Tom Morello | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Billy Corgan sits down with Rage Against the Machine co-founder Tom Morello to trace the path from Tom’s earliest days as a KISS-obsessed comic-book devotee to his rise as a musical agitator on the biggest stages in rock. Tom reveals how dropping into the Sunset Strip glam scene led to a short-lived major-label deal that taught him never to compromise his artistry. He recalls the explosive formation of RATM, “a ring of power that drives men mad”—and dives deep into why Rage’s politically charged fusion shook the world. You’ll also hear about his boundary-pushing work in Audioslave alongside Chris Cornell’s transcendent vocals, plus his acoustic alter ego, The Nightwatchman, born of a hunger for unfiltered activism. But there’s more to Tom than riffs and revolution: he’s a proud father, film producer, and fierce defender of the unsung heroes of heavy metal, Judas Priest. Balancing a hardwired passion for justice with family life, Tom Morello offers a master class in remaining unapologetically true to yourself—even when that truth demands you stand front and center with a guitar in one hand and a protest sign in the other. If you’ve ever wondered how an avowed political rebel and virtuoso shredder finds his place in an ever-changing music industry—and in a world still hungry for change—this conversation is a must-listen. Watch The Magnificent Others on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  You know, I can't be like the one black kid in town, the only person to get into Harvard, who then comes home without a degree. So I...

• 0:38Billy Corgan?

  I get that. What is a non-sectarian socialist?

• 0:42Speaker 01

  It's an answer you have to give to Guitar World when they like, when they, when they try to hem you in.

• 0:46Billy Corgan?

  Were you attracted to women in Renaissance, Scott?

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Much more so than in real life. Rage Against the Machine is like The Ring in Lord of the Rings. It drives men mad. It drives men mad.

• 1:01Billy Corgan?

  All right. We're gonna jump right into the deep end.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  By all means.

• 1:05Billy Corgan?

  Do you view the entire world through the prism of Star Trek? Like many Trekkies do?

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Uh, no, no, no. Uh, I would say that, that Star Trek harmonized with suspicions that I already had about how the world might one day be.

• 1:20Billy Corgan?

  You know how the Trekkies are?

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. That everything...

• 1:24Billy Corgan?

  So I gotta ask you one of these cheesy kinda questions.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27Billy Corgan?

  Who was the character on the OG Star Trek that you were most attracted to? Cause we do kinda define ourselves that way.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Sure, sure. Um, probably, uh, Sulu.

• 1:39Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably Sulu. Yeah, sure. Probably Sulu in a way. Because I, first of all, I appreciated the, you know, the diversity in the cast, which of course was, was a big deal to me, being sort of like the only, uh, black kid in an all-white town. But there was something about Sulu that it felt to me like he was, he didn't have, he didn't have the, the weight of the world on his shoulders and yet he was in the coolest one.

• 2:02Billy Corgan?

  Was he the one that had the kinda, the, the cool haircut?

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That felt to me like he had like a lot of range of possibilities.

• 2:07Billy Corgan?

  I just found out the other day that his character was forced in by the network because they wanted a teen idolish character. And his character was, his haircut was based on the monkeys.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:19Billy Corgan?

  Did you know that?

• 2:20Speaker 01

  I didn't know that.

• 2:20Billy Corgan?

  I literally just learned this like three days ago.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  It worked, it worked on me.

• 2:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, God bless.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it worked.

• 2:26Billy Corgan?

  I know you're, I always, you know, because we both grew up in Illinois, not too far from each other. But how did you get from, tell me the family story of how you got from Harlem, which is where you're born to Chicago.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Sure, sure, sure, sure. Well, my mom met my father in East Africa, in Kenya. She was teaching there. And then I was born in Harlem and she was a single mom living and.

• 2:49Billy Corgan?

  But is this, sorry to interrupt you, but, and again, who knows, because, you know, you do your research, but who knows what's true anymore.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:56Billy Corgan?

  But I saw something where your father said, he's not my kid and took off.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  No, no, that's not, that's.

• 3:02Billy Corgan?

  So tell me the real story.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure. So, so my mom was teaching in East Africa, where she was, you know, part of a bunch of like, sort of, white US teachers in the Aberdare, Aberdare Mountains where she, she went to teach. And she met the people making Kenya's independence movement there. And that felt more interesting to her. And my dad, who's Joe Mocanata's nephew, they became romantically involved. And that was not going, you know, sort of raising an American, you know, half white kid was not going to be sort of a part of his destiny. So she moved back, moved back to the States. She wanted to live somewhere where she grew up was entirely white. She wanted to live somewhere with some diversity because she was going to be raising a black kid. So she moved to Harlem.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  And that's where I was born, like West 142nd and Riverside is where we had a little apartment. And, but the, she worked for the Jimmy Dean Show. Jimmy Dean, who was both a star and made.

• 3:59Billy Corgan?

  Jimmy Dean of country fame.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:01Billy Corgan?

  Sorry to interrupt because it's an important part of your life story, but that was the pumpkin's go to road destination was the Jimmy Dean franchise. Because you got the best breakfast. Did Rage have a on the road breakfast destination?

• 4:14Speaker 01

  I always liked during certain, certain soles of the country, Waffle House, of course, was always sort of, you know.

• 4:19Billy Corgan?

  See for us, Jimmy Dean was like, we were, we're really spending.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was, I was aiming for more caloric intake.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Per, per dollar.

• 4:29Billy Corgan?

  Sorry to interrupt.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  That's right here.

• 4:30Billy Corgan?

  Important life story.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Totally, it's totally, it's totally fine. Both, both those are important parts of my life story. Yeah. So she. We lived there for about a year, then she moved back to central, Marcell's, Illinois. And eventually ended up in Libertyville.

• 4:41Billy Corgan?

  Do you live in Marcell's?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  It's Marcell's, Illinois. I never knew there was another way to pronounce that word.

• 4:45Billy Corgan?

  Same here. So, how old were you then when you're?

• 4:49Speaker 01

  One, when we moved.

• 4:51Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so New York was not part of it?

• 4:52Speaker 01

  No, we would return in summer, so there was, there were people I knew as aunts and uncles who were part of the extended family. It was the connection that she made through sort of the Catholic Church was Father Salmon, who was like one of the first black Catholic priests in Harlem. And he became, you know, he was the, he introduced her, he said, "This is your, this is your family." You know, here. And so the people were my aunts and uncles, and he had passed away recently. But we reconnected with him more recently, so he was in our lives, which was pretty great. And provided sort of another nest and another home away from the, which was a very, very different life than the one in Marcell's and Libertyville.

• 5:31Billy Corgan?

  I don't know what the percentage, the white percentage of Illinois was in our, you're slightly older than me.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:38Billy Corgan?

  But we literally grew up with the same television, the same radio station. So that's something we've always shared. But, you know, Illinois at that point, up until about 1972, when there was an influx of a ton of immigrants coming in, Pakistani, Vietnamese, Filipino, that's what I grew up in, in Glendale Heights. But Libertyville was...

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I literally integrated the town, according to the real estate agent.

• 6:03Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I was gonna say. So you grew up in a, like, an almost completely white world.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  In a completely white world. And my mom, who was, you know, had a tremendous amount of global experience teaching, you know, had a master's degree, couldn't find a teaching job in the northern suburbs because we were an interracial family. And she was a single.

• 6:21Billy Corgan?

  That blows my mind.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:22Billy Corgan?

  So, just walk me through that a little bit.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 6:25Billy Corgan?

  Does she, does she, how would they even know to discriminate against her?

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Well, no, they, I mean, I'm not sure what it said on her application, but she was not sort of shy about what her, what her family was. And in multiple towns where she was, they said, "You can teach here, but your family should probably live elsewhere." Like, very, it's like, straight up, like, get...

• 6:44Billy Corgan?

  Did that, did that wound your mother in any way?

• 6:46Speaker 01

  No, not at all. Mary, like, not at all. She was...

• 6:50Billy Corgan?

  Knowing you a little bit, that doesn't surprise me.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So she finally, the reason why we lived in Libertyville was there was a high school friend of hers from Marcell's who was teaching at LHS, Libertyville High School, who was able to vouch for her and her family.

• 7:03Billy Corgan?

  That's so crazy.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so then, so, but then we had to find a place to live. So they, uh, the apartment complex across from the high school, um, the real estate agent had to bring us door to door so that to introduce us so there wouldn't be any surprises. And I was, and they, they made, they made it very, very clear that this was not some like, an American Negro child. This was an African princeling who was to try to sort of soften, soften the blow of, uh, of the, uh, of what was happening. And that, you know, and honestly, that worked pretty well until I was old enough to date their daughters. And then they didn't care if I was the king of Botswana.

• 7:41Billy Corgan?

  Amazing.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  You will not be crossing the welcome mat on homecoming night.

• 7:46Billy Corgan?

  I'm curious because I have my own mental version, but what, so what for you is your sweet spot of youth in, in, in, in Illinois? Like, like, you know, like we both grew up on the Bozo Show.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:01Billy Corgan?

  So what is your, uh, your halcyon day? Like, if you had to do a snapshot of you riding your bike?

• 8:07Speaker 01

  I would say.

• 8:08Billy Corgan?

  And I'm not talking teen, like youth.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say some summers as a kid.

• 8:12Billy Corgan?

  But what, give me a year, though.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Uh, let's say, let's say seven, seven or eight years old. So 72, somewhere in the 72 to 77.

• 8:19Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so what are you listening to on the radio?

• 8:20Speaker 01

  What I'm doing, I'm, I'm collecting comic books, which is, which is a huge.

• 8:23Billy Corgan?

  Who, who was your favorite?

• 8:24Speaker 01

  The Marvel, Iron Man, like sort of the Iron Man Thor, Avengers and whatnot. Um, also like the DC World Weird War Tales, and I enjoyed those as well. Um, but it would be summers where we would spend the summers in Marcell's. Now, Marcell's is very different from Libertyville. Libertyville was a.

• 8:40Billy Corgan?

  Marcell's is downstate, right?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a former coal, the Morellos were coal miners, right? So it was a former coal mining town that was a bucolic, like, like no one locks their doors. Now it is, it's a very, very different, you know, it's like the bad end of a Bruce Springsteen song now. Uh, but, uh, but at the time it was, we'd spend our summers there. So it was just. Riding bikes, you know, collecting baseball cards, playing, you know, excelling on the little league team, swimming in the radium-filled pool.

• 9:11Billy Corgan?

  Very Illinois.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Yes, very Illinois, playing with Hot Wheels and, you know, just at nights with the, you know, mosquitoes and fireflies sitting on the front porch with the family.

• 9:20Billy Corgan?

  So, because you were growing up in a, you know, predominantly doesn't even describe it, you're basically growing up in a white world.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  That's right, yeah.

• 9:27Billy Corgan?

  What, what was it that you saw in the culture that you were attracted to, and I'm not trying to make it a black or white race thing, I'm trying to say, who were your cultural identifiers that you thought, okay, that's kind of, that feels like me?

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Billy Williams. Billy Williams looked like he could have been my dad.

• 9:47Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like, and it was, I've later reflected on this.

• 9:50Billy Corgan?

  Have you met Billy Williams?

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I spent some time with him.

• 9:52Billy Corgan?

  That's cool.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  I haven't, I haven't shared that with him, but, uh...

• 9:55Billy Corgan?

  But that's cool.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  But yeah, yeah, he was like sort of the light-skinned, you know, Chicago Cubs.

• 10:00Billy Corgan?

  This is pre-Star Wars, or?

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Not Billy D. Williams, Billy Williams of the Cubs.

• 10:04Billy Corgan?

  Oh, Billy Williams of the Cubs.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Billy Williams of the Cubs.

• 10:07Billy Corgan?

  Oh, that Billy Williams?

• 10:08Speaker 01

  That Billy Williams, yeah.

• 10:09Billy Corgan?

  Oh, wow.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 10:10Billy Corgan?

  Oh, okay, now, you got a Cubs baseball team.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I saw that, I saw that.

• 10:14Billy Corgan?

  Right, come on.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  But yeah, so that was, you know, that was, that was a, you know, as a, again, my mom was also like the only single mom in town, like, we were really unicorns on, on multiple fronts, but Billy Williams was, I was a big fan of Franco Harris, too, was another, because he was both, both Italian and African-American, yeah.

• 10:32Billy Corgan?

  So, sports guys that you could say, okay, not that, not that that could be me, that at least feels like?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right. Yeah, yeah, sort of beyond the community that I, that I lived in. And also, in my household, like, my mom, we would, uh, my mom was very, very, she didn't want my existence to be, uh...

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Ethically homogeneous one. So we, we would go to like church groups in North Chicago and in Waukegan. So I had friends that were sort of outside of Libertyville as well.

• 10:59Billy Corgan?

  So she was giving you this sense of, hey, there's a bigger world.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  That's correct.

• 11:02Billy Corgan?

  Oh, that's amazing.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:04Billy Corgan?

  Did you talk at any point later with your mom about that, like what her thinking was?

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Sure. I mean, it was, it was, it was, we would go back to Harlem every summer. She just wanted, she knew that this was the place where she could have a job and she could make a, a life for our, for our little family. Um, but Marcell's was not, Marcell's of anything was probably whiter than, uh, you know, the Liberty.

• 11:23Billy Corgan?

  Ninety-nine point nine.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Exactly. Because I wasn't there for three quarters of the year. Um, but, but she was, she made a really, a, a real sound effort to let me know that there was a world beyond, that there was a world of identities and people beyond the ones in, in Libertyville and Marcell's.

• 11:40Billy Corgan?

  So we have a mutual love of heavy metal.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:45Billy Corgan?

  And I'm struck by, you know, like you're saying, your mother went out of her way to make sure, like, hey, look, this is the world.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:54Billy Corgan?

  We live in this world, but there's this other world out here. But, you know, uh, outside of, say, Tony McAlpine.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 12:01Billy Corgan?

  Right?

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:03Billy Corgan?

  I mean, there weren't a lot of brothers.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 12:04Billy Corgan?

  Playing metal.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 12:05Billy Corgan?

  I mean, it's.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  None, none.

• 12:07Billy Corgan?

  And, and it's maybe gotten a little better, but it's still very much rooted.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:11Billy Corgan?

  And I don't think it's a race thing as much as a suburbia thing.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 12:15Billy Corgan?

  It strikes me that ultimately metal is a suburban phenomenon.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Birmingham notwithstanding, but yeah.

• 12:21Billy Corgan?

  But even, but even then, it's still had Birmingham, you know, you talk to people in the UK, Birmingham is the suburb.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 12:26Billy Corgan?

  As far as they're concerned.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  As far as they're concerned. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:28Billy Corgan?

  So, uh, what was it about, uh, metal that you found some form of kinship?

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I, I found music on my own. My mom had a couple of records. There was some classical music, like my great uncle had played in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, right? So there was some music in my house. My grandfather was a talented pianist, but the records in my mom's house were, she had War's Greatest Hits, um, you know, and a couple of classical records. I had to find music on my own. And where I found it was, uh, Via comics, when I, I was a fan, Kiss was my favorite band before I heard a note of their music.

• 13:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  I saw, the, the record was on sale at the A and P grocery store and I was like, well, that's, I need to have that album.

• 13:06Billy Corgan?

  What, which Kiss album?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Destroyer, Destroyer, right.

• 13:10Billy Corgan?

  Good place to start.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  A fine entry drug.

• 13:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, right.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  A fine entry drug. And so, that was the music that I first was, you know, imprinted, imprinted with. And then, you know, every magazine that had Kiss on the cover, list had other bands inside. They were Led Zeppelin, they were Aerosmith, they were Ted Nugent, later Maiden and Priest. And so, I didn't have, there were no older brothers influencing me. Like, I was on a solo musical exploration that was through the...

• 13:35Billy Corgan?

  And back then, it was really, if you heard stuff on the radio was one thing.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:39Billy Corgan?

  If you were in Iron Maiden, it was all word of mouth.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  That's right, 100% word of mouth, yeah. And through the, like, I was, I read Hit Parader and Cream and Circus religiously and studied them. And then saved up, you know, there was, there was not, there was not a lot of, uh, uh, income for, so I had to really think about what record I was gonna get. So I would study these magazines and then it looked like Aerosmith Rocks was gonna be the next target album.

• 14:05Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  You know, and then...

• 14:06Billy Corgan?

  Did you ever do the record club thing?

• 14:08Speaker 01

  No, I never did.

• 14:08Billy Corgan?

  We made that mistake? We were like, this is awesome, 13 albums for one title.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  And then, yeah.

• 14:13Billy Corgan?

  And then, three months later, our stepmother comes and goes, what the hell did you do?

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. You may still be paying it off now.

• 14:19Billy Corgan?

  Oh, it's unbelievable, because you get a record you didn't want and that was the scam?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:22Billy Corgan?

  You had to send it back?

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and nobody's sending it back.

• 14:24Billy Corgan?

  And they would say you're like, just total dreck.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's funny, the ones that they were, the ones that they were unloading.

• 14:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, so then I loved metal and then, but, but I wanted, I was a singer before I was a, before I was a guitar player. Like, my idol was Robert Plant before it was Jimmy Page. And then my voice changed and that, that sort of put some...

• 14:42Billy Corgan?

  You started playing guitar at what age?

• 14:44Speaker 01

  I didn't start playing until I was 17.

• 14:46Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  I got my first...

• 14:47Billy Corgan?

  That's late.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  Very late, I got my first guitar at 13, took two guitar lessons that made me think that music wasn't for me. And it sat in a closet for four years, yeah.

• 14:58Billy Corgan?

  I have this theory, no one seems to pick up on it yet, so I'm bringing it to you. I'm sure I told you about this before, but I do find it fascinating that... Adam from Tool, you, and obviously you guys had a band together when you were young. And there I am, living probably 20 miles away from you guys. And we all grew up in the same atmosphere. We all started bands that were predominantly riff-driven.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:21Billy Corgan?

  Right? And we took music in three completely different directions.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Correct, yeah.

• 15:26Billy Corgan?

  I find that really fascinating. It's the closest thing, and somebody will get mad at me, but it's the closest thing to Beck, Clapton, and Page, kind of growing up in the same hood.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:36Billy Corgan?

  And we have had our influence on what followed, so if you want to get mad at me, they can.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  That's not an insane theory.

• 15:42Billy Corgan?

  No, but I find it really fascinating because what was it in the water that we were all drinking?

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Right. Well, the one thing that all three have in common is metal. You know, like Adam and I, we were in his truck, driving up to Alpine Valley to the pre-shows and the Iron Maiden and the Dio shows. And then, I think what's interesting is how that metal DNA appears in all three, but then there's how it branches off in different ways.

• 16:08Billy Corgan?

  Might be comic books for all to help with now, right?

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:11Billy Corgan?

  I think, I think, I do see a similar in this, and when we have a mutual love of Priest and Sabbath. There's something about growing up in an industrial, working-class area. Maybe our dreams are bigger somehow, or they're more rooted in fantasy?

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:31Billy Corgan?

  Because it's so dreary.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  That's right, yeah.

• 16:33Billy Corgan?

  You know?

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, like what is beyond the Dairy Queen?

• 16:36Billy Corgan?

  Like, you know, and because you've lived here for years, and we all have friends here. And, you know, people that grew up here, they're like, "Oh, yeah, you know, I went to school with Gene Simmons' kid, and, you know, Steve Lukather used to drive me to school."

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 16:49Billy Corgan?

  And we're like, "I remember the first time the Pumpkins went to Europe, we saw our first famous person, and it was Bonnie Tyler."

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 17:00Billy Corgan?

  Total clips of the heart.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:01Billy Corgan?

  She was in the same hotel. And we're like, "Oh, my God, it's Bonnie Tyler." And nothing against Bonnie Tyler, cool.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:08Billy Corgan?

  Great songs, but, I mean, we weren't into Bonnie Tyler.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 17:11Billy Corgan?

  But we were like, "Oh, my God, there's a celebrity."

• 17:13Speaker 01

  A celebrity. My first famous person was Darryl Hannah, who I saw sitting in the back of a car in Westwood, and I went to a payphone to call home.

• 17:21Billy Corgan?

  See?

• 17:24Billy Corgan?

  Did television, like what you were watching in television, did that kind of help?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Sure. I mean, well, the stuff I was, the stuff that I leaned into, it was, you know, like the Planet of the Apes TV show and stuff like that.

• 17:36Billy Corgan?

  I don't remember that TV show.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Oh, really? Oh, yeah.

• 17:37Billy Corgan?

  Was it a cartoon or was it?

• 17:38Speaker 01

  No, it was Roddy McDowell.

• 17:40Billy Corgan?

  I do not remember this.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Reprising his role as Cornelius.

• 17:43Billy Corgan?

  I just interviewed Paul Williams, who was famously in battle for the Planet of the Apes.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But now, TV was, you know, it was the TV Guide and there was the Saturday morning cartoons. It was, it's a world that like our children will never, never understand how you had to, you know.

• 17:58Billy Corgan?

  Remember when you'd watch stuff you didn't really want to watch?

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Because it was on.

• 18:03Billy Corgan?

  Right? It's like, there's four channels and I'm gonna watch this cooking show.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:09Billy Corgan?

  Or I'm gonna watch the cooking show because the person cooking is kind of hot.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Right. And the next, you're waiting for the next show too.

• 18:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  But the TV, the TV Guide would come out, I remember circling, you know, like you're waiting for Happy Days and there's a Godzilla movie on Creature Feature and whatnot.

• 18:24Billy Corgan?

  I feel like, and correct me again, because this is the world of research, was Hollywood first before Harvard or Harvard then Hollywood?

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Harvard, yeah, no, I was, I was the, and I'll say, preface this by saying, it is through no unique genius of my own, but I was the first person from Libertyville to ever attend Harvard. No one had ever applied before either, so there was not.

• 18:46Billy Corgan?

  Were you a really good student?

• 18:47Speaker 01

  I was a really good student, but no one had ever, like, like, I went to the guidance counselor, you know, with good grades and I was in drama club and had some other stuff. And they said, you know, you're shooing at U of I, here's the application, you know.

• 18:57Billy Corgan?

  Because that's what you do in Illinois.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  That's what you do. You go to U of I.

• 19:00Billy Corgan?

  And if you're a stoner, you go to Illinois State.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, or CLC. You go to CLC, yeah, yeah. But I looked over his shoulder and I saw there was like, it was the Colleges of North America, a musty ledger. And I said, can I borrow that? And I read it cover to cover and I learned that there were universities, first of all, University of Illinois is a fantastic school, but there's other schools too and.

• 19:21Billy Corgan?

  So it wasn't like you grew up thinking, I want to go to Harvard.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  No, I couldn't care less. Honestly, I could, I would have been happy to go to CLC.

• 19:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Very happy to go to CLC. But I thought, why not apply? The reason, the thing that was, that was most appealing about it was their endowment was so huge that they accepted. Their freshman class need blind. So basically, their freshman class is a social experiment. It's like, we're trying to get a group of people together that will learn from and teach each other. And I just thought that was, rather than like, there's the X number of alumni kids and the ones that kind of for the school. And that, to me, just felt like, like that was, there's a different idea of how to have a school. And that was.

• 19:58Billy Corgan?

  So, OK, now you're going to Harvard.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:59Billy Corgan?

  Poly sci was the?

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Poly sci, yeah. But I was, but it was, I started playing guitar at seventeen, but I was, had the calling at nineteen. I was at the little rehearsal room under the, you know, where we had dinners under the cafeteria. And it was, you know, the skies opened. There was a moment of improvisation where I felt a calling, like this. And I had many other interests. I was, I was an artist, I was a writer, I was interested in leftist political revolt. And I was like, I now am a guitar player and I have to bend everything around that.

• 20:35Billy Corgan?

  And it hadn't struck you before that?

• 20:37Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 20:38Billy Corgan?

  In terms of an identity?

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that, and then while balancing a poly sci major at Harvard was a, it was a challenge. Because I, you know, I can't be like, the one black kid in town, the only person to get into Harvard, who then comes home without a degree. So I.

• 20:53Billy Corgan?

  I get that.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I had a soldier on.

• 20:56Billy Corgan?

  What, because I was actually recruited out of high school for political science. It's a weird story, but it's not important. But what did you, what, because, you know, you're so closely attached.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:09Billy Corgan?

  That's not the right word. But, but people see you as a political person. You've always been a political person in the public sphere. That's who you are.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:16Billy Corgan?

  In front of the camera and backstage. But what was it about poly, you know, the political science? Did that help you kind of, I don't want to be as glib as thinking like, you, you learned the strategies of how to take over the world. But it might have had something to do with your aggressive.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was, the hope, the hope was to arm myself intellectually for the coming struggles. You know, that's, that was, that was.

• 21:43Billy Corgan?

  Well, you're in the right place now.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  That was the hope, exactly, exactly. That was, that was the hope. Um, you know, and, and it's PoliSci, there's people who are watching this who are from Harvard. It's actually the, the Harvard doesn't have majors, they have concentrations. It's not called PoliSci, it's called social studies. So there's gonna be someone who's gonna, now that that's cleared up. Uh, but you just, it's interdisciplinary. It's, it's part philosophy, part history, part economics.

• 22:05Billy Corgan?

  But did it, did it inform you in a, I don't know, you, to me, some people, when they're calculated, it reads to me poorly.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:14Billy Corgan?

  You, your calculus, and I say this respectfully, it's always struck me as thoughtful.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:20Billy Corgan?

  Like, I, I have a, I have a vector of attack here.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:24Billy Corgan?

  And I know, and, and somehow you have a light touch to it.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:27Billy Corgan?

  I don't know how you do it. No, but I, I feel like you're one of the only people that could preach to me, even if I completely disagree with you politically, and I'm gonna listen, and I'm not feeling like you're tapping me on the cheek.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, that's, well, thank you. Uh, but I just, like, the, what the Harvard PoliSci experience did was provide more arrows in the quiver for something that had been there from day one. And that was to stand up for the poor and oppressed in every situation.

• 22:54Billy Corgan?

  Now, where do you think that comes from?

• 22:55Speaker 01

  From my mom. 100% from my mom. That's, it was the ethos of my home.

• 22:59Billy Corgan?

  Was this something she talked?

• 23:00Speaker 01

  No, no, it was just the ethos of my home.

• 23:02Billy Corgan?

  You're in it?

• 23:02Speaker 01

  I'm in it, I'm in it. In a way, in a way that was sharpened when I-

• 23:06Billy Corgan?

  Sorry, real quick. Was it because you guys were poor, or it's because the way she felt about the world?

• 23:13Speaker 01

  The way that she felt about the world. Yeah, we didn't, we didn't have a lot of money, but I never thought about that, because it was-

• 23:17Billy Corgan?

  No, I get it. I'm just saying, it's like, it's, for lack of a better word, it's your family tradition.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  It is the, it is very, 100% the family tradition, which I, once I was in high school, realized how unique that was, not just in my town, not just in my high school, in my town, but in the world.

• 23:33Billy Corgan?

  Oh, it's very unique.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, that, the, the, the, the person-

• 23:37Billy Corgan?

  Is your mom still alive?

• 23:38Speaker 01

  She is, 101 years old. I was just talking with her.

• 23:40Billy Corgan?

  God bless her.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's having a day-to-day, which I was negotiating, but she's fine, she's good. Yeah, just 101 years old.

• 23:46Billy Corgan?

  That's intense.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:47Billy Corgan?

  That's intense, cuz I, I- I, you know, we live in an age where a lot of people talk. A lot of hashtagging and stuff. I love people who walk the talk. So your mother walked the talk.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Oh, 100%, yeah, her entire life.

• 24:01Billy Corgan?

  I think that to me is what defines where things go.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:05Billy Corgan?

  We're always gonna disagree about this and that, but you gotta be in it and you've always been that person too. I'm gonna stand here and I'm gonna tell you what I think.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:14Billy Corgan?

  But you walk the talk.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm compelled to. It's not, to me, it's like.

• 24:17Billy Corgan?

  No, I get that, but I'm saying it's a, I have a respect for it. And I think, how can I put it?

• 24:24Billy Corgan?

  We need more people in the space, particularly in the arts, that are willing to kind of stand there in a, in a, in a, in a, in a manner of digression of their convictions, but not in aggressive posture that repels people. And I think you've done a wonderful job of sort of saying, this is what I believe, but it never feels like you're shoving me out a door.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:45Billy Corgan?

  And if that comes from your mother, mad respect for your mother.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:48Billy Corgan?

  Like you said, that's not something everybody grows up.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  That's correct.

• 24:51Billy Corgan?

  I just grew up with my dad smoking joints and looking at the TV and going, they're all f**king liars.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Which, which.

• 24:57Billy Corgan?

  No, but I'm saying.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Which is an important political point of view.

• 24:59Billy Corgan?

  But it wasn't based on any, my father told me his whole life he was an atheist and then later changed to agnostic and then later changed to I believe in God, but I don't know who God is.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:09Billy Corgan?

  But, but, you know, when he would sit there and say, this is b**ch, it wasn't attached to anything. It was, there was no call to action.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 25:16Billy Corgan?

  It wasn't like, son, you can change the world.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:19Billy Corgan?

  It was, son, you're f**k, because they control the world and there's nothing you can do. That's not.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a different.

• 25:25Billy Corgan?

  What do you do with that?

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, what do you do?

• 25:26Billy Corgan?

  Because when I did have some power in the world at different times, I didn't know what to do with it. It, you know, and you got people in your, well, you don't want to say that, you're gonna sell less records. You know, and unless you have a sort of a, some internal moral compass or something that you believe and then you're, then you're just like anybody else and you're, you're, you're susceptible to the winds of.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  That's correct, yeah. I think that moral compass is the, is a key thing and for better or worse, that was, you know, baked in.

• 25:54Billy Corgan?

  Senator Alan Cranston, before or after Hollywood?

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Uh, so, so moved, moved to LA and with my Harvard degree, unable to find.

• 26:02Billy Corgan?

  Why'd you go to LA?

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Because Circus Magazine said that's where I had to go to play in a heavy metal band on the Sunset Strip. In order to have a career in music.

• 26:10Billy Corgan?

  I love that it's that shallow.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was that.

• 26:11Billy Corgan?

  I'm coming here.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Where else would you go?

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I moved out here and I couldn't get a job.

• 26:17Billy Corgan?

  What year?

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Eighty-six, September of eighty-six.

• 26:19Billy Corgan?

  A very ripe period for the Sunset Strip.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Incredible, I mean, I, first of all, I was, make it clear, I was never any part of it. There was no, the welcome mat was not put out. Like, first of all, you had to...

• 26:30Billy Corgan?

  But why?

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Well, one, you had to either be, you know, scantily clad in lingerie to get in the clubs, or have twelve bucks, and I didn't fit into either one of those categories.

• 26:39Billy Corgan?

  So you're the guy in the street looking through the window?

• 26:41Speaker 01

  I'm the guy in the street collecting flyers. Yeah, literally, like me and my roommate, we would just sit along, sit on that, like, curb outside of Gazari's and just watch the pageantry go by. But I couldn't get hired, well, I couldn't get hired, I couldn't get in a band and I couldn't get a job. Those are the two things that I, my only work experience had been five summers at the Bristol Renaissance Fair. That's how I worked my way through Harvard was...

• 27:01Billy Corgan?

  Did you dress up in Renaissance garb?

• 27:04Speaker 01

  What else, what else would you do?

• 27:06Billy Corgan?

  Are there pictures?

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Of course, I'm proud of.

• 27:09Billy Corgan?

  As soon as we get out of this interview.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  It's all, it's all there for you.

• 27:12Billy Corgan?

  I can't believe I'm nervous.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, pirate shanties and, you know, I was like a wandering minstrel for five summers.

• 27:16Billy Corgan?

  Were you attractive to women in Renaissance?

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Was I attractive to women?

• 27:21Billy Corgan?

  Were you attracted to women in Renaissance garb?

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Much more so than in real life.

• 27:26Billy Corgan?

  Interesting.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:27Billy Corgan?

  Goth has a similar aphrodisiac effect on me.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:31Billy Corgan?

  A woman in normal clothes versus a woman in dark clothes?

• 27:34Speaker 01

  That's so fun.

• 27:35Billy Corgan?

  It's true, though.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I mean, there's sort of this suspension of, like, the nerd, the Star Trek comic collecting nerd that you are, you know, playing D and D in Libertyville and then the, you know, the...

• 27:46Billy Corgan?

  In Glendale High School.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, the suave, jerry-curled troubadour at the Renaissance Fair.

• 27:54Billy Corgan?

  Oh, my God.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Two very different romantic prospects.

• 27:56Billy Corgan?

  So I read when you were working for Senator Alan Cranston, you found that... Disillusioning.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 28:02Billy Corgan?

  You don't have to belabor it, but I'm... The easiest thing is, is I'm just looking for more meat on the bone of how you became you.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 28:12Billy Corgan?

  You know, because in many ways, and I got to, I don't remember when we first, I felt like we met like around ninety-two, ninety-one. Very early on.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Playing Family Feud.

• 28:21Billy Corgan?

  Thank you. Visiting you at an apartment, I remember that. I could still see us at the apartment.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:26Billy Corgan?

  And it was a mutual friend of ours, photographer, said, "Oh, come meet this guy." And so we've known each other that many years. But when you did, like, say, burst on the American consciousness as Tom Rello, you were pretty fully formed.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:41Billy Corgan?

  You know, I'm a walking wreck in progress. You seemed to be like, like...

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:47Billy Corgan?

  Like, there you were.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was, I mean, both the band and, you know, sort of person, I was pretty crystal clear about.

• 28:53Billy Corgan?

  Sure, but I, but I think what's interesting is, is that doesn't just happen overnight.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  No, no, no. I mean, the thing about the, working at the Senator's office, I was, it was the only job I could get. Like, they, with my Renaissance Fair resume, I mean, I could juggle, but I couldn't, I'd never worked retail, so I couldn't be hired to sell Iron Maiden t-shirts.

• 29:11Billy Corgan?

  But you gotta go all the way back to DC or you're still...

• 29:13Speaker 01

  No, I was, I was his schedule, Senator Cranston's scheduling secretary for California.

• 29:17Billy Corgan?

  Okay, thank you, that helps.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  So when he comes to California, in Southern California.

• 29:20Billy Corgan?

  I just read Senator, I assume you've gone to DC.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's my, he's, his...

• 29:24Billy Corgan?

  That's why I was confused about time.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  I'm responsible for his schedule. Yeah, but the thing, the thing about it that was, you know, I got to see really how the sausage, I scheduled the sausage making. So I know exactly how it's made. And the job is to ask rich people for money. The end. That's the job. And you, you know, he had progressive opinions about the environment and immigration, this, that, and the other. The job, we used to go, at the time, when we were traveling, I would, I would commandeer a hotel's bank of payphones. So there's like ten payphones there, the Senator's payphones. So I'd call a guy, number, rich guy in Texas, number one, "Can you hold for Senator Cranston?" Boom. Number two, can you hold, so the phones are just dangling. There's nine phones dangling with people waiting to be asked for money. And then when he hangs up this one, I come back around and we start the process again.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  And that was, it was just so...

• 30:11Billy Corgan?

  For someone of your moral conviction, that must have been really...

• 30:14Speaker 01

  No, it was a day gig. It was always just a day gig.

• 30:16Billy Corgan?

  No, but I'm asking the emotional question. It must have been hard for you to watch.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it was, but I had, but I was so... Dismissive, dismiss is the right word. I was so sure that real change does not come through electoral politics when I had that job. I was always a radical and a revolutionary in heart, trying to be in a rock band, like trying to buy apple juice and wheat bread was why I was working.

• 30:39Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but still you're getting a...

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:41Billy Corgan?

  It's behind the wizard's curtain, right?

• 30:43Speaker 01

  The thing that was the most disheartening was one day this woman calls up, and I would sometimes field calls from constituents, and she was complaining that Mexicans were moving into her neighborhood. And so I don't know what she wants the senator to do about that, perhaps some pogrom.

• 30:57Billy Corgan?

  Apparently kick the Mexicans out.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  And so I told, I said, you know, ma'am, you know, you're racist and you can go to hell. And then, you know, she called back and I thought that I had represented the senator well, because certainly he wouldn't have... What kind of, what kind of phone call is that? I just, I got yelled at for two weeks by everybody up and down.

• 31:16Billy Corgan?

  What did they say, like?

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Like, you can't treat a constituent that way, you know, you're representing the senator poorly, you know, it's not your job to express opinions like that. I thought, if in my job, I can't tell a racist to go to hell, that's perhaps not the right line of work for me.

• 31:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 31:34Billy Corgan?

  What is a non-sectarian socialist?

• 31:36Speaker 01

  It's an answer you have to give to guitar world when they like, when they, when they try to hem you in.

• 31:41Billy Corgan?

  Well, after this, I'm gonna ask you about guitar pedals, but first I need to ask you about what is a non-sectarian socialist?

• 31:46Speaker 01

  First of all, the labels, I, I think that it's a, you do yourself an injustice and you do your, your, your enemies an injustice by sort of like, I, the, the political program that I've always followed, I said it earlier, is you always stand up for the oppressed in every instance.

• 32:05Billy Corgan?

  So is there a label for that, or you don't want a label?

• 32:07Speaker 01

  I don't think, I mean, there's, there's, it, it's, that has fallen under many different labels through time, from anarcho syndicalism to, you know, to, to, what, I, standing up for the people on the butt.

• 32:17Billy Corgan?

  Stand up and shout.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, stand up, exactly, Dio had it right. But I mean, you find that in, in, you know, both in liberation theology and you find it in the Communist Manifesto.

• 32:26Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  That that point of view is one that I think on a daily basis, I do my best, both in my art and in my, and in my life, to enact.

• 32:34Billy Corgan?

  To the, to the crowd that just hears, somebody wants free money, or somebody wants stuff that they haven't earned, or...

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:43Billy Corgan?

  What, what do you, because I, you and I are totally aligned morally.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:48Billy Corgan?

  I, I find it really... Difficult to watch, you know, this incredibly wealthy, diverse, and rich country, I don't mean just rich, I mean, look at our art and look at our culture, that we haven't sort of figured out how to take care of people.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:07Billy Corgan?

  And I'm not even talking about like the handout version, I'm talking about why can't we organize our society in a way that's just a lot more kind?

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's, that's not what it's meant to be, because it's the, there's an underlying profit motive that precludes that being something that could happen.

• 33:22Billy Corgan?

  So what would you say to people that when they hear us talk like that recoil? What, is it, are you making, I guess what I'm asking, is it a moral argument you're making, is it a, is it a, here's a better system argument, like what, what argument would you pick?

• 33:38Speaker 01

  I think you start with the moral argument, is, is that, should it ever be okay for children to go hungry? Start with that.

• 33:46Billy Corgan?

  As a child who went hungry many times, no.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  Start with that, and if the answer's no, then that's, start pulling that thread and see if the whole sweater unravels.

• 33:53Billy Corgan?

  Right, okay. Yeah, I just, I, I'm not really interested in politics in this forum, but you know, in your case, it, it does define your art.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 34:03Billy Corgan?

  So, you're a unique opportunity to kind of poke at it differently. Let's talk about Lockup.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Sure, happy to. I almost wore my Lockup shirt today.

• 34:14Billy Corgan?

  That would have been perfect. 1989, Geffen, are you having the, I got a major label deal, I'm in, this is gonna be great?

• 34:23Speaker 01

  It's it, people think.

• 34:24Billy Corgan?

  Walk me, walk, give me, because I, I didn't know this part of your history.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:28Billy Corgan?

  And I'm surprised I don't know. I do remember hearing about Lockup.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Sure, sure.

• 34:33Billy Corgan?

  So, what is Tom Morello in 1989 thinking?

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Sure, sure, well, at one night, Adam Jones comes over to, who was working in prosthetic makeup at the time, comes over to my apartment to be a wingman, who wants to go to a place called Al's Bar, I'm like, dude, I gotta go to the center's office at eight in the morning, he's like, please, I'm like, fine. We see a local band playing called Lockup, I'm like, this is a, first of all, it's a different kind of club, it's not a Sunset Strip club, it's in downtown LA, it has a much more of sort of a punk rock earthiness, and the band is fantastic, it's kind of like a, a raw, a really raw...

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Early Chili Peppers, funkier and harder.

• 35:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I was surprised because I heard some kind of.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, funkier and harder.

• 35:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I was listening to this morning a bit.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, um, and they became my favorite local band through a great set of circumstances. I eventually joined my favorite local band. I was the junior member, everybody was five or six years older than me in the band. Um, and while on the one hand, I think that I maybe made the band worse by making it a little smoother, a little more metal, a little more shreddy solos that maybe it didn't need. I definitely made it more appealing to record commercial like I.

• 35:38Billy Corgan?

  So you were part of the getting the deal?

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I was helped, I could write songs and stuff too. Um, and we got a deal and everybody back home, everyone in Libertyville thinks you're a millionaire.

• 35:48Billy Corgan?

  Listen, if you, if you can go back in a time machine, right? Okay, because, because I think it illustrates the point. Anybody but anybody who had a record deal in 1989, that era, pre-grunge. Anybody but anybody playing loud guitar that had a deal on a major label, it was like, how?

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 36:13Billy Corgan?

  It was that big a deal. To us in Illinois, we were like, how do you do that?

• 36:16Speaker 01

  It was incredible, you know, every, but I'm, you know, I'm living with five roommates in a squat is where I'm living.

• 36:21Billy Corgan?

  No, I get that, but I'm, again, it's this idea now, we're not talking about the world through television, like us watching Gilligan's Island in the basement. But I'm saying is, the idea that a band could get signed, playing heavy music in 1989. I mean, there was probably, how many bands do you think were signed that were heavy, like, not like metal bands? Like, let's call it the coming hard rock.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:44Billy Corgan?

  Alternative revolution.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Heard of the Sound Gardens and the Jane's Addictions.

• 36:48Billy Corgan?

  It would have been under 15 or 20 bands in the whole world.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:51Billy Corgan?

  So for us, it was like, oh my God, so, so what are you thinking?

• 36:55Speaker 01

  I'm thinking, like, I've realized my dream. I'm gonna be a, I'm gonna be a rock star, I'm gonna make albums. So there's, I have albums at home.

• 37:03Billy Corgan?

  There's a budget?

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Now there's going to be an album.

• 37:05Billy Corgan?

  Who produced the first lockup?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Oh, I forget dude's name. He was the guy that did the Faith No More record.

• 37:10Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Faith No More record, um, and one of the Replacements records. But we went up to the site, the, the, you know, the, the studio. In Marin County, like the beautiful studio where we're the band, we're like the east side Los Angeles punk. Like, most of our gigs were at like, at hardcore gay bars. Like, that was where the punks, there was a punk scene there. And we're in this bucolic setting where there's, you know, there's, there's a hot tub. You know, the chef is reclining beautifully in the hot tub. Deer are coming up to the studio. It's very Led Zeppelin III. We're like, we have no idea what's happening.

• 37:45Billy Corgan?

  You're not at a castle. You're close.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we made a very sterile, very sterile record.

• 37:52Billy Corgan?

  Why do you think it was sterile?

• 37:53Speaker 01

  I think it was the intent of the record company. They wanted...

• 37:56Billy Corgan?

  When did you, sorry, I'm the worst interviewer. Well, when did you figure out, was it too late when you figured out, uh-oh?

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was too late. It was, it was when the, there was a lot of influence in the production to dampen down sort of what I do. And like, there was talk of keyboard, I was very prejudiced against keyboards then. Like, I had to physically disable at night, sneak down and disable the keyboard, the road, so that it wouldn't be on the record. But they didn't want any toggle switch playing, no sort of guitar pyrotechnics. Like, the stuff that was most me, they were sure they did not want any of that on the, on the record.

• 38:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, because when you listen to the record, it sounds like you're not quite you yet.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 38:37Billy Corgan?

  Which is weird because I don't know that other...

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I was a shredding gear.

• 38:42Billy Corgan?

  No, but it makes sense because it tells me that they just sort of took away part of you.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 38:47Billy Corgan?

  It's not like you hadn't figured yourself out.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  That's correct. I, I still hadn't, but I was more, I was more Nuno Bettencourt than Andy Gill.

• 38:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I get it. It felt a little bit anodyne.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, so the record kept, but we were, we listened to what they said because they're the experts. This is Geffen Records. They've got Guns N' Roses and the Tom Zutat's there and, and, you know, there are a lot of voices in the room. And surely this must be the way to go. And, and then we named the record possibly the worst record name in the annals of Western music. Something in this way comes.

• 39:17Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. That was not like, that's how it was a junior, junior partner.

• 39:21Billy Corgan?

  Do you go on tour or record?

• 39:22Speaker 01

  We go on tour. We have our 15 minutes where they, they hear a single and you're being promoted and you're at... Horrible places in different, you know, in Phoenix and in Denver where there's like, people are like, there's cocaine dishes in bathrooms like you've sort of seen in Led Zeppelin movies and it's just so off putting to me and it's completely, you know, as a big, I grew up on metal, but The Clash was my heart for, you know, for, um, and then those fifteen, I mean, it was probably more closer to fifteen seconds were over and the record company stops returning calls, the touring entourage goes from six to four to two to the four of us in a van.

• 40:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Um, and I realized like the dream is dead, you know, like the, I had my grab at the brass ring and I failed to grab it and we're summarily dropped. We tried desperately to like replace some band members and do another showcase and make another demo and I'm older now and, uh, and I was done. I remember I was, I was twenty seven years old sitting on my couch when the singer of Lockup called, he and I were the last two in the band and he called to quit.

• 40:28Billy Corgan?

  You could have continued.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  He called to quit, um, and he hung up and the first person I called was Brad Wilk, who I had jammed with.

• 40:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. You reminded me of a story, uh, when we were on the Chili Pepper, uh, tour and Pearl Jam was, Pearl Jam Pumpkins Chili Peppers was the bill. We played about forty shows on that tour and, uh, during the tour, that's when Under the Bridge took off and that record just blew up like crazy. Um, and Pearl Jam had, I think, one song out, it would have been Alive or something. And I remember coming to one of the gigs, it was about halfway through the gig and we were hanging out with them every day like she went on tour and, uh, and they all looked like, you know, somebody had died. And I said, what's wrong with you guys? Cause you're usually kind of an upbeat bunch. And they go, they're gonna withdraw our tour support.

• 41:21Billy Corgan?

  I was like, you're on this massive tour. And I said, well, if this single doesn't catch, they're gonna pull our support. That's what people don't understand about the way that business worked back then. If that song hadn't caught on.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, they pulled our support.

• 41:36Billy Corgan?

  So you went through that exactly.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, they pulled our support, yeah.

• 41:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's it. It's like, oh, you're done.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there's a four, you're, you're three, 2,800 miles away from home. No one's returning a call. There's gigs where there are literally no one, there's a, there's a waitress and a monitor guy. You know, at the, at the gig and.

• 41:53Billy Corgan?

  So when you called Brad.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I was clear, I was crystal clear on the mistakes that had been made from my point of view. Is that I had listened to experts. And, and look where it, look where it got me. And look where it got me. And I made a, a conscious, out loud solemn vow that I was never gonna play another note of music that I didn't believe in. I knew now that I would never make records and I would never be a rock star and I would never fulfill the dreams that I had in Circus Magazine when I drove in my Chevy Astro van out to Hollywood. But I was still a musician and there was value in playing music that was meaningful to me. Even if I was the only one to ever hear it.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  And that was the North Star that has, you know, the next 21 records has, you know, guided my fate.

• 42:42Billy Corgan?

  That's interesting. So in your mind, when you guys did put Rage together, it was like, okay, we don't care where this goes, but the one thing we are gonna do is be uncompromising.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't even that. There was no, it wasn't even, we don't care. There was zero commercial ambition. And there was no hope of booking a club show when that band formed. Like, there was no, there were no LA club bands that had the ethnic.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  You know, the diversity of that band.

• 43:14Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  That was singing neo-Marxist lyrics with Black Sabbath riffs and punk rock fury.

• 43:19Billy Corgan?

  Now it all seems very obvious in a weird way.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:21Billy Corgan?

  But at the time.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  In that rehearsal room, it was crystal clear that there was nowhere for this music to be other than that we liked it. And the goal, the sole goal, was to do the thing that I felt. My purpose was to do the thing that I was unable to do with Lockup, was to make a great cassette. So we, before playing any shows, we just made a record. We made a cassette of 12 songs or whatever. And to have, just to have it. And that was, that felt like that was enough.

• 43:49Billy Corgan?

  Did that cassette kind of catch on?

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Well, we then played at some open mic nights. We played open mic at Al's Bar. We played a couple of open mic nights. And the first, the first, the first time though that we ever, I'll tell you the first time anyone ever heard the music. No one had ever heard the music. And then we went playing in industrial park, rehearsing in industrial park in the valley. Not too far from here, where we're doing this interview. And there's this dude who, you know, worker guy. And he said, "What are you guys doing in there?" I said, "We're a band." He said, "Would you like to?" He said, "Can I hear it?" And I'm like, "I don't see why not." So he comes in, we had about five songs together. And he sits down on the floor. We played five Rage Against... The band doesn't have a name, five Rage Against the Machine songs.

• 44:28Billy Corgan?

  Was there a name before Rage?

• 44:30Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no. It was just sort of, no idea. We hadn't gotten anywhere near that. And afterwards, we said, "What do you think?" And he stands up and he says, "Your music makes me want to fight." And he had sort of a, like, his posture was that of like a honey badger, you know, when he said it. And we're like, "Oh, well, about that. That's interesting."

• 44:56Speaker 01

  And sure enough, people have been wanting to fight to that music ever since.

• 45:00Billy Corgan?

  Yes. I remember the first time I saw you guys live, might have been like a European festival or something. And there was a lot of buzz. I don't know if we were headlining or it was one of those things like we were playing the next day or something, but everyone was like, you gotta see this band. You guys just had that buzz right away. You seemed to come out of nowhere, but obviously you didn't. And, uh, and the first three songs, I remember thinking, oh my God, what is happening? Like, you seem to tap into that vein in the exact right moment with the right crowd in the right. It was very interesting to witness in real time.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:37Billy Corgan?

  Cause these things, they get a little softer in reverse. You know, we can all show the footage of us all jumping around in the 90s.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:44Billy Corgan?

  Um, but at the time, it was shocking and it wasn't shocking. The politics, I thought, yeah, do your thing. It was shocking in that something that was so, on one level sparse and muscular, seemed to animate this crowd into a frenzy.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:02Billy Corgan?

  And we were used to playing, it was grunge days, you know, mosh pits. You guys took on this other crazy thing. So when did that, when did that thing click?

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was, uh, it was at the first show. We were playing at a, uh, living punk rock living room party in Huntington Beach. Someone's parents made the mistake of going away. Uh, and a friend of Timmy's said, you know, does your new band want to?

• 46:25Billy Corgan?

  Famous last words.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Does your new band want to play? And, you know, I played a lot of, in a lot of bands in my life and there was, we were set up in a living room, you know, with the, with the-

• 46:35Billy Corgan?

  Rage Against the Living-

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, some kids watching, you know, from, through the living room window behind us. They moved the armoire out to the side. Uh, and the first song we played in front of people was Take the Power Back. And it starts with like the bassline Tim's all jacked up. It's twice as fast as it was later to be on record. And when the beat dropped, the room exploded. I mean, the room exploded from the first snare hit. And there was a huge mosh pit-

• 47:00Billy Corgan?

  In the living room.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  In the living room. In the living room. We had five songs at the time and people were going so bananas, we played the same five songs again.

• 47:08Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  And that was, that feeling from that show to the European festivals, you know, was pretty much-

• 47:15Billy Corgan?

  That's interesting.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Pretty consistent.

• 47:18Billy Corgan?

  I want to talk about other stuff, so I, it's not that I want to skip over the 90s, but it's probably the most documented part of our lives.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:25Billy Corgan?

  But I'm curious, because I have my own take, but I'm, obviously I want to ask yours. I view, not Gen X as a failed generation, I view us as a lost generation. Because we had, we did have a mandate and a mantle. And whatever happened, whether it was Kurt's death, or the shifting tides, including the beginning of Napster and all that stuff.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:47Billy Corgan?

  So what's your kind of general take on, let's call it, because one thing I've been sort of, you know, I like to try to be trendy with my quotes, but I've been saying, Gen X has yet to have a second act.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 47:59Billy Corgan?

  I don't know if that resonates with you.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I would say from a, from a, from a culture, from a musical point of view, and I won't say I blame it, but I think an explanation might lie in something that we could call punk rock guilt. And that part of what made the, the forerunners of the various branches from that tree, from, from The Pumpkins to Rage, to Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, Nirvana, et cetera, was that it had a, there was a familiarity in that we all had, maybe Kiss and Sabbath record, at least one dude in the band had, like, cared about that a lot, but they, there was also a love of Minor Threat, and Fugazi, and Bad Brains. And those, it was those conflicting ideology, when the music, the musics married well

• 48:44Speaker 01

  to make festival crowds go absolutely bananas.

• 48:47Billy Corgan?

  I see where you're going.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  And, and, and feel something that they couldn't have ever felt before with just metal, or with just punk. A, a real, like, like synergy of awesome kick-ass music with ideas and art and, and poetry, but the people who made it were so conflicted about their own success, and they, when you're playing in an arena that Poison played five years ago, there was so much hand wringing. But, I mean, just, I have to, look at, look at the release schedules, I mean, I think Pumpkins, you put out more, maybe more records than, but Rage records came out every five years, Tool records every six years, Nirvana records, like, with a lot of guilt every so often, and...

• 49:31Speaker 01

  It was just like, we couldn't, there was a part of the ethos was, I can't stand the success that is happening because it makes me feel like I've betrayed principles.

• 49:43Billy Corgan?

  You are ringing bells in my head that are, haven't been rung for a long time.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:47Billy Corgan?

  And my, my, my feedback on that is, we ended up headlining Lollapalooza in 1994. It was originally supposed to be Nirvana, Pumpkins, Beasties. And then, probably because of Kurt's problems, dropped out.

• 50:05Billy Corgan?

  Certainly, I was talking to Courtney during this day, so I kinda heard what was going on behind the scenes. Anyway, so we end up headlining the festival. And I still think to this day, some of my problems, and obviously it's our problems because I created them, was I remember standing there in front of, and you know, that was the biggest traveling Lollapalooza of them all, the one we did. Forty-two shows. It was packed. It was that, that era where it was just packed. And by the way, it's all young people. Now, if I had any marketing brain at the time, it would have been like, keep your mouth shut. Just play the hits and live to fight another day. No, I, and Jimmy Chamberlain called it the art breakdown. We were doing, and you would know this song, "I Am One" off of Gish, which has that cool

• 50:48Billy Corgan?

  t-t-t-t-t. No, I made him totally change the groove.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 50:51Billy Corgan?

  We did this weird tribal, oh yeah.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  We'll show them.

• 50:55Billy Corgan?

  Oh yeah, trust me, I showed them. I'm still paying for it. So Jimmy's playing this other tribal groove. By the way, the song's only three years old and I'm changing it.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 51:04Billy Corgan?

  And we get to the break where normally there would be the solo, the dual solo, and I would have the band kicked down into this kinda groove, and I would just proselytize. And I went after middle America.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 51:16Billy Corgan?

  Night after night.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  How dare you like us.

• 51:18Billy Corgan?

  How dare you sit?

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:20Billy Corgan?

  How dare you like us? How dare you, I don't know. And Jimmy calls it the art breakdown. And my enduring memory, and we laugh about it now, and this is back when Jimmy smoked, was, I was doing the art breakdown and basically if it went on too long, he would just stop playing drums. And now I'm just talking.

• 51:35Billy Corgan?

  Or yelling.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:36Billy Corgan?

  And it was like he was, you know, a little bit on John Lennon. I don't believe in pumpkins, I don't believe in MTV, whatever the heck I was saying.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  It sounds like you're living the thing that I just described.

• 51:45Billy Corgan?

  So, and I'm, I'm, you know, I'm on the monitors.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:49Billy Corgan?

  You know, and I'm screaming and I turn around and I just see Jimmy like this pacing behind his drunk smoking, like, like, like, like Woody Allen, like, oh my God, what nightmares he got me.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:59Billy Corgan?

  So.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  You were not alone.

• 52:01Billy Corgan?

  You were not alone. Yeah, right.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  It was, it was in the air. It's under, it's understandable, but, but if you're trying to, in hindsight, look back, well, then here's, here's, here's the, if, if the right don't get you, the left, the left one will. So what filled that void? I remember.

• 52:17Billy Corgan?

  Lil' affair?

• 52:18Speaker 01

  No, no, it was, it was the, it was the second, it was the B, C, D grade pumpkins, the B, C, D grade rage, the B, C, D grade Pearl Jam, because they showed up. They made a video.

• 52:31Billy Corgan?

  They said. And they were happy to be there.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  They were happy to, they were happy to be there. And so these, these, the, the overall genre was created and then the subpockets were created and then the bands didn't ful, created an audience that didn't fulfill the need. And so these other bands came along that make the period. Now, you know, when you listen to like, you know, a lithium station, there's a lot of songs on them like, ooh, like, I remember that era more fondly than perhaps, you know, perhaps I could.

• 52:55Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah, I've been there. So, um, I don't want the gossip part of the band breaking up in 2000. I was surprised when, when the band broke up. 2000's, right? Am I right about that?

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:05Billy Corgan?

  That's also the year we broke up. Um, but where did that put you psychologically? Cause I, I'm, I'm, I'm sure there's plenty of talk and it could become from other guys, but like, okay, everybody wants to focus on the breaking up, but I always think about the day after.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:22Billy Corgan?

  You know, you wake up and you're like, you look out the window, it's like, okay, well that, now what do I do?

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:27Billy Corgan?

  I'm kind of curious where you went from there.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  I was totally fine. You know, I was, I was, I was totally fine. I was like, you know, there was a, it was difficult and then it was just sort of, and now there's a new horizon. I'm like, I am a person who, like, I have the genes of my coal mining forbears. in me. I like to work. I like to go to work.

• 53:47Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, you are a worker.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  I like to go to work. And so when, you know, the singer left the band, I was like, Tim and Brad and I wanted to play together. We spent every day over at Rick Rubin's house figuring out what we were gonna do next. And that was like, exciting. And I had, you know, um, you know, we had only made, you know, Rage only made three records of of new music in 10 years, and I had a stockpile of like, ideas and jams and and stuff that I just couldn't wait to see what happened next.

• 54:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Um, this is a funny way to ask this question, but hope it lands. You know,

• 54:23Billy Corgan?

  when we're in the intensity of those moments and we're still relatively young, we don't really have a true conception of the way people are gonna view what those years were like, or what that music represents. And, you know, as as everybody who's a fan of yours would know, you guys went on and did lots of credible stuff without your singer. So it's not like, you know, it's not the thing of like, oh, that didn't really work out. And you end up working with Chris Cornell, who's obviously one of the great singers of all time. But what I'm trying to say is

• 54:56Billy Corgan?

  none of us can, when we walk away from our situations, and again, we walked away in the same year,

• 55:02Billy Corgan?

  none of us can really understand how the public is going to ask us to redon the Superman cape one more time.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 55:10Billy Corgan?

  So, uh, did you have any sense of that at the time?

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're kidding. Um, yeah, I mean, the, the, I look at Lord of the, uh, Rage Against Machine is like the ring in Lord of the Rings. It drives men mad. It drives men mad. The fact that it is, you know, managers, agents, fans.

• 55:30Billy Corgan?

  It's probably driven you mad a couple times.

• 55:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, exactly. And, um, and so, you know, yeah, there's a, and here's the thing, but one of the, one of the great challenges for me is that I don't just come from a musical background. I was an activist before I was a guitar player, you know, and in that world, when you have a vehicle like that to really to a blank check of the things you can do in the world and the things you can say and the things you can stand up for and the money you can raise.

• 55:59Billy Corgan?

  Not only that.

• 56:01Billy Corgan?

  It's very hard to be successful by being radical in anything. And to be, and to be, let's call it culturally radical. To be talking about.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:11Billy Corgan?

  The farmers in Mexico.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  There's never been anything like it. There's, there have been bands that maybe were more political, but had nowhere near the.

• 56:20Billy Corgan?

  Well, spursely in rock.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And, and they're.

• 56:23Billy Corgan?

  Is there even a close second?

• 56:24Speaker 01

  There's, I mean, and there are bands that, you know, have, might be bigger, that have touched on politics, but nowhere near the level of radical that Rage Against the Machine was. So it was, you know, the, a challenge for me as a, as a dyed-in-well activist was like, are you kidding me? Like, like this is a very unique historical circumstance.

• 56:46Billy Corgan?

  So if there was any thing that aggrieved you, it was like, we're throwing away the power of the pulpit?

• 56:51Speaker 01

  That's correct.

• 56:52Billy Corgan?

  That we've created.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  That's correct, that's correct, that's correct. And when Audioslave formed, like, I was, I was like, okay. The only thing that I'm sure of is this band is going to be more political than Rage Against the Machine.

• 57:01Billy Corgan?

  Okay. That was the first. Let me take you one step back, and I'm not looking for gossip, because I'm really curious. Because I don't know Zack at all. But Zack has always struck me as somebody who was just like you. Those issues were highly, highly personal to him. So, and if it's inappropriate, we just cut it out.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:23Billy Corgan?

  When you sat him down, and I imagine you must have at some point, like, do you understand? These things are important to you, we have this vehicle. I'm not even talking about record sales, do you understand? We have this, this, this jetliner that allows us to voice things that are really dear to our heart.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:38Billy Corgan?

  What was his sort of interracialization?

• 57:41Speaker 01

  It would be something that I don't entirely understand.

• 57:45Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't entirely understand, yeah.

• 57:47Billy Corgan?

  I get that.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  I just, people are just wired different, you know what I mean? And, and that, and that the, that what seems to me like a impossible mandate to ignore is just how I'm, that's my perspective.

• 58:01Billy Corgan?

  In The Pumpkins, that was Darcy.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:04Billy Corgan?

  The three of us would be like, oh, this is so logical. And she would be the person to raise her hand and say, not to me.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 58:09Billy Corgan?

  And you'd be like.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And then over time, you sort of accept that people are.

• 58:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, no, now, now, and with some age and some wisdom, I can be like, you know what? That's kind of what made the band work in a particular way. But when that runs out of road, it's very strange, because you're like, can't we just?

• 58:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:27Billy Corgan?

  Um, it's, I wanna talk about Chris because he's such a gifted talent. So let's just stay on that.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 58:36Billy Corgan?

  I don't wanna talk about the tragic part of it all.

• 58:41Billy Corgan?

  Zack, obviously, uh, is it fair to call him a rapper? I don't know, you know what I mean?

• 58:46Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah, yeah, I mean, he has a multiplicity of vocal styles.

• 58:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, no, no, very, very, very, very talented and, and always liked his, where he was coming from.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  But Chris is a melodic.

• 58:57Billy Corgan?

  Well, that, that band could not have been successful like that if the four ingredients didn't work.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 59:02Billy Corgan?

  You guys really were some of the parts, and that's no disrespect, but having, uh, played with Brad, and, you know, even because Brad did the one tour with me, uh, when Brad would lean into a groove, I'd be like, oh, that's why that thing works. So you know that because that's your guy. But I had to play with Brad to understand that, that's part of the secret sauce in that.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  One hundred percent.

• 59:24Billy Corgan?

  The way he leans on a hat.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:26Billy Corgan?

  It's like, uh, geez, it's, uh, uh, Bill Ward.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:30Billy Corgan?

  Bill Ward fed through some, you know, I don't know.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Like, when you, when you saw those fields of bouncing, you know, that's, that's that guy.

• 59:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, and even, um, you know, because I'm a guitar player, and so when I would listen to you guys, I'd oftentimes focus on what you were doing, but then you realize,

• 59:46Billy Corgan?

  you know, Tim is just such a cool, like, he plays cool stuff, his pocket is really interesting.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  Yep, yep.

• 59:53Billy Corgan?

  So, you know, but you gotta peer in it from the inside out. So I'm, I'm just curious, maybe this is a good way to talk about Chris. Okay, so you go from a guy who's basically a very gifted vocal stylist slash rapper to one of the great.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:07Billy Corgan?

  Ro- Robert Plant.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:09Billy Corgan?

  You know, Coverdale for us, right?

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:13Billy Corgan?

  You know, I'm like, that must have been kinda like, well, this is interesting.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, well, it was, it's. The success, musical success, in my view, of Rage Against the Machine is that it was the, it was a hard rock punk version of the James Brown formula. Everything comes back to the one. It's the one, the one, the one, the one.

• 1:00:35Billy Corgan?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  There's, there may not be a chord change in the catalog of Rage Against the Machine.

• 1:00:42Billy Corgan?

  I'm over here waiting for a feature.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  And, and that's, and that is, that's its dynamism, that's its power, that is the reason why it is, it makes the field go crazy like that. Now, when I practiced my 20,000 hours, I practiced a lot of stuff other than that. And so when we started playing with Chris, it really sort of unlocked, first of all, one of the things that was interesting when we first talked with Chris about making music was he had been the principal songwriter in, the music writer in, in Soundgarden. And he was like, "I don't want to do that. I want to concentrate on lyric and melody, throw stuff at..."

• 1:01:19Billy Corgan?

  That's really surprising.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Throw stuff at me.

• 1:01:20Billy Corgan?

  I hadn't thought about it like that, but when you say it, it makes sense to me when I listen to the music.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Throw stuff at me. And we were like, "Great." And I, you know, everyone, everyone...

• 1:01:28Billy Corgan?

  But did you, sorry, but did you implore him to at least, because he's so, he really...

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  Well, I'd be like, "Give me, throw me a Spoonman every once in a while."

• 1:01:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, because he wrote really cool asymmetrical...

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  He was, he was, you know, Chris was a person that knew his own mind.

• 1:01:42Billy Corgan?

  Like that song, I don't know the title, it's like, "Fell on Black Days"?

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:46Billy Corgan?

  That's such a cool, only Chris would have played that riff.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  He was surely, he was, he was like, "This is what I want to do in this thing." And, and it, it, it, in some ways, like, really freed us to, like, the one thing, his, not, Chris was a great, great vocalist, but his greatest talent, in my view, was able to, cheekbones aside, was, was able to, was able to conjure...

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Beautiful, terrifying, perfect melody out of the ether.

• 1:02:17Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, cuz you're, basically if you're droning.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  Out of the ether.

• 1:02:20Billy Corgan?

  There's not a lot of melody in the music.

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  But, but now, but so that, what that meant was, when, with song like "Like a Stone", like the melody that he sings on the record is the melody he sang the first time we, we did it in rehearsal. "I Am the Highway", these beautiful, like, these sort of simple cowboy chord progressions that, or a more complicated riff like "Bring 'Em Back Alive", which is like a big, heavy Sabbath-y.

• 1:02:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  Sabbath-y riff. Those are first, like, the first thing that came out of his mouth were those, he later fits the word, fits the words to them. And I just, you know, I, you know, having, having been in a band with a tremendous vocalist in, in, you know, in Zack, I just like, "Oh, so the guy's singing", Rick was, Rick room was like, "You don't understand. Like, you don't understand that how rare what that guy is doing is. And that these songs are just like, coming out of, daily, just coming out of nowhere that are pretty spectacular."

• 1:03:08Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, Tony Iommi, I, I saw this one thing once where somebody had asked Tony to compare Ozzy and Dio.

• 1:03:17Billy Corgan?

  And I think it was when Tony was a bit sour about what had happened with Ozzy. So there's a, there was a little bit of a dissonant, but what he was really saying was, that Ozzy always sang with the riff.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:03:27Billy Corgan?

  And Dio was gifted enough to sing stuff that the riff didn't imply.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:32Billy Corgan?

  So I, that's kind of what I hear you saying.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Just, just to be clear, that, that no one, no one has ever done what Zack did. Like, he's a, the punk rock James Brown is what he, like, it's part Bad Brains, part James Brown, part Public Enemy. Like, that combination, and the way that his vocals rode on top of the music was, you know, I think that had Rage Against the Machine had a melodic singer, is, it would not, it would not have been audience, like, it wouldn't have worked at all.

• 1:04:01Billy Corgan?

  For lack of a better word, I, I always thought of Rage as a weapon.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:05Billy Corgan?

  We had elements of that.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:08Billy Corgan?

  But it wasn't our thing.

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:13Billy Corgan?

  I thought to ask you this because, again, you're the, one of the only people I'd be interested in the answer.

• 1:04:20Billy Corgan?

  It may sound too obvious to ask you, so I'm not asking for a layup answer, but do you think politics should be in music, or is it a personal choice?

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  I would, I have two thoughts on that. One is that there is nothing that in the broadest sense is not political. There is no art, there is no music that does not fit somewhere in a cultural context that pulls either in bread and circuses way, or towards a more just and equitable future way, or towards a more...

• 1:04:57Billy Corgan?

  Is it because in your mind it's rooted in humanism?

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  I just think that, like, I thought that the Scorpions' records were not political, but there are, in the artwork and some of the lyrics are, say, opinions about women that influenced my young self to look at the world in a way that could not be described as apolitical.

• 1:05:17Billy Corgan?

  Okay, I get that.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and in, in some of the biggest pop music bangers, there, which I greatly enjoy some of them, there's a bread and circuses component that if we just focus on the celebrity of this person and on this song, let that be enough of your personality pie that you're not grabbing a pitchfork and a torch.

• 1:05:42Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I was, but before, as far as, as far as art, should music be political? The answer is no. That the thing that is important in art is to be authentic. And you, for the sake of Tom Morello, you should not try to write political songs.

• 1:05:54Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  You should write what is meaningful to you, and if it's girls and cars, then please write that, and don't pretend that you want to write about Peruvian, you know, labor unions.

• 1:06:04Billy Corgan?

  Or marching powder.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  Or...

• 1:06:07Billy Corgan?

  Why do you think politics has a diminished role in music? Because you and I certainly grew up with... Crosby, Stills and Nash and Jackson Brown singing about no nukes.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:18Billy Corgan?

  And even, even, you know, there's a political element to the Boss's music.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  Sure, sure.

• 1:06:23Billy Corgan?

  But culturally, if you take a snapshot where we're sitting here, right here in 2024.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:28Billy Corgan?

  I feel in my lifetimes, politics has never been more out of music that I know. Now, it might have been different in 27.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:35Billy Corgan?

  For our world.

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. I would say that I agree with you to a point. I would say that politics is very much in music. It's not so much in music at the top of the charts, you know?

• 1:06:44Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  It's not so much, but there's.

• 1:06:46Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so we answer it this way. Why do you think politics in music is not?

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:06:51Billy Corgan?

  I would call it a bigger part of the cultural conversation.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:56Billy Corgan?

  Like Neil Young writing "Four Dead" in Ohio.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:06:59Billy Corgan?

  One of the great political testaments, you know, they were so horrified. You know, they literally, because I recently read Graham Nash's book.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:08Billy Corgan?

  Uh, "Our House" was climbing up the charts. They literally yanked "Our House."

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  Wrote a song and four days later, yeah.

• 1:07:14Billy Corgan?

  And, and, I mean, that's, that's.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Billy Corgan?

  That, I mean, that's the Rage Against the Machine playbook, which is like, we're gonna stand with what we believe in.

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  That's right, that's right.

• 1:07:22Billy Corgan?

  So I don't see as much moral courage in the culture.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:24Billy Corgan?

  I'm including myself in that.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I would just say, like, it would, it would be interesting. I mean, maybe there was that song, "This is America," during the George Floyd. There's a couple of markers, but it's certainly not, you know, and it's, it's. I would say my best answer to that question is I'm not entirely sure. The, the landscape of how music is put forward is very, very different now. And at the time of Crosby, Stills and Nash, there was a music industry, a great, great band. But they got through a funnel that everyone in the Western world knew that there was a band called Crosby, Stills and Nash. And when they had a new song, you were going to know it, whether it was "Our House" or whether it was "Ohio." That's not the case, that's not the case now.

• 1:08:03Billy Corgan?

  Okay, that makes sense. Um, I have this thing I call "If I Could Wave a Magic Wand." So if you could wave the magic wand, but it's, or, or a variation would be "If I Ruled the World."

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:15Billy Corgan?

  What, what, what America would you like to see if you could, you know? And we know it, it's, it's not that easy.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:21Billy Corgan?

  And we could, it's a human condition, you know, whatever. We, we all have these conversations around expensive dinner tables. But, but as somebody who really grew up with certain convictions, has lived them in public.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:35Billy Corgan?

  Uh, with great conviction, uh, and that's something I really admire about you.

• 1:08:42Billy Corgan?

  What, what America would you like to see? Is it a, is it a blow up the system and start over?

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  I could, I would sort of, I would say, I'll name a North Star.

• 1:08:52Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:08:53Speaker 01

  I'll name a North Star. That everyone, everyone could become the person they were born to be. And whatever gets us to that is what I would be.

• 1:09:03Billy Corgan?

  Is that, is that require assistance and opportunity? Or, or is it require a truly open system?

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  I think, I think it would, it would require a complete, a completely new way of, of everything.

• 1:09:14Billy Corgan?

  That's kind of what I'm asking.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it is, you know, the, the person who maybe in their, in their mind is going to be able to cure cancer, might be working in a maquiladora, you know, on, on the Mexican border. The person who, um, you know, might be able to save the planet from global warming, might be in jail for an illegal abortion in Alabama. You know, there's a, like, one grotesque global poverty is a big reason why people can't become who they, who they were meant to be. Um, and poverty is not something that happens, poverty is something that's created. But I think that that's like, it as a moral compass to, to want people to be, I feel very fortunate. I think I was able to become the person I was meant to become through luck and circumstance and

• 1:09:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  my mom and whatnot. Um, but I think that that would be a good place to start.

• 1:10:03Billy Corgan?

  I think when we were kids, I think Illinois either had the best education system in America. It was like top four or something.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:10Billy Corgan?

  So we were the benefits of at least that.

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, 100%.

• 1:10:15Billy Corgan?

  And I know for a fact that, that I wouldn't have become who I became without that.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:20Billy Corgan?

  The, the benefit of that education. I can't imagine what it's like to grow up in a, in a, in an education system that doesn't really give you that. Let me find what you're good at and kind of

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:10:29Billy Corgan?

  propel you forward.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:32Billy Corgan?

  Explain the Night Watchmen thing to me a little bit. Because I was reading about it a bit and I knew about the shows, I didn't see any.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:10:39Billy Corgan?

  I'm a total novice in this, but I like the idea that you have this, I think you call it a folk alter ego.

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:10:45Billy Corgan?

  So just walk me through that a little bit.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. When it became obvious to me that Audioslave was not going to be a political entity. Like, in order for Audioslave to be the best band that could be, it was gonna have to be authentic. And it was not going to concern, overly concern itself on a daily basis with changing the world for the better, expressing things like that. I felt like I needed an outlet.

• 1:11:07Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  So I founded a nonprofit organization with Serge Tagen called Axis of Justice. And that was great, but it wasn't, it felt like, I'm a musician. And so, I had become, I was a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs. And I thought, like, I'm just gonna, I boldly, in my mid 30s, began my singer-songwriter career at open mic nights. I'd be playing arenas with Audioslave, and on nights off, I would go sign up at open mic nights and sit and wait to play my two songs with a whirring espresso machine in the background and felt the, the greatest connection to audiences that I have to this day in that guise.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  And really feeling sort of heard and connected, and in addition to that, having the flexibility of the guerrilla performance. You know, like, you have to have a band meeting. Are we gonna play the show or are we not? The tour manager has to get a thing together. I could just, you know, get on a South by Southwest flight to play for the anarchists who got arrested at the bicycle shop protest or whatever. And since then, I've played hundreds, maybe a thousand gigs in that guise, made a bunch of records.

• 1:12:19Billy Corgan?

  But when, sorry, but when you say alter ego, are you, are you in the guise of a persona?

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  Well, it began that way because, it actually began at open mic nights, because if I sign up as Tom Morello, everyone goes, Bull's on, he's gonna play Bull's on Parade tonight.

• 1:12:31Billy Corgan?

  Acoustic?

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, acoustic. I'm like, that's not what's gonna happen. It's gonna be existential dread in a minor key.

• 1:12:38Billy Corgan?

  Last thing I want to talk to you about is your, your move into directing.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:12:44Billy Corgan?

  You asked me nicely to be part of a Judas Priest documentary that you're doing. And I know your wife, is she still working in the film?

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  Not so much, yeah, yeah, yeah. For many years, she did music for film.

• 1:12:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's kind of where I got to know her a little bit, was we had some meetings and... So I'm curious on that because is it an aspiration? Or is it a why I'm, you know, because I do a lot of side hustle stuff.

• 1:13:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:10Billy Corgan?

  And when you're a musician with success, you know, at the center is always, you know, whether it's, are you gonna go on tour? Are you gonna do this thing? And you did Profits of Rage, of course, and stuff like that. So is it something that you've always wanted to do? And this is gonna be something you're gonna add to your, you understand?

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:28Billy Corgan?

  Where's that going?

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was sitting with a friend a few years ago. Like, I've always contributed generously to other people's projects. I've got a lot of ideas that I've handed out and they're like, "You should maybe do some of these yourself." And I thought, well, I would, you know, why not a third or fourth act?

• 1:13:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  And so I started a production company called Commandante. And the idea was just to make things that I'm very interested in. And Judas Priest, who I did a lot of the heavy lifting to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You know, a doc, the real, a great doc about them is one that the world deserves. And so I thought I'd try my hand at directing that. So Sam Dunn and I are directing.

• 1:14:05Billy Corgan?

  What do you want the world to know about Judas Priest?

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  First of all, the world does not, the broader world does not understand what an important band.

• 1:14:13Billy Corgan?

  It shocks me to this point that people haven't really figured it out.

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  They don't understand. I mean, from a, from a musical point of view, a lot of what defined the genre of heavy metal was solidified by that band. From the look to the sound, to the singer, to the two guitar players. That's in the DNA of every metal band afterwards.

• 1:14:34Billy Corgan?

  Isn't it shocking? Because if you watch the footage of them, Live in Japan is, to me, one of the greatest live records. And of course, Rob admitted that he had to sing the vocals later because he had a cold at the shows. But if you look at the actual footage of that tour, he's in a kimono.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:49Billy Corgan?

  But by that time, they get to the album cover.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:14:53Billy Corgan?

  The Rob we all know and love.

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  The Rob we all know and love. Yeah, but I mean culturally, it's very, it's, for someone like myself who felt... Personally, on the outskirts of metal, I was often the only black dude at the DO show, you know, and then when Rob came out, it was really, it was really important. When Rob came out and then nobody batted an eye, that was the key part.

• 1:15:15Billy Corgan?

  It's still one of the most beautiful, humbling moments of my life.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:18Billy Corgan?

  Because, and we talked about it in the doc.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:20Billy Corgan?

  When Rob came out, as a fan, I held my breath because I thought, here it comes.

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:25Billy Corgan?

  And nothing happened.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, nothing happened. And I thought. Like, metal's gonna be revealed for being the horrible thing that people suspected it was.

• 1:15:31Billy Corgan?

  Right, and, and it still brings tears to my eyes, and here's why. Because I thought, why is there no reaction? Because the world I grew up in would have hated.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:15:40Billy Corgan?

  And that's what terrified Rob, and Rob's talked about that.

• 1:15:45Billy Corgan?

  And I thought, I had to do the math in my head, like, why are they not? And I thought, they love him.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:50Billy Corgan?

  They love him more than their bias.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:15:53Billy Corgan?

  Now that is powerful.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's hopeful.

• 1:15:59Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so.

• 1:16:04Billy Corgan?

  In your fourth act, if we're on the fourth act, what to you is, is it, is?

• 1:16:12Billy Corgan?

  Because we're all in that stage where, you know, I'm sure you get the call every six months. You guys gonna put the band, you know? I'm saying, what for you is the ideal state? And, and I'll, I'll offer a little bit of my own thing in that.

• 1:16:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:24Billy Corgan?

  When I, when I made peace with James after 16 years, you know, I had to do a different set of math myself. And I'm happy, at least in this moment, that we have figured out, okay, this is a constant going forward. That we no longer need to debate the status of this entity. We're grateful, and as long as there's a road, let's try to all be on it, and let's not try to repeat the mistake. And I'm not trying to put that on you.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:50Billy Corgan?

  What I'm saying is, that, that act that happened in 2017 or so, was born of me putting an ad in the Chicago papers around 2004 or 2005 where I said, I want my band back. And I was mocked widely.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:05Billy Corgan?

  Because I felt like I didn't know how to operate without the band at the center of my musical universe, even just call it center. Like, there's something about the pumpkins in the center makes everything else kind of balance out. So, I'm empathetic and I don't know if you'd recall this conversation, but we ran into somewhere, each other somewhere years ago, it would have been about 10 years ago, and, you know, me being the jerky that I am, I was chiding, saying, "Why ain't you guys making new music?" And you kind of gave me that look like, "Well, it ain't that easy." So, again, not talking gossip, I'm saying is, back again to the magic wand, if you have your druthers, what's the right orientation for you going forward? And I'm not even asking a rage against the machine question.

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, I hear you, I hear you. I mean, for me, I'm very clear on it now. The main orientation is to be a great dad. You know, that's the main orientation. And I love that, and I will drive thousands of miles to Little League games and that, it's my greatest joy. And then, you know, this last summer, it was the biggest solo tour that I ever did. The idea of synthesizing 22 albums in a lifetime of work and ideas in a very, very meaningful way. Like, this, I mean, in the next couple of days, I'm playing two shows to honor Wayne, brother Wayne Kramer, the MC5, God bless him, and for his charity.

• 1:18:24Billy Corgan?

  And you were part of that. It's hard, I didn't understand the full context, but it is an MC5 album.

• 1:18:30Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, yeah, it's an MC, yeah, yeah, but just like, the idea of playing my music, you know, historically and currently.

• 1:18:39Billy Corgan?

  But they're the only other band that really does fall in the rage.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  That's right, yeah.

• 1:18:44Billy Corgan?

  And they were obviously first to say, "Hey, we're gonna really put it out there."

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, all the way up.

• 1:18:48Billy Corgan?

  All the way.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  All the way up.

• 1:18:50Billy Corgan?

  And that's beautiful.

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  And come what may.

• 1:18:52Billy Corgan?

  Maybe it isn't every 50-year thing.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:54Billy Corgan?

  Or 40. No, because... To be that fervent in your belief and then somehow break through is like

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  Is crazy.

• 1:19:02Billy Corgan?

  It's a miracle.

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have to be that fervent, you have to be that good, and you have to have Kick Out The Jams. You could be that fervent if you don't have, if you don't have, if you don't have that, then it doesn't really matter. But yeah, that, that the, that I love the sort of embracing of, it's, it's Night Watch, I play lockup songs, Night Watchmen songs, Province of Rage songs, you know, we honor Chris.

• 1:19:21Billy Corgan?

  Well, you have your kid up there too playing.

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  And my son Roman Morello is no joke, dude.

• 1:19:25Billy Corgan?

  Now that is cool.

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  He is no joke.

• 1:19:27Billy Corgan?

  You know, because when we did some shows together in Europe recently, when the, when the person or band that's opening for us is going, that's when I'm warming up. I go through this horrifically torturous 45 minute warm up. And somebody came back and I said, "How is it?" And he go, "Man, his kid's really good." So I think that's where we, God bless you and God bless him.