John Cowsill | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Billy Corgan sits down with John Cowsill (The Cowsills) for a deep-cut tour through ’60s pop history, from kitchen-table harmonies and four-set club nights as grade-schoolers to drumming as a nine-year-old on Ed Sullivan. He shares what really happened in the studio on “The Rain, the Park & Other Things” and “Hair,” and the family dynamics that fueled and fractured a once-in-a-generation vocal blend. They also trace John’s path from early Johnny Nash sessions to decades with the Beach Boys, a new duo with wife Vicki Peterson (The Bangles), and fronting The Smithereens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, my career picked me. I didn't pick it. I just did it.

• 1:12Billy Corgan?

  Nine years old is nine years old.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, he sees us and he sees two little kids and, you know, just hmm. So he's handing us songs like "Don't Put Your Feet" and "The Lemonade." You're going, "We just left Johnny Nash playing some serious stuff and now we're here." "I love my Siamese cat because she's not very fat with a toy piano."

• 1:35Billy Corgan?

  And I can't think of any other... In the 70, 80 years of rock history, I think your family stands alone in this dynamic. I can't think of anything that even comes close.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  They were telling us, "You're going to be living in California." We're going, "No way." And we went from... We went from nothing, from zero to 100.

• 1:57Billy Corgan?

  Don't jump ahead.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  I can do it all.

• 2:04Billy Corgan?

  Thank you so much for being here, John. I'm so excited. So, let me explain to you how this whole thing came to be. Because you did ask. We'd never met before today. So, I saw you playing with the Beach Boys a few years back. My wife, I love the Beach Boys, but my wife, who's a lot younger than I, wanted to go see the Beach Boys play. And we live close to Ravinia, outside of Chicago. And so you were playing with the Beach Boys then. And I thought, who's the handsome, young drummer? Obviously not part of the original band. That would be you. And swagger and some charm and a full head of hair.

• 2:46Billy Corgan?

  And as you do these days, I started, like, who's playing drums for the band? And I saw your name and I thought, from the Cowesils? The family band? And so, I found myself after that gig, thinking, I really should know more about this band. I love 60s music. I consider myself a bit of a snobby aficionado. And I thought, you know, I really don't know much about your family band. Like, I know the basics, but I'm a guy who likes to think, I know the depth of things, like, who signed who and who played on what records. I'm one of those guys. And I thought, wow, it's really weird, because I do like the band. Why have I never kind of done the deep dive on the band? So then I jumped into the catalog for the first time, and I thought, wow, there's a lot of talent in this.

• 3:31Billy Corgan?

  You know, because you get the thing where it's like, well, there's a couple hits. And it's like, no, there's a lot of depth of talent there. And then the whole story of the band, obviously, the TV show that followed and all this, the mythological stuff, but the nuts and bolts, I'm very interested in. And then, you know, watching you play on Ed Sullivan when you're 12 years old or something. I mean, that's a pretty rare...

• 3:51Speaker 01

  That was fun.

• 3:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but I'm saying, it's a pretty rare thing. You know, very few people touch the zeitgeist in the way that your family did. And then, obviously, the family dynamics, I think, make it even more fascinating, because, as we know through rock history, when you put family and music together, it can yield incredible results, but oftentimes, there's like, these other kind of sparks, because it has more to do with the family relationships than... So I don't know if that presages what you were after, but that's why we're here. So I'm a fan, to start with, so...

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Much appreciated.

• 4:24Billy Corgan?

  I've done the deep dive. So, here's a place to start.

• 4:33Billy Corgan?

  Playing in a band with six siblings, obviously you're one of the six, and your mother.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:39Billy Corgan?

  That's a pretty unique setup. Is that anything you could have envisioned?

• 4:47Billy Corgan?

  Or because you're just a kid and you're kind of in a circumstance, is that a fair way?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, my career picked me. I didn't pick it, I just did it. I mean, I was four when I first heard my brother singing in Ohio. We lived in Canton, Ohio. And my brother Bill is the oldest one, so he's, everybody thinks my mom or my dad started the singing. This is my brother Bill.

• 5:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  I refer to him as our Brian Wilson of the family. And he's the, if you ever did a deep dive on Bill Council, you would see.

• 5:16Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I have.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Okay, because he was like, he's amazing.

• 5:19Billy Corgan?

  He's got, super talented in a, in a unique way that very few people are.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  He's like the real deal Elvis, you know, and he just, he just means it every time. But, um, yeah, it, it, it picked me, so.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  We always sang around the table, you know, folk songs, "Boil That Cabbage Down, Boy", and "Time Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley", "Stu Ball Was A Racehorse", and.

• 5:44Billy Corgan?

  Are we singing harmony that early?

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, just naturally, just everybody singing in the living room. I think the first song I ever sang, sang was "My Hillbilly Baby".

• 5:53Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  And twisting up my shorts because my Uncle Bob had a tape recorder. I was probably five then, I wasn't in school yet, and singing "Running Bear".

• 6:04Billy Corgan?

  Didn't Johnny Cash do "Running Bear" or something?

• 6:06Speaker 01

  No, it was Bobby, um, I can't remember.

• 6:10Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  I'm not an aficionado on anything, I just know the songs growing up. And just stuff like that.

• 6:18Billy Corgan?

  Oh, was, um, was it "Bobby Bear"?

• 6:19Speaker 01

  "Bobby Bear", thank you, yeah. "Running Bear, the little hat, da, da, da".

• 6:24Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was cool. And then, um, I don't know, it just evolved and we kept doing that. And, and I remember.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  I just remember The Beatles coming on, Ed Sullivan. Well, before that, I mean, I lived in a house of music and it's always my two brothers and they tried to be in other bands, Bill and Bob. It started with Bill and Bob. And there were seven playing, you know, tea parties for my mom's, whatever it was. I mean, these are the stories I was told. I was too young to remember that. But, um.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  So quiet in here.

• 7:06Billy Corgan?

  It's just the sound of your own mind working.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank God I don't have tinnitus at all, so I'm really happy about that.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  And I, you know, I'm the youngest of six boys, so I get the music dripping down to me, you know. Whatever they're listening to, this is what I'm listening to. And before The Beatles, it was The Beach Boys because

• 7:28Billy Corgan?

  Oh, wow.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  I remember all those albums on the floor. But, I mean, like, like Lightning, everything happens so fast. The shadows last forever, but the actual moments of what's happening

• 7:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  go real quick. And, uh, and I remember listening to The Beach Boys, but then, like, right away, The Beatles showed up and just took it over and the British Invasion and everything. And so we, we were watching that on, on the TV and Ed Sullivan came on, like, the rest of people my age, we just, like, sitting in front of the TV set, it's just the most unbelievable thing in the world. And, uh, don't hit your chest, cow, so.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  And we went into the back room where we used to set up the bedroom for, you know, cowboy fights. We'd watch Bonans and all the westerns and so we'd imitate those things, but now we were gonna imitate The Beatles and, you know. So we're lip syncing, you know, pretending we're The Beatles there in our, in our bedroom. And, uh, and everything happened so quick. Now Dave Clark V is here, the king. Everybody's coming over from British Peter Noons, Herman's Hermits. So I figured I just, I had this little electric M and E organ that you would turn on and it would make this sound.

• 8:41Billy Corgan?

  Was it like with air, with air power?

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was an air powered thing, yeah. And, uh.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  And I'd put that on a desk and put the plug in the drawer and pretend I was Mike Smith.

• 8:53Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  So, we were kind of being the Beatles, but there were too many of us, so we had to be somebody else. And then, and, and, and then I remember my dad,

• 9:08Speaker 01

  who was moonlighting, he was in the Navy, so he was moonlighting as a carpenter, and he had a friend named Neil Sylvia. And I don't know how it happened, but this blues sparkle, the Slingerland drum kit, came into the living room and put it right there in the middle, in front of the fireplace, and it just set it up, and my brother Barry was the first drummer, and he sat there and he, we could just sit down and play, we don't know how we did this, but I, my first song I ever played was You Can't Do That, and I just sat down there, because it's a boom, boom, boom, boom.

• 9:38Billy Corgan?

  So there's no instruction, you're just self teaching?

• 9:40Speaker 01

  We're just winging it, man, everybody's self taught, no lessons at all. But that was really fun. And then I remember, excuse me, they went out as a trio,

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Bill, Bob and Barry, and I remember waking up, must have been midnight or, or one or two in the morning, and they're counting like three hundred dollars out, and I think that was a, a light bulb, and my dad said that we could make money doing this, okay? And so, I would tag along to them, uh, we lived in Newport, Rhode Island, and we would go to New York to play, I don't know how we got this gig, but it was at North Bergen High School, and we'd play all the dances there. And, uh, and we'd go across the George Washington Bridge, it was so exciting, but I was just a tag along, and I would sit in and I would play You Can't Do That.

• 10:31Billy Corgan?

  It's kind of like the, like a, like a special attraction.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  I'm a special attraction, I'm always a special attraction somehow. But, um, and that's how that started, and then... I remember we started evolving. We wanted a bass guitar and my brother Bill was pitching to my dad, we need a bass guitar. So my dad says, well, what can he do? So and I remember they were in my mom's bedroom and sitting on her vanity seat. And my brother Bill goes, listen to this. And he did, I like it, I like it. Jerry and the bass maker. And that boom, boom, boom, boom. And he had to play it on the guitar in order for my dad to go to Moss Music Center and buy an old K, a new K bass at the time.

• 11:17Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  And so they came home. And at nighttime, I would be in that room playing that drum set. And we, you know, we were the family who had no money. So we'd take light bulbs out of one room to put it in another socket in the next room. And when that didn't work, I just turned all the amplifiers on because we had some Fender amps, Dual Schulmans and stuff, and some Silver Tones. And the lights on that would, your eyes would adjust so I could play drums in the room there. And, and parents never said, don't, don't make that noise.

• 11:50Billy Corgan?

  Amazing.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that was in my bedroom. And I started playing drums. And then, once they got the bass guitar, by default, I became the drummer. Now, I, I remember not having great time in the beginning and having people like keep their hand moving while I was playing. But within six months, we were playing four sets a night at the local.

• 12:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Wine bar.

• 12:12Billy Corgan?

  And you're like, what, at this point, like 10, 11? How many?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Eight.

• 12:16Billy Corgan?

  Eight?

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I remember.

• 12:18Billy Corgan?

  So how do you get past the, the fact that they got a minor up on stage?

• 12:22Speaker 01

  They had four minors. I'm eight, my brother Barry's nine.

• 12:25Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  My brother Bill's a young teenager. I mean, nobody's over 18.

• 12:30Billy Corgan?

  Was there some sort of exemption given or?

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Well, I'm gonna get to that. So the cops came and they, they said, you can't play here. And so, and I remember that. That was funny. I call it, the cops raided the place. What were we doing in a wine cellar? There was no food served there. It was just wine.

• 12:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  And beer. And alcohol. So I guess my dad went down to town hall, cut a deal with the mayor. And the mayor says, well, as long as they don't sit at the bar or the tables and there's a separate room for them. It was a mine, it was a bar. We called it the discotheque, MK Discotheque, Muti King Hotel, beautiful hotel. And in fact, a couple of nights Barry and I sat up in one of the rooms and they sent the mics down so we could be part of the show until we figured out that the mayor said it was okay for us to be there. And it was funny because the room that we sat in was where they stored all the liquor.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  So I'm sitting on a box of Cuddy Sark while we're building a set list. But man, those were the best times for me.

• 13:38Billy Corgan?

  And this is mostly covers or any originals?

• 13:40Speaker 01

  All covers. All covers. We played every Stones, every Beach Boy, every Motown, every new Beatles song that came out. I remember, you know, I had calfskin heads, so living in Rhode Island, my memory just goes right to, I'd have to get down there early on my bicycle and get the heads off and heat them up with my mom's hairdryer so they wouldn't get shrunk again, so.

• 14:01Billy Corgan?

  Oh, wow.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Well, because calfskins, just when there's humidity, they just turn to mush, so.

• 14:06Billy Corgan?

  I didn't know that.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. I didn't know about plastic heads. I'm sure they made them, but we didn't know about them yet.

• 14:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  But that's how it started. And then somebody from the Today Show, because Newport, Rhode Island is very, in the summertime, all the rich people come there. We lived in the 5th world, we weren't rich. And they said, would you like to be on television? They were like stunned that we were doing this, this music and so, wow.

• 14:33Billy Corgan?

  Do you remember, you remember going to play on TV then?

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, we got in our old Ford station wagon. My dad had a sock in the radiator because it was during the wintertime and it would overheat. But we got there and all of us went there. And it was Hugh Downs, Barbara Walters, very young at the time. And I can't remember, Chris, somebody was there. But we were on national TV and that was pretty cool.

• 14:58Billy Corgan?

  And no one's ever found that tape, right?

• 15:00Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so. It'd be a kinoscope of some kind. They used to erase, they'd go over the videotape all the time and reuse it constantly.

• 15:07Billy Corgan?

  It's so cool to see that footage, though.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, that would be awesome. Spotlight on Talent, our local. Talent sure would have been great to have too, so many things. And nobody really documented anything the councils did back then. You see Beatles got videos, all these people, well, we had nothing, you know, a couple of Polaroids.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  But we were on that, and then somebody watched that show and contacted us, and that was Johnny Nash.

• 15:33Billy Corgan?

  The singer Johnny Nash?

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:34Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Now, my family didn't know who Johnny Nash was, but I did.

• 15:40Billy Corgan?

  He saw you clearly.

• 15:44Billy Corgan?

  Not bad, right?

• 15:45Speaker 01

  No, it was a song called Hercules, only the evil fear him, Hercules. It was a TV show. It was a cartoon I watched every morning, and at the end of the...

• 15:57Billy Corgan?

  Oh, he sang that?

• 15:58Speaker 01

  The credits was big, bold letters, the biggest thing on the credit, Johnny Nash, and I could read.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  So when they said we were going to his house, I was like, what? This is the guy?

• 16:10Billy Corgan?

  From Hercules, yeah.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  I was just amazed by that. And we, and we signed with Joda Records.

• 16:16Billy Corgan?

  So was it that, that, that record, was it sort of like a singles deal? Because you guys put out three, three singles. Was it through Mercury at that point?

• 16:24Speaker 01

  No, this is Joda Records.

• 16:26Billy Corgan?

  Oh, Joda Records.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Johnny Nash, it was his own label.

• 16:28Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  And it was a brief stint, we recorded probably 20 songs with him.

• 16:34Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I've never heard those songs.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  No, you haven't, nobody has.

• 16:38Billy Corgan?

  Are they disappeared, or?

• 16:39Speaker 01

  I have them all.

• 16:40Billy Corgan?

  Because?

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Because I have a friend who went to Liberty, and they were emptying out everything, and he went in the trash and got all the masters, the three trap masters.

• 16:51Billy Corgan?

  You want to release those?

• 16:52Speaker 01

  It'll be a box set someday.

• 16:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's like all R&B stuff. I mean, we'd be in Johnny Nash's apartment building on the 30th floor and playing this stuff, and I'd be sitting there on the drums and, you know, doing, "You can't go halfway, you gotta go all the way to have my love."

• 17:17Speaker 01

  I mean, he would say that word, digga, digga, digga, digga. And say, "Do this, do this, man." And we've got a drum set set up at 3:00 in the morning in his apartment.

• 17:25Billy Corgan?

  Is there a reason they wanted you guys to play R&B, or?

• 17:27Speaker 01

  It's what we did, he heard us, he came to the club. My brother Bill was singing, we did Jimmy Reeves, we did...

• 19:57Billy Corgan?

  You know, you can even see, and I love the mamas and the papas, I mean, it's one of my-

• 20:00Speaker 01

  They're flattest pancakes.

• 20:01Billy Corgan?

  Live, it would be like, it would be a little bit-

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Even their records, but, but it was a cool sound, so we like it, you know?

• 20:08Billy Corgan?

  So you got a good pitch, I don't hear him flapping, now I gotta go back and listen.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 20:12Billy Corgan?

  So, so, now you're in the business, right? You know, you got a little bit of a deal and you're, you're doing stuff. Like, what's your father's perspective on all that at the time?

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Boy, I don't know, I was just trying to stay out of trouble.

• 20:27Billy Corgan?

  Was it just above your head because you were a kid?

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 20:31Billy Corgan?

  So who in the, who of the kids was the one who interfaced with your father on business?

• 20:37Speaker 01

  I'm sure that, on business, it was him and only him, and-

• 20:41Billy Corgan?

  And you just-

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he was a authoritarian, so, he was a tough Navy guy, man.

• 20:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  You know, so, if you've seen the documentary, you know-

• 20:52Billy Corgan?

  I haven't seen the documentary.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, anyway.

• 20:54Billy Corgan?

  I kinda didn't wanna watch it, cuz I wanted to hear it from you.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm glad, I'm glad, cuz that's cool. Yeah, I mean, he was a tough nut, man, it's just, he just wanted to duck, he was, he was a jerk. You know, I wouldn't want him for a father, but he was a nice guy with his friends and everybody loved him, I have some great attributes about him, but, anyway. So, we end up at Mercury Records.

• 21:14Billy Corgan?

  See, that's where I'm at, that's kinda, so you did three singles at Mercury, this much I know. Because the other stuff I kinda knew, but now it helps me understand.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:22Billy Corgan?

  So, you didn't play on that stuff, is that correct?

• 21:26Speaker 01

  We did not, and it pissed me off.

• 21:27Billy Corgan?

  I bet, that's kinda what I was gonna ask.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz with, with Johnny Nash, we played our own shit, you know, and that was fun. And you can hear it, it sounds like it, but I didn't care, you know, it's like, I had a chip on my shoulder-

• 21:38Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Quietly, about, you know, we're not playing our stuff. Well, we went there, and what you don't know is what they tried to make us do.

• 21:45Billy Corgan?

  Okay, tell me.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  And, um-

• 21:47Billy Corgan?

  Cuz I love, because I grew up in a different era of recording, I love hearing about what it was like to make records then.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, well-

• 21:56Billy Corgan?

  As primitive as it, as it was, it was really a different process.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  It definitely was. So, we get to Mercury and we meet a guy named Shelby Singleton.

• 22:07Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Shelby Singleton did novelty songs, Harper Valley, PTA.

• 22:12Billy Corgan?

  That's how I know the name, yeah.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Okay. And, you know.

• 22:15Billy Corgan?

  When you said it, I pinged in my brain.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  We're stickball kind of kids in the street. And we get there and we size up people, all the kids, we stuck together. And they're like, "Look what this guy wearing, you know, he had nail polish hairspray in his hair." And we're going, "Oh gee, what is this guy?" You know, we're very judgmental as children, but we didn't care.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  And then the material started pouring out. He sees us and he sees two little kids and, you know, just, hmm. So he's handing us songs like "Don't Put Your Feet" and "The Lemonade." We just left Johnny Nash playing some serious stuff. And now we're here. "I love my Siamese cat because she's not very fat with a toy piano." Having me embarrassing this. It's the flip side of most of all, the first local, regional single we had that my brother Bill and Bob wrote. It was a beautiful song.

• 23:08Billy Corgan?

  What was the name of that?

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Huh?

• 23:09Billy Corgan?

  What was the name of that song?

• 23:10Speaker 01

  "Most of All."

• 23:11Billy Corgan?

  "Most of All," yeah.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was pretty, it's sentimental to me.

• 23:16Billy Corgan?

  Have to look that one up.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  But that, this guy put on is, and my dad saying, "You'll do it." You know, it was that kind of thing. And then when they said, "We're not gonna play on our stuff," we're like looking at each other. Who's gonna play this stuff? You know, that's when we first learned about studio musicians, which is fine, you know. And that continued for a while. But with that, it was just, it was horrible. And "Dance Your Last Dance Party Girl," just dribble songs. My brother Bill was, I'm sure the older guys were just like, "You're kidding. This is not okay." Fortunately.

• 23:51Billy Corgan?

  Especially if you've been playing Beatles and.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  We wanted to be the Beatles.

• 23:55Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  We were foursome, we wanted to be the Beatles, we wanted to be the Stones, we wanted to be Takes and Serious.

• 24:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  And I was along for the ride. But I felt that too, even at a young age. And so this stuff, just dribble.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  But we did A Most Peculiar Man by Simon and Garfunkel is one of the singles.

• 24:15Billy Corgan?

  I did listen to that.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  What the hell?

• 24:17Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it was a bit odd.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Ah, that's just the funny stuff that we did. There was a man there and his name was Artie Kornfeld. And he was a staff producer, probably 20 years old, an older man.

• 24:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  And he got in either my dad's ear or Bill's or somebody's and he said, "We need to get out of here." And he already took us with his own money into, was it Liberty or Bell Sound? It was Liberty, Liberty Recorders in New York. And we recorded Rain in the Park and other things and the rest of that first album there.

• 24:59Billy Corgan?

  Right, and he wrote that, or co-wrote that?

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Him and Steve Duboff, yeah.

• 25:03Billy Corgan?

  So, are you still, is this still studio musicians when you were at that point?

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I remember, I remember being at those sessions and they said, "Well, you go, you go down and sit behind the drummer."

• 25:18Billy Corgan?

  Are you singing in the harmony stacks?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, we sang, we sang everything.

• 25:21Billy Corgan?

  So you're still on the recording, but you're not?

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Oh, very much so.

• 25:24Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  And we get there and there's like a 30-piece orchestra of the day, you know, strings, horns, horn, woodwinds.

• 25:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Met Vinnie Bell, who I just love so much. He was just a wonderful guy. He invented the electric sitar. Excuse me? And, but I'm sitting there behind this drummer and his name is Buddy Salzman. And I was pissed. He could probably see it on me. And I was friends with Buddy years later, that's another story.

• 25:56Billy Corgan?

  But again, you're at this point, you're like, what, 10 years old or something?

• 25:59Speaker 01

  I'm nine. It's all happening fast.

• 26:02Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but again, nine years old is nine years old.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, nine, nine and 10 years old for sure.

• 26:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Right in that, in that frack. And so I'm watching him and I see the beanbag cigar ashtray on his snare. He's got newspaper in the kick drum and he's playing the stuff and he's pretty cool. And he turns around me and tries to shock me with a, this is my daughter. He says something mildly inappropriate and, and I'm turning beet red, you know? It's like, when this guy's messing with my head. I didn't know it, that was, excuse me, what it was, but that's what it was. And so the sessions went on, I learned what I had to learn from the studio guys.

• 26:44Billy Corgan?

  What did you, we're both coughing.

• 26:49Billy Corgan?

  Right, the plague.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Allergies.

• 26:57Billy Corgan?

  Obviously now you know that it turned into this classic song, and it's quite a beautiful recording.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love it.

• 27:03Billy Corgan?

  Do you have any, it must have been hard because I realized you were sort of in your feelings at the moment by being somewhat ostracized in this process, and I can imagine it was very difficult, but at the same time are you thinking, wow, this is kind of interesting?

• 27:16Speaker 01

  I was over it, I mean, I was not upset, I was born a happy guy, and so, I mean...

• 27:20Billy Corgan?

  But did you like the song, for example?

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Oh my god, yes, it's so sentimental to me, and I remember the sessions so well, and singing around the mic, we always sang around one mic, and...

• 27:31Billy Corgan?

  How many people would sing around the one mic, then? How many people would sing around the mic when you would do vocal stacks?

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Well, on the first album, it was really just still the four guys, and it wasn't until after we finished the recordings of the songs that Artie went to get a deal for us, Artie Kornfeld, and so we went to a management company, and it was Lenny Stogel, who was the manager for Tommy, not Tommy James, but, go ahead.

• 28:00Billy Corgan?

  Sam the Sham?

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, Sam the Sham.

• 28:03Billy Corgan?

  It says he was the manager of Tommy James, I don't know if that's true.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  No, it's not true.

• 28:06Billy Corgan?

  Okay, Boys and Hearts?

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure, and also...

• 28:11Billy Corgan?

  Royal Guardsmen?

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Yes, Royal Guardsmen, I was gonna say that.

• 28:13Billy Corgan?

  You gotta go real deep to know who the Royal Guardsmen are.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Wait, one more, is Keith, The Wild Kingdom.

• 28:19Billy Corgan?

  98.6.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  98.6.

• 28:20Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, great song.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, he lived there, he lived, we all lived in this one building, 888 Eighth Avenue, between 52nd and 3rd on Eighth Avenue, across from the old Madison Square Garden, and everybody lived in that building, and we were friends with Sam, Linda Eastman lived there, and I would get up for school and she'd pat me on the head because she was Keith's girlfriend at the time.

• 28:42Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember that.

• 28:44Billy Corgan?

  That's pretty cool.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  It was really cool, it was a magical time.

• 28:49Billy Corgan?

  That's why, I think that's partially why I'm obsessed by old recording process. Because the, the, the recording process was set up to capture magic. And when you did, you get these incredible, like, everybody's just on their game that day.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just, it was, that was-

• 29:02Billy Corgan?

  Because you played, you know, the drumming on that song, you know, was a big hit song for your family. You know, you go from "Can't Get Arrested" to playing songs that some guy thinks you're like a kiddie band, to now you have the number two song in America.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:15Billy Corgan?

  And you're on Ed Sullivan.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. That was Ed Sullivan. It was like, that blew us away. Because I remember the day going to the Ed Sullivan Theater. It wasn't called that yet. I just, I forget what it was called then, but it hadn't been renamed yet. And we went there a few days before because they also filmed "To Tell the Truth" there.

• 29:37Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Okay. And so-

• 29:39Billy Corgan?

  Did you get to go watch or something?

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Better than that. They wanted to put my mom on there because who is the real Barbara Cowsill?

• 29:47Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  So, we get there. Now, again, I'm a child, so I see Bud Collier. Now, I know his name as well because he is the voice of Superman in the cartoon.

• 29:56Billy Corgan?

  Ah.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  And he went from "This looks like a job for Superman." And he would change his voice when he turned into Superman. And it's like, there he was, just looking at us, you know? It's in Kitty Carlisle, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean, um, I don't think-

• 30:11Billy Corgan?

  Orson Bean, wow. That's taken me away.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  They were the, they were the panels. And my mom was on that. And, uh-

• 30:18Billy Corgan?

  Oh, there's a video I bet you wish you had.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. I have a lot of stuff now, but not, not as much as I probably should have. But that was really cool. And with the re-Barbara Cowsill, please stand up. And we boys went behind her to stand there. But that was the same stage. But then the next, the next couple of days, we went there to do the Ed Sullivan Show. And you, if you watch us on there, we can't get the grins off our face because we're on the same stage where the Beatles were.

• 30:47Billy Corgan?

  It's cool because if you look on YouTube, there's, there's a rehearsal take of you guys doing it.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:52Billy Corgan?

  And then there's like, the live-

• 30:54Speaker 01

  And the live one, the sound goes out.

• 30:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it's weird.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think that's why, we were scheduled to do 10 shows, but my dad had a drinking problem. And so, he went into the audio booth where nobody's supposed to go. And he, I think he wreaked havoc. I wasn't there to witness that. But that didn't sit well with Bob Preck.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Ed's son-in-law, who was one of the producers of the show. And we did one more Christmas show after that. I think we did two more after that, because I did Weekend Fly, because I remember Carmine had taught me how to twirl my shticks, so.

• 31:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, the internet has different. One says you played on Ed Sullivan twice, and one says you played on Ed Sullivan three times.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:41Billy Corgan?

  I know you played twice in 1967.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:44Billy Corgan?

  A Christmas song, and then I think maybe Indian Lake.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  No, because Indian Lake wasn't out yet. So it was Rain in the Park was the first one, and then we did the medley of like, here's our live show.

• 31:55Billy Corgan?

  Wait, are you saying, "Oh, lonesome me"?

• 31:58Speaker 01

  I did, indeed.

• 31:59Billy Corgan?

  See? It's in there.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Very good, very good, Billy.

• 32:02Billy Corgan?

  Did you see this cool thing where like, your brother, Bill, introduced to everybody, and you sang a little bit?

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, we were introducing ourselves to America.

• 32:09Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. You did Mamas and the Papas.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  We did it, we were a cover band, man, and that was our live show.

• 32:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Even after we recorded all those songs, we never did those live.

• 32:19Billy Corgan?

  Really?

• 32:20Speaker 01

  No, we just did Paperback Rider, Monday, we always opened the show with Monday, Monday, and ended it with Reach Out. We'd do The Cruel War.

• 32:27Billy Corgan?

  So you never played your album recordings, generally speaking?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Mm-mm.

• 32:32Billy Corgan?

  That's crazy.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  I know.

• 32:34Billy Corgan?

  Because there was good stuff in there.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  I thought so. I mean, "Gotta Get Away from Ah," it all, come on. We did Gray Sunny Day, we did, you may not know that one, but that was a cool song, really good vocals. And we did, like, Poor Baby, we did the hits, we did Indian Lake, of course, we did Weekend Fly, we did Hair.

• 32:53Billy Corgan?

  There's that, I don't know if it's like, you guys are at a military base, and your one brother comes up, and he's wearing military garb.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was Operation Entertainment.

• 33:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but like, the vocals are so good.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Dude, I didn't know that existed, and Steve Lukather sends me a thing, he says, "Hey, man, I've been deep diving," and I go, and I'm looking at my phone, "What?", you know, and he says, and I think people yank in my chain, but as I'm older now, I realize we're all the same age, so.

• 33:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  They, we're cool now. Caisels are cool, we weren't cool growing up, man, it hurt, it hurt my older brothers.

• 33:31Billy Corgan?

  Okay, we'll get to that, because.

• 33:36Billy Corgan?

  So you've got this manager Leonard Stogel. So how influential is he in this process? You've got Arnie Kornfeld, right?

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:43Billy Corgan?

  Arty?

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Arty Kornfeld.

• 33:45Billy Corgan?

  So these are the two people kind of, they propel you onto the world stage, so to speak.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Well, yeah.

• 33:50Billy Corgan?

  And in, sorry, in that time, you literally could go from total obscurity to like, you're huge overnight.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:59Billy Corgan?

  Did you, how did that feel? I mean, you're a little kid. Did you really understand what was happening? You know what I mean, from an adult perspective, now that you look back.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  But I was always a kind of like a shy, embarrassed kind of kid. So.

• 34:14Billy Corgan?

  You don't play the drums that way, though.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  I want you to like me.

• 34:17Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  And I want to entertain you, because there's some psychological with performing. But when Arty took us to Lenny Stogel, that's where they did, somebody in that room decided they were going to put my mom in the band. That's when we found out my mom was going to be in the band.

• 34:38Billy Corgan?

  So when, take me into the room when somebody sits you guys down and says, hey, by the way, your mom's joining the band.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  I was probably sitting in the hallway, because we sat in this long hallway, a waiting room hallway, while people are cutting the deal, the management production deal.

• 34:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  And then they got us the MGM contract.

• 34:55Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  I don't remember the exact moment, but all I knew is that our mom was in this band now. So we had to go in and added my mom's vocal to rein the park. And she was not into this. She was a housewife. She was a Navy housewife.

• 35:18Billy Corgan?

  So if she wasn't into it, how did, how did she get kind of wrangled into it?

• 35:24Speaker 01

  My dad, man.

• 35:25Billy Corgan?

  Your father, okay.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  My dad.

• 35:26Billy Corgan?

  I'm just saying, whose idea was it?

• 35:27Speaker 01

  He ran the ship. Well, whose ever idea it was, my dad went, okay, then we're doing that. Your mom's going to be in the band.

• 35:33Billy Corgan?

  So you think somebody said, we think this would be a good idea, and your dad said, absolutely.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 35:37Billy Corgan?

  Absolutely. So then he goes to your mother and says, you're in the band?

• 35:40Speaker 01

  You're in the band. And, I mean, she had the shaking legs, you know? She had a beautiful voice. She would sing in the house. We all sang in the house.

• 35:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. There's, in that medley that you guys do on that Sullivan, you can hear she has a really good voice.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  But she wasn't made for that, but she-

• 35:59Billy Corgan?

  Okay, did anyone ever explain the psychology of putting her in the group?

• 36:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 36:04Billy Corgan?

  All the kids singing makes total sense, right?

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:06Billy Corgan?

  Like, check out these talented kids and they can play whatever. They can play paperback writer. And then, oh, by the way, the mom's in the band. That's where it gets so, in wrestling, we say kabuki.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:17Billy Corgan?

  You know, it gets almost, it's beyond the pale of reality. Like, why does the mom have to be in the band?

• 36:21Speaker 01

  I'm sure that, and I know that affected Bill and Bob, because they were the older guys. Bill, especially Bill.

• 36:27Billy Corgan?

  Listen, you're young and you want to get chicks and suddenly it's like, oh, and my mom's in the band.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Well, and you want to, you're, you, it's not even about the chicks. It's like, we're a serious band, it's like now, anyway.

• 36:40Billy Corgan?

  Sounds very 60s, right? It's like-

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, we wanted to be the Beatles and Stones still.

• 36:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Okay? And that wasn't gonna happen with the mom in the band. But I will say hindsight is that we probably wouldn't have gotten famous if we didn't have that.

• 36:55Billy Corgan?

  You think it was like a cool gimmick, or?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  I guess so. I guess so.

• 37:00Billy Corgan?

  Was something that people remembered, or? Because it looks, nothing against your mother, God bless her.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 37:07Billy Corgan?

  But I'm saying, but it looks very mystifying to me from a distance.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  It's odd. And, but because-

• 37:13Billy Corgan?

  Because the normal assumption would be it was a stage mom thing, you know, like-

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:18Billy Corgan?

  Because I dealt in a situation once where the mother insisted on being involved with a band that was younger. And you kept saying, why does your mom have to be involved? It was, so I just assumed it was a similar dynamic. She was like, oh, I'm gonna get in on this.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  No, she just, she just was there and she was a good camper, you know? And she sang great and she sounded great in the stack and we made a career doing that. And we got famous because of that, probably. And then they added my sister, who was very talented, great singer, my sister Susan. And Paul came in later when Bill had to go to school, so he started filling in for Bill.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it just, it went from four to six to...

• 38:01Billy Corgan?

  Seven, right?

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, to seven.

• 38:04Billy Corgan?

  Something like that.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Something like that.

• 38:06Billy Corgan?

  It's confusing.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  I'm confused. I don't even like to think about it. I'm so, I'm so like, don't fill my head with too much stuff, but you're about to.

• 38:14Billy Corgan?

  Sorry. Well, I mean, my, my real interest is, I want to talk to you because I'm very interested in this period of time in music, but also your experience is so unique. And I think your family band is oftentimes overlooked. And, and I would know because I was one of those people that was overlooking. You know what I'm saying?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 38:34Billy Corgan?

  And I, I guess, maybe it's my own thing, but I get offended when people overlook what I do because they just think like, I joke, I always make is, oh, you're the rat in the cage guy.

• 38:44Billy Corgan?

  Right?

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't get it.

• 38:45Billy Corgan?

  You know, it's like, oh, you're the, you're the Partridge Family band. You know, it's like when people reduce you to kind of the one sentence. And when I really look at what your family accomplished, it's like, no, there's a much more interesting and there's a lot of musical depth there.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:59Billy Corgan?

  That's the part that surprised me when I, when I really dove into the catalog of your family.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Especially the later stuff after the hits were done, you know, we were an experimental band.

• 39:09Billy Corgan?

  Don't jump ahead.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  I can do what I want.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  I'm the youngest brother. Nobody tells me what to do. I had five older brothers and, and two ex-wives.

• 39:19Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so take, we'll get there too if you want.

• 39:23Billy Corgan?

  Again, it's, it's almost like a, like a kind of a running gag, but you know, you're 11 years old, you're, you know what I mean, you're, you know, you're on national TV, you're editing, you're entering puberty.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Right, man, that was tough going through puberty in public.

• 39:37Billy Corgan?

  Right?

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:39Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so you got all that.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:40Billy Corgan?

  You've got a brother who's a musical savant by all estimations. I'm sure there are other siblings that were very headstrong. I've seen some interviews with your sister. She doesn't exactly seem like a wilting flower.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  No, everybody's got a strong personality.

• 39:56Billy Corgan?

  So that's what makes it interesting though, right? You know, I mean, this is, it's just really interesting dynamic and I can't think of any other...

• 40:04Billy Corgan?

  In the 70, 80 years of rock history, I think your family stands alone in this dynamic. I can't think of anything that even comes close. Could you?

• 40:13Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 40:13Billy Corgan?

  Beach Boys, maybe? I mean, you know.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:16Billy Corgan?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think any family band is gonna have that certain.

• 40:24Billy Corgan?

  Right. Situation. So, what I'm asking you to do here is maybe pause for a second. So, and you could pick any point in this heightened, because I read somewhere you guys were doing about 200 shows a year. I don't know if that's accurate, but.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  With who?

• 40:37Billy Corgan?

  With you guys at this point.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  The Cowshills?

• 40:39Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, we never were off the road.

• 40:41Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so you're doing, you're constantly playing, you're a young kid, and oh, by the way, these are your siblings. You still have all the typical thing, like you stole my toothbrush, you know what I mean? How did, but I mean, did the, did the public notoriety affect the family relationships? Or did the family relationship supersede whatever was happening in the world?

• 41:02Speaker 01

  We lived in our own little bubble. We all got along, so the kids, you know, we all got along, you know? Yeah, I don't know, it just was, they're my family. And there was no falling out of any kind of thing with us. But we also didn't share more than we needed to with each other because we were always avoiding getting in trouble.

• 41:28Billy Corgan?

  Because?

• 41:29Speaker 01

  My dad.

• 41:30Billy Corgan?

  Is this the authoritarian type of?

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, that was always been behind your head, you know, that's, you're always thinking about that, you know? He's the type of guy who wore a Ray-Bans so you never know where he was looking.

• 41:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but that's gotta be tough if you guys are generating all this income and, were you conscious of that? Because like when I, when I interviewed Corey Feldman, for example, he had to emancipate from his parents because they were siphoning off his money and he was, so he was conscious of like that he was providing for his family. So on one hand, there was pride, and the other hand, it was kind of like, I don't have control of where this ship is going.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, none at all. You know, we had, I think they set up trust funds for us, I mean, if that's, that's what you're kind of talking about.

• 42:12Billy Corgan?

  No, no, I don't know anything about it, but I'm.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  No, no, but I, I never thought about that, you know, it's always provided for, but, and I remember when we first got allowances, it's like, like Barry got $15 something, I don't remember getting anything, but.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  Interesting, I hadn't thought about that for so long.

• 42:32Billy Corgan?

  I just wonder if-

• 42:32Speaker 01

  But I do remember that we did make the money and we were the ones making the money. Not my dad per se, although, you know, we're a unit of course, so.

• 42:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  My dad was really smart and that he got it as far as it did, because he did. I mean, it started, I mean, he would do like when we were starting out. We'd just drive to Brown University and my dad knocked on the door of the commons room there and said, "Hey, Joe Blow sent us here, where do we set up?" And these are young kids, you know.

• 43:09Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  And they don't want to be, "Well, just come on in here." And he would open all the windows and by the end of the afternoon, we had played all afternoon in this place and we played every frat party in Brown University.

• 43:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, wow.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  From that and just-

• 43:25Billy Corgan?

  So we had the moxie to kind of-

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, had he gone to school, he would have been smart.

• 43:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  He would have been a-

• 43:31Billy Corgan?

  Did your father have any musical talent?

• 43:33Speaker 01

  No, they'd throw him off Times Square at New Year's singing. You know, he had, he did not have any. I think it came from my mom's dad, a strange father. I've learned like really recently, within the last two years, that he was a vaudevillian hoofer and-

• 43:52Billy Corgan?

  There had to be something, yeah.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't know that and I just, I really want to have family in my life because I'm older and I never paid attention to, we had a core cousin group, but like I'm reaching out even out to these, because like I want to know something about our history because we got nothing from my dad's side. I don't know anything about his side other than he had a sister and she had a son named Ronnie. I don't know my dad's history. You know, my parents didn't talk about stuff back then anyway, you know.

• 44:24Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it was a different world.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  So.

• 44:27Billy Corgan?

  So about 68, you guys moved to California.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was a trip, man. We came off a promotional tour. And they were telling us, you're gonna be living in California. We're going, no way. And we went from, we went from nothing, from zero to a hundred. And we, they dropped us in this house in Santa Monica on San Vicente, 19th Street, corner house, tennis courts, Olympic swimming pool. And like, just, I mean, it's just like amazing. My god, it was just amazing. And it lasted a short while, but it was so fun to have that.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  But, and then we recorded, we were still recording, but now. And the reason we moved to California is because all the record companies left New York.

• 45:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  During that period, and so we migrated here as well. It was great, it was a great thing to have happen. So I couldn't wait to say I live in California.

• 45:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  And we lived in this neighborhood, and like I said, we're stickball guys. So, and we always, you know, if you moved, we were Navy brats. So when you moved, you wanted to find out who the kids were in the neighborhoods. So I'm walking down La Mesa Drive, you know, all these mansions and stuff, knocking on doors, saying, any kids here, you know? And, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're like the Beverly Hillbillies in this neighborhood.

• 45:55Billy Corgan?

  Ah, I see.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Cause we're playing stickball in the street, you know? Ours are trying to get by, and who are these people? You know? And, and then they found out who we were. So some of the local kids would come and hang in our tree and scrawl things, but really didn't want to interact. And then, then they wanted to interact, and we'd be rehearsing, and we had a pool house, so we made that the rehearsal room. We'd be rehearsing there, we'd see kids in the back windows, and that was okay, you know? We didn't care about that. But then they started like jumping over our wall, jumping on the trampoline, and just kinda being mischievous. I mean, this is how I remember it. And, I don't know, it just kinda got dark.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  And I'm fan fear kinda guy, I've always been that way. You know, I was never good at being a celebrity person, you know? Cause I just grew up doing it, so I didn't ever think of myself as anything other than this kid, you know, who happened to play music. And I think my, my family members felt that way too. We never. Had big egos about anything like that. So I just remember one day our house was TP'd, toilet papered in the trees. And we came in and all our instruments from the pool house were in the swimming pool.

• 47:16Billy Corgan?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  I mean, organs, drums, guitars floating and this stuff. And the cops came out and...

• 47:21Billy Corgan?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was the neighborhood kids. And you couldn't touch them because they lived behind doors and they tried to... It was a big, it was a big deal. But that, that was kind of mean, I thought, you know? Steal this stuff, don't ruin it.

• 47:39Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  If you're gonna be a... Just, that was a weird thing to have happen, wasn't it?

• 47:44Billy Corgan?

  That's a very strange, symbolic...

• 47:46Speaker 01

  I would never do that. Ah, never forget it.

• 47:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  And living in California and then had that big earthquake, must have been sixty-nine or seventy, and we didn't know what that was either. Never heard of an earthquake, I mean, like, for real.

• 48:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, the real one. Yeah, when you first out here and you have a real one, you're like,

• 48:04Speaker 01

  I mean...

• 48:04Billy Corgan?

  I want to go back home.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Some of my brothers stayed asleep through it and didn't care. And then like some of us were like, I mean, just what the heck is this? And I remember looking out one of the windows trying to hold on. And like the pool was just being emptied. And, and I remember my dad, because he was a boiler tender in the Navy, he thought the furnace was blowing up downstairs. So he's trying to get downstairs and he's falling on his butt, you know? Couldn't get down there. That was a major thing, too, living in California.

• 48:34Billy Corgan?

  Are you, are you in school at this point or is it...

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Oh, school, yeah. Yeah, I went to school a little bit. I went to a... When I was in New York, I think I went to school for a couple of months. And that was in...

• 48:49Billy Corgan?

  But how did you guys sort of skirt the, the laws about being in school?

• 48:52Speaker 01

  There were no laws.

• 48:53Billy Corgan?

  So you're just...

• 48:54Speaker 01

  There were no laws. The, what do they call it, correspondence schools really hadn't set in yet.

• 49:02Billy Corgan?

  So you're just touring and working and...

• 49:05Speaker 01

  We had a suitcase with like a Sharpie, I guess it was a Sharpie, magic marker saying, "Cousins Instant School." So we took schools, I went to a Catholic school briefly and it was, I was going into sixth grade and we were just starting touring. And I remember seeing that, we took our school books, but I don't think we ever opened them but once or twice on the tour. And my dad said, "Well, the traveling is good education for you kids." You know what it was? And I'm a reader, so as long as you can read, you'll be fine. I didn't like school. I didn't like, I didn't like the, especially when I, when I went to, we moved to New York and I was starting sixth grade, well, starting, I was there for two

• 49:48Speaker 01

  months, like I said, and I, and I was fearful of that report card. I got an F, two Ds and a C. And growing up with bad report cards, you, you, you got, you got beat up for that by my dad. So that wasn't, you know, that's when I prayed to Jesus, you know, whether I believed in him. I, "I promise I will believe you this time if you just get me out of this hot water," you know?

• 50:13Billy Corgan?

  So, one other interesting thing, I'm, I'm, there's the, there's the basic story in, if you want to get into it, of you guys doing hair, but I'm more interested in the recording, because it's such a unique recording for its time. It kind of presages a lot of things that come later. It's even in Queen, I was listening to it, it's almost like hearing Queen before Queen. All that, all that crazy vocal stacking you guys are doing.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  I'll never forget.

• 50:39Billy Corgan?

  You played on that record, "I'm Crazy," because I, I read something about how hard it was to record. Because there's a lot of crazy time shifts, but I don't know if that's true, you know, you tell me.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Okay, so, we're approached by Carl Reiner, who was doing-

• 50:55Billy Corgan?

  A Thousand Year Old Man.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. And he's doing this special TV show called-

• 51:01Billy Corgan?

  The Wonderful World of Pizzazz.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  And you fill my, fill my blanks in for me. So- He says he wanted us to lip sync the song from the Broadway musical. And my brother Bill said, "Hmm, no.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  We'll record a version of it and we'll lip sync that, but we're not gonna..." You know, because Carl wanted us to have leathers and chains and long hair and stuff because it would be the antithesis of the council's image.

• 51:30Billy Corgan?

  The red, you guys had the red sweater vest, that's one of your looks.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no tuxedos right now, boys. So we had a blast. I owned that wig. I felt like Jack Bruce for like a whole day. And we got to keep the wigs and stuff. I just, I'd put it on when I'm alone, I want long hair like this, you know.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  But I remember the recording very well. And in fact, Mix Magazine had called my brother Bob and wanted to do an article on the recording of hair. And this is a funny thing. And Bob calls me up, he says, "Well, you and I are the only ones alive who were there for that, so you want to do this one?" And I said, "Yeah, man, because I remember TG and G and Angel, the engineer Angel." And Bob goes, "What are you talking about? We did it at United." I said, "No, we didn't. We did it at this studio." And the guy's name was Angel. I thought that was a unique name for a man.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  "Johnny, we didn't do that." And so, you know, Bob and I have this little dynamic sometimes, you know, because I'm the younger sibling still. That never really goes away.

• 52:39Billy Corgan?

  Of course, yeah.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  And I said, and I just, I shut it down. I said, "Then you do the interview. I'm not, I'm not going to join you on that. So you just go do whatever you want." No, he's telling me, "Well, look it on Wikipedia, you know, I gave Ben Jordan a gold record." I said, "Okay, well, go, fine." So I was out of that interview.

• 52:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  So, two days later, the guy from Mix Magazine calls me up, "Hey, you want to do this interview?" I said, "No, I'm not doing it. My brother Bob's gonna do it with you."

• 53:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  "Why?" I said, "Because we disagree on where it was recorded."

• 53:12Speaker 01

  He says, I said, so I don't, I'm not gonna, it's not worth my energy. He says, well, this is easy. Just tell me what you know and I'll, I'll check it out for you. I went, okay, he's a jerk. This is great. I said, okay, here's what I think. It was either TTNG or TGNG. I said, and the building was a, a white stucco building and it had a black stripe with this blue writing TGNG and going up the stair outside up to the room. And I think it was on like Highland or something. I said, and there was, the engineer guy's name was Angel.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  So he called me back two hours later. He says, yeah, yeah, I just talked to Angel Ballister.

• 53:58Billy Corgan?

  Oh, my God.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  And, and your brother Bill gave him a gold record where he tore out the RAF sign and wrote to Angel Ballister, thanks so much, because my brother Bill got that studio for us. Now, we always recorded at United, but this was for a TV show and we were just gonna do this ourselves. And I, I just felt so vindicated after that.

• 54:19Billy Corgan?

  Basically, you guys produced the record.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Bill and Bob produced that and, and it took 58 tapes because I kept slowing the goddamn bridge down. And I'll never forget that and where everybody was sitting in the room. And, and it was Angel Ballister, man. That was so cool. I was so glad to be right.

• 54:37Billy Corgan?

  With all those, because there's got all those weird stops in it. There's no, but I'm saying there's no click track. So how do you, how do you manage to record like that?

• 54:45Speaker 01

  That's how I never, everybody recorded without a click track.

• 54:47Billy Corgan?

  No, what I'm saying is, what I'm trying to say is there's all those weird stops and there's like vocal breaks. Is somebody singing live and that's sort of like the guide and then?

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, usually.

• 54:57Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, just simple. We knew the song. I knew how to, how it went.

• 55:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I'm just saying, I don't know how we, how people recorded back then.

• 55:04Speaker 01

  We count the holes. And like everybody who tries to play that song, they always play the beginning wrong. So I think it's funny when they try to bring the drums in.

• 55:11Billy Corgan?

  So would you air count the hold or would somebody, yeah, okay?

• 55:13Speaker 01

  I'd count it out.

• 55:14Billy Corgan?

  Okay, yeah. See, that's what I'm saying. I'm just trying to understand.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Ah, in two, three, give me a head with, you know, so it was always like that.

• 55:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:24Billy Corgan?

  Such a cool record. It holds up so well.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Echo on the vocals, ah, so cool sounding. And, and we didn't know it was gonna be a single. We just recorded it for the TV show.

• 55:33Billy Corgan?

  The story goes that. Somebody took it to the label and the label said, "We don't want to release it."

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 55:40Billy Corgan?

  And one of your brothers played it at WLS in Chicago.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  And we were there.

• 55:44Billy Corgan?

  Got a strong reaction. And they still didn't want to release it.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  No, and that guy got fired, but that song went on fire just from that. How is that possible?

• 55:54Billy Corgan?

  Just from that one time.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Just from that one time.

• 55:55Billy Corgan?

  And that song also went to number two.

• 55:59Billy Corgan?

  I do have a trivia question. I think I wrote it down. Okay. You didn't get to number one. Who, what was the number one song that kept you from the number one spot?

• 56:08Speaker 01

  If it was Hair, it was Aquarius.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  Fifth dimension. But I think, but on Billboard, Hair did go to number one. It was Rain in the Park that went to number two.

• 56:19Billy Corgan?

  Well, you know, the internet.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  They're wrong.

• 56:25Billy Corgan?

  As soon as we get out of this interview, I'm gonna...

• 56:26Speaker 01

  You go right ahead.

• 56:28Billy Corgan?

  I'll take you. You were there.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  I was there.

• 56:31Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 56:35Billy Corgan?

  I don't want to do the thing where they cut to the end of the movie and it gets dark, but...

• 56:40Billy Corgan?

  Well, there's, because, because I've been there in this sense of the word.

• 56:47Billy Corgan?

  We can sit there and slow down the time and say, "This happened, this happened." But I know, and you know, that when you're in those compressed times, it just flies by. It's like a blur.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Like lightning.

• 56:56Billy Corgan?

  Right. I mean, it goes so fast. So you can, somebody could say, "Oh, you were on this show." And you're like, "Yeah, I kind of remember that." But the aggregate is a blur.

• 57:05Billy Corgan?

  But the first time of any kind of real weirdness in the whole thing, and you can talk about the, let's call it the record company side of it, is where your father fires your brother.

• 57:16Billy Corgan?

  Flamingo, 1970.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Wow, yeah, I mean, that's where it started.

• 57:22Billy Corgan?

  Is, is that the building up of a lot of tension over time? Or is it just an incident?

• 57:28Speaker 01

  You know, when we moved to California...

• 57:40Speaker 01

  There's so much that pre- that prestates this conversation.

• 57:44Billy Corgan?

  You tell it however you want, because I'm interested.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  So when we're in Rhode Island, and we're playing those clubs, four sets a night, there's another band in that town, and they're called The Orphans. And that's Wadi Waktel's band.

• 57:57Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we're all playing in Newport, Rhode Island, at the same time, 1965, 1966. And somebody says, "You gotta go check these guys out." So he comes into the Mutchingo King, and you'll hear Wadi say, "What the [bleep] is this? Who are these kids who can sing this [bleep] and stone and all this stuff?" Well...

• 58:24Billy Corgan?

  And for people who don't know, Wadi Waktel is a legendary session guitar player in town, played on a ton of famous records. Most people would know him from his years of playing with Stevie Nicks.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:34Billy Corgan?

  So Wadi's a very successful person.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Very successful. So him and Bill, we just became friends forever. I mean, every Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner, he'd come with the band, all the guys from the band. We just, and I would go watch him, you know, and Wadi'd be playing this Gretchen. Instead of getting a new machine for his guitar, he'd just use pliers to tune it, you know. So those are the early days. And then I just met so many people who are famous now. Like, The Pigeons would play a club there, and that was Carmine and Tim Bogart.

• 59:07Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  It was pre-Vanilla Fudge.

• 59:09Billy Corgan?

  And Cactus.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  And Cactus. And they'd come over and use our gear to rehearse, and you know. And Carmine taught me how to do the phony twirl. But then I learned to actually dog and pony the regular sticks, which I never do, but I can do it. So now we're in California and Billy's still friends with Wadi. And you know, and they're smoking pot and doing all sorts of stuff now. And I remember one afternoon coming out into the driveway. We had like nine cars in this circle thing, you know, because we're doing good and leasing every kind of car. And my dad calls us out to show us Bill's car and on the floor, there's all these things, I think roaches, you know.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Look what your brother's doing, you know, it's like, okay, what does this all mean? I'm just backing up. I don't want to be part of this thing. And, and all I remember is, um, he must've been stewing about that. My dad must've been stewing because literally Billy, we are in two state, well, now we're down to the station wagon tours. It just went down so quick.

• 1:00:17Billy Corgan?

  Is that because stopped having hits or?

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  Just, I don't know why, man, but we're, we're not spending money on flights now. Now we're in these cars and, and it was during the days you could tour and we got a, we have a suburban truck with a rack on it and we're carrying three sets of Shure Volca Masters. So that's our, our sound system for everything, which was cool. And, and literally we're going out that driveway and the car stops. And I wasn't in the car that this happened and all I see is my dad get out of the car and Bill gets out of the car and my dad pulls his guitar out of the back thing and throws it on the driveway and we take off to go do the tour.

• 1:01:00Billy Corgan?

  So that's when he fired him? Okay.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  That's, that, that's the actual year out.

• 1:01:06Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  And, and the flamenco thing you're talking about started it.

• 1:01:12Billy Corgan?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:01:13Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  When he grabbed his hands and I remember this whole thing.

• 1:01:17Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  But I remember the energy around that day and, and.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:25Billy Corgan?

  That's tough.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  I'm glad somebody did that to my dad. But, and, and, and the cops did come and take him away. So, that was cool.

• 1:01:34Billy Corgan?

  But that's tough. I mean.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  It is tough.

• 1:01:36Billy Corgan?

  Because it's such a beautiful story. You know, it's, it's a very American story.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:41Billy Corgan?

  The family band.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Yes, of course. I mean, we were, we, and I get it from fans. Oh, you got us through our hard times. We wanted to be like you guys. You don't know the half of it, kids. But, you know, you're always somebody else's angel.

• 1:01:55Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:01:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  But that was the day. And, I mean, that pressure on my brother Bob, who is Bill's partner. That's how I look at it. Those two really controlled the band. Bill, Bill more than Bob, but Bob was right there next to him the whole time.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  All of a sudden, no rehearsals, nothing. We're just on tour. We have to rearrange everything.

• 1:02:16Billy Corgan?

  Oh, my God. And your, and your brother's a really good singer. It's not like you just can.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Oh, he was our best singer. Oh, God.

• 1:02:26Billy Corgan?

  So now Bob's suddenly having to sing all the leads. And then it obviously changes who's singing harmony and.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  I'm like, yeah, on the fly. We can do that because we, I mean, we can sing with anybody. And if I hear you're, if I hear you're not going to the right place, I'll hit that right. I'll, I'll fill in that void if, if you stay on your part. I, we're all vocal arrangers.

• 1:02:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  Naturally, so.

• 1:02:49Billy Corgan?

  That's cool.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:51Billy Corgan?

  So, in a kind of summary way, but if you want to go into depth, please do. You know, there's this sense that it all starts to kind of dissipate. Is it because it's the businesses leaving you or the, or the cohesion that kept you guys together?

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Things are changing. And when you're doing something for so long, you don't know how to get out of it.

• 1:03:14Billy Corgan?

  But the funny thing is, it wasn't that long.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  No. And, and that's another point.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  But for me, seven to 16 is a long time.

• 1:03:23Billy Corgan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  And that's, that's the start of my career, not the famous start.

• 1:03:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  So, to us, it's like a long time. And everything seems like a long time. When you tell a story to someone, you'll go, oh, I used to always do that. Well, you didn't always used to do that. You probably did that two or three times. But the shadow of the memory lasts.

• 1:03:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. But, but we're, we're on our way down. Well, you can just feel it. We lost Bill.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  We're still doing cover songs at the shows, you know. And losing members here, Paul went to the Navy, so he split. Then it was Bob, Barry, me, my mom and Susan. And somehow, Mom left Susan. I don't know how that all happened, it just happened so quick. And I don't remember the details of it. But it ended up being three of us, Bob, Barry and me. And we're playing Who songs, you know, Ben Paul Wizard. I was like, what the? Oh my God. And, and, and still the same stuff.

• 1:04:24Billy Corgan?

  Is it true that you guys got fired from a gig because you wouldn't play the hits or something?

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  No, I never got fired from a gig for doing that.

• 1:04:31Billy Corgan?

  I read that somewhere.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  Well, there's only one time where we didn't do the hits. And that was like the later incarnations of.

• 1:04:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I'm just talking about in this, in this period where it's.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  No, never got fired for not doing hits, never. We always did the hits, no matter what.

• 1:04:46Billy Corgan?

  So.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  But it was just waning. And we didn't want to do it anymore, still wearing tuxedos for crying out loud. Ah, Billy, it just went.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  And so.

• 1:05:01Billy Corgan?

  And Vegas on top of it all.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  And we're just afraid of my dad. So we finally, we were in Texas somewhere. Don't remember the year exactly, but it had to been early seventies. And, and Bob Barry and I said, let's, let's end this thing.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  And I remember, kind of scared to do that. And we went in and into the hotel room and we called our dad in. And we're sitting there and we said, and we said, we want this to end. We don't want to be in the councils anymore.

• 1:05:35Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  And he, he was really quiet. And he didn't do what we all expected was like get mad and try to.

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  Control the situation. Guys, if you just give me a chance, we can get right back up on top. Well, you know, the reality of actually doing that.

• 1:05:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it's tough. It's far tougher because once you've done it and it's gone down, then people lose faith.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:06:01Billy Corgan?

  Something that's never happened.

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  It doesn't happen often, a re-fame. It doesn't happen often. You'll get a career if you want to have it.

• 1:06:09Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  Like, the councils are out there right now, and they just put a new album out not that long ago. Chances of fires hitting twice, not great, especially in the music business that we live in now, which it's one I can't maneuver very easily.

• 1:06:25Billy Corgan?

  It's complicated.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  It's interesting. I'm trying to do it right now with a new project with my wife, but that's another story.

• 1:06:32Billy Corgan?

  We're gonna get to that, too.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, we tell him that, and then he tried to coax us, "I got this song that's gonna be a hit, and it's gonna, it'll get us back on the map." And I don't, I think somebody recorded it finally. It was called "Ooh Weep, Chirpy Chirpy Cheap Cheap." What do you get when you da-da-dum? Ooh weep chirpy chirpy cheap cheap. God, I gotta sing soon. I can't believe I'm having this crap. It was just, you're kidding. Indian Lake was bad enough.

• 1:07:10Billy Corgan?

  You didn't like Indian Lake?

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  Me personally, I was okay with it.

• 1:07:17Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  It was a good arrangement, but if you hear my brother Bill talk about it, because he got the demo, he said, "They handed me this piece of [BLEEP]. He said that I had to whip into some kind of pop possibility." And we had changed producers by this time.

• 1:07:34Billy Corgan?

  He did it.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  This was with, the producer was Wes Farrell, and... Who did Hang On Sloopy, so we thought that was kinda cool. But he came in and we're in A and R Studios in New York. And we're doing this thing and we went out to do the vocals. He says, "Okay, that's great, guys." And we looked at him and was like, "We're not done." You know, he didn't know about double-tracking vocals.

• 1:07:56Billy Corgan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Interesting. I thought that was an interesting thing.

• 1:08:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, a lot of the family groups or even like Crosby, Stills, they had to triple-track. Would you guys double or triple-track?

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  Okay, what we would do, we would double-track. And then we'd try a third because sometimes a third could mute the whole two. It would make it seem thinner for some reason. So we'd change the parts around.

• 1:08:19Billy Corgan?

  That's something to do with phasing.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:08:22Billy Corgan?

  So you'd change who would sing what?

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  On the third one.

• 1:08:25Billy Corgan?

  Ah, that's interesting.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:27Billy Corgan?

  Because your family blend is very unique.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you could take two of us and it would still sound like us. It's so funny. And in our separate projects, it's just there.

• 1:08:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's a cool thing. I'm jealous as the singer of the family. One time I was in a car with my brother and he started singing. My brother doesn't sing at all. And he forgot I was in the car and he started singing. It was my voice coming out of another human being. And I begged him to do something with me. You know, sing on record or something.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, did he?

• 1:08:56Billy Corgan?

  No, he has zero musical interest. But he's got the same voice. It was like...

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  That interesting.

• 1:09:01Billy Corgan?

  And when you have a distinct voice, it's bizarre to hear that sound coming out of another human being. I'd never heard it. I'd never heard him sing in my life. And here we are in our 40s, you know? And it was this sort of epiphany moment of like, "Wow, you can do that." And he was like, "No, I don't want to do it."

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  I understand thousands wouldn't.

• 1:09:20Billy Corgan?

  So, thank you so much for being so generous about these stories because I think it's such a beautiful story. And in a way, it's sad that it ends up kind of the way it does. How do you... Okay, so start here. How do you view it in hindsight? Do you see as... If we hit the brakes in 1972 or something, is it a positive in your mind? Is what it did to your family, is the positive... Does... Do the positives outweigh the negatives?

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  I don't feel any pain whatsoever from any of it. I only have...

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  Nice memories. I only remember the good shit anyway, that's just my personality. So, the bad stuff, just, I don't waste my time with it.

• 1:10:00Billy Corgan?

  Did it have a lingering effect on the family relationships? Even just like, between the siblings?

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  It did on Barry and Bill. Because they really, it really messed with Bill and Barry.

• 1:10:11Billy Corgan?

  So, if somebody as talented as your brother Bill, why didn't he kind of carry on, or?

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  He did.

• 1:10:17Billy Corgan?

  But didn't seem like it never went anywhere, so?

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  It doesn't matter if it went anywhere, he didn't care about where it goes. He just kept doing it.

• 1:10:24Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so?

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  He just was a real guy, man, and we just liked to sing and we liked to play.

• 1:10:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  And he was revered by his people up in Canada. Bill had a tough time, he was an alcoholic, schizophrenic. Okay, so seventy-two's over, now seventy-four comes in. And, you know, my brother Paul's got a deal with Capitol. We're calling ourselves Bridey Murphy. We're asking Lindsey Bunkingham to be in it, Waddy's in the band, Barry's in the band. I get called from Rhode Island, I'm playing at a band called Grease the Cat, just a cover band, playing cool shit. Ah, I had a great time doing that. And I came to California, and we're in the studio, and Bill's there, and, you know,

• 1:11:14Speaker 01

  he says, "Oh, I see you got Ringo drums," he's like, being really weird and stuff. And I say, "Yeah." And, you know, we're doing drugs and drinking, everybody's doing all sorts of shit. And, so we go into the studio, and he's just, he's impossible to work with, Bill. So, he kind of gets...

• 1:11:32Billy Corgan?

  Is that just the way he was?

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  He was schizophrenic and an alcoholic. So, he's drinking blue Smirnoff in his back pocket all day long. He's sitting on the floor, tuning his guitar like John Sebastian for two days, you know, and not getting anywhere. We've got John Carter at Capitol, he says, "So, how's it going over there?" "Oh, everything's fine," you know. So, literally, Waddy had to fire him.

• 1:11:55Billy Corgan?

  Goodness.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  And Waddy took over production of this project called Bridey Murphy. And, so, we're doing vocals out at Sound City with Keith Olson. And...

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  And we're doing The Time Is Coming, so we're out on the mic. And we see this figure come in the booth. And it's my brother Bill. And I see the cowboy hat and the long coat he's got on. And all we see, it's like slow motion. He goes to the two-inch MCI tape recorder and pulls the tape off and sits on the floor. And he's shoving it in his mouth and he's doing all this. Paul leaves the main studio and runs in there. And there is a brawl in the studio. And Keith Olson is like, God bless him, man. He was afraid of us for years after that. He's, no cowshoes around here. You guys are crazy, you know? And that happened.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  And I think Jackson and Warren wrote a song the night Billy ate the tape. Interesting. And then, okay, so there's that moment. That fizzled. And so then, I'm playing with Jan and Dean. And I told Bob and Paul and Susan, I said, you know, we could get some gigs, you know, if you want to. I said, I know these booking people now. I've been playing with Jan and Dean five years. Yeah. And we said, okay, well, we'll talk about that. So I went to see Dick Clark in his office. And he had the Cavalcada Stars kind of thing still. And then, we said, oh, we'll think about that. And so we went outside. We said, no, we're not gonna do that. Let's go do a new album.

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  And so we went in to the studio and tried to do some things. And made some demos. And then, we played them for Jackson Brown. And he knew a guy named Chuck Plotkin, who produced Bruce Springsteen's stuff. You know, he was mixing Darkness on the Edge of Town at the time. And we met him and he heard this stuff. And we started this relationship with him. We ended up at Clover Studios and we recorded an album called Cocaine Drain.

• 1:14:06Billy Corgan?

  I listened to some of that.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:08Billy Corgan?

  Very interesting.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  And some good stuff.

• 1:14:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. It really showcased Susan's vocal prowess. And us as musicians, you know? We played with Buzzie Featon, Ernie Watts, Billy Payne. They all came in. It felt, that made me feel good. I didn't care if we ever got famous, that we were being... Appreciated now on that level with other musicians and stuff, you know. Don't care about the fame part. Just wanna be a cool guy for a second.

• 1:14:39Speaker 01

  But that ended up going nowhere because

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  there was nobody to say, "Okay, you're done. You're done." Creativity kept getting in the way. It was like five years of recording.

• 1:14:51Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  Becoming better songwriters.

• 1:14:53Billy Corgan?

  That's crazy.

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  It's crazy. But through that, you know, I hung out there. I lived at Clover. I loved hanging out. Got to know Bruce and Steve Vincent and these guys there. And Chuck had other projects. He had the Bob Dylan project there. Came in the Shot of Love album. He had Tommy Two Tones. I got to sing and play percussion on that.

• 1:15:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  And...

• 1:15:17Billy Corgan?

  Eight, six, seven, five, six.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I sang on a Bette Midler thing, you know, Frills. So Chuck was really nice to me. He really, he made me... Because I was always thinking I'm sucking my whole life because, you know, I just felt like I sucked. And Chuck said, "Actually, you don't." He says, "You're really good or you wouldn't be in here." I said, "You know." So that really helped me out a lot. And that's why he gave me some sessions and stuff. Nothing major.

• 1:15:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  But made me feel good. And now when people say, you know, I'm this and that. And I tell people, "I may not be the best drummer, but I have the best time being one." And I don't care anymore. I'm just there to lay into it, you know. And I sing and play and people...

• 1:16:02Billy Corgan?

  But see, that's the beautiful thing. Because I was watching you play with the Beach Boys and I thought, "Who is this person?"

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:09Billy Corgan?

  You know, something about the way you played made me

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  I mean it.

• 1:16:12Billy Corgan?

  Ask the question.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  I just love that. And I love to play those songs. And, you know, I'm not a shredder. But I care about what I'm doing, you know. And I just love doing it.

• 1:16:25Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so last question.

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:16:29Billy Corgan?

  For people that would watch this interview and see us talking about this band, I mean, yes, they're still out playing, but in terms of the spiritual essence of what started, you know, kind of dissipated in the early 70s, like, what would you want people to know about that time or about the family of the band? Is that too strange a question?

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  I don't know how to answer it. We'd had a lot of fun and made some music. It gave me a career. It was my university of becoming who I am today.

• 1:17:01Billy Corgan?

  There's a sort of, I hate to use the word because it's not a better word for me at the moment, but like, there's a certain innocence in it because you are a family and you're just making good music.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:10Billy Corgan?

  And there was a time in American culture where that was enough.

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:14Billy Corgan?

  And it rose to these beautiful heights because of what it was.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  Oh, you're sweet.

• 1:17:19Billy Corgan?

  That's how I feel.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's endearing to me, especially as I get older and look back. And it's amazing what they did. And I say "they," I mean, I'm a totally different person, but...

• 1:17:30Billy Corgan?

  I really recommend that people go watch some of the YouTube clips of you guys playing live.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:36Billy Corgan?

  But I mean, the level of talent in the family is kind of shocking.

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:40Billy Corgan?

  So, because I want to touch on this, so you're married to Vicky of the Bangles?

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  Yes, I am.

• 1:17:47Billy Corgan?

  Beautiful woman.

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  She is awesome.

• 1:17:49Billy Corgan?

  So you guys are playing under your own names?

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:52Billy Corgan?

  So is it just your full names or is there...

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's Vicky Peterson and John Causell. We put her name first because we realized that on all documents from the bank and loans and everything, they always want the guy's name first, taxes, even if I'm not making any money and she's making. It's like, so that's a little funny thing that we decided, but we've been married almost 23 years and we never would do anything with each other.

• 1:18:17Billy Corgan?

  That's so crazy.

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  We're very domestic.

• 1:18:19Billy Corgan?

  It seems very natural.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  You would think so, but we're kind of like a couple of gunslingers. Well, you go first. You go first, because we're both insecure.

• 1:18:27Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  Musicians and singing. I don't really write, but I'd sit and play guitar and like think I've got a cool chord progression coming up and I'd just want her to say, hey, that's nice. What's that? Let's, let's work on it, you know, but didn't. And she'd be making olive oil, garlic and onions, you know? What are we having for dinner? And I'd be fixing a leak in the, in the yard, you know? I'd be building cabinets for the new kitchen, you know? We were very domestic because we were both still touring. She was going out in the Bengals in the early part of the marriage.

• 1:18:56Billy Corgan?

  And you toured at the Beach Boys for like almost 20 years.

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  Twenty, 23 years. Yeah. That was a great gig, man. I didn't think I'd ever have a gig. I thought, I thought I'd just be somebody's carpenter. I'm working on their house because I didn't know how to get a gig. I just have always had one. And I was always too shy to call somebody up to ask for a gig. So I've just been lucky by flying by the [bleep] seat of my pants. Just been so lucky. You know, I rise to the occasion. So singing with my wife is really a fun thing. We just get along and the songs are so great by two of my brothers, Bill and Perry,

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  who had the most hard time traversing the earth because they wanted to be the Beatles from the Stones and they are. So, cut it off, John.

• 1:19:49Billy Corgan?

  No, no, I, thank you. Thank you for being so open. That's kind of why I want, that's why I'm obsessed because there's the contrivance of the 60s and the time and the way people were assigned and what people expected of you. But if you actually watch and you listen and you know music, you see the level of talent in your family.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:09Billy Corgan?

  And it's shocking because it's right there. You know, when you see six people singing, you could hear if somebody was out of tune. You can hear. So there's a beautiful story in there and there's a sad story, but there's also the beautiful story. So to me, what you're touching on is the beauty of like.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:20:26Billy Corgan?

  We, we really did have a dream and it didn't quite work out the way we wanted. But there's, but there's enough evidence there if you're interested.

• 1:20:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:34Billy Corgan?

  You know, not every story sort of ends, not every gymnast lands on their feet.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. But, yeah. So the project with Vicky, I just have to say, has been therapeutic, emotional.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  And you feel that in these recordings. And our producer, Paul Allen, produced the most beautiful, sonically gorgeous album and got the best out of it.

• 1:21:00Billy Corgan?

  What's the name of the album?

• 1:21:01Speaker 01

  It's called Long After the Fire.

• 1:21:03Billy Corgan?

  OK.

• 1:21:03Speaker 01

  It's on label 51. And out there trying to tour. And, yeah. Oh, and all of a sudden, oh my God, I'm singing with the Smithereens. I've never been a lead singer of any band in my whole life. And I'm standing there, not even playing drums, singing with the Smithereens. And that's my new thing right now. And I've done seven shows and I got 14 on the books. I didn't think I'd have a career after the Beach Boys. I was gonna go work at Home Depot, happily.

• 1:21:35Billy Corgan?

  Well, music seems to wanna keep you around.

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  I love it. And I'm blown away. Before we had this interview, I was saying, what is Billy Corgan smashing pumpkin? We don't even live in the same zone.

• 1:21:47Billy Corgan?

  Blame the cow cells.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  And just, I'm so funny. And I just didn't know what you were gonna ask me.

• 1:21:53Billy Corgan?

  Did it work out all right?

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  I appreciate it, man. I appreciate the interview. You're so wonderful. Thank you so much.

• 1:21:59Billy Corgan?

  Thank you.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  God, it's on my mind.