Danny Elfman | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

In this episode Billy Corgan sits down with musical visionary Danny Elfman. Together they trace his journey from the underground theatrics of the Mystic Knights to fronting Oingo Boingo, and on to scoring over 100 iconic films including Batman, Beetlejuice, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Danny opens up about his unconventional path into composing, the challenges of being underestimated in both rock and classical circles, working with Tim Burton, and why he thrives on creative resistance. In the end, it’s a conversation about art, identity, and what it means to finally feel seen on your own terms. Subscribe to the Magnificent Others YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Let me tell you something. I am a Bamba's super fan. I just went through all of my socks. You know, the drawer organization that comes over you in the fall. I got rid of every pair of socks because they were so worn out, so gross. I don't like wearing them, but guess what stayed? My Bamba socks. They're the only ones that made the cut. Also, they have new suede moccasins. They're perfect for fall with cushy soles and sheerling lining and water-resistant suede. And their slippers are everything you'd want for a cozy night in, made with the softest, squishiest materials. Then there's Bamba's Compression Sock Collection. You know I love those for my airplane rides. Specialized designs for travel, everyday workout, and recovery. There's a fatigue-fighting pair for every moment. Merino wool blend pairs to keeping toes warm. Sweat-wicking sports socks for fall race training

• 0:43Speaker 00

  and dressy styles for any fall weddings. Bamba's makes buttery and breathable underwear that feel like nothing under your clothes, plus t-shirts that feel so soft and fit just right. And the best part about Bamba's? For every item you purchase, they donate an essential clothing item to someone facing housing insecurity. One purchase equals one donated. Head over to Bamba's.com/audio and use code AUDIO for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash AUDIO, code AUDIO at checkout.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  It was kind of, nobody knew what to do. And that score stood out. I was offered every quirky comedy made in Hollywood.

• 1:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  For the next five years, it was like, oh, my God, I'm the comedy guy?

• 1:20Billy Corgan?

  They were getting the vibe of what you were putting out. That is so cool.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Hearing that "nothing" makes me happier in my life. I knew when I was writing it, my 10-year-old daughter was hearing every song and approving it as I did it.

• 1:35Billy Corgan?

  You've been right more than you've been wrong. There's something sort of beautiful about that.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  You're gonna make me cry.

• 1:40Billy Corgan?

  But why?

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Because...

• 1:46Billy Corgan?

  So here we are. It's my dear pal Danny Elfman. Danny, thank you so much.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Oh, thanks for having me.

• 1:53Billy Corgan?

  Boingo, boingo. More than 100 films, notably Milk, Good Will Hunting, Big Fish, Men in Black, Doctor Strange, Dumbo, The Grinch, Oz the Great and Powerful, Peewee's Big Adventure, Spider-Man, Mars Attacks, Corpse Bride, Alice in Wonderland, Batman and Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas, of course, the original Beetlejuice, and the new, new Beetlejuice, which is called Beetlejuice Beetlejuice?

• 2:15Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 2:17Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 2:19Billy Corgan?

  That's a lot.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  It's been, uh, yeah.

• 2:23Billy Corgan?

  Tell me about it. So.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  And I also, in that time, created, uh, four scripts and three musicals.

• 2:31Billy Corgan?

  I did not know that.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Nobody does.

• 2:33Billy Corgan?

  No, but I did my research and I did not know that.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  I know, but it's not.

• 2:36Billy Corgan?

  Have this, have any of the scripts come to fruition?

• 2:38Speaker 01

  No, no, I just.

• 2:40Billy Corgan?

  I would think with your, I don't want to use the word leverage, but your position here in Dear Hollywood.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  I, I'm just a composer, you know?

• 2:47Billy Corgan?

  I don't believe that, but you've, you've certainly surpassed the title.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:52Billy Corgan?

  Composer, but, um, but I'm curious about that, so take me through that because obviously, you know, a lot of people and you know who to talk to. Why have they not made any of the movies that you would?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Well, first off, you'd be surprised how few people I know.

• 3:05Billy Corgan?

  Really?

• 3:06Speaker 01

  I've lived most of my life as a recluse, um, and even within Hollywood, people don't understand this about composers in Hollywood. My entire infrastructure on a film from beginning to end could be nothing more than me, one editor and the director. And those might be the only people I meet and then maybe if I go to a premiere, oh, there's the producer, hello, how are you? And, and other people in the studio, I am as unconnected as can be.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  And I've never been good at the networking part of it.

• 3:43Billy Corgan?

  See, I have that in my note. I'm, I'm jumping ahead, but I'm curious because, uh, I have done a few major motion pictures and the amount of people in my ear drove me insane. The term that comes to mind is cooks in the kitchen. There were so many cooks in the kitchen. So how have you avoided the cooks in the kitchen?

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Well, normally, uh, I mean, every film is a different dynamic, so in most films, I'm only allowed to listen to the director. And so the director comes over every week and there's a relationship and there might be one presentation for producers or, or other people, but then I never see them again. There are other projects where the producer becomes the voice.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  The studio might step in because there's problems with the picture and then they start interjecting points of view, but it's very rare. You know, if I've done 110 films, probably 90 to 100 of them, I've only interfaced with the director and/or the director and the editor.

• 4:47Billy Corgan?

  Because I had the complete opposite experience. Maybe it was because they considered me a novice or something, but...

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like I said, you know, also the films all have their own dynamic. You know, I've worked on a film where literally I was told not to speak with the director. I'm now taking notes from the producer or from the studio. So, things can shift, the dynamics can change, but I am as unconnected. I mean, I swear to God, this is true. I'll go to an after show, I'll go to premiere, there'll be an after show party, and more often than not, I'm sitting in a corner, just kind of looking at people with a drink in my hand, going, "I don't know anybody here."

• 5:22Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  And, "Oh, there's, there's somebody I know. Thank God." And I'll like, try to like...

• 5:28Billy Corgan?

  See, I would have thought, all these years you've worked in the picture business, that you would have more connectivity?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, but it's an isolated...

• 5:36Billy Corgan?

  Do you like that isolation?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Well, yes and no. I mean, it's, it's so weird. I've, I've done so little collaboration in my life, but the little that I have done, sometimes it's like, "Wow, this is really fun. I'm actually like, working with somebody."

• 5:52Billy Corgan?

  See, I'm not trying to interject myself, but to me, it would be a dream to work with as a, as a composer and as an artist, because your, your, your imagination is so, if you know this word, "focund."

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Well, thank you.

• 6:05Billy Corgan?

  It's not a beautiful word to use, but I mean, your creativity is boundless. And I'm, I'm usually a person that people complain I do too much. You know, too many songs, even my own band complains too many songs.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, same.

• 6:19Billy Corgan?

  Right? But I mean, when I look at you, I'm like, "Wow, I wish I had Danny's drive."

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Oh, well, no.

• 6:26Billy Corgan?

  But you put me to shame, I mean...

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Not, it's not as much as you'd think, because it's just, you gotta figure this. With me, it's like there's two people who don't like each other, living in the same body, and they both want to work.

• 6:40Billy Corgan?

  Which, who am I talking to?

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Should I tell him? He was okay. Yeah, you could let him know.

• 6:49Billy Corgan?

  Really?

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Okay. It's uh, it's kinda hard to explain, but one of them is like, does the film music and enjoys doing that and is very much just in this small sub-world of filmmaking. And the other one wants to do anything but that. And um-

• 7:14Billy Corgan?

  Do you feel at times somewhat limited by your great success in film composing? Does it make sense?

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Well, that's made it difficult for me with the classical music.

• 7:23Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Because a lot of symphony orchestras, especially starting out, were very much like, "Oh, no, come on." Famous film composer.

• 7:32Billy Corgan?

  That world don't give a, you know what about our world, rock world? I mean, come on.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Exactly. I mean, I've gone through this my whole life, because when I stepped into film, they hated me because I came from rock. And it was like, "Oh, he doesn't do his own music." And literally, the whole community spent ten years waiting for the smoking gun of who really writes my music.

• 7:52Billy Corgan?

  Really?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  So, I mean, I was very much despised when I started out.

• 7:55Billy Corgan?

  As somebody who listened to Oingo Boingo, when I first heard your film work, I totally got the translation, like immediately.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Most people just assume somebody else does your writing.

• 8:04Billy Corgan?

  No, I know it's you, because I know your Oingo Boingo work.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Well, but you have an ear, perhaps, that could pick up these relationships. I'm guilty of the same thing. I understand where that resistance comes from. If I hear of somebody from rock doing an orchestral score, I might also assume, "Oh, they've got somebody, you know, doing, you know." But uh, so I get that they don't understand that I was doing my own work. But it took a decade. And then finally, okay, he's all right. You know, it took ten, fifteen years. And then, as a, I get well known as a film composer and I step into the classical world, it was the exact same thing all over again.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  And it was like, oh yeah, right, famous film composer wants to write classical music. And when I did my first, uh, uh, commission, it was about fourteen, fifteen years ago. Thing for Carnegie Hall for the American Composer's Orchestra. They, the conductor told me, he says, you know, the New York press, they will hand you your head on a platter. I can tell you that. He hadn't even heard a note yet. And I go, I know. And I go, I like that. So, it was like, I expect resistance on everything.

• 9:18Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  You know, I started out with a musical theatrical troupe that just got horrible press. And we used to take our worst reviews and print them as our ads. And then I got in a rock band and the LA press would say, dance music for kids who can't dance. And I loved that.

• 9:35Billy Corgan?

  That's a T-shirt. In my mind, that's a T-shirt.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so, okay, and then in film music, oh my God, it was huge. So, I finally started to realize that I thrive on that. And so, it's good when I get that, that negative energy works well for me.

• 9:54Billy Corgan?

  Well, I have such a different perception because I did listen to Oingo Boingo. But then, watching your success in film, and I know how much love there is for you in the rock community for your work in films, which is most recently with you playing these live shows. I mean, you can see that your influence on particularly young musicians in terms of looking at music cinematically. I mean, your influence is pervasive and there's so much love for you from the music community. So that's hard, that's hard for me to understand. And I know how parochial it is out here.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  It's only because I survived long enough. You know, you live long enough, eventually you get a little respect.

• 10:31Billy Corgan?

  Well, and you do take your shirt off and you're jacked. And I'm like, wow, what's he doing?

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Well, you know, that was kind of random, you know? I, I was going to Coachella in two thousand twenty-one, is it twenty or twenty-one? I can't remember when it was rescheduled after COVID. And I hadn't been on stage in a quarter century.

• 10:51Billy Corgan?

  I did not know that.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  So, I did wanna come out there and not go Elvis on my friends, so. I like, you know, I, I wanted to kind of keep my together.

• 11:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  And, um, sorry, I don't know what I'm allowed to say.

• 11:04Billy Corgan?

  It's, it's, we can say whatever we want.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Okay. And, um, so when I went out there, I said, I don't know how I'm gonna dress or what I'm gonna do. I said, I'm just gonna go like I used to go out on stage, shorts. I wanted to go barefoot because I used to go out on stage barefoot and they wouldn't let me because insurance risks. And it was about halfway through the show and I'm trying.

• 11:26Billy Corgan?

  At Coachella, they wouldn't let you go barefoot.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'm trying to lock into the moment. Well, because.

• 11:31Billy Corgan?

  I get it.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Nails on the stage, you know, stuff like that. And it was about a third of the way into the show and I'm trying to connect to the moment. And I go, it's been 25 years since I've been.

• 11:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  It's so weird. And I'm looking at an audience that wasn't even necessarily expecting me. It's not like I'm playing for.

• 11:51Billy Corgan?

  Or, or, or even born the last time you were on.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Or even born. So it's not like I was playing for a Noango Boingo reunion.

• 11:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  You know, with two Noango Boingo crowd. And I finally just said, oh, this is how I used to be 25 years ago. As soon as I got sweaty, my shirt came off and a bunch of guys would tear it apart in the front. And there'd be like this whole mosh pit with my shirt. It was a thing that happened every show. And I just did that to try to focus myself. Back in the moment and it worked. I said, I feel vulnerable and exposed and.

• 12:23Billy Corgan?

  All I know is I looked at the photos, I was like, wow, he's jacked. Well, I work in professional wrestling, so that's the first thing we look at. It's like, I'm like, Danny's jacked.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. I mean, I, uh, I was out to blow people's minds in some way or another. I, because the show made no sense.

• 12:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  I said, I'm coming up there. I did the most outrageous visuals, which is why I wanted to do the show. Because when I saw the screens at the Coachella stage in 2019, I said, I gotta do this. I could put some really up stuff up there.

• 12:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  And this will be fun. And, uh, so it was just part of. I wanted to surprise people and part of that was just me and part of it was what was behind me and you know and I just wanted to be not what anybody was expecting after a quarter century.

• 13:09Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. How was that response versus the response you just had because there was I saw so much press on your last was it Sick Sick New World?

• 13:17Speaker 01

  Sick New World, yeah. You know, it was it was amazing because I came up with the show randomly 2019. My manager finally brought me out to Coachella. They've been trying to get me out there for 12 or 15 years and

• 13:30Billy Corgan?

  Were they trying to get you to do Oingo Boingo?

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were like do do something.

• 13:34Billy Corgan?

  They're always about the reunions.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then I went out there and they said, well, do film scores like, you know, Hans Zimmer did this film score thing and I go, well, I can't do that either on this stage because it means pre lay and you know, a thing that I don't like to do. And and then I came I saw those screens and I said, wow, the technology last time I've been at an outdoor concert.

• 13:56Billy Corgan?

  The screens are insane.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  The screens are insane and I said, that got me excited. I said, I could put some shit up there. That's really wild. And I pitched an idea of like, how about old, new and film all mixed together in a nonsensical way.

• 14:13Billy Corgan?

  But that's your world.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Well, but at the moment, it seemed like that'd be fun, but then when it actually was happening, I said, this is the worst idea.

• 14:20Billy Corgan?

  Really?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  I ever had, yeah. I mean, we went into rehearsals and I go, I don't know who the show's for. I don't know what the audience is going to make of this.

• 14:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  You know, we're going to be doing rock songs and suddenly playing Edward Scissorhands? What the and I backstage before that show, I literally felt like I was walking out to a firing squad.

• 14:41Billy Corgan?

  Really?

• 14:41Speaker 01

  I said, I'm walking into a train wreck of my own design. They're going to kill me. Makes no sense. There was no warm up shows. There was no way to try it out.

• 14:50Billy Corgan?

  That is a tough leap.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  All or nothing.

• 14:52Billy Corgan?

  60,000 people, right?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  I guess.

• 14:54Billy Corgan?

  In the dirt and the sand.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  And

• 14:59Speaker 01

  I couldn't even tell during the show. You know, it's like, I kinda locked in at a certain point, but I was still looking at people mostly going like that.

• 15:08Billy Corgan?

  But it wasn't the good agape or the bad agape?

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. I couldn't tell. And it wasn't until I left the show, and you know what it's like on those stages. It's loud and it's hard to even hear what's going on. It's hard to hear your connection. There's so much sound coming off the stage. And you can't see very far. You know, you see mainly just the front. So, I'm heading backstage with my manager, Laura, and she's like picking up all these messages. Oh my god, oh my god, you should see this, you should see this, you should see this. I go, "They liked it?"

• 15:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  And she goes, "They liked it." And I go, "Oh, it was like a reprise from the firing squad."

• 15:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  And so, once I got over that hurdle, I go, "Okay, nothing about this makes any sense, but I don't care."

• 15:55Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  So I'll keep.

• 15:56Billy Corgan?

  But I think that's a testament to what you've built, because again, there's so much love for you in the music community. It's hard to explain other than saying, "When I hear your work in films, I feel like always one of us." Does that make sense? And I don't, it sounds pedantic.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Look, you're gonna make me cry.

• 16:14Billy Corgan?

  But why?

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Because

• 16:18Speaker 01

  I've only felt that in the last couple of years since I came back. You know, I've been so living on my own, and I've never really felt connected to anything, anything. You know, when I was in a band, we lived in our own world. I didn't know anybody in other bands. We didn't hang out. And then I was a composer and off on my own. I've always been like Nosferatu in his kind of hidden away.

• 16:43Billy Corgan?

  Nosferatu had red hair, yeah.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  It wasn't until I did the remix album for Big Mess and found, and my bass player, Stu Brooks, he wanted to like, "I'm gonna send this out to other people, let's do some..." I said, "No one is gonna wanna work with me and do this. No one." And suddenly it was like, "Oh, like Square Pusher and this one, and Ghost Man, and Trent." And

• 17:08Speaker 01

  I couldn't believe it.

• 17:09Billy Corgan?

  That's what I'm trying to tell you. I mean, you know it, but I'm saying is like,

• 17:12Speaker 01

  I was shocked.

• 17:13Billy Corgan?

  That's why I'm shocked in the reverse.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  It's the first time I was even aware of anybody even knowing who I was out in the world of music. I mean, I knew I had a fan base out there, but I never talked with anybody. I never,

• 17:27Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  And it was so moving to me. I get emotional now. I'm sorry about that.

• 17:35Billy Corgan?

  No, you shouldn't apologize. It's beautiful.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Because it was like a revelation. It's like, you know, I feel like that crazy Oscar speech that Sally Fields did years and years ago. She got through to, "They like me. They really like me." And I thought, "That's so corny." And here I am doing the same thing.

• 17:54Billy Corgan?

  If I have any kind of meta take in this, it got all the things I wanted to talk to you about is, somehow you've had the world come to you. Does it make sense?

• 18:04Speaker 01

  I guess. I just, I've always felt like I've struggled through everything.

• 18:08Billy Corgan?

  But, but that's the beauty of it is you are the guy in the castle and people actually want to visit the castle. You're the, there might only be one out of a billion, but you're the guy. You've actually pulled that off.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Well, I guess. It's hard for me to know.

• 18:22Billy Corgan?

  I'm just, I don't argue with you.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  From your producer about this show,

• 18:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  a couple of days ago, my answer was, "Really? Me?" It's like, I was so honored and happy.

• 18:36Billy Corgan?

  But this is, this is the core of what I, why I want to do a show like this is, American culture is very trendy, as you know, and you've lived through the various decades like I have through it, but your accomplishment is so singular. You're, you're more the American dream than what is usually held up as the American dream. Does it make sense? And I'm not saying we all agree on what America is anymore, but.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  That's for sure.

• 18:58Billy Corgan?

  Right. But I'm, but I'm saying is, is, and back to my little meta harp is like, somehow you've gotten the world to come to you, which is really, really rare.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  I, I never thought of it that way. So it's just really interesting to hear, you know?

• 19:13Billy Corgan?

  But that's maybe why you, it's worked because you're not, you're not looking out the window, "Is anybody paying attention every five seconds?" I'm more that guy. I'll do crazy stuff and be like, "Do you still like me? Do you still hate me?" I'm too, I'm too reflexive like that. And that's probably one of my great weaknesses.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Well, and certainly one of my great weaknesses has been my inability to.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Do what my agents always wished I can do, which is to connect and make connections and interface.

• 19:42Billy Corgan?

  Go to the party and...

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like, I'm really shy, you know, around people and a group of people. One-on-one, I'm fine.

• 19:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  But put me in a room full of people, I just find myself, like I said, in the shadows. And I don't know what to do with myself. So I've never been good at that.

• 20:02Billy Corgan?

  Okay, I want to, I want to preface this, this is a maybe strange way to put it. I'm interested in your youth, but not, like, I don't want to get too, too some deep psychological analysis thing. But doing my research on your parents and the world that you grew up in, and obviously your brother, who, who was it that was the person that noticed your precociousness early? That made you feel that you could trust your, I mean, it's been psychological, your inner voice? Like, who gave you the confidence to sort of believe in your vision?

• 20:36Speaker 01

  It's, it's interesting. I mean, certainly the first person that did would be my brother. You know, my parents were just horrified that, you know, they're schoolteachers. And my mother became a writer, but they were still, you know, she was a schoolteacher.

• 20:49Billy Corgan?

  Academics.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Twenty-five years, yeah. And both of her sons ended up essentially...

• 20:55Billy Corgan?

  Becoming hippies and...

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, and street theater. Literally, I was a street musician for years. And that's not a schoolteacher's dream, you know? It's like Danny, so you're on your one-year sabbatical, you are going to college, right? Oh, yeah, just, you know, oh, yeah. And then after like five years, you're not going to college, are you? I go, no. And so they, they, they were supportive in a terrified, depressed way of seeing their sons like go off the rails. And, but they never tried to discourage me. But my brother, uh, you know, I was eighteen years old. I'd just picked up the violin.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Uh, I was on a year of traveling through Africa. And I stopped in Paris first and he was performing conga drums with a musical theatrical troupe, a French musical theatrical troupe. And he believed in me from the beginning. And so he, I was practicing one day. He brought the director in to listen and I come out. Director goes, "Hey, come on the road with us. You can play." I go, "I don't know what, I've only been playing for six months." He goes, "Ah, you're fine." And I went on the road with them.

• 22:08Billy Corgan?

  How did you get to Europe in the first place?

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Well, it was en route to Africa.

• 22:12Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  You know, I went with a friend and we were stopping off to visit my brother in Paris before heading to Morocco to begin this year-long excursion around the world.

• 22:20Billy Corgan?

  Did you ever go up with the master musicians of Jejuca? You know, that, that, it's like, I don't know, they're a tribe or a clan? Do you know about all that?

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Oh, the, in Morocco?

• 22:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Well.

• 22:29Billy Corgan?

  They're up in the mountains, obviously.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  In this particular trip, I never got to Morocco. Everything got derailed. But I went back to Morocco with Gus Van Zant years later and had an amazing trip interfacing with the Gnawi.

• 22:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  And, um, we met a host that had musicians playing at his house every night would end with these Gnawi. And then there was a Gnawi festival.

• 22:54Billy Corgan?

  Ah, okay.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  You know, those, these are the desert musicians.

• 22:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I know that music.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  And, um, it was so inspiring.

• 23:01Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  And it was just the beginning of an inspiring year.

• 23:04Billy Corgan?

  Why Africa? Like, did somebody just like, "Let's just go to Africa"?

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, me and my, my friend from high school.

• 23:09Billy Corgan?

  This would have been what, year around?

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Seventy-one.

• 23:11Billy Corgan?

  Okay, right.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Into seventy-two, right, right in there. You know, we were just, uh, I was just eighteen. And, um, we were.

• 23:20Billy Corgan?

  And your mother said?

• 23:23Billy Corgan?

  Mom, I'm going to Africa to hang out.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  This isn't a good idea. And it was like, we're going around the world originally.

• 23:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  You know, we planned the trip through North Africa, India, Asia, back to Los Angeles.

• 23:35Billy Corgan?

  Oh, you're doing that, okay.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was the plan. Didn't happen.

• 23:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  But that was the plan. Ended up going to Paris, getting hired.

• 23:44Billy Corgan?

  In the circus.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Finally, meeting my friend, going to the Canary Islands, met new friends. Got me fascinated with the culture of a country called Mali. And next thing I know, we're on a boat, heading towards the Sahara Desert, aiming towards Mali, which I'd never even heard of when I was plotting the trip out. And now I went on a completely, we, instead of turning left, we turned right.

• 24:07Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  And went down West Africa and through Central Africa.

• 24:10Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  My friend and I split up about halfway through, so I did about half the trip on my own.

• 24:14Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  And it was an insanely amazing experience. Getting sick, getting my life saved by a German doctor, seeing Black Mambas cross the road and, you know, being told like, bites you, just sit down and relax, because you're dead. That kind of thing. And go, I don't care. But I was, you know, 18.

• 24:34Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  You know, it's, it's the kind of shit you could do when you're 18.

• 24:38Billy Corgan?

  That's...

• 24:39Speaker 01

  At 25, it's like you'd even go, whoa, whoa, whoa.

• 24:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  And, but I was learning percussion, I was playing with musicians.

• 24:47Billy Corgan?

  Can we stop there for a second?

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:50Billy Corgan?

  When I think of your musicality, I always think percussive first.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  That was the first. You're absolutely dead on.

• 24:58Billy Corgan?

  It's all in your, like, even you as a singer, like, in the boingo music, right? It's very rhythmic.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  It's because that's where I came from.

• 25:06Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  You know, I spent this year, I came back, I started working with my brother, the Mystic Knights, the before Oingo Boingo. And in that, although we did a lot of 30s music, and in my mind...

• 25:19Billy Corgan?

  But even that's very rhythmic.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  It is very rhythmic. I mean, I lived, in the 70s, I lived in 1935, Harlem.

• 25:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  My mind. And but percussion was also the center of everything. And we built our own percussion ensembles. We built an entire metal ensemble based on Indonesian gamelan.

• 25:39Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  And then an entire wooden ensemble based on West African balafon.

• 25:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, right.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  And we played these on stage, you know. And for a while, I really did think that was my future. I was going to be some kind of ethnomusicologist. I loved building percussion instruments, getting my hands, you know, getting covered with sawdust. And that was my world. So you've, it was very rhythmic. And in fact, it was hearing the rhythmic intense ska music at the end of the seventies.

• 26:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  That made me want to drop everything and start a rock band.

• 26:13Billy Corgan?

  Right. When you're taking, I want to, because it's hard to find much information on the Mystic Knights thing. And your brother, it was his thing?

• 26:21Speaker 01

  He started it.

• 26:22Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Uh, we started, both of us, with this troupe called Le Grand Magic Circus in Paris. He spent a couple of years with them. While I was in Africa, he came back home and founded the Mystic Knights, inspired by Le Grand Magic Circus.

• 26:38Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  And the day I came home, uh, he was like, you're the musical director. I go, yeah, but I got hepatitis, so let me rest up. You can rest up all day tomorrow. Day after tomorrow, you could sit in on rehearsals. So I was kind of appointed musical director of the Mystic Knights.

• 26:56Billy Corgan?

  And what would that entail?

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Well, musical director of a street troupe, you know.

• 27:03Billy Corgan?

  So a lot of free spirits.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:05Billy Corgan?

  Early seventies.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Passing the hat, you know, we'd go out and we'd.

• 27:09Billy Corgan?

  Where would you go around?

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Okay, so I started writing music and we'd bring in stuff. And we had a brass band and a percussion band. And we would march right into with the drums into a line, for example, in Westwood or somewhere, you know, where there's a movie theater, wherever there's a lot of people. And do like a quick show, pass the hat and get out before the police arrive.

• 27:32Billy Corgan?

  Ten minutes?

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Fifteen minutes, yeah, ten fifteen. Fifteen minutes was like.

• 27:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, you're pushing it.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're pushing it. It's gonna be a cop car.

• 27:39Billy Corgan?

  And would you play real gigs too?

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Not at first. The first three years was probably just on the streets.

• 27:45Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  And then eventually, my brother left to do this crazy movie Forbidden Zone, this midnight cult movie. And then I took over the Mystic Knights. And at that point, I really got all really good musicians. So everybody had to play four instruments, you know, so we could be a string band, a brass band, a percussion band, and...

• 28:08Billy Corgan?

  Isn't it how beautiful how so much of that still informs your work, though?

• 28:13Speaker 01

  I guess so.

• 28:14Billy Corgan?

  I mean, is that, I mean, that's my summation.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Well, no, it all, it all made sense eventually.

• 28:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  But, you know, I taught myself to write music with the Mystic Knights because I had to write for these guys and I had no training.

• 28:25Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  And so I taught myself to write and I started writing these complicated charts.

• 28:30Billy Corgan?

  We wrote charts, yeah.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then...

• 28:32Billy Corgan?

  This is more the twenties through forties vibe? Or do you just start going in your own direction?

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Original stuff and doing transcriptions of Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington music from the mid-thirties.

• 28:44Billy Corgan?

  Kind of re, re...

• 28:45Speaker 01

  I wanted every note to be perfect.

• 28:47Billy Corgan?

  Really?

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:48Billy Corgan?

  Those are hard things to transcribe.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  I know, but my first transcription was a Duke Ellington piano solo, a piece called "Black and Tan Fantasy." I wanted every note to be absolutely perfect.

• 28:58Billy Corgan?

  Do you know that whole thing about how the way he composed, because he was always on the road, is he'd stay two hours, three hours after the gig and just write? Do you know about that?

• 29:06Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 29:07Billy Corgan?

  It's really beautiful. There's actually some video of it. He's on this one, he's a little on the older side, but, you know, because they couldn't stay in the hotels they wanted to stay in, he got wise and so they got their own train car. So that way they could go out by the train tracks and party all night and do whatever they want and carouse. So he had real no reason to get back to the train car. So they would play a gig, everyone would clear out, and then he would sit on the stage for two or three hours with Billy Strayhorn and he would just, he would just play and write and transcribe. And that's how he was able to produce all that work and tour.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Amazing. It's just amazing stuff. And the other thing that I heard about him, which I love, is that when they were in New York, that he pretty much had the band full-time. And he would just write down ideas, just sketch stuff, and just show up at the rehearsal, say, "Here's some new stuff."

• 29:55Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  What a luxury. Let's just try these new ideas. Here's some charts. Wow.

• 30:01Billy Corgan?

  Have you ever heard those, there's the recordings, you know, in the, you know, in the 40s, they weren't allowed to record because of the war. There was like a-

• 30:09Speaker 01

  I didn't know that.

• 30:09Billy Corgan?

  There was a, that's why there's not a lot of key recordings between the war years of the great bands, because the only way you could record is if you were on the radio and for transcription discs. But you weren't allowed to go in and record because it was against the war effort. But somebody along the way in the 40s got that, that famous Duke Ellington Band to play on a new recording technology, which was recording to glass. And if you can get these recordings, you hear the Ellington Band recorded to these glass discs. And it's basically the equivalent of what became 50s recording technology. So you can actually hear what they sounded like in the 40s, but it sounds like it's from the 50s, but it's the 40s band. And it's mind blowing because it's such a revelation. Because usually it's kind of tinny 40s big band recordings.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:54Billy Corgan?

  But to hear that band with almost like more like capital 50s vibe.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:59Billy Corgan?

  It's, it's jaw droppingly beautiful.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:01Billy Corgan?

  With those players at that peak during those years. So if you get a chance, I would recommend that if you love that stuff.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  I do.

• 31:08Billy Corgan?

  If you do, yeah.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  And it was an amazing era of inspiration. And then when I heard the ska music, it brought me back to the West African high life bands that I loved listening to.

• 31:19Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's the influence again of the African emigres that had come into London, right?

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:24Billy Corgan?

  So you're making this weird-

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I had all this music that I loved and singles I brought back of the high life. And high life is some, is kind of between reggae and salsa almost.

• 31:35Billy Corgan?

  Is it more up tempo or?

• 31:37Speaker 01

  It's not as up tempo as ska. So it's a little more Latin tempo, but still reggae vibe.

• 31:44Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  It's hard to explain, but it had a vibe. And then ska just amped that up.

• 31:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  And put-

• 31:51Billy Corgan?

  BPMs.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And for me, at that age.

• 31:55Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  It was like, I heard that. It was like, yes.

• 31:58Billy Corgan?

  So the Mystic Knights was this kind of, I don't want to say ragtag ensemble, but-

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Kind of ragtag, multi-instrument ragtag 12-piece ensemble.

• 32:07Billy Corgan?

  So does your brother start sort of receding or is it?

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Well, he went off to do Forbidden Zone. So the last three, four years of the Mystic Knights, it was just me in the band.

• 32:17Billy Corgan?

  Okay. Yeah, I was trying to understand that because-

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, we split-

• 32:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Ways.

• 32:22Billy Corgan?

  So there's, you know, in your bio, there's this delineating point where, you know, seventy-eight or so.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 32:28Billy Corgan?

  So what's, how does that happen?

• 32:30Speaker 01

  I just, it was so crazy. I mean, I heard this music and I just said, you know what? I'm done doing theater. You know, five sets, costume changes and all this instruments. It takes a week to set it up.

• 32:43Billy Corgan?

  Sorry to interrupt you, but did you feel like, I mean, you kind of inherited this thing from your brother. But did you feel it was, it wasn't yours or you just could have got it?

• 32:50Speaker 01

  At that point, I felt very much it was mine because I was now starting to write original compositions.

• 32:56Billy Corgan?

  But what was it about the theatricality? Did you just grow out of that or?

• 33:00Speaker 01

  It was just so hard to do.

• 33:02Billy Corgan?

  Too much.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  And the appeal of like, wow, we could just set up the drums and a couple of amps. Half an hour, we could be playing.

• 33:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  It seemed so appealing.

• 33:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Because, you know, we had videos, we had animations on screens. Yeah, it was like a full multimedia thing. Suddenly, the simplicity of just a band. Now, the band wasn't simple. It still ate pieces, you know, because like a high-life band. I had a horn section.

• 33:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  And ska bands too.

• 33:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  So I kind of modeled it after that. But we still could go into a club and set up in a half an hour and play.

• 33:35Billy Corgan?

  Did you have any commercial aspirations at this point?

• 33:38Speaker 01

  No. I didn't think we'd ever be, you know, I didn't know what we were. I never did figure out what we were and I still don't know what I am.

• 33:47Billy Corgan?

  I'm sure I don't know, you know what I mean?

• 33:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, I just know that it was fun.

• 33:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it had that. I remember, and maybe it was an LA thing, but I remember you guys were on television a lot. Do you remember that? I feel like I saw you on television like twenty times.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 34:04Billy Corgan?

  You know, in the time, in, not YouTube clips, I'm talking about, you know, wherever you were in nineteen seventy-nine or something. I feel like you were on television. That's how I remember seeing you for the first time.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 34:15Billy Corgan?

  I mean, there I am in Chicago, right?

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:17Billy Corgan?

  And it's so west coast, this idea of this, the name is different, right? It's the new wave times, you have Adam and over here and things like that. But it seems so out of context for even what was happening at the time.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Very out of context.

• 34:30Billy Corgan?

  But that, but you were on, in my memory, you were on TV a lot.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Well, we did a few things.

• 34:35Billy Corgan?

  Maybe I just happened to see every time you were on TV. I just was always in the right place.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't that many times.

• 34:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Wow, okay. That's, that's, I swear to God, I remember seeing you, I feel like so many times. Anybody, it's serious in my memory because it was so different.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  We just jumped at every chance we could, of course, as you know.

• 34:56Billy Corgan?

  You're in this kind of hippie ensemble and then you said, "Okay, I'm gonna do this other thing." When did the record people come knocking, like?

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, we started out seventy-eight, seventy-nine, and we pressed our own EP. And then this DJ at K-Rock, a rock station in LA.

• 35:11Billy Corgan?

  Was it Rodney or?

• 35:12Speaker 01

  No, it was Jed the Fish.

• 35:14Billy Corgan?

  Jed the Fish, huh?

• 35:14Speaker 01

  And Jed the Fish just started playing it. And all of a sudden, we had this song being played on K-Rock every hour. What song was that? It's called "Only a Lad."

• 35:21Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  And it was just, suddenly, our shows just started getting bigger.

• 35:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  And then IRS said, "We'll release this."

• 35:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  IRS Records, it was Miles Copeland.

• 35:34Billy Corgan?

  Miles Copeland, yeah.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  And then Miles.

• 35:35Billy Corgan?

  And that was the cool label?

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was.

• 35:38Billy Corgan?

  Did you think that? I mean?

• 35:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was great. And Miles became our manager for a while.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  So then, our first record, we said, "Oh, we're gonna move you from IRS to A&M." We were on A&M for a number of years and did three more records.

• 35:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  But, you know, and then we toured for a bit with The Police. And then again, things just kind of grew. West Coast, but it was all west coast. It was really weird. I mean, we got to the point where we were selling five thousand seats in LA. But if we went to New York, it would be five hundred seats.

• 36:13Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  And in the Midwest, in between, it would be like two hundred and fifty seats.

• 36:18Billy Corgan?

  In the culture I was in, you guys were so anachronistic, it just didn't translate.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was, and we didn't tour a lot, you know, we were a big band. And also, I hated touring. And I just realized I had a lot of problems being in a rock band.

• 36:34Billy Corgan?

  Right. Okay, let's break that down, because I got my own problems being in a rock band. I'm always happy to hear about somebody else's rather than my own.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Fair enough.

• 36:43Billy Corgan?

  So there's the commercial aspect. How interested were you in the commercial, let's call it, "I Want to be a Rock Star" part?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Didn't even think about it. I figured, "That's never gonna happen."

• 36:52Billy Corgan?

  Because?

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Because what we do is just so whacked, and it doesn't seem to fit into any genre.

• 36:57Billy Corgan?

  So it was more like an adventure?

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 36:59Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 37:01Billy Corgan?

  Band dynamics?

• 37:03Speaker 01

  You know, I wish I can say I was more collaborative. You know, in hindsight, I look back and I kind of feel bad that I was a little bit of...

• 37:13Billy Corgan?

  You shouldn't.

• 37:15Billy Corgan?

  Never feel bad.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  I was a bit of a despot.

• 37:19Billy Corgan?

  You're talking to a fellow despot.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:23Billy Corgan?

  My, I'm not trying to interject myself, but my rationale was,

• 37:29Billy Corgan?

  if I don't do this, I'm never gonna get out of here. For us, getting out of Chicago was the paramount.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:34Billy Corgan?

  Objective. We wanted to come to LA, right? You know what I mean? We wanted to be where you were. You know, we weren't in any kind of land of, you know, honey. You know what I'm saying? Chicago was bleak. So, everything in my mind was like, I need to do this to get out of here. So, that was my rationalization, fair enough. What was your rationalization?

• 37:52Speaker 01

  I just, I don't even know. It's like, I'm hearing this stuff, and I know exactly how it should sound.

• 37:59Billy Corgan?

  I feel like I'm talking to myself, this is.

• 38:04Billy Corgan?

  Have you had this experience? You're in rehearsal, you're in the studio, and you go, "I think it should go like this." And somebody goes, "No, I think it should go like this." And you go, "No, I think my way is the right way." And they go, "Well, that's your opinion." And you're like, "Yeah, but my opinion is right." Have you had that feeling?

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 38:23Billy Corgan?

  I understand, because this is how I've always felt with my group is, I hear the notes in my head, and I don't feel there's another option.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  No, exactly.

• 38:32Billy Corgan?

  And they treat it like it's a sort of à la carte buffet.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:35Billy Corgan?

  Like, oh, there's all these notes you could play. I'm like, no, no, no, no. This is the note, this is the rhythm.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:40Billy Corgan?

  And I don't, and they treat it like it's a, like it's some sort of weird throwing your weight around opinion.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:47Billy Corgan?

  It's like, no, you understand, this is like a religious thing for me. Like, this is the way I hear it. I don't, there's no variation.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's exactly right.

• 38:56Billy Corgan?

  So, was it the band dynamic, then it sort of became your oingo-boingo versus their oingo-boingo?

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, you know, it's weird. I mean, I was only in the band, the band was together for 17 years, but, by the time... We finished eight, nine, ten years. I wanted out. I realized I'm just not meant to be in a band. I want to be in a different band every two years. And whatever I'm into, I don't, I'm not into it anymore after like two years. It was just psychologically hard. I never understood how bands would go out on the road for six months or even a year. Six weeks. I was ready to like.

• 39:39Billy Corgan?

  We did, one time we did 22 months.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  God damn. Yeah, I mean, six weeks. I just knew that I wasn't cut out for it.

• 39:48Billy Corgan?

  You have to have a certain inner pathology.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Yes. And also halfway through, I started, I became a film composer. Tim Burton just found me.

• 39:58Billy Corgan?

  This is Pee-wee's Big Adventure.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  Big Adventure. So now I'm with the band for 10 years. I'm also trying to get in at least two films a year, one or two films a year, because I want to learn.

• 40:08Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  And I couldn't leave the band at that point because it was like, oh, we get it. You have a more lucrative career. Thanks.

• 40:16Billy Corgan?

  It was a loyalty?

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, guilt.

• 40:19Billy Corgan?

  Okay, well, that works.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I felt guilty.

• 40:22Billy Corgan?

  It's a very effective controlling mechanism.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Very effective. And that lasted about seven, eight years. I don't really want to do this anymore, but I need, you know, they need this.

• 40:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  And I just can't abandon them because it'll feel like I left for this other career. And.

• 40:41Billy Corgan?

  So, so it wasn't this abrupt thing, like this stops and this begins?

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Well, I, I said, five years, I said, every year, this is our last year, this is our last year. And they go, yeah, yeah, right, right. Then four years, then three years. I said, this is gonna be, yeah, yeah, right, right. And finally, 95, I said, no, we are doing our farewell concerts. I can't do anymore. I was also destroying my hearing.

• 41:05Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  And there was that physical thing of my own monitors on stage were destroying my ears. And my father, when he died, was almost completely deaf anyhow. And I felt like-

• 41:19Billy Corgan?

  You think it's a genetic thing?

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I do have a genetic thing. And all I was doing was exacerbating it. And I'm like, I'm knocking ten or fifteen years off of my hearing.

• 41:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  So that provided a lot of motivation to get out.

• 41:31Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  You know, we didn't have in-ears at that point.

• 41:34Billy Corgan?

  So, so it was Tim Burton that approached you about Pee-wee and...

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, Paul Rubens and Tim Burton. Paul Rubens, Pee-wee Herman.

• 41:41Billy Corgan?

  But why you, just...

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Well, that's, that's what I asked. When I came with me, I said, "Why me? I don't get it." And Tim was like, "I think you could do a score." And I'm like, "Really?" And Paul was a fan of this late seventies, a score with the Mystic Knights. Kind of a score that I did for my brother's film, his Forbidden Zone that he'd done. And he made a note. And so, when they were talking about composers, Paul said, "Oh, you know, you should check out this Danny Elfman guy." And Tim was like, "Oh yeah, I go to their shows at the Whiskey." He's with the Oingo Boingo. And so they both knew who I was. And called me in for a meeting, and I said, "Just what you said, why me?" And he goes... So, he showed me some film.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Went home, I made a four-track recording.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Sent a cassette over, never expected to hear from them again. I got hired.

• 42:34Billy Corgan?

  Wow. That's simple, huh?

• 42:36Speaker 01

  I thought it was, they were insane, you know?

• 42:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  And literally, when I sat down to write the first note, I was like, "Wait, wait, it's been five years, six years since I've written a note on paper." Because, you know, I did all this learning intensive stuff in the Mystic Knights. Then I'm with the Oingo Boingo.

• 42:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  You don't write music for a band.

• 42:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah, you know.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Nobody gives a [BLEEP]. And so, I said, "All that was for nothing." And then here I was, seven years later, "Oh, I gotta write it all down." How did I do it?

• 43:03Billy Corgan?

  Did they trust you to work, or they tried to stick somebody with you that had experience? They just let you go?

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, no.

• 43:08Billy Corgan?

  That's amazing.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  But that's the beauty of being on a small film. It's like, the studio, you know, they didn't know who I was, and they didn't really give a- You know, it's like, Tim had hired me and the movie was very much an under the radar kind of movie.

• 43:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but it became a big hit or am I crazy?

• 43:25Speaker 01

  It became a big hit, but nobody knew that.

• 43:28Billy Corgan?

  I see, yeah.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  While we were making it, it was just like, alright, we got this new guy, Tim Burton, give him a shot. Not a big, small budget film, you know, if it screws up, it screws up.

• 43:40Billy Corgan?

  So after that, did you enter the kind of the milieu of Hollywood film composers or you were sort of still with Tim Burton?

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it flung open the doors because it was one of those being at the right place at the right time. That score came at a time when nobody knew what to do with comedy music in film. You know, the eighties was a transition period and it was kind of, nobody knew what to do and that score stood out.

• 44:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  I was offered every quirky comedy made in Hollywood.

• 44:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  For the next five years, it was like, oh my god, I'm the comedy guy?

• 44:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's weird.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  I don't even go to comedies. You know, I'm a horror guy.

• 44:20Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  And it's like, alright, what the? And then, you know, Tim kept making, between each of Tim's films, I managed to work in four film scores. So Peewee was one, Beetlejuice was five, Batman was ten, Edward Scissorhands, not quite, was fourteen.

• 44:37Billy Corgan?

  So you were kind of learning your chop as you went along?

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 44:39Billy Corgan?

  With the other studios or the other, but you kind of addressed it, but they left you basically alone?

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Mostly, yeah.

• 44:47Billy Corgan?

  That's so shocking to me because they did not leave me alone.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Well, Batman then happened and it was a whole different ballgame. I realized, oh, this is what it's like when it's a bigger budget film.

• 44:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  And, you know, with Tim, they left him alone and I was just like doing any film I could possibly do at that time. I just wanted to get in front of orchestras.

• 45:09Billy Corgan?

  So you weren't sort of being picky?

• 45:11Speaker 01

  No, it's like, if I had time, it was between touring, doing an album, I got this period of time, I would literally take a film, divide the money up between myself and the band, I would give them half of my salary just to allow me to take these weeks off to do the work and just learn as much as I could. And then every time, you know, Tim did another film, it would open up more doors. So Beetlejuice was like, oh, fantasy. And then Batman is like, oh, you know, that was a rough one, but it's like, he could do that. And so each of his films, like another door would open. And then I would get calls for fantasy films. I'd get called then for action films, you know.

• 45:53Billy Corgan?

  And you get to the point where they start asking you to do the Danny Elfman thing, right?

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Well.

• 45:58Billy Corgan?

  You have your own genre, right?

• 45:59Speaker 01

  That happened, yeah. Later on, I was on a film. And the director said, I was struggling with the title thing. He says, can you make it sound more Danny Elfman? And I said, honestly, I'm making it sound as Danny Elfman as I can, but for what you want, what you're hearing, there are others who probably do me better than me now.

• 46:20Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  And.

• 46:23Billy Corgan?

  I wanted to talk about, because I'm a, it's a big pet peeve with me when people interview me and they just want to talk about what they're interested mostly in the past. And if you ever had this at the end of the interview, they say, is there anything you'd like to talk about? And I'm like, yeah, the present, you know what I mean? So I really do want to talk about, I did listen this morning to your percussion concerto.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 46:46Billy Corgan?

  If I'm saying that correctly.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Thank you, yeah.

• 46:48Billy Corgan?

  Again, obviously percussion, but it strikes me with your work percussion is so, the rhythm is always at the root.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:57Billy Corgan?

  So go, tell me about entering into that world. I mean, you addressed it a bit in talking about the.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  But it really started in earnest about eight years ago when I did a violin concerto, which was my third commission, but I was doing six, seven years between commissions. And then when I did that piece, I said, I'm gonna do it every year, one piece per year. And it means I have to start saying no to films.

• 47:21Billy Corgan?

  Is this more of a personal, like, I need to do this for me?

• 47:25Speaker 01

  I need to do this for me, because huge challenge, you know, film music, it was kind of getting easy at a certain point. And I was getting hired to films where people were expecting, all right, I already know what's expected of me. And occasionally I could do something where I got to reach out and surprise people, but usually not.

• 47:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, they're hiring you because they know what you're gonna do.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Exactly. And the classical music was, because I have no training, that was like.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Mega mind, you know, every time I thought it was killing me. And I liked that. It's like, this is brutally hard. I finish it, I say, I will never do this again. And then I get an ask for another commission, I go, sure. I was a complete classical music slut. I was sitting in Berlin with the cellist with the Berlin Philharmonic. I was hoping to get a commission from them, but he said, we can't. We got a new conductor coming in and we're not ready for new stuff yet. But I have a piano quartet and we'd love to offer you a commission for the piano quartet. And I said, yeah, sure. And then we're having coffee and talking, then I go, you know, Newt, I have to ask you, what's a piano quartet?

• 48:37Speaker 01

  That doesn't mean four pianos, does it? And he goes, oh, no, no, no.

• 48:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I don't even know, yeah.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  I didn't know, I just said, yes.

• 48:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  I total slut. And I am, suddenly, all these ideas of doing this.

• 48:51Billy Corgan?

  I read somewhere in, in doing my deep dive on you. I saw, is it Dmitri Tiamkin?

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:00Billy Corgan?

  And then Max Steiner, right?

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:02Billy Corgan?

  Were those, those were people that you listened to, to kind of, were those people you listened to to get your bearings or for inspiration?

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Inspiration, those were the movie, I was a movie music buff. The, the only reason I was able to become a composer was that I grew up loving film music. So I was a fan who then got called into the game.

• 49:22Billy Corgan?

  Both those guys like Tiamkin and Steiner were really good at what they did.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So Korn Gold and Steiner and Tiamkin and Bernard Herrmann was like my god.

• 49:32Billy Corgan?

  I mean, he's.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Growing up.

• 49:33Billy Corgan?

  He's like the ultimate Goth.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I must have been 12 when I saw The Day the Earth Stood Still. And suddenly, it was a revelation that I was hearing the music and I realized there was a name connected to the music. It wasn't just there.

• 49:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I had similar experiences.

• 49:51Billy Corgan?

  It's amazing, I mean, still, like, you'll be watching some B-level potboiler film noir. And you're like, man, this music is like, and then you'll see like, Steiner must have taken like a side hustle job or something. Cause there's no way his name should be on that movie, but you're like, the music is so good.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Well, that's the thing, all those guys, I mean, they played, they played it high and low.

• 50:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  And I love that, you know, they would do like a big. Go on with the wind, da-da-da-da-da. And then they would do like two or three little

• 50:20Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Kind of film noir or kind of weird little.

• 50:24Billy Corgan?

  So the reason I'm asking the question is from the, let's call it the great composers. Who's your, like when you listen, you're like, oh my god.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Okay, definitely Bernard Herrmann was the one who.

• 50:35Billy Corgan?

  No, I'm sorry, for classical.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Oh, um, it was Stravinsky that turned my life around.

• 50:41Billy Corgan?

  Stravinsky.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was in high school and I wouldn't be in music had I not moved schools. We moved neighborhoods. And at this new school, I had to make new friends. And I fell in with a group of musical friends. And I was the only one who didn't play. But it was a friend who played trumpet and he turned me on to Stravinsky. And it was like, oh my god.

• 51:05Billy Corgan?

  So to the uninitiated, what is it about Stravinsky that still moves you?

• 51:10Speaker 01

  The fact that anything could happen at any time with the music. Because, you know, I knew Beethoven and Mozart and, and I, I loved it. But if eight bars does this, it will be followed by eight bars that then goes at that. It'll echo each other. And with Stravinsky, and then finally that led to Prokofiev and Shostakovich and the Russian composers that became my life. But I felt like anything can explode out of this orchestra at any moment. It could be playing along, playing along, and then just stop.

• 51:39Billy Corgan?

  But that's what I think of your film music. That's what I think of.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  And that's what I loved. And, um, it, it just changed my, my world.

• 51:47Billy Corgan?

  Hmm, gosh, I can't even imagine like how you even begin to dive in in the classical world. Like, I, I get the leap from rock to film composing.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  You know, it literally was like, I'm lucky that I started out in the days. It was like the punk era, even though, as you know, we weren't a punk band. But it was that era. And I had such a you attitude towards everything and everybody. Because, you know, we didn't know what we were. We didn't care. We get bad reviews, it.

• 52:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  You know, we get blasted in the LA Times, it. And then I became a film composer. They hate my guts. They're all like saying, we know who really writes your music. And I was like, I was literally motivated by, I'll show you mother.

• 52:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  It's like, check this out.

• 52:39Billy Corgan?

  So you're still, are you, that's your classical world attitude?

• 52:42Speaker 01

  Exactly the same thing. Again, it was like.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  I thrive on adversity. And the challenge of like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm in the playground of the big boys. This is ridiculous. And then eventually, the deadline hits it. Because I'd been a film composer for a quarter century at that point. And I'm wired to like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm done. And then I look at the date and I go, I better start going. I only have this many days left. And I'm so wired, my whole nervous system is so wired that way. That with the classical music is the same thing. My first commission, I go to Carnegie Hall and I'm looking at the walls. And there's the real Prokofiev.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  And there's Tchaikovsky and Tchaikovsky and Tchaikovsky. And I come home, I'm paralyzed. I couldn't write a note. I said, I can't hold myself up to these giants? What am I doing? And then, of course, oh, I have X number of days left. And they have their first rehearsal already scheduled. I have to write music. And it kicks in and I just started going. But it was, it was huge because I didn't know what I was doing. When I started the violin concerto, I'd never listened to a violin concerto. So I had to train myself first. Like, I knew Prokofiev's piano concertos. For some reason, I knew all the piano concertos.

• 54:11Billy Corgan?

  It's like learning the rules or?

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, learning the rules. What is a concerto? As opposed to a ballet, as opposed to a symphony. And you listen to Prokofiev's work or Tchaikovsky's work or Stravinsky's work. And you go, I get it. When Stravinsky, when he's writing a ballet, it's very melodic. And it's gonna do this and there's a series of melodies. And it could tumble from this to this to this to this to this. But when it's a symphony, now it can get heavy, it can get dense, it can get dissonant. You can approach it a different way. When it's a concerto, it's a real crowd pleasing piece. It's written for a violinist or a pianist.

• 54:47Billy Corgan?

  Is it their version of like a single?

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, the idea is to make them shine. Make an audience jump to their feet.

• 54:54Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  And it's like, it's a whole different mindset. And I kind of listened and tried to soak that up and learn.

• 55:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 55:03Billy Corgan?

  It's like my mind's reeling because I realize how daunting it is. Maybe that's like, it's not that I'm a loss for words, I'm just, I can, I can feel the...

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Oh, it was, it was daunting in the extreme. But, but fortunately, I had this part of me of like, everybody will hate it, fuck them.

• 55:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  And...

• 55:21Billy Corgan?

  And how has, how has the reception been so far?

• 55:23Speaker 01

  It's been really good. I mean, of course, classical critics, not as good, but getting better.

• 55:29Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  I got, actually got some good reviews on this new release from Sony Classical of the percussion concerto. And, um, which is a surprise.

• 55:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  You know, for me to read a good review for a classical work is like, what? It's like backwards, like through the looking glass, it's like backwards reality.

• 55:46Billy Corgan?

  So if I'm, if I'm following your trajectory, is the next 20 to 30 years of your life, is this the, is this the mountaintop then?

• 55:54Speaker 01

  20 to 30, let's just say, my goal is to make it nine more years. I'm 71 tomorrow.

• 56:02Billy Corgan?

  Happy almost birthday.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Thank you. And, uh, it's like, okay, that's my goal. Can I keep myself going for nine more years?

• 56:11Billy Corgan?

  Ah, you got more.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  Okay, hopefully.

• 56:13Billy Corgan?

  The reason, the reason I'm saying that is because, and it goes back to what I was saying, it's like, somehow the world has come to you, right?

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Well, in the classical music, I'm sorry, I didn't want to interrupt.

• 56:23Billy Corgan?

  No, please, no, please.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  I was getting bad reviews, but musicians were actually responding well.

• 56:29Billy Corgan?

  But this is my point about you.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Okay, you know, it's like...

• 56:33Billy Corgan?

  You've been right more than you've been wrong, you see what I'm saying? There's something sort of beautiful about that. And you, you're so, I don't want to say you're on your own, but when I think of you, there's not a lot of people around you, you know what I mean? You weren't part of a scene, yes, you're kind of thrown into a scene, but even your band was outside that.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Totally outside.

• 56:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  You know, and...

• 56:53Billy Corgan?

  So what I'm saying is, is, because I, I never, it never would have crossed my mind until I was sitting here talking to you, but I can see where you, you will leave a classical music legacy that people will actually listen to. Does it make sense the way I'm saying it?

• 57:06Speaker 01

  I hope so, that's why I'm committing to it.

• 57:08Billy Corgan?

  But it blows my mind because I think you can fucking pull it off.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 57:12Billy Corgan?

  No, you can, I know you can. But what's interesting about it is... And I hope you understand the nuance of the point I'm making. Occasionally, they'll drag me down into Chicago to see whatever's going on. I just recently saw Mozart's Requiem. Sixty-piece choir, sixty-piece orchestra, CSO, four soloists. It was mind-blowing tonality. And I read somewhere you have synesthesia. Is that true?

• 57:38Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 57:38Billy Corgan?

  Okay, internet, right? People always think I have synesthesia, because I think I do, but I'm not sure. The idea is like when you hear music in terms of color, tone?

• 57:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I don't see.

• 57:48Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so God bless on that. But as I was sitting there watching Mozart's Requiem, I could feel the color in the music. And I've listened to the piece, it was Requiem, I've heard it twenty times, thirty times. Sitting there with the brass and everything humming and everything in tune, it was like, wow. These colors were washing over me.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:06Billy Corgan?

  So what I'm trying to say on that is, okay, I'm a rock guy, I go down, I'll watch Mozart's Requiem. They can't get me down there for anything else, right?

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:15Billy Corgan?

  And you talk to people behind the scenes, they know who I am in Chicago, right? And they're bemoaning the fact that their audience is aging out. They're worried about their donor money drying up. So I would think classical world would be all over you to bring young people through the doors.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Well, that's what motivated me. Because I started touring with this Elfman-Burton show. Doing film music, like, twelve years ago, still doing it. And we're getting great audiences. And I remember thinking, looking out there and going, I wish I could pull them into classical.

• 58:48Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but let me stop you. Do they want it to happen? Are they trying to make it happen? Because my experiences with that world is they don't give a [bleep].

• 58:57Speaker 01

  I don't know. I just know that's who I'm trying to reach. I try to write music that is simple enough for someone who listens to film music to get pulled into it, but complex enough for someone who listens to classical music to not feel like I'm writing down.

• 59:15Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  Because it's easy to write down on a classical.

• 59:18Billy Corgan?

  But you understand what I'm asking, is classical world... They should be all over you to help pull in a generation of, multiple generations of people into these beautiful concert halls.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm getting-

• 59:30Billy Corgan?

  So the answer must be no, because-

• 59:32Speaker 01

  I'm getting commissions still, so it's kinda yes, starting to.

• 59:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  We played a week at Lincoln Center with the Elton Burton Show.

• 59:41Billy Corgan?

  Okay, I mean, that's no small gig.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  We had a, somebody from, because we were at the Lincoln Center, from the opera down, and afterwards he said to our conductor, he goes, "God, I'd kill to get this audience into our room." Because it was a very vibrant, it was a younger crowd, it was a vibrant audience, they were enthusiastic. And you're right, the classical audience, the gray hair is getting-

• 1:00:03Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's the thing, you know, the famous story about Stravinsky in The Ride of Spring, and it was nearly a riot. I mean, it's time for classical music to have another riot.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Well, yeah.

• 1:00:13Billy Corgan?

  Like, people will flirt with me about classical music because of my ability with polyphony. I certainly don't have your chops, but-

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  You don't need chops.

• 1:00:21Billy Corgan?

  You told me that once in a studio, and I'm forever grateful. That was a beautiful moment between us, but what I'm trying to say is, it's hard for me to imagine that they really want people like us, but they should be begging people like us to bring our audiences into the door, because if we love classical music like you and I do-

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:43Billy Corgan?

  -as musicians-

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  But they're of two minds. There's part of them that was like, "Yes, I'd love to tap into them and pull some of their audience in." On the other hand, they're like, "No, this isn't what modern music sounds like. Modern music sounds like this."

• 1:00:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, well-

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  And there's a very sad idea of what's modern.

• 1:01:02Billy Corgan?

  Let their audience, you know, go to Valhalla, because you go there and you look around, and it's 70, 82, 95, and the occasional young couple-

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Oh, and even out here, when I go, you know, there'll be like a modern piece opening the show. There'll be something really interesting, but what they're really there is for Tchaikovsky's,

• 1:01:20Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Whatever. That's the highlight.

• 1:01:23Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's just my commercial, that they should be all over you.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Well, thank you.

• 1:01:28Billy Corgan?

  One other thing I want to touch on- This might be my own project.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  But I have to say.

• 1:01:33Billy Corgan?

  No, please.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  You've gotta try it. You've gotta do it. You gotta just jump in.

• 1:01:37Billy Corgan?

  You could talk me into it.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  You just have, I know that you can do it.

• 1:01:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  And you have as much or more musical sense than I have. You can apply that and just like, you just dive in.

• 1:01:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  And do it and you go, I don't care what they say.

• 1:01:56Billy Corgan?

  Okay, cuz I did try my, I did try my hand at film music and I just found the politics drove me insane.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Well, that was just bad luck.

• 1:02:02Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I have had bad luck.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, but seriously, I mean, one movie, it'll be a dream.

• 1:02:09Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  And the next movie will be a nightmare. And it's just a matter of luck.

• 1:02:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  You know, like, something, some just go so smoothly and you go, wow, that was so easy. And some really are like a war.

• 1:02:20Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  You know, you're like putting on your helmet and you're just trying not to get hit by shrapnel.

• 1:02:25Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  And it feels like you're on the battleground of World War I.

• 1:02:29Billy Corgan?

  So, here's kinda-

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  Sorry, I just need to say that you need, you need to do this.

• 1:02:33Billy Corgan?

  Oh, that's very kind of you. I appreciate that. I, I do feel like I need to, but getting my band back to the top of whatever particular mountain that is, has been like, like that's called OCD one and OCD two is over here.

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:47Billy Corgan?

  Plus, we got a-

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  I hear you.

• 1:02:48Billy Corgan?

  Plus, we got a professional wrestling company to navigate. I don't know if you know about my life in wrestling? That's, that's like your life in The Mystic Knights. I got this whole other thing going on. Okay.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  That's beautiful.

• 1:02:57Billy Corgan?

  Just indulge me in this. This is, this is the junior psychologist in me. You were born fifty?

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  Fifty-three.

• 1:03:05Billy Corgan?

  Okay, fifty-three. So, Beatles, Byrds, California Dreamin'.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:03:11Billy Corgan?

  Like, you saw it.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:12Billy Corgan?

  Like, you were here.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I actually saw The Doors live. I saw it Hendrix's last concert in Isla White.

• 1:03:20Billy Corgan?

  Where'd you see The Doors?

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  At the Aquarius Theater here in Los Angeles.

• 1:03:23Billy Corgan?

  Those bootlegs are, there's, they did release those shows eventually. I don't know if you've ever heard of those.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  I didn't even know that, no.

• 1:03:28Billy Corgan?

  Those are, those are available.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  I saw Led Zeppelin live. I saw Cream live.

• 1:03:32Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so you were in that whole thing.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:35Billy Corgan?

  You lived the California dream. You saw it.

• 1:03:40Billy Corgan?

  And it is in a way in your music, but in a way it's not. Does it make sense the way I'm saying that?

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:45Billy Corgan?

  What's the part that's not? Can you explain that to me? Is that too psychoanalyst guy?

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  I don't know. I know, I know that, I mean, even last night, I was, you know, because I'm finishing songs for my next album.

• 1:03:59Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  And I'm doing the orchestra, because I, as the last one, I liked the idea of pulling orchestra in with rock band. And it keeps taking me back to George Martin. It's like, who are your biggest influences for orchestra? It's like, well, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Bernard Herrmann, George Martin.

• 1:04:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  And it's still, those Beatles songs are engraved

• 1:04:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  in my mind. And specifically, the first use, really inventive use of orchestra with rock.

• 1:04:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  You listen to "I Am The Walrus," "Day In The Life,"

• 1:04:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  these songs, Eleanor Rigby, you know, you're hearing some beautiful orchestration.

• 1:04:39Billy Corgan?

  You know, in the 60s, some in the 70s, but in the 60s, they had their whole thing where they would do instrumental versions of, I love those schmaltzy, like Beatles with strings.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:49Billy Corgan?

  Like 101 Strings, like it's just the most mawkish, like suicidal.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:54Billy Corgan?

  You know, "I Am The Walrus," like the most bored string players and...

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  But on the other hand, on "I Am The Walrus,"

• 1:05:00Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  the string arrangement is amazing.

• 1:05:02Billy Corgan?

  Oh, it's amazing. So, this is my psychological indulgence.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:07Billy Corgan?

  So, I feel like you're the rare precocious child that actually has foisted, not aggressively, honestly, his vision on the world. I'm not saying that's what you were after. But did you feel that along the way? Does that make sense?

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  No. I mean...

• 1:05:24Billy Corgan?

  Again, this is my own projection.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  I always felt like an outsider, being looked at like a freak. And that's why these last few years have been so startling for me, you know? And that's why I was so surprised to get your call.

• 1:05:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  You know, I still, internally, I feel like a freak from the freak show. You know, like I feel a little bit like Elephant Man being brought into like the world and...

• 1:05:51Billy Corgan?

  But don't you see the beauty in that, in that somehow when you're...

• 1:05:56Billy Corgan?

  Bubble. You know what I mean? You've brought everyone to you, not through guile and cunning, you know, and, and, but, but just through the beauty of your vision.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. I, I don't know even if I have a vision, but I know that, um.

• 1:06:12Billy Corgan?

  There's a, okay, let's play this game.

• 1:06:16Billy Corgan?

  When I think of you, I think there's a whimsy in your, in your music. It's sort of life-affirming in a weird kind of way. You know, you, you don't strike me as a depressive sort, you know what I mean?

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  Oh, well, I can be, but I try not to let that come out in the music.

• 1:06:30Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  Like a lot of us.

• 1:06:31Billy Corgan?

  So, but you'd see at least say that's.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  Prone to that. You use the music as your therapy to get out of that.

• 1:06:36Billy Corgan?

  That's my, that's my bag, but.

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:06:39Billy Corgan?

  But what I'm saying is, is, um.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  But the whimsy, there's that duality, because part of me wants to be heavy and the other part wants to be the opposite.

• 1:06:49Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  You know, when I was writing during COVID, when I was holed up for a year, and I said, I don't have any films, I don't have any commissions right now, they've all been bounced, everything's been canceled, um, I'm just gonna start writing songs. And by the time I got to 18 songs, but by the time I was at eight, I already said this is two albums, because every song was either fast and kind of crazy, or kind of heavy and,

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  you know, angry. And whichever it was, the other side was like, that. It's like, do something silly. Okay, I'll do something silly. And it's like, come on.

• 1:07:24Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  Is that how you want to be remembered? And it's like.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  It was like this, like.

• 1:07:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  And now that I'm doing the new one, it's like, I don't even resist it. I go, okay, that's what it is, it's going.

• 1:07:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. When you see your influence on the world, you must see it at this point, right? I mean, I'm not asking you to take a victory lap.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  No, I know, but I mean, with film music, like I said, I said there's other people who could do Danny Elfman better than me.

• 1:07:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I was aware early on that my, I would do a score, Pee Wee, Beetlejuice, Batman, Nightmare, Edward Scissorhands, you know, all of these scores, I started hearing. Bits of it.

• 1:08:06Billy Corgan?

  Okay, here's a way to translate. Recently, there was the, was it the 30th anniversary of Nightmare, right?

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Billy Corgan?

  So, in my art house, where I live in Highland Park, Illinois, they were showing the movie, so I took my kids, my kids are eight and five. So, I get to watch them react. Now, these are Goth children, you know what I mean? They live in a Goth castle.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:28Billy Corgan?

  You know, daddy's a vampire for a first day job.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:33Billy Corgan?

  And, and it was so great to watch my children understand what you were doing, like you were communicating to them, not just, "Hey, these are cool songs," like, they were getting the vibe of what you were putting out. That is so cool!

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  Hearing that, nothing makes me happier in my life than hearing stories like you just told me about your kids.

• 1:08:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  When I wrote the songs for Nightmare, I spent two and a half years on this with Tim, and when the music was coming, the movie was coming out, nobody understood it. Disney didn't understand it, they didn't even call it a musical. And, the idea was that kids, "Kids hate this movie," was the vibe at that moment. They're too, "It's too scary for kids." I did a press junket, which means 200 interviews on two days. Every single journalist said, "It's too scary for kids, right?" And I was like, "No!" So...

• 1:09:24Billy Corgan?

  My kids love it.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  The movie came out and it went away very quickly, and then it developed its own life.

• 1:09:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  And if anything I ever worked on of those 110 films, I could have prayed for a second life, it was that one.

• 1:09:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  And then, 10, 15 years later, to start hearing people's kids, and you go to, I do it live now, and I see kids.

• 1:09:44Billy Corgan?

  Singing along.

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  It makes me so happy, because it's like a vindication. I knew, when I was writing it.

• 1:09:50Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  My 10-year-old daughter, Molly, was hearing every song and approving it, as I did it. And, they'd say, "It's too scary for kids." I go, "Well, it's not too scary for a nine or 10-year-old girl, so who is it too scary for?" And, um, I just love hearing that. Every time I hear that story, it just makes me go, "Yes!"

• 1:10:12Billy Corgan?

  But, but this is what I'm trying to say, but that's, they're reacting to you. Yes, it's the movie, and yes, it's Tim's characters, but it's your voice in the music, and to watch them pick up on that, that's what I'm saying, that's so cool. That's you, that's who you are.

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:10:31Billy Corgan?

  Well.

• 1:10:34Billy Corgan?

  God bless, thank you. I don't know where else to go with that.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you're doing it to me again. Becoming like a dottery emotional old man.

• 1:10:44Billy Corgan?

  Well, it happens to the best of us. It's part of being in an emo band, you know. We evoke the rage and the sorrow.

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  But, thank you for saying that.

• 1:10:55Billy Corgan?

  Thank you, no.

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  It makes me very happy.

• 1:10:57Billy Corgan?

  Thank you.