there should be some sort of commission, like a bipartisan commission, like, we're gonna actually start tackling this problem. And we know it's not gonna get fixed in 20 years.

• 52:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:46Billy Corgan?

  We're gonna set something into motion, because obviously, whatever's happening is not working.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  In 50 years, it might be different.

• 52:51Billy Corgan?

  Um, sorry, it's slightly divergent, but it's connected. Obviously, fentanyl has seemed to supercharge this whole thing up.

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:00Billy Corgan?

  Can you talk about that on a more granular level? I mean, I hear about it.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  So there are drugs, there are street drugs, like marijuana was one of them, but that's now looked at as like cigarettes almost. But there was cocaine, crack cocaine, which is a harder version of that. There's crystal meth, which is like speed, and that's been around for decades. And there was heroin. That was, that's, I mean, there's PCP, and there's a few other drugs, but that's basically it. Those are the big three. But then about five years ago, roughly, the heroin kinda just, just went away and got replaced by another opiate, which is called fentanyl. Which is, fentanyl is used in hospitals, and when you're, you need to be sedated somehow, but...

• 53:44Billy Corgan?

  Isn't that what killed Michael Jackson, right? I mean, it's like something you use when it's super...

• 53:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you have to use a microscopic dose. They know how to administer that in a hospital. But on the streets, when you're doing it yourself, that's why there's so many ODs, because everybody's ODing on this stuff.

• 53:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I saw some interview you did with the guy, you say, OD'd 13 times.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, and there's people that have done even more, and people have died, like every day, there's somebody who dies down there. It's good, right? But it's, um, fentanyl is now the new opiate. A lot of people like the speed and the crack cocaine drugs that give you an upper. But the opiates are downers, and they, they tend to mail you out, and whatever pain and trauma you went through as a kid, it's all erased.

• 54:21Billy Corgan?

  Part of it is that fentanyl's cheaper, it's just, it's easier to...

• 54:25Speaker 02

  No, it's just what's on the street. That's what, that's what's there. And once you've tried it, you're like hooked on it for the rest of your life.

• 54:32Billy Corgan?

  Are these people snorting it, shooting it, all of the above?

• 54:35Speaker 02

  All of the above, yeah. And then now what they're doing is they're putting it in the other drugs, so that you, plenty of crack addicts have died because the crack looks like fentanyl. They look very similar, and it's like, how do you decide which one's which? And you smoke it, and you're dead.

• 54:50Billy Corgan?

  Okay, last kind of topic I wanna dive into. It's been kind of a 50,000-point view. It's like, how do you separate character versus environment?

• 55:06Billy Corgan?

  You know, like, like you, you mentioned this young woman, you know, where obviously there was something there. If that young woman had been raised in a good neighborhood, would she had a different life?

• 55:15Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 55:16Billy Corgan?

  Which she still, you're, you're convinced of that?

• 55:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:19Billy Corgan?

  It's not provocatively voiced, I'm saying is...

• 55:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, no, I, I think she, if she had a mom and a dad who loved her, even if they weren't the most perfectly loving, unconditional loving parents ever, she still would have done a lot better. But she had no mom.

• 55:35Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  Like, no mom, zero dad.

• 55:37Billy Corgan?

  So what do you say to the kid who's got everything and ends up smoking crack?

• 55:41Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, we, we kind of touched on this earlier, I was going to talk, but I didn't get a chance to, but it, you know, look at, look at the planet Earth. The lion eats the antelope. The hawk eats the rabbit. The snake eats the frog. This is just the way life goes on this planet. Humans are exempt from that? We're not exempt from that.

• 56:03Billy Corgan?

  So...

• 56:04Speaker 02

  So some of us are gonna thrive and our kids are gonna go to big...

• 56:07Billy Corgan?

  It's the predatory aspect of just human life.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  It's life on this planet. Some of us will thrive and our kids will go to great colleges and get good jobs and will drive nice cars and will eat good food and others will live on the street and they will suck dick to make money so they can spend it on drugs. I know it's not pretty, but that's the reality...

• 56:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, no, I know, it's that, that's where it's sort of...

• 56:30Speaker 02

  So you want us all to get the soccer trophy, we're all gonna win and we're all just gonna like, excellent.

• 56:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's definitely not how I roll, but...

• 56:36Speaker 02

  Competition trophy.

• 56:37Billy Corgan?

  But, um, you know, cause I live in a generally wealthy area now, I didn't grow up in a wealthy area. And I'm even like...

• 56:47Speaker 02

  You're west of Addison.

• 56:48Billy Corgan?

  Yes, sir. Like, five years ago, they had opened like a, like a...

• 56:58Billy Corgan?

  Some kind of clinic because there were so many heroin addicts in my, at the high school.

• 57:03Speaker 02

  Really?

• 57:03Billy Corgan?

  This with fentanyl and.

• 57:05Speaker 02

  I went to, I went to Willowbrook.

• 57:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 57:06Speaker 02

  I remember a whole lot of drugs there then, but I was.

• 57:09Billy Corgan?

  I live in Highland Park, Illinois, which is, you know, a very wealthy, bucolic.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Oh, you're talking about where you live now?

• 57:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, so what I'm saying is I was surprised because I was walking down the street. I have a teahouse there and suddenly there was this kind of, I don't know, some kind of drug outpatient, something, something, you know, government based.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, the drugs are definitely.

• 57:26Billy Corgan?

  And I asked the mayor, I said, what is that? And she said, oh, it's a, we have, we have such a bad heroin problem in town for high school students. You know what I mean? And these are, these are the one, not, maybe they're, maybe they're the two percenters, but I mean, this is.

• 57:40Speaker 02

  It should be, it should be zero.

• 57:41Billy Corgan?

  This is the, right, this is the top of the, this is the top of the economic food chain in, in, in American life.

• 57:47Speaker 02

  Is it because these kids are exposed to more trauma and they need to escape and the drugs help them do that? Or is it because?

• 57:54Billy Corgan?

  See, I don't have an answer to that question because I came from the other side of.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  Somehow the drugs are sneaking in and they're more accessible. I think that's a big part of it too.

• 58:02Billy Corgan?

  It's like trying to describe a mathematical number to the human condition. Like if you have a hundred people and they're all given all this, you know, great circumstance, do three of them turn out to be drug addicts? You know, it's like, is there some mathematic formula?

• 58:16Speaker 02

  Well, I, I think there are probably some genetic factors that are just, you're predisposed to just struggle in life. You're just, things are not gonna, you're not gonna, like I, I had to work hard. I'm sure you had to work really hard to get where you are.

• 58:30Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:32Speaker 02

  But some people just don't have the ability to focus and create like we did and, and like, so you just, you struggle. And you get pulled down and you end up with the wrong kind of, kind of friends and you end up

• 58:45Speaker 02

  lost.

• 58:46Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  And you lose hope.

• 58:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I don't know how you look at all that all day.

• 58:52Speaker 02

  It's hard, but I don't pay attention all the time either.

• 58:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  That's really the key, because otherwise I couldn't do it.

• 58:57Billy Corgan?

  What do you do when, because obviously a lot of these, I call them kids, but they're not all kids.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  No.

• 59:05Billy Corgan?

  Because they're hustling, right? What do you do with those who try to work you?

• 59:08Speaker 02

  Oh, I've gotten very good at recognizing hustles. Like, I, early on, I got played a lot.

• 59:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 59:14Speaker 02

  I would see somebody who had potential, and he was just on the streets, "You just need to stop doing the drug, dude. Now, let me, let me help you." There was one guy that I met, a black guy that was on the street. And he just seemed like a really good guy. He just, he was like, "Let me help you. Let me get you into rehab. Let me, let me get you the therapy and the rehab and the housing and everything you need so that you can get out of this fucking streets. What are you doing down here?"

• 59:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 59:36Speaker 02

  And I took care of all that, and it, it's just, he just kept going back, kept going back. It's like, it's finally, just like, "Look, I can't anymore." But he still sees me as a possible source for money. And every year or so, he comes back, "Hey, I just like, I need this, I need this."

• 59:51Billy Corgan?

  Oh, wow.

• 59:52Speaker 02

  And I get this constantly.

• 59:53Billy Corgan?

  How do you deal with the dangerous aspect of what you do? Because sometimes I find myself watching one of your interviews, and obviously you're the voice behind the camera.

• 1:00:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:01Billy Corgan?

  But I think some of these people are pretty dangerous.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  No, I just, I just did a, I just posted a video with a guy who was talking about working with the Mexican cartels. And, you know, he wore giant sunglasses and a hat and a hoodie and a face, like a COVID mask. So he was all covered up. And he did this interview, and less than a week later, he got murdered. Two bullets in the head, which I think is how the cartel does it. And I'm like, I deleted the video right away and said, "Man, this is like, I don't want any part of that."

• 1:00:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  But then also, as a, as a, as a journalist, or whatever I am, artist, whatever, it's like, you,

• 1:00:44Speaker 02

  Like, what, you backed down from that? I don't know. I mean, I know that it's, I don't think the cartel would come after a guy who just did a document. They would go after the guy, which they did, obviously.

• 1:00:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:54Speaker 02

  Or, or maybe it was just coincidence, he got two bullets in the head. Maybe they were just random bullets that ended up in his head. But...

• 1:01:01Billy Corgan?

  Studs Terkel sounds like a lot better right now when you say that.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  Interviewing a refrigerator repairman sounds a lot better, right? But, but you're drawn to what you're drawn to, and I'm drawn to these crazy, dark stories.

• 1:01:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:11Speaker 02

  I mean, I just did a, one of my, probably the favorite interview I've ever done, was with an FBI agent. And this is not a drug story, it's not anything to do with drugs. But he infiltrated the New Jersey mob. Giovanni Rocco is his name. He said, I think he's changed his name for witness protection. But he, he lived with him for three years. He's got a wife and kids at home, who he just kinda like, tried to stay connected with, but he was so embedded into this whole mob thing that, and he eventually put away like ten guys.

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  Orchestrating murders and doing all kinds of things that they had. Selling drugs and selling murders and all kinds of things that were just illegal.

• 1:01:53Billy Corgan?

  You remind me of a story.

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  Fascinating. A great storyteller and fascinating story.

• 1:01:56Billy Corgan?

  We were somewhere in South America, I don't want to say what country, and one of my buddies

• 1:02:03Billy Corgan?

  at the hotel or something ran into these government, American government agents, but working in South America.

• 1:02:11Billy Corgan?

  And so we invited them to our concert, they came to the show, and then afterwards, we went to have a drink. And, you know, I started asking questions like, "What are you guys doing down here?" And they said, "Well, you know, we're, we're basically doing, we're trying to keep the drugs from leaving here and going to the shores of America, that's kind of our job."

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:02:28Billy Corgan?

  So I started asking better questions. And I said, "Well, what is it, what is it you really do?" And they kinda looked at each other and they said, "Well, we, um, we get flown over the jungle, and they drop us, and we do night drops into these drug camps."

• 1:02:45Billy Corgan?

  And we gotta do it, it's like, some kind of way they speed drop. They wear like a, like a oxygen mask. They come down, low, low, uh, low level, so that the... And I think they have to do it super high level because of the plane. They wanna hear, they don't wanna hear the plane motor.

• 1:02:59Speaker 02

  Oh, I see.

• 1:03:00Billy Corgan?

  So they drop it like from fifty thousand feet.

• 1:03:02Speaker 02

  And they wear an oxygen mask.

• 1:03:03Billy Corgan?

  They wear an oxygen mask and they do rapid descent. Like, straight down, like you put your head down, it goes straight down.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:03:09Billy Corgan?

  And they gotta know how to pull the chute really low and, and drop in.

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  Sounds dangerous.

• 1:03:13Billy Corgan?

  Oh yeah, you know. By the way, middle of night, usually on, uh, moonless nights.

• 1:03:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're doing it in the dark as well.

• 1:03:19Billy Corgan?

  So then you, you know, like, like you and I would, we start going, "So what happens when you drop in the jungle?" And then they looked at you and they said, "You don't wanna know."

• 1:03:28Billy Corgan?

  So.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:29Billy Corgan?

  So that's what I'm saying when I think about you even being at the edge of that.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  No, there, there've been some really dangerous situations. I've had guns in my face, I've had all kinds of things.

• 1:03:37Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  But like, like,

• 1:03:42Speaker 02

  like, I, I'm always attracted to things that are just a little bit on the edge of what's... Like, I, I, I never take the safe route.

• 1:03:49Billy Corgan?

  Well, then, obviously not.

• 1:03:51Speaker 02

  Whether, whether it's, whether it's women, or jobs, or whatever. I always want, I want something that's like, "No, you don't do that."

• 1:03:57Billy Corgan?

  Are you attracted to nice women, or?

• 1:04:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I, I think I am. I'm not in- interested in being abused or anything like that, but, but I like challenges.

• 1:04:09Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  Let's put it that way.

• 1:04:10Billy Corgan?

  So, last question. It's hard to, it's hard to voice it because I feel like I've already asked it.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  I wanna talk about Chicago music for about half an hour.

• 1:04:17Billy Corgan?

  You're, you're welcome to, we can talk about whatever. Let me just ask this one question.

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  Because we probably went to the same shows sometimes.

• 1:04:21Billy Corgan?

  And we'll talk about that for a second.

• 1:04:26Billy Corgan?

  It's the existential question of like, because I've asked it, but I'm asking it differently, I hope it comes across. Why are you doing this? Do you understand?

• 1:04:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:34Billy Corgan?

  Like, you're a good-looking guy, you know, you're obviously talented, like, you know, like, I find myself sometimes in my job going, "Why am I doing this?"

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  You just do what you do. I mean, why, like...

• 1:04:47Billy Corgan?

  But do you feel called to this?

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like, ever since I was fourteen, I saw that alcoholic on the street, like, I just wanted to...

• 1:04:54Billy Corgan?

  But you don't see it as a spiritual thing?

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  I don't see anything as a spiritual thing. Okay. I might be, if you look at what I do and my actions, you would say I'm some kind of saint. But I'm not any fucking saint, I'm just a jerk with a camera. I've said that a million times, I'm a jerk with a camera. You need to put that on a t-shirt. Yeah, yeah, I'll put that on my grave stone. There's your, there's your merch. I'm just a jerk with a camera. All right, Chicago music. So, how old are you? I'm fifty-seven. Fifty-seven, I'm sixty-four, so I'm a little bit older than you. But, some of my favorite memories, as a kid, like I got into music, like I started going to concerts, let's say that, I started going to concerts in seventy-six. Went to see Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, Mahogany Rush, not Rush, but Mahogany Rush. Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush. Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush, right?

• 1:05:39Speaker 02

  Uh, LA Jets, Heart, and there was one other, one other band. Five, five shows on the, on the bill, at the Aragon Ballroom. And I was really into Ritchie Blackmore, I was really into Deep Purple when I was in high school. Thus, arguing one of the best guitar players of all time. Exactly. Um, I thought he was the best, until, we'll talk about him too later. Um, and I, I think I was probably, maybe it was seventy-five, seventy-six, I wasn't driving, my parents drove me there. My parents, who have no exposure to any of this shit. Take me there, me and my buddy. Not the, not the best neighborhood. No, no, pretty bad neighborhood, especially in the middle of the night. And my parents were there waiting for us at the end, I guess they probably went out to dinner or did something, and, you know, it's a long show, five, five shows, five bands, and it's

• 1:06:23Speaker 02

  two in the morning probably, we're getting out. My parents show up, and they said, "We're so worried about you, we see all these people coming out on stretchers, like one after the other, after the other, and ambulances left and right, just all night long, like what's going on in there?" And I'm like, "I don't know, I didn't see any of it, because I'm up front." Um, but, that was, that was just the beginning of it, and it just blossomed from there. My photography and music just took off, and I just started going to every single show. Even bands I didn't like, I went to see everything from Frank Sinatra to George Burns to... The plasmatics to like on the same night I'd see these crazy like extreme difference bands.

• 1:07:03Billy Corgan?

  Did you get to the point where they would give you photo passes and stuff?

• 1:07:06Speaker 02

  No, I never uh I never really got that. I would just always I was really good at getting the very, very best seats. So it's almost like better than having a photo pass sometimes because I was right in the front row and I would shoot like sometimes a general admission. I realized well, this is a better angle than being dead center.

• 1:07:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:20Speaker 02

  And if I'm going to see Van Halen.

• 1:07:21Billy Corgan?

  And it was just for personal use the photos or did you publish?

• 1:07:24Speaker 02

  It was just for me. I just loved doing it. I wasn't making money.

• 1:07:27Billy Corgan?

  Have you ever published those photos?

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean like I did some, the first thing I did was a cover of Guitar Player Magazine with Alex Leison from Rush. And uh and I did Cream Magazine a bunch of times. I was on the cover, I think. So I did a bunch of that kind of stuff.

• 1:07:40Billy Corgan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:07:42Billy Corgan?

  See, doesn't that sound safer now?

• 1:07:44Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, it's safe and it was cool.

• 1:07:45Billy Corgan?

  Sociopathic rock stars are a lot safer than sociopathic or actually sociopathic rock stars and sociopathic drug addicts may just be the same thing.

• 1:07:52Speaker 02

  Probably same, probably very similar. But like, you know, going to the Riviera, going to the Uptown, going to the Aragon Ball.

• 1:07:58Billy Corgan?

  You know, the Uptown's been closed for 20, 30 years. They still hope to fix it.

• 1:08:03Speaker 02

  I saw a lot of great bands there. Yeah. I remember seeing like, like so many great shows. Seeing The Police for a buck, 98 Cent.

• 1:08:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, because it was probably The Loop, 98, that's the rock station.

• 1:08:17Speaker 02

  Tom Petty with Elvis Costello opening up for him for 98 cents, I believe. You know, just crazy shows. And I went to all of them, like every single thing that came to town. Yeah.

• 1:08:26Billy Corgan?

  Because I missed all that.

• 1:08:27Speaker 02

  And then, you know, I grew up with uh like Cheap Trick before they, before their first album.

• 1:08:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, they were a big club band.

• 1:08:35Speaker 02

  Oh, they were a big club band. And I discovered them when they opened up for Rush. I was going to see Rush at the auditorium.

• 1:08:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:41Speaker 02

  And there was this band who came out. Two of the guys looked like, you know.

• 1:08:44Billy Corgan?

  Hunts Hall and.

• 1:08:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, he looked like.

• 1:08:47Billy Corgan?

  And your smoking neighbor.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  What was his name? From the Satch from the.

• 1:08:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:53Speaker 02

  The Bowery Boys?

• 1:08:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:54Speaker 02

  Is that who it is?

• 1:08:55Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but it was his, his real name was Hunts Hall.

• 1:08:57Speaker 02

  Hunts Hall, that's right, yeah, yeah. So the guitar player was like Hunts Hall. You got an accountant playing drums. And then you got the two most beautiful like pop stars.

• 1:09:04Billy Corgan?

  Amazing, right?

• 1:09:05Speaker 02

  They were just, what a fucking genius idea. Just a genius idea.

• 1:09:09Billy Corgan?

  A great band.

• 1:09:09Speaker 02

  Oh my, the best band ever.

• 1:09:11Billy Corgan?

  Still going, I just saw them the other day.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're, they're, they're like my band. They are like, I, I fucking love Cheap, I saw Cheap Trick so many, like, I can't even count how many times.

• 1:09:21Billy Corgan?

  Great.

• 1:09:21Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't go any, to concerts anymore, but they were just like, that's, like, I lived and, like, if they did three shows at whatever, I'd just see all three. I'd go, I'd fly to Rockford, I'd go to Rockford, I'd go to Madison, I'd go to Terre Haute. See them wherever. They're amazing.

• 1:09:37Billy Corgan?

  So, last, last, last question.

• 1:09:40Speaker 02

  But the best thing I ever saw. Best thing I ever saw in music.

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  I go to see Black Sabbath in seventy-eight, and Black Sabbath was a dinosaur at the time. But Van Halen opened up for them.

• 1:09:53Billy Corgan?

  That's right.

• 1:09:55Speaker 02

  And Eddie Van Halen.

• 1:09:56Billy Corgan?

  That would've been first album, right?

• 1:09:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, the album had just come out.

• 1:09:58Billy Corgan?

  Was Eddie wearing the kneepads?

• 1:09:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I heard it on Triad, you know, the, the one oh six.

• 1:10:02Billy Corgan?

  But there was that, there was early tours he would wear kneepads and they sort of run up the amps.

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, there was the second tour though, I think.

• 1:10:07Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:10:07Speaker 02

  But the first tour, I don't think he was doing the kneepads yet, but it was just like, it blew the lid off of like guitar and heavy metal and whatever the that was, it was just like a amalgam of pop and heavy metal.

• 1:10:22Billy Corgan?

  Did the crowd respond to it that you saw?

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  Oh god, yes, yeah, they, they, it was like, Black Sabbath probably, it was, it was pretty ballsy, Black Sabbath, to keep them on the tour, cause like, if there was ever a band that blew away the headliner, that was it.

• 1:10:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  It was pretty cool of Ozzy to say, let's keep on.

• 1:10:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Speaker 02

  Cause that, that was the best thing I ever saw, Eddie Van Halen was the best thing I ever saw.

• 1:10:43Billy Corgan?

  I got to interview Eddie once.

• 1:10:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know that, I know that.

• 1:10:46Billy Corgan?

  It's amazing.

• 1:10:46Speaker 02

  He's just a genius.

• 1:10:47Billy Corgan?

  Spent four hours with him in his studio and it was, it was one of the great highlights of my life.

• 1:10:51Speaker 02

  But, but people don't understand, they just think, oh, he had a great sound or, yeah, his sound was unbelievable, like, nobody's ever

• 1:10:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:57Speaker 02

  Sounded like he did, but You look at, I listen to some of these early, early, early Van Halen club tapes.

• 1:11:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  From just like playing in somewhere in Pasadena.

• 1:11:08Billy Corgan?

  Magic Mountain, Magic Mountain and stuff like that.

• 1:11:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, that kind of thing.

• 1:11:10Billy Corgan?

  Seventy-six, yeah.

• 1:11:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he's doing like, they're doing Aerosmith, Zeppelin, ZZ Top, Deep Purple, all these old songs.

• 1:11:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:17Speaker 02

  But Eddie's playing them better than the people who wrote them.

• 1:11:22Billy Corgan?

  I got to introduce you to Pat Kenny of the NWA, it's my wrestling company. He only talks about Van Halen too.

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, Eddie, Eddie, like I used to play guitar. And then when Eddie Van Halen came out, it's like, this is clearly not my lane.

• 1:11:34Billy Corgan?

  So, I'll tell you a quick Eddie story. So, I'm interviewing him and, you know, he knows who I am, but he doesn't, he's not listening to the Smashing Pumpkins, you know?

• 1:11:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:44Billy Corgan?

  And he's got a cigarette, he's drinking a beer, and he's just sitting there playing guitar, you know, and when you're sitting this far away from Eddie and he's playing guitar, you're just like, he makes it seem so easy, right?

• 1:11:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:54Billy Corgan?

  I mean, it's just...

• 1:11:55Speaker 02

  He's laughing and joking while he's playing shit.

• 1:11:57Billy Corgan?

  Telling jokes, laughing, and he's playing the hardest shit you've ever seen in your life. So, so at some point he goes, "You play guitar, right?" I go, "Oh, yeah." He goes, "Here." And he hands me the guitar, goes, "Play."

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 1:12:10Billy Corgan?

  What do you play for Eddie Van Halen?

• 1:12:11Speaker 02

  Do you choke?

• 1:12:12Billy Corgan?

  No, I thought, okay, all right, I can play guitar. So I played like how I play. And he goes...

• 1:12:18Speaker 02

  You can play?

• 1:12:19Billy Corgan?

  You can play.

• 1:12:19Speaker 02

  Oh, he said that.

• 1:12:20Billy Corgan?

  I passed whatever fucking test, you know what I mean?

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 1:12:24Billy Corgan?

  He was like, "Oh, you can play." And then after that, the conversation changed because he realized I was a musician.

• 1:12:29Speaker 02

  Oh, is that right?

• 1:12:30Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah. Totally different conversation. As soon as he saw I could play guitar, I think he thought he was some alternative weirdo.

• 1:12:35Speaker 02

  You thank your dad for that.

• 1:12:36Billy Corgan?

  Um, God bless. And Eddie too, I mean, I used to sit there and play to Van Halen one all day.

• 1:12:41Speaker 02

  You listen to that, the first three records, first four records, it's just, how could it, it couldn't be done any better?

• 1:12:47Billy Corgan?

  Why don't you do the soft white underbelly of rock?

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would love to.

• 1:12:51Billy Corgan?

  You should do that.

• 1:12:52Speaker 02

  It would be full circle because, like, I've done these, like, I started out shooting photographs of musicians.

• 1:12:58Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, you should, because you love music.

• 1:12:59Speaker 02

  I do, yeah. And I think the stories, like, like Mike Ness would be a fascinating interview, or Perry Farrell, or you, or so many people.

• 1:13:05Billy Corgan?

  I can tell you, to encourage you, uh... Most people in rock that interview rock stars, they want the drama, but they don't want the real stuff about what makes us tick and how we got here. Does that make sense?

• 1:13:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:21Billy Corgan?

  They want the shiny end of the story.

• 1:13:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, see, I could care less about that.

• 1:13:24Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 1:13:25Speaker 02

  I want the real stuff.

• 1:13:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So I think it'd be interesting if you could find people to talk to you about like what really goes on.

• 1:13:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:33Billy Corgan?

  Because I can tell you 99.9% of the journalists don't give a shit.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  That's the only thing I'm interested in.

• 1:13:39Billy Corgan?

  Here's my favorite story. Here's my favorite question. Tell us a great, tell us a wacky thing that happened on tour. That's my favorite question.

• 1:13:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's not what I'm...

• 1:13:49Billy Corgan?

  And I'm like, I'm not giving that story to you. I'll tell my friend, you know?

• 1:13:53Speaker 02

  No, everybody, whether it's an accountant or a whoever, rock star or a doctor or a homeless prostitute, they've all got a great story.

• 1:14:04Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah, you just gotta ask.

• 1:14:05Speaker 02

  And you gotta find somebody who's a good storyteller too in the house.

• 1:14:08Billy Corgan?

  I enjoy talking, thanks.

• 1:14:09Speaker 02

  Billy, you're amazing, thank you.

• 1:14:10Billy Corgan?

  Thank you, brother.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  Thanks, man.