Gene Simmons | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Billy Corgan sits down with the one and only Gene Simmons to probe beyond the kabuki makeup and monster riffs that made KISS a household name. From celebrating Gene’s triumphant final shows at Madison Square Garden to dissecting the band’s forays into disco and beyond, Gene opens up about his earliest days hustling in rat-infested lofts, his eye for shameless self-promotion, and the emotional weight of saying goodbye to a stage persona that defined millions of childhoods—including Billy’s. Meanwhile, Billy holds Gene’s feet to the fire on everything from KISS’s critical underestimation to the creative interplay that kept Gene and Paul Stanley’s partnership alive for half a century. 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.

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• 1:00Billy Corgan?

  Now I have this memory, because I was Kiss fan. I had the Kiss poster on my wall before I even heard a note of Kiss.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry. Ultimately, invariably, and other big words like gymnasium, "Living well is the best revenge." It's the, uh...

• 1:14Billy Corgan?

  We've gotten plenty of revenge.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  It's the reward. And they're jumping up and down like biblical locusts going, "Do, do, do, do, do." You know, it makes no sense whatsoever, and you think, "Oh, boy."

• 1:24Billy Corgan?

  But at the time...

• 1:25Speaker 02

  They're gonna hate.

• 1:26Billy Corgan?

  But at the time, the heavy metal fans were not having it.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  They were not happy.

• 1:28Billy Corgan?

  They hated it.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  I know. So as soon as you start to bend over for the soap...

• 1:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  It's not long before you become somebody's...

• 1:35Billy Corgan?

  Did I make any sense there?

• 1:37Speaker 02

  Sure, but I prefer to make dollars. Ow! That's another one!

• 1:43Billy Corgan?

  It's actually too small to introduce you as the man who needs no introduction.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  Oh, go on.

• 1:50Billy Corgan?

  You're bigger than that.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  Ooh!

• 1:52Billy Corgan?

  You're bigger than that.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:54Billy Corgan?

  Let's start here.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  How about Dodger Stadium, when I saw you backstage...

• 1:58Billy Corgan?

  That's...

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Oh, that's a card.

• 2:00Billy Corgan?

  That's card three. You're jumping ahead of my narrative.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry.

• 2:04Billy Corgan?

  I don't mind. If you want to interview me, I'm more than happy to do that.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Sure, how much?

• 2:08Billy Corgan?

  (laughing)

• 2:11Billy Corgan?

  Ten grand? One hour?

• 2:16Billy Corgan?

  You'll fly to somebody's house with a box set for fifty?

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Well, that's changed, you know, inflation.

• 2:22Billy Corgan?

  Is it gone up?

• 2:23Speaker 02

  Oh, hell, yeah.

• 2:24Billy Corgan?

  What, for you to go make an appearance at someone's house, what would it cost a fan at this point?

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Um, it depends how long.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  But they have paid two fifty.

• 2:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:37Billy Corgan?

  I believe it. You're worth it. That's part of what's in here about how you're worth it. So let's start here.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:48Billy Corgan?

  It's the lowest hanging fruit, but I do want to get somewhere with it. So, band plays its last concert, Madison Square Garden. Was it two nights you played Madison Square?

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, we just wanted to do one.

• 3:00Billy Corgan?

  I'm surprised, sorry, I'm surprised you didn't play fifty.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  Well, you're very kind. We were offered many nights, but we just wanted to do one. And then the powers that be, especially the videographers and schmideographers and all those guys, said, well, what happens if the power goes or something? You gotta have a backup. So we did two.

• 3:22Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  We only did two last shows of all time for the band.

• 3:27Billy Corgan?

  I know you love your band, and I know you love your band's history, and we will, of course, get into that. But, and you're not a person, in my estimation, I've been watching you on television since I was a little kid, since about nineteen seventy-six, I think.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  How old are you?

• 3:41Billy Corgan?

  Fifty-seven.

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Seventy-four.

• 3:48Billy Corgan?

  You're looking good. But here's the point, my point.

• 3:52Billy Corgan?

  You're not a person, in my estimation, who shows a lot of emotion in your public persona. Behind the scenes, you're very warm and very sweet, and you've always been great to me. So I don't want to give the sense that you're a cold person. But, you know, you play Gene Simmons on television for a living, and you've been great at it. And I remember seeing you, Donahue, or whatever I would see you on, and, you know, I'd be sort of, Mike Douglas.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Donahue.

• 4:16Billy Corgan?

  Weren't you on Donahue?

• 4:17Speaker 02

  Mike Douglas, oh, my God.

• 4:19Billy Corgan?

  I know you're on Mike Douglas.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  You know, they don't know what you're talking about.

• 4:22Billy Corgan?

  Okay, well, I'm fifty-seven. Right, I mean, I remember, you remember Mike Douglas?

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Certainly.

• 4:28Billy Corgan?

  Okay, my point of saying all this is, uh, past all the...

• 4:34Billy Corgan?

  Obvious part of it. How did you feel playing that last show, knowing it was the last show?

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Very emotional. Especially because you're... Well, I was a New York kid, we all were, although I wasn't born in America. I know I don't look Swiss. So the band started at Tenny's 23rd Street, which was 10 blocks away from Madison Square Garden.

• 4:57Billy Corgan?

  So it literally was full circle?

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Literally. And I remember, as a 20-year-old kid, walking 10 blocks to see who's playing Madison Square. And you'd see Elvis and stuff like that.

• 5:07Billy Corgan?

  Did you go to shows back then, or did you couldn't afford it?

• 5:10Speaker 02

  No, no, I was a... One of those classic Jews who simply refused to spend any money and lived at home. Until I was with my mother. Till I was 20... I mean, we were playing Anaheim Stadium, headlining. It happened very fast for the band.

• 5:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  And I was living at my mom's house. That's how you know Jesus was Jewish. He lived with his mother until he was 33 years old. He thought his mother was a virgin, you know, all that stuff. And it was emotional because somehow the journey, you know, the... Even salmon returned to spawn where they were bred, you know, that sort of homecoming thing.

• 5:56Billy Corgan?

  It sounds trite to say, but did it go fast in your mind?

• 5:59Speaker 02

  No, I remember every minute and every... I mean, I've never used drugs or alcohol, which is why I can put my hand in front of my face and it doesn't do that. So the mind is clear and I recall tastes, smells, things. I remember seeing people's faces. And the overwhelming image I remember is as you're looking around and making, you know, eye contact with somebody in the middle of, you know, the... The passion and the playing, and you know what that's like when you're on stage and you really feel it. And it's going, it sounds good and everything. And they start crying. They get that, you know, because it's childhood.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  It's not just because it's us. It happens to any great band that's on stage that has a history. Because music is the soundtrack of their lives.

• 6:54Billy Corgan?

  It's humbling when you see it.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  Oh, it's, you know, I gotta, I'm supposed to be Darth Vader and the Big Bad John and all that. I've got to turn my back often so that they don't see.

• 7:07Billy Corgan?

  So you're on stage, it's the last show. Like, does it hit you? Like, are you like, I'm glad it's over, it's been amazing, I'm alive?

• 7:14Speaker 02

  No, not glad. Um. It's funny, there's a coin has two different sides. There's sadness and there's pride. There's the sadness of, you know, at some point you've got to leave mom and dad and go off on the next chapter of the journey of life. On the other hand, you're, you're proud that four knuckleheads off the streets of New York with no resume, no experience, no right to be here. No right to wear higher heels and more makeup than your mommy ever wore. Were given a chance to make

• 7:52Billy Corgan?

  Well, you did it.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Truckloads of money and chicks and, you know.

• 7:55Billy Corgan?

  But the, look, money and, and success has always been part of the Kiss story.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  There's no

• 8:00Billy Corgan?

  But you did it.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  It is true. So, all that.

• 8:05Billy Corgan?

  It's like the Jimmy Cagney movie, right? You know what I mean? You did it, right? You did it. You reached the pinnacle of the thing. You got, there's no higher place to be than you got.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  It, it's about as high as I ever imagined it. And as a kid, I remember seeing the Beatles on TV and I was awestruck by the idea that you could look different. Because I never saw guys who were sort of trim and small like that, you know, very.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Feminine, moving in a kind of a, because guys were.

• 8:40Billy Corgan?

  Right, especially 50s New York, right?

• 8:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, you had to walk, you had to have your guy thing on when you walked down the street. Hey, how you doing, how you doing? You know, there's that street thing. It's culture. And all of a sudden, you go, alright, yeah, she'll be alright, yeah, alright. You know, they're friendly and almost feminine with the haircuts. And I'd never seen anything like that. And I remember thinking they looked silly. And my mother walked in and told me how silly they looked. And precisely at that moment, a singularity hit me. That's when I knew they were cool.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  Because all of a sudden, I heard my mother say, they look silly. No, I think they're kind of it. Well, the girls are.

• 9:23Billy Corgan?

  What do they say about Kiss in the beginning?

• 9:25Speaker 02

  Oh, well, not everybody likes Jesus either, believe.

• 9:32Billy Corgan?

  Four Jesuses, not just one. Or two Jesuses, depending on who you ask.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  I got lots of.

• 9:38Billy Corgan?

  They're in the notes.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Got lots of jokes.

• 9:40Billy Corgan?

  We'll get there. It's worth pointing out, you know, you ended the show with the avatars. That's the word I would use, right?

• 9:47Speaker 02

  In all fairness, just a hint of it. The way you see a sketch on a piece of paper of what the 50-story skyscraper is gonna look like.

• 9:56Billy Corgan?

  But this is the likeness rights. The same people don't own the ABBA thing, which is doing very well.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Oh, it's massive. They've got millions of tickets sold. It's beyond. The future of entertainment is here. AI does exist. You can sit down.

• 10:14Billy Corgan?

  To me, you're a visionary in many ways, but, so give me your vision. Because we all know this is gonna work, right? Like, kids are gonna go see virtual Kiss.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  It doesn't matter if you think it will or if you think it won't. The future is here.

• 10:30Billy Corgan?

  No, but that's what I'm saying is, you see it and you're also meeting the people that are gonna create it with you.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Already being done.

• 10:37Billy Corgan?

  Okay, understood. So I'm saying is, for our great viewers. What does that look like in 10 years? Are people going just as many shows with virtual avatars as they are live concerts? Or how do you balance that in your mind?

• 10:50Speaker 02

  All of it will coexist. And all of it will depend on the individuality of the experience. There are some people.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  If you've never met the Dalai Lama, you would want to be in his holiness, his presence. I've met the man and it's, and obviously seen him in media. It's not the same thing as being in the same room and the back and forth. But I will tell you that AI is, and avatars and so on are even to by today's technological standards are about as close to reality as you can ever imagine. So I'll give you a sense of what I've experienced. So most people, young people especially, have had the goggles on where you're falling off a cliff and all of a sudden you actually feel like gravity's gone and so your senses

• 11:48Speaker 02

  aren't working anymore. So that's, that's a mind fuck as they say. Now imagine if you weren't wearing the glasses. Your sense of the scale of things and what's happening and you will not, when you're in a controlled environment. And they're trying different variations of it. Have you been to the big sphere in Vegas?

• 12:10Billy Corgan?

  Not yet, but I've seen a lot of the clips.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Well, it's worth going. It's a very simplified, archaic version of it because you still have a sense of I'm here, I can look around.

• 12:21Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  And look at the, like, like, goes back to the Fillmore West when they used to have bands and silhouettes and used to have light shows. They go, oh wow, look, mind, you know, that's not the same thing as the virtual glasses. So the, if you've been to the sphere in Las Vegas, it's a wonderful, you know, all of a sudden you're on the moon and everything, but you don't lose yourself. This is difficult to describe in the same way that when you're speaking to a Neanderthal, and that's actually the way you pronounce the word, it's not Neanderthal, even though it's spelled with a T.

• 12:57Billy Corgan?

  I learned something today.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Neanderthal, when you're speaking to a Neanderthal, if you can have a common language and you're saying, okay, so I'm gonna get in my jet and I'm gonna be, you know, forty, fifty thousand feet above the earth enough so I can see the curvature of the, the words, even though he understands the words, he just couldn't fathom it. So when I start to explain to people what I've seen, what I've experienced.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  You understand the words, but you have no idea how to say it. You will be blown away.

• 13:31Billy Corgan?

  Isn't it, obviously, there's the business and there were a lot of headlines about what you guys got to sell your likeness. And I'm interested in that, but I'm actually.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  The numbers are not accurate.

• 13:43Billy Corgan?

  I'm impressed either way, but God bless. Well, what I'm after is, I know it's important to you that Kiss musically aesthetically carry on in a particular way. It's gotta, it's gotta mean something more to you than just a great business deal.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  I'll, I'll, I'll tell you some.

• 14:02Billy Corgan?

  Or am I imagining that?

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Well, it's, it's, uh, it's, there's more than one answer. There was a, an idea, perhaps an ideal that Paul and I had when we first started the band, that had less to do with Let's Get Rich and Famous, although.

• 14:22Billy Corgan?

  Wasn't a bad, that wasn't a bad idea.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  Well, it's what my people do. It's just, have you got two tens for a five?

• 14:30Billy Corgan?

  You can see who I'm married to, right?

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Well, even Jesus passed the hat, you know, it's just, but, let's put together the band we never saw on stage. That was the idea. And of course, in the beginning, I would imagine lots of bands, perhaps most bands say, you know, I've got this, it, this creative thing. I've got, you know, I'm writing songs and it's fun and everything else. There was a different sense that we had, either better for worse, rightfully or wrongfully. We would go see bands that we loved, Love and Spoonful, Sly and the Family Stone, everything. The live experience just wasn't enough.

• 15:08Billy Corgan?

  Ah.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  It sounded better on record and often you were disappointed by what you saw live because they were trapped at the microphone and once your eyes settled on what you saw on stage.

• 15:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  You started talking to your friends.

• 15:25Billy Corgan?

  It's over, yeah.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Is that all there is, Peggy Lee?

• 15:27Billy Corgan?

  Peggy Lee.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Very good. I'm, I'm very proud of you.

• 15:30Billy Corgan?

  Peggy Lee, yeah.

• 15:31Speaker 02

  For a young man such as yourself, so. The idea of the band is not better or worse than anybody else's idea, but it wasn't because I've got this inner artiste and all that. I don't care about that. And I don't, and there's a distinctly different mantra, shall we say, between perhaps the classical and purist visions of music and art, and perhaps the way I think of it.

• 15:57Billy Corgan?

  Well, your version is the dominant version now.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Now it is. When we first started, it was about who's got good taste. And I only gave it about what tastes good.

• 16:09Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's well documented.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Profound difference. And when we first started doing licensing and merchandising, ah, these guys sell out. And you're talking, you know, you're talking from people who never learned to read or write music, didn't understand music theory. They were self-taught. By the way, that's very impressive, that people have this urge to be creative and everything, but never went through the process of school and how to do this and all. Just decided to just kind of bumble their way through it and created this amazing popular art form, whether it's rap or rock or anything else. That's an amazing.

• 16:44Billy Corgan?

  It's always miraculous.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  It's miraculous. Some, and not everybody can do that, but I don't suffer fools lightly, or whatever that phrase meant, which is, all my life I've heard hippies, well-intentioned though they may be, I just want enough money to get by. I said, I'll make a deal with you. Any dollar you make that you don't think you need, please give me, because that's going to make me happier. I will never have enough money, power, or anything else, because that's what life is about.

• 17:16Billy Corgan?

  Right, but to persist at my point, is it important to you that what Kiss becomes in its posthumous form?

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:26Billy Corgan?

  Is just as.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  That's a big word like gymnasium.

• 17:29Billy Corgan?

  It might be posthumous.

• 17:31Speaker 02

  That's great.

• 17:32Billy Corgan?

  Neandertal.

• 17:34Billy Corgan?

  In Kiss's posthumous form, is it important for you that the band is just as significant in this new?

• 17:39Speaker 02

  No.

• 17:40Billy Corgan?

  Okay, tell me why.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Significance is not important. There's this preoccupation with what it all means and do I have my mother's hips?

• 17:48Billy Corgan?

  That's me, that's me.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  No, I don't, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is, I'm clear and so's Paul. We've had the same vision, though we don't agree on many things. If we can make you forget about, for two hours, three hours, whatever that amount is, the traffic jam, or that you flirted with your wife's girlfriend, or whatever it is that causes angst, Sturm und Angst auf Deutsch. Whatever that thing is that, oh, gives you headaches, and we can make you forget about the traffic jams or that there are wars, that's magic. That is magic, that feeling, that uplifting feeling, that's the only thing I care about.

• 18:29Billy Corgan?

  You're more concerned, or you're more interested in the kinetic relationship than the aesthetic relationship, is that a fair way to put it? Because I would like to make the argument that's in my little note cards here.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Please do.

• 18:39Billy Corgan?

  About the aesthetic argument of Kiss.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  Except I'm not sure I know what it means and how to spell it and all that.

• 18:46Billy Corgan?

  Do you want me to be more like, specific?

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Well, I'll use specifics. I'd rather be, and I know it's not as important, but I think profoundly it is much more important, I'd rather be Disney than Shakespeare.

• 18:59Billy Corgan?

  Okay, I get that.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  Because Disney makes people happy. That's it.

• 19:06Billy Corgan?

  But don't you, I would argue that there is a deeper aesthetic in Disney. Now, they've watered it down, but, but Walt's vision persists.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  But the intention was to entertain, and Shakespeare is the man of letters and what it's deep, what it all means and all that, and so there's, it appeals more.

• 19:25Billy Corgan?

  But it goes past a lot of people's ears.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  Of, of course.

• 19:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, okay, that helps.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  I want to connect to everybody, even if you don't speak English, or if you don't like Kiss, or any band's got that problem, the blessing and the curses, you've got your fans and other people say you suck and all that, that's every band's.

• 19:42Billy Corgan?

  Well, we're gonna get to that, but, but, but my argument is, is you've won on every level, so why can't you continue to win on every level posthumously?

• 19:51Speaker 02

  You can't be all things to all people, and it never mattered to me what it all means. There's very little meaning. About, I mean, we never talked about the secret of life, because I have no idea. We're all just passing through. And you, you try to make life bearable, entertaining. And that's the wonder of, there's no business like show, but you know, that's the thing about this thing.

• 20:20Billy Corgan?

  Is that Ethel Merman?

• 20:21Speaker 02

  I think it's a very good. I'm so impressed. There's this thing about this American, and it's truly an American form, which is it's not Kabuki, or Kabuki, as they say, so there's ne. And, you know, other forms, classical music and all that. It, it comes from a place of heaviness, where your mind is more engaged. And American stuff, and I use the Marshall McCulain-esque sense, even though he's Canadian, is it's pablum. It's sugar. It immediately tastes good and immediately gets you that, doesn't last long, but boy, does it taste good.

• 21:02Billy Corgan?

  See, I would like to make the argument in our time together that Kiss has greater value than that.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  I appreciate it. If that's the byproduct, or somebody else does a thesis on the social significance of the panel graphic art form, as exemplified by Mickey Mouse, go for it.

• 21:18Billy Corgan?

  Okay, okay. I still want to make my case. This is a circuitous way to get there, so please bear with me. Kiss, the debut album, Hotter Than Hell, Dressed to Kill, Kiss Alive Destroyer, Rock and Roll Over, Love Gun, Kiss Alive Two, the solo records, Dynasty Unmasked, The Elder, Creatures of the Night, Lick It Up, Animalize, Asylum, and so on. You were there. For all of them.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:43Billy Corgan?

  Now, I have this memory, because I was Kiss fan. I had the Kiss poster on my wall before I even heard a note of Kiss.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry.

• 21:49Billy Corgan?

  No, it was great. It was the 1776 where.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Where Ace was drunk out of his mind, falling down.

• 21:56Billy Corgan?

  I did not know that as a 10-year-old child. But, um, Peter had the bloody, you know, the 1776 with the drum, and great poster. We had it on our, so every day, you know, when the door was closed, there, there you were, before I even heard your band. So the marketing worked, right? But I also have this memory of like, somewhere in the 80s, you're doing a bunch of movies. Right, ponytail gene, you know what I mean? Like, there was, like, suddenly you were in movies.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:23Billy Corgan?

  And, uh...

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Michael Crichton was the first one.

• 22:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah, no, you did some incredible stuff. And then, of course, it was very much about who you were dating at the time and those types of things. I'm not interested in the tabloid part. I'm saying this for a reason. Every band goes through that, any band that lasts, because I've been there, goes through that weird period where it's like, it's not, it's not the beginning and it's not the end. It's somewhere in the wobbly middle, or the beginning of the wobbly middle. And there were some wobbly years there for you guys.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  Oh, terrible years.

• 22:48Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so, in my little rap on these great classic albums, where, in your mind, from your perspective, because you had the front row seat, where does it start to get a little wobbly, inside the band?

• 23:01Speaker 02

  It was less about inside the band and more what was happening in the world.

• 23:06Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so take me through that, please.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Music changes. New generations of fans come up, so the birth of grunge and thrash and...

• 23:16Billy Corgan?

  But I'm, but I'm specifically talking about the 70s and 80s, you know what I mean?

• 23:19Speaker 02

  You mean what time?

• 23:20Billy Corgan?

  Like, I'm saying, because everybody can sit here and play Monday Morning Quarterback, right? You know, that's easy. But when you're in a band, you know, you've got all this momentum. You guys had, I mean, you guys had as much momentum as any band's ever had when you had it. And you've had it multiple times, but that early period.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:38Billy Corgan?

  You guys were omnipresent. You're making a movie, you know, Famously Kissed meets the Phantom.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  All that stuff, yeah.

• 23:43Billy Corgan?

  I'm saying, you had, you had every version of it, right?

• 23:46Speaker 02

  So while the band was sane and playing on stage, there was the all-for-one, one-for-all. Once Peter and Ace bless them, and they were equally important for the formation of the band, but not everybody's designed in their DNA to run marathons. Most people, it's difficult to keep a band lineup, as you know.

• 24:06Billy Corgan?

  Been there.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  And so, once Ace and Peter succumbed to the weaknesses, the drugs and the alcohol and all that, there was trouble in paradise. And then, you can, you throw, you know, flammables into the flame, and society starts to change, and new generations come up, and disco comes up. Well, maybe we should do a song. And everybody felt victim, Rod Stewart, the Stones, everyone. So that starts to change.

• 24:32Billy Corgan?

  Again, sorry to interrupt you, but I, because it's important to get at what I'm after. Where for you does you start to have, where's the first time you go, wait, this isn't going the direction I thought it was going.

• 24:42Speaker 02

  Seventy-nine.

• 24:43Billy Corgan?

  Seventy-nine, which is, is it the disco?

• 24:46Speaker 02

  Yes, it was the beginning of disco. We were doing ironically what became our biggest single, number one around the world, I Was Made For Loving You.

• 24:54Billy Corgan?

  And now you play it live, or you used to play it live.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  We could, we did it all the way to the end, and you could play an ogre fest where there's not a chick within a thousand yards of that place.

• 25:05Billy Corgan?

  And they're all singing.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Eighty thousand, you know, death metal fans, and they're jumping up and down like biblical locusts going, doo doo doo doo doo, you know, it makes no sense whatsoever, and you think, oh boy, they're gonna, they're gonna.

• 25:19Billy Corgan?

  But at the time, the heavy metal fans were not having it.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  They were not happy.

• 25:22Billy Corgan?

  Because I was in those basements with people getting stoned, listening to Kiss, complaining.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  And they hated it.

• 25:26Billy Corgan?

  They hated it.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  I know, and they hated, and I've written songs with Bob Dylan, that's why I can say the Bob Dylan story. They hated Dylan when he went electric. He was booed right off the stage. That entire, you know, when, when Dylan met the Beatles that first time in London and London, that famous car ride.

• 25:46Billy Corgan?

  Isn't that where he got Scott Stone too?

• 25:48Speaker 02

  They got, they were both hyped. But truthfully, Dylan was a failed live performance because the kids came to hear, ah, the times, you know, the world is changing and all that, and they got, you know, the Hawks rocking out a little bit more. They just hated it. So every band, look, not everybody likes Jesus. You just can't please everybody all the time. It's not gonna happen.

• 26:16Billy Corgan?

  You're in arguably at the time, the biggest band in the world, right?

• 26:20Speaker 02

  I can honestly say we were.

• 26:21Billy Corgan?

  Okay, right? Massive, massive, in a way that.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  We changed the business. We had warehouses, twenty-four hours, three of them in the valley, shipping t-shirts and everything. We had order forms, inside the albums where you can just put cash in, and twenty-four hours a day sending out t-shirts, and the days went five and ten dollars, and before people were opening up your mail.

• 26:47Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so I'm saying is, you're standing in this very rare position, which very few people really understand. I never got that level, but I was in the general zip code. But I'm saying, there's that moment when it's rocking and it's rolling, everything's happening, and then you go, whoop, something's... It's not a little blip in the road, or, you know what I'm saying? You're like, wait.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Seventy-nine.

• 27:08Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Disco, I started living with Cher. Ace and Peter were leaving the band because they wanted solo careers, even though we talked them into do solo records and stay in the same band. So we released...

• 27:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  The only band, as far as I know, that released four solo albums on the same day.

• 27:28Billy Corgan?

  They all went, all shipped platinum or something.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Shipped platinum. Eventually, they all went platinum, but it took a long time. Platinum kids in the days of hard goods meant a million individuals actually paid for it instead of beep beep beep beep beep beep.

• 27:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  Which means, fuck all. You can download a billion of something and only make a few thousand dollars.

• 27:49Billy Corgan?

  So, not to get into a deep psychological discussion.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  No, go ahead.

• 27:53Billy Corgan?

  No, okay, great. Thank you, gave me permission now. We know how the movie ends. We started with how the movie ends.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  You don't know how it ends. The beginning, the end is the beginning. The death of a caterpillar is the beginning of the beautiful butterfly. This is, we're in the cocoon stage.

• 28:14Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  You just wait. Rebirth, the phoenix rises from the ashes.

• 28:18Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so seventy-nine.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  I gotta write this stuff down. This is really good stuff. It sounds good.

• 28:23Billy Corgan?

  We'll get to trans, I'm gonna transcribe everything. Okay, but seventy-nine, you're standing there, and you're like, uh, this is a bit weird. So walk me through those weird years a little bit, because...

• 28:34Speaker 02

  We were separated, we, uh...

• 28:37Speaker 02

  And Paul and I, you know, co-wrote or at least showed each other the songs. And how about this, how about that? He'd bring in a song, Black Diamond. I'd say, that's a great song, but you need a riff.

• 28:49Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  So all those Paul songs, almost lots of them. I'd say, that's a really good song, but let me put riffs in that. And, or at least, because the way I play bass more like horn parts, less like Motown.

• 29:05Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I always thought you're more of a 50s bass player. Does that make sense to you? Does that translate?

• 29:10Speaker 02

  Uh, more like...

• 29:11Billy Corgan?

  More like doo doo doo and doo doo doo and doo. You know, like, like more McCartney, moving around.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  More McCartney. And the way McCartney approached bass is really more of a guitar player, almost like a string quartet.

• 29:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  Where the cello has its own melody. And so if you're in AC/DC, you can go dum dum dum dum dum dum.

• 29:30Billy Corgan?

  But that's always been one of the secret sauces on Kiss.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  I don't know, it just is what it was. I'd start playing a bass line at What's Going On. Say, you know, that's kind of catchy because it goes over and over. Let's put the guitar, do that and stop playing chords and just do that stuff. And that's where the riff, but we also had harmonies on top of that. Look, we, we didn't know anything, we were just making it up. But Trouble in Paradise, 79, disco is full-blown.

• 29:57Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Stones, Rod Stewart, everybody's doing doo doo doo. And it's huge.

• 30:04Billy Corgan?

  Everybody's doing it, it's not like it was just you guys.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  And I'm going to Studio 54 and all the stars are there and all that stuff. And we bring out I Was Made For Loving You. And it's just massive, immediately. And the core fans are upset, except for the fact that the ticket sales...

• 30:22Billy Corgan?

  You're still selling tickets?

• 30:24Speaker 02

  Tons, making more money. And the toys, the younger fans came in because all of a sudden mom likes the song and the kids liked it. So we were selling. And our, uh, Kiss Meets the Phantom movie, excuse me, came out.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  So we were talking about cartoons and theme parks and all this stuff getting bigger and bigger. But clearly by the early eighties disco was taking, uh, going into the shadows. And there was this new, there was punk coming up. And I really liked the Pistols and the Clash and all that, but you can't do, they already exist. You can't just get, you know what, maybe we could nudge our way there. Grunge came out. We even toyed around with, uh, Carnival of Souls with a kind of a, the makeup is off, let's take the makeup off and see what that's. So as soon as you start to bend over for the soap.

• 31:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 31:19Speaker 02

  It's not long before you become somebody's [BLEEP]. And I don't wanna use a creative language here, but you, you lose yourself. And it's difficult, difficult to go on a long journey.

• 31:30Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so whatever the year, because you, you face different challenges at different times. But let's, let's take that one, cause that's been the, so my focus. Seventy-nine, eighty-two, somewhere in there.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  Well, we, uh, we had Peter quote, "Leave the band for the first time." He quote, "Left the band three different times."

• 31:50Billy Corgan?

  CNN interview famously.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Drugs, alcohol, God knows what it was, just a dark cloud.

• 31:57Billy Corgan?

  So, but I'm saying, you standing there, you're in this big band. We, again, we don't know what was coming, uh, we already know it now, but I'm saying for you.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  By the way, we didn't either.

• 32:07Billy Corgan?

  That's what I'm after, I'm trying, I want you to take me into that location, because people love to talk about success. You know what I mean? It happens to you, I'm sure, somebody comes up and wants to talk about Love Gun or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, they wanna talk about their version of your high moment. But what I often think when people are giving me that conversation is, "Yeah, but you don't understand all these other things that happened." Either to get to Love Gun or what happened after Love Gun, where you're talking me through the grace of God, because I was able to sort of navigate this through. And you guys always had a particular toughness. When you're out there, "Hey, we're the biggest band in the world, you know, this is what we do." There's a swagger to that, but when you're on one knee with the music business, you start to get treated like [BLEEP]. You know what that feels like?

• 32:51Billy Corgan?

  Or you go on the radio station, they treat you like a has-been or whatever. That first time that you went through that, how did you navigate that? Like, what, was it, would you lean on your relationship with Paul? Like, what kind of held, held you through it?

• 33:02Speaker 02

  One of the honest answers is that by that time.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  There was a lot of money. So your perspective of, uh-oh, the world is gonna collapse, is different when you've got a big wad of cash in your life. And so there's a sense that if the worst happened, you'll be okay.

• 33:24Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Oh, that Gene Simmons.

• 33:26Billy Corgan?

  So for you, as long as I've got material solidity, aesthetics, or perception, or even my own insecurity, if you even have insecurity, I don't know you to be insecure, but...

• 33:39Speaker 02

  Of course I have insecurities. I know at one point I'm gonna die. I don't like that. I object.

• 33:45Billy Corgan?

  So when you were doing things like movies, was that a way to sort of balance? Or were you sort of exploring...

• 33:49Speaker 02

  No, I thought I was impervious, that I could do anything. And it was the same blind delusion that made me think I could get in a band and we could be, you know, one of the biggest bands ever, and I can act and I can do movies. And it seemed anything I tried, I had my own record company, and managed Liza Minnelli, and quote, discovered Van Halen. And like, anything I wanted to do, it seemed like I couldn't fail. Because I had that... Well, I had the loose screw anyway, I'm sure. And you do too, and a lot of people that get up on stage. Because you gotta be out of your minds to pick this thing, because you're putting all your eggs in a basket, right?

• 34:31Speaker 02

  So, once you have a cushion of money, it's certainly better. Somebody once said, uh, money's not gonna make you happy. So you're gonna be, if you're a miserable son of a... It's still so much better to be a rich miserable son of a... That's just...

• 34:49Billy Corgan?

  Were you a rich miserable son of a...

• 34:51Speaker 02

  I was certainly rich. I continue to be. Uh, son of a... Sure, there are plenty of people who...

• 34:58Billy Corgan?

  I guess what I'm trying to say is... Was there a deeper moment of doubt? Or did you just? Okay, so.

• 35:05Speaker 02

  And the fans give you that doubt, that pause that says, you suck, you know, when you start reading actual letters, because in those days, they were real letters. And hate mail and stuff from the fans that loved you. I used to love you, I've stopped doing that. Every band's gonna go through that. And you just have, you either survive or not. So Peter left, we got a new drummer, Eric Carr, who was just fantastic, and tried to come back from Unmasked and, you know, the disco stuff. And so we put out a heavier record.

• 35:35Billy Corgan?

  And you did.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Creatures of the Night.

• 35:37Billy Corgan?

  Great record.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Yep, very nice of you.

• 35:39Billy Corgan?

  Great single.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  And.

• 35:41Billy Corgan?

  Love It Loud was a.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  I love it loud.

• 35:43Billy Corgan?

  Great video, great, great song.

• 35:45Speaker 02

  So all that stuff was going on. And it did not do well in America. Music was changing. But at the very same time, we played Bara Cana for 200,000 people in Rio and 135,000 people in.

• 36:00Billy Corgan?

  Was that Vinny Vincent? Was Vinny Vincent in the band?

• 36:02Speaker 02

  Vinny Vincent was in the band, so.

• 36:04Billy Corgan?

  The Ankh, he had the Ankh.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Yes, half the band was gone. And, you know, we just expect people just accept the new guys.

• 36:13Billy Corgan?

  So are you and Paul, Paul looking at each other saying, okay, we're headed the right direction, gotta keep going?

• 36:20Speaker 02

  We liked the record. We're kinda headed in the right direction. But it's not working in America. Because at the same time, you've got all these different punk and new romance and Adam and the Ants and everything else happening. You've got a younger fanbase that are more active. So we don't know what to do. So Paul comes up with the idea of, maybe it's time to take the makeup off. And I'm going, I'm not sure about that. We have a quote, legacy, whatever. You know, we lasted longer than the Beatles. Beatles lasted seven years.

• 36:53Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  And put out all this astonishing stuff.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  And never, as far as I'm concerned, never decayed. Just kept moving, evolving. But of course, nobody is the Beatles. And so, you know, I gave in. I said, "Okay, let's see what happens." And this "Lick It Up" record happened, which was okay.

• 37:12Billy Corgan?

  But you had some big hits off that.

• 37:13Speaker 02

  Yes, "Lick It Up" and a few other things.

• 37:16Billy Corgan?

  I think you guys, obviously, I don't know all the inner dynamics of your writing together. But you're great writers because, to me, great writers are able to adapt to the times. Most of the Kiss fans focus on the early catalog. But your 80s catalog has held up very well because you guys are great writers. Do you feel that too?

• 37:36Speaker 02

  I could argue the AC/DC or Metallica idea, which is you stay true to the DNA. Well, it's an argument that works well for them and Iron Maiden. There are some very, very big-

• 37:51Billy Corgan?

  Can I make a counter-argument as a Kiss fan? I think what makes you guys so fascinating is the good and the not as good. And I'm not saying I want to go listen to your worst song. I'm saying is your journey is what makes the band so fascinating.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  Well, we didn't have a choice because we gave in. They were those first records that had, you know, sort of Chuck Berry crossed with this and that, Little Beatles, Little Motown, Little this, Little that. Whatever that thing was, the identity, the fingerprint, was diluted as members within the band started to veer from the band. There are other bands that have stayed true to who they are and have survived, become bigger. And by the way, I don't do that. I go, "That's their journey, this is ours."

• 38:41Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I go, personally, I find it a bit boring. Your version of reality trumps mine nine times out of 10. But- The thing that I think makes Kiss interesting and part of the reason I wanted to talk to you is is because I think you guys are gonna win in a way that you've never won before over time. Because you do, you're able to, it's so hard to say in one sort of sentence, so maybe I'll make the case. But what I'm trying to say is, there's a lot more value in Kiss than even people who've evaluated Kiss to this point understand Kiss's true value. That's kinda what I'm after. Did I make any sense there?

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Sure, but I prefer to make dollars. Ow, that's another one! The only thing I care about is a brand-new five-year-old who experiences Kiss or the imagery, even if it's not the music, just somehow gets seduced and beguiled by that thing.

• 39:34Billy Corgan?

  My son is eight years old and when he was five, I showed him a video of you guys. And I said, "That's Kiss."

• 39:40Speaker 02

  That's the magic for me. And when that, that feeling comes, even if it's just from the visual side, and then maybe he likes some of the tunes, because there are, there are fans who kinda go, "Oh, I like that, who's, you know, who's that?" Then they discover the visuals. But they dress up like us in Halloween. It's a deeper kinda thing.

• 40:03Billy Corgan?

  But I'm a snobby musician and I wanna make a snobby musical argument about you.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  Okay. Well, that's why everybody's got their own journey.

• 40:13Billy Corgan?

  Right, but I'm sitting here with one of the architects, so, you know, I'm not arguing with them-

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Snobbery?

• 40:17Billy Corgan?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no. One of the architects of the thing I wanna argue about.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, yeah.

• 40:22Billy Corgan?

  Which is Kiss. You know, the Kiss, the franchise.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  Well, look, a painter paints a painting, a writer writes a book, or, uh, or Disney puts out a new cartoon character, and the buyer, the audience, makes of it what they will. The, uh, using your words, the snobs like it for snobby reasons. The other ones like it 'cause it's sugar and it takes, who cares what it is? And make, what is that impressionistic painting about? Well, I see this and I see that. It's all valid.

• 40:55Billy Corgan?

  Okay, let me split it in Gene Simmons terms. I believe Kiss will endure because Kiss's value is greater than the material value that you're ascribing. And you're not wrong, but I think my argument will bear out over time. That's my point. I could be totally wrong.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Fine. And I'm also fine with, my hand to God, If nothing ever happens again in my life, that a win, that Kiss doesn't continue, it stopped now. I'm the luckiest bastard who ever walked upright.

• 41:28Billy Corgan?

  You are.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Half a century of amazing times and memories and, you know, all...

• 41:36Billy Corgan?

  Happily married?

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Fantastic. Just the best. Shannon, two great kids, who are both immensely successful. Sophie's got video billboards across the world because she's one of the big Spotify writers. She writes with everybody and produces, manages, does that. And Nick's music is in TV shows, Prodigal Son and Ozark and all that. And do they ask dad for opinions? Nope. They just, totally different. And somehow they found their niche. And Shannon is, I have to say, the moral

• 42:15Speaker 02

  the moral heartbeat of it because if it were not for her. I tend to be an extreme person, not with chemicals and alcohol and stuff, but with pleasures. Cake, the chicks, all that, just, one is, you know, it's like the potato chip stuff. One is never enough.

• 42:37Billy Corgan?

  I know you've heard this, so I don't, I'm not in any way trying to offend you. But, but I hear it, you know, like, Kiss fans are Kiss fans, right? They love the band.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  Well, there's all kinds.

• 42:49Billy Corgan?

  Okay, right, absolutely. But if you're a Kiss fan, you're a Kiss fan. And you can argue about why you're a Kiss fan, but Kiss fans tend to be Kiss fans. You know what I mean? They love the band, warts and all, right? Coming and going and all of it.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:01Billy Corgan?

  People who don't like Kiss are like, ugh, right? You've heard all those things through the years.

• 43:05Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 43:07Billy Corgan?

  My personal opinion is, and I've had to think about it through the years because I didn't share the opinion, but you know, when you hear it from enough people, you start to think, well, maybe there's some validity there. You know, whether it's people didn't like Peter's drumming, or you know, they didn't like the eighties version of the band, the lick it up version and stuff like that. You know, I mean, there's that kind of vibe.

• 43:27Speaker 02

  And that's fair.

• 43:29Billy Corgan?

  I think you guys are grossly underrated as a musical outfit.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 43:33Billy Corgan?

  But how do you feel about that?

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Not an issue for me in, in any way, shape or form.

• 43:40Billy Corgan?

  Do you think you guys, musically, we're just talking music shop, two musicians. Do you think you guys were a great musical band? Let's take the original lineup, start there. Do you think you guys were a great musical band?

• 43:52Speaker 02

  It was a good band. There was certainly, there was certainly.

• 43:55Billy Corgan?

  I'm gonna argue with you. You guys were a great band.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  Well, that's the.

• 43:58Billy Corgan?

  And I'll tell you why if you want to hear it. I don't want to bore you, but I'm saying, you, but I'm saying you guys were a great band. And I, you know how I know? Because I heard it enough that I went back through and I thought, okay, of course I know the records. But I went back through and I listened to every song you guys released between whatever and it got weird. Every, like every, I don't care, the deep cuts, the B-side, whatever, I listened to all of it. And I walked away and thought, they're better than I think they are, and I already think they're really good.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  You're very kind, but I, I do wanna, I'm clear about one thing, and that is the experience of something doesn't have to be fair, which is to say, it's not, it's usually and or often not just about music or musicianship or even image. There is a gathering of the tribes. It's cultural. In today's terms.

• 44:52Billy Corgan?

  But we're talking music now, just straight music snob.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  But it's bigger because music is a movement. So in today's terms, either you're a Swifty or you're not. And if you don't get it, you just don't, it's, it's not for your ears.

• 45:07Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but like, you and I could sit and talk for an hour easy about the Beatles musicality. Not the Beatles' cultural relevance, not Yoko, just the Beatles as a band.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 45:17Billy Corgan?

  I'm talking about Kiss as a band.

• 45:19Speaker 02

  Yes, if you, if you ever wrote a song in your life, your jaw would drop at the. Simplicity yet complexity of those harmonies and the songwriting, it just defies.

• 45:32Billy Corgan?

  But I'm here to talk about you.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  The music, yeah. I don't know, we couldn't shine anybody's shoes.

• 45:37Billy Corgan?

  I think you're wrong.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  Okay, well, that's fine. A guy throws, you know, there are guys that throw paint on a canvas and go, "Okay, here's, give me a few million dollars," and they're happy, and somebody says, "Oh, that's genius." It's all valid because anybody's perspective.

• 45:51Billy Corgan?

  But your perspective is what really matters to me, right?

• 45:54Speaker 02

  So I'm about to answer it as best I can, which is, I thought it was a decent, continued to be, a good band, you know, meat and potatoes.

• 46:04Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but you take your average rock band, okay? Just your average good rock band, and you've seen enough of them through the years, okay? You take a song like "Ladies Room," right? Like, wasn't a big hit, right? It's not necessarily the song you're gonna be rapping for. Those bands wish they could write that fucking song.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 46:23Billy Corgan?

  Was that your song or was that Paul's?

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Mine.

• 46:25Billy Corgan?

  It's a fucking great song. That's what I'm saying. That's where you won me over.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  The little subtlety was, "I'll meet, meet you," in the ladies rooms was M.E.E.T., meet you. M.E.A.T. as a sexual verb, "I'll meet."

• 46:42Billy Corgan?

  This comes from your teaching background, the multiple applications of the word "meet."

• 46:46Speaker 02

  Language is delicious.

• 46:47Billy Corgan?

  Yes. But that's my point. When I did the deep dive, and I'm being a fucking snob here.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  I'm reminded of an anti-snob lyric I had. I think it was "Burn, Burner," one of those awful songs. "I've got nasty habits. It's a fine line. So many girls and so little time. When love rears its head, I wanna get on your case. I wanna put my lung in your fireplace." See, now that's, that's poetry where I come from, and the fans hated it.

• 47:21Billy Corgan?

  You guys figured out very early on, whether it was intuitive, right? That you could use the media to put a log in the Kiss fireplace and to make you guys bigger, right? You figured that out. I remember watching you on whatever. Mike Douglas, and I thought, wow, I don't understand this, because I was used to everybody pretending. Of course, now I know it was all fake, and you knew it was fake. You figured out it was fake.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  Life is fake. Once you leave your house, before you leave, you look at the mirror, because we all wear costumes, and Shakespeare said it, the whole world's a stage.

• 47:55Billy Corgan?

  Oh, now we're back to Shakespeare. I thought we didn't care about Shakespeare.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying it's one of the journeys, so...

• 48:03Billy Corgan?

  At what point did you figure out, I'm gonna use this system, flip it on its head? Because I remember very distinctly, okay, great. I don't know if I was 10, 12, and you told the truth in a way that nobody in the media told the truth at that point.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  You know, girls understood this thing much more than guys.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  There's a girl who wants to go out to a club, and one of her friends calls her and says, "So, the club's happening. Come on down." So the first thing the girl wants to know is, "So what are all the other girls wearing?" They go, "Oh, all the girls are wearing short, black outfits." Well, if she's smart, she's gonna put on a red, short outfit, because the idea is, you've got a minimal amount of time to make an impact. And that's the only thing we tried to be the band we never saw on stage. Not the best band, or the worst band, but just to be, just immediately...

• 49:02Billy Corgan?

  But you were 50 years ahead of your time in understanding how to exploit the media by its own bias.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 49:10Billy Corgan?

  Was that you that figured that out, or did you and Paul figure it out, or you just, was it in the band?

• 49:14Speaker 02

  Paul and I were cognizant... Of the fact that we were Anglophiles, we liked. Cause we had a record before that in a band called Wicked Lester.

• 49:23Billy Corgan?

  I've heard it. There were lots of flutes, if I remember.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  Oh, it's just, you know, pa- pa- blam.

• 49:28Billy Corgan?

  What's the, what, there's a Wicked Lester version of a, of a Kiss classic, but it's like.

• 49:32Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, She, a song called She, which has flute in it. Yeah. Because when you have no idea where you're going.

• 49:38Billy Corgan?

  I won't make an argument for Wicked Lester's enduring musical legacy.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  And we bought that record from Epic, it was gonna be on Epic. We bought it back because we didn't want it released. And then said, you know what, this is wrong, we've gotta get rid of the guys, they, they can't play, they don't.

• 49:54Billy Corgan?

  You got rid of the flautist?

• 49:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yes, who was a music teacher.

• 49:58Billy Corgan?

  Are you still in touch with the flautist?

• 50:00Speaker 02

  He's passed on unfortunately. Most of the guys unfortunately passed on. And. Let's, and then there was a sense of, what do we love? What, what do we love? We love Zeppelin, we love the Beatles, we love, we love English music. Well, why aren't we writing? English, American songs? And that's what it's based on. So Paul liked, you know. Uh, let's see, All Right Now, I think was just coming out there, so he started.

• 50:28Billy Corgan?

  There's a lot of humble pie in, in early Kiss, right?

• 50:30Speaker 02

  Uh, yes.

• 50:31Billy Corgan?

  Steve Marriott, right?

• 50:32Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 50:34Billy Corgan?

  Did you see them, you ever see them live?

• 50:35Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 50:36Billy Corgan?

  So good, right?

• 50:37Speaker 02

  Oh, and I'll never forget the swagger. I ran into Marriott later on in life. And I hadn't seen him in a while and everything, and he was in a recording studio and I happened to be coming in as he was going out. Just a tiny miniature, like a hobbit, like a small bundle of energy. It's like, it's like, you know, the sort of Cockney, although I'm sure he wasn't. Actually, I don't know, and. Steve, how you doing? Oh, all right. Where have you been? And he said. Up your mother's bum.

• 51:13Speaker 02

  And I thought, I just meant to say, I haven't seen you in a while. And he may have thought I said, your career may have been on hold, I haven't seen it. Yeah. And it was just, it was that quick thing and he was off and I went, yeah, that's real. Because that guy, when he hit that stage, have you ever heard, people don't know this, Robert Plant, one of the great voices forever, have you ever heard where Plant got all his stuff from?

• 51:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, there's the, there's the, there's the Small Faces recording.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  It's Marriott.

• 51:46Billy Corgan?

  He's literally doing Steve Marriott, he's ripping off every.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Ripping off the melody, the lyric, the whole thing. Robert Plant worshipped Marriott and Marriott was later asked.

• 51:57Billy Corgan?

  Good person to worship.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  Oh, but, and his tonality. You know, that's.

• 52:03Billy Corgan?

  To even be able to do it.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  To do it.

• 52:05Billy Corgan?

  But when I heard that stuff, having heard Whole Lot of Love 500 times, I was like, wait, there's a blueprint for this? Had no idea.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  The genius of Zeppelin is, are those riffs. Jimmy Page came up with more riffs than any other guitar player I've ever heard and so simple. It's the E, the D, and the B. So whether you're going.

• 52:31Speaker 02

  All the variations are those three notes in that, you know, blues scale.

• 52:36Billy Corgan?

  I'm sure you, you must have shot at some point with Charlotte, Scarlett Page, Jimmy's daughter, did you ever shoot with her?

• 52:42Speaker 02

  Yes, she was with Ross Halfin all the time.

• 52:45Billy Corgan?

  Our good friend Ross.

• 52:46Speaker 02

  And of course she got sick and tired, tell me about dad, and she'd go, okay. But finally became friendly with Jimmy. And I will tell you, one of the highlights of my life being an Anglophile is we were playing Wembley and it was kind of a big deal and everybody came down and Jimmy came down to check the band out, this was. Twenty years ago or so and that night we played well and Jimmy came up to me afterwards and he actually said to my face and I'm still sweating and you know still with the stage, my heart's pumping and I see Jimmy and I'm looking down, he said, he actually said

• 53:31Speaker 02

  you could give John Entwistle a run for his money and I, of course it's not true, but I just about passed out.

• 53:38Billy Corgan?

  That's a nice compliment.

• 53:39Speaker 02

  Oh my goodness, it meant the world to me.

• 53:42Billy Corgan?

  Okay, I'm still on my musical snob tip, so bear with me.

• 53:46Speaker 02

  By the way, why is that, like whatever it is you like is what you like, why call it snobbery? For whatever reason you like something is its own definitive reason.

• 54:03Billy Corgan?

  Because, okay, you've been honest with me, I'll be honest with you. Like I said, I had the poster on the wall, so I've been listening to Kiss since 1976 and I still listen to you guys regularly. You're one of those bands I still, like if I'm having a bad day, I'll put on one of your records because you guys just put me in a good mood. You're always there for me as a, as a band I can lean on to get me like in the right headspace, right? That's a musical appreciation note, but my point is, over time, I got sick of hearing the musical community, not, not bands, because bands know how important you guys are as,

• 54:44Billy Corgan?

  as a musical band, whether it was Pantera or Dave Grohl, like everybody knows Kiss is a great band, that are musicians, but you kind of get this rap from like fan community, like, you know, whether they like Prague or whatever, like Kiss, Kiss kind of gets kind of, yeah, they're okay.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  But why is that important, why is that important?

• 55:02Billy Corgan?

  It's important to me.

• 55:04Speaker 02

  Why? You like what you like?

• 55:05Billy Corgan?

  No, let me, let me finish. It's important to me because I don't like the world of fucking gatekeepers that tell average fans, just like I was in a fucking basement in Chicago, what is important. It's the same reason they kept you out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame all those years, because those fucking snobs would not say, "This is a great fucking band. This is an influential band, this is an important band culturally, aesthetically, musically."

• 55:33Speaker 02

  On the other hand-

• 55:33Billy Corgan?

  I'm not trying to fight your fight for you, but what I'm saying is-

• 55:35Speaker 02

  No, it's okay, that, that is true. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On the other hand, I considered buying it. See, it helps not to be born in America, I really believe that. When you're an immigrant legal, because there's a difference, and America allows you to climb the ladder of success and everything. The one thing that you're astonished by is the shitload of money and and opulence you're allowed to have. It's just mind-numbing. So, for me, if that's the only reason, if the only thing I get out of it is that it made me by some standards, very rich, fine.

• 56:20Billy Corgan?

  Okay. A different take on my argument. You made all that money because you're in a great fucking band.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  Okay. But I would be, by the way, I think I would be maybe not just as happy, but certainly happy if I put out Gungam Style and those two billion people paid for every one of those copies. I wouldn't be sad.

• 56:43Billy Corgan?

  Kiss is, okay, this is a musical take.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  By the way, what I'm saying doesn't negate-

• 56:48Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I know that.

• 56:49Speaker 02

  -your validation of self-

• 56:51Billy Corgan?

  No, I love, I love that you, as I sit here and talk to you, I realize that so much of Kiss's success and its endurance in success is because, exactly because of your mindset. If you had my mindset, it wouldn't have worked. Does this make sense? If you weren't arty, farty weirdo like me, it probably wouldn't have worked.

• 57:14Billy Corgan?

  But I'm here-

• 57:14Speaker 02

  Not for Kiss.

• 57:16Billy Corgan?

  That's what I'm saying, but now that it's all over, not that it's over over, but now that it's over this way, we can sit here and reminisce, right? And I can sit here and make the argument to one of the architects, who's been writing, you know, in my head on some level since 1976, right? It's a rare opportunity-

• 57:35Speaker 02

  Seventy-three.

• 57:37Billy Corgan?

  Well, I wasn't there at the beginning, sorry. I missed the first couple-

• 57:40Speaker 02

  Not my fault.

• 57:42Billy Corgan?

  My point being is, I can make the argument to you as a fellow musician, in a way that I probably couldn't make if we were at a bar or sitting, even having dinner. This is a unique opportunity to kind of make a case, not only to you, but obviously anybody watching, that I think you're a great band. I get sick of hearing this kind of dismissive vibe.

• 58:02Speaker 02

  Thank you, but-

• 58:03Billy Corgan?

  Not that you need my defense.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  I'm okay, but-

• 58:05Billy Corgan?

  But I, but I like the, let's call it the intellectual sort of riff on it. That's all.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  I appreciate that, but ultimately invariably and other big words like gymnasium, "Living well is the best revenge." It's the, uh-

• 58:19Billy Corgan?

  We've gotten plenty of revenge.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  You can go to The Fall Guy, which is this big new movie with Ryan Gosling, I think it is, and the opening thing is "I was made for loving you," throughout the movie, they keep playing that too. You don't even, it's just part of the, the, uh, the gestalt, the part of-

• 58:40Billy Corgan?

  Or zeitgeist, or, yeah, right.

• 58:41Speaker 02

  Zeitgeist? The, uh, it's become part of culture. And we just got a pilot thing that I just said okay to. There's a new Disney pilot, where

• 58:57Speaker 02

  there's a guy who's a major insane fan, who's got a, uh, large standee of me, you know, at makeup and stuff, wherever he goes, he likes to take it with him. That's part of the storyline. Do you mind that? No, sure, you know, go ahead.

• 59:12Billy Corgan?

  Okay, let me make a slightly different argument.

• 59:17Billy Corgan?

  If, from the first get out, you were in New York, obviously, New York critics.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  I love that midwesternism, that from the first get out, that's great.

• 59:27Billy Corgan?

  Head East was big in Chicago, that's all you need to know.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  I remember on A and M Records.

• 59:31Billy Corgan?

  Right. If you guys had been loved by the critics from the first moment you set foot on a stage, if all you'd ever heard, and you know those bands, there's those bands out there where it's like, they can literally shit on a fucking plate and some critic will talk about how holy the whole thing was. But you didn't get that.

• 59:46Speaker 02

  But it doesn't matter.

• 59:48Billy Corgan?

  Just follow my intellectual ramblings, please, just indulge me. What I'm trying to say is, part of what makes you great is you guys charted a very American path of like, we're just gonna do what we do, we're gonna, we're gonna tell you what we're doing, we're gonna be totally transparent about it, you're still being transparent about it, right? But somehow in all that, makeup on, makeup off, makeup back on, somehow you guys made a lot of great music because you're great songwriters.

• 1:00:17Billy Corgan?

  You were at the right time, at the right place, at different times where you created classic music.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  That's a very important phrase, right thing, right time, right place.

• 1:00:26Billy Corgan?

  Okay, what I'm saying is-

• 1:00:27Speaker 02

  Because if you wrote 1979 in the 1800s, nobody would care. Same song, same vibe, same everything, and they'd hear it, they wouldn't even understand what to do with it.

• 1:00:40Billy Corgan?

  So, I'm just making my own little intellectual argument here, which is that your value is greater as a musical unit than you get credit for generally, and I believe that will be part of the reason that people will listen to you 50 years from now. Not that you were ahead of your curve and all that stuff. Because now there's 8,000 bands with face paint, you know what I mean saying?

• 1:01:01Speaker 02

  Quite honestly, I, I don't even think about it. I'm so-

• 1:01:06Billy Corgan?

  I get that feeling, yes.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  I mean, I walk around-

• 1:01:13Billy Corgan?

  Did you pay for that?

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  You know, that's very good. By the way, my wife, you told me about this. It's a good piece of advice. Get a piece of copper, regular copper, not diluted, but full 100% copper, and glue it onto your cellphone, which you hold more than anything else, and it kills National Institute of Health. It immediately on contact kills all germs on your hand.

• 1:01:39Billy Corgan?

  Really?

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  Including COVID.

• 1:01:41Billy Corgan?

  Why is there not a Kiss logo on that copper?

• 1:01:45Billy Corgan?

  Alright, enough of my indulgence. Staying with music, though. Music only. Not even personalities, because I...

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  How come you don't talk about yourself and your writing and your music and all that?

• 1:01:58Billy Corgan?

  I'm interested.

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  Don't you have an inferred fiduciary duty to yourself?

• 1:02:01Billy Corgan?

  I'm in a band called The Smashing Pumpkins still. We're about to play 17,000 people in the O2 Arena here in a couple of days, so... I know you know what that feels like. Okay, strictly musically. I remember reading an interview where you were talking about the way Peter played drums. Peter's off criticized as a drummer, okay? Like, it drives me crazy because it's like when people criticize Ringo.

• 1:02:24Speaker 02

  Oh, you can't.

• 1:02:25Billy Corgan?

  But...

• 1:02:26Speaker 02

  You can't. Those are musical parts. Those are not drums.

• 1:02:30Billy Corgan?

  Peter's kind of weird Motown...

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  He's a, he's a throwback to when drummers had swing, so he's not, he was never a rock drummer.

• 1:02:40Billy Corgan?

  Right, but that's what makes the music so good.

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  That certainly helped that sound, yes. If you had, if the kick was too heavy, you know, Bonham later, and Bonham got his thing from Carmine, the American drummer.

• 1:02:55Billy Corgan?

  And even maybe the Jethro Tull drummer, if you ever went down that rabbit hole.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  Yes. Look, everybody listens to everybody else, and you like this, you like, take a piece and your DNA then becomes your own, but it's a pastiche.

• 1:03:08Billy Corgan?

  How did you, but again, all personality stuff aside, how did you feel about Peter's drumming at that time? Because you're the bass player. Did you like playing with him? Did you like the swing?

• 1:03:18Speaker 02

  We loved the feeling of it. It made the music seamless.

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  But I have to tell you that Peter, we were all untrained musicians. Peter played by feel and didn't play by verse, bridge, chorus ideas. And didn't quite understand that because he was not a songwriter. He didn't play a musical instrument. Drums are percussive, not musical. So literally, you can hear Strutter or one of those songs. And the pattern on the drums is different in the bridge. Then it'll go to a verse pattern in the verse pattern he had in the middle of the chorus pattern or in the riff that and switch to a chorus pattern.

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  And there's some strange thing that worked at it, but not logically. I mean, when Keith Moon, he's not Keith Moon, he couldn't touch Keith Moon. But when Keith Moon played with The Who, you can't quite figure out what the patterns are.

• 1:04:20Billy Corgan?

  Well, look at Kenny Jones, who's a great drummer.

• 1:04:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:04:22Billy Corgan?

  Playing with The Who. It's just a weird.

• 1:04:24Speaker 02

  Not the same. Kenny was more a school musician.

• 1:04:26Billy Corgan?

  But a great drummer.

• 1:04:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, a great drummer, but stayed. It brought the energy down, this wild thing. So I'll never forget, however, good, bad, or otherwise, Paul's out there putting on his southern, "All right, y'all, we're gonna do a song now. It's called Strutter and it's good." You know, he's talking about a girl walking down the street, you know, and he's doing that thing. And I'm hearing, and I turn around, because I'm a little bit in the dark, Paul's got the spotlight, and Peter wants to say, and I, my hand to God, Peter's going, "Which one's that one?" And go, you know, the, "Oh."

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  And this is after we rehearsed it for a hundred times. He was a feel guy. You know, you see the template and you're about to play a song. You know where the bridge and the chorus are gonna be. You know, eight bars of this, then you do the riff. You know where you're gonna go. Peter was just along for the ride.

• 1:05:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I played with a musician once, a very well-known musician. He said, "Oh, I don't, I never play the same thing twice."

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:38Billy Corgan?

  It was to play Jimmy Chamberlain's drums, drum parts. And Jimmy plays the same thing every night.

• 1:05:42Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:05:43Billy Corgan?

  But it doesn't sound like it.

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  Or at least I'm aware of it.

• 1:05:45Billy Corgan?

  Right, I mean, and he plays these crazy parts. So I was like, well, how do you do that? How do you not? Like, basically, it was like I make it up as I go along, right? So I understand that.

• 1:05:55Speaker 02

  Field drummers, jazz drummers are closer to that.

• 1:06:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, no, that's, that's, and, you know, he always positioned himself as, you know, he had that weird story where he would tell about, was it Gene Krupa? And, sitting with Gene Krupa, you ever read that story from Peter?

• 1:06:12Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:06:13Billy Corgan?

  I don't know how true it is.

• 1:06:14Speaker 02

  That's, I'm glad you said, though, that. In the old days, those drummers would play the top of the kit, and something called dropping the bomb would be when the kit would, they would hardly use the kit.

• 1:06:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, there was a song.

• 1:06:27Speaker 02

  So, it was all top.

• 1:06:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  Stuff. And there are lots of stories Peter's told about Gene Krupa, and they're very entertaining.

• 1:06:38Billy Corgan?

  Okay. Ace. When I did my deep dive, where I had this revelation about, that you guys were a lot better than I thought you were, and I already thought you were great. Ace's playing came at me differently, maybe because I was paying so much more attention. How did you feel about Ace's playing?

• 1:06:54Speaker 02

  Oh, he immediately tore open the, uh, the, the doors of what could be, what should be, because we were in a rat-infested loft, maybe twice as big as this room, with egg, egg crates that we stuck on the wall that still had cracked, some cracked eggs, and of course, at night, the huge dinosaur cockroaches would come out.

• 1:07:19Billy Corgan?

  Oh, my god.

• 1:07:20Speaker 02

  Oh, it was horrible. There were no windows and everything. But we didn't care. We were doing this thing, and wow, we're hearing that sound. And we auditioned players, and this guy comes in, who plugs in. We had double stacks, Marshall, Major, 200 watts.

• 1:07:34Billy Corgan?

  200 watts, yeah.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  We had money.

• 1:07:36Billy Corgan?

  That's the Richie Blackmore amp, by the way.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  That's right. Very underrated guitar player.

• 1:07:41Billy Corgan?

  Oh, incredible.

• 1:07:42Speaker 02

  And Ace plugs in and starts playing while we're talking to another guy, and... I walked up to him, I said, "Buddy, you better sit down before I knock you out. What are you doing? We're talking." He was oblivious that there was another meeting going on, that he had to sit there sivvily and wait for his turn. And when he got up, "Okay, listen pal, we're gonna do a song called 'Deuce', here's the riff, you know, A major. We'll do, you know, two verses, bridge, and when the riff starts, I'll point to you. You've heard it enough, and you do a solo based on the riff." He said, "Ah, okay." And he talked like that. And we're going, "Boy, he's a weird guy.

• 1:08:26Speaker 02

  He's got one orange sneaker, one red sneaker, just, you know, pigeon-toed and all that. Oh, boy, this guy's gonna be..." And then he dug in, "Ah!" And his head, you know, like he's on stage, just that rubbery thing. And Paul and I looked at each other, "Wow." And you don't know what you're looking for, but you certainly know when you hear it and see it. And it immediately said, "This weird guy, rubbery thing on drums, that we couldn't get to focus on." That's the bridge feel you're playing in the chorus. And this other guy was, you know, and...

• 1:09:06Billy Corgan?

  There you are.

• 1:09:08Speaker 02

  It just kind of happened. You can't... We didn't have a manager, we didn't have a... There was no... There was no Don Kirchner saying, "Here's the monkeys and..."

• 1:09:17Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. To me, Ace's playing is like, it's almost futuristic somehow.

• 1:09:21Speaker 02

  Well, I'll tell you a big bit of info is Ace was so serious about his guitar playing. The solos is, he would go home and learn, and he would work out the guitar solos so that when he would play live or in the studio, they were parts, just like...

• 1:09:41Billy Corgan?

  Sure, yeah.

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  He'd play the same thing. He would play note for note with the right vibrato and everything. That's when he was committed to it. And that's one of the things live, fans kept pointing to. "Wow, it sounds just like..." You bet it is, because he cared enough to learn his own solos.

• 1:10:00Billy Corgan?

  What a cool guitar player.

• 1:10:03Speaker 02

  His influences spoke loudly, Page and Beck and you know.

• 1:10:08Billy Corgan?

  But he's also influenced so many other people in a very unique way.

• 1:10:11Speaker 02

  Dimebag and everybody and Kirk from Metallica, everybody. Lots of guys went, you know, Ace was the first guy, but it also again is at a certain age, you start to listen to certain music and that influences you.

• 1:10:28Billy Corgan?

  So do you remember this band Static X?

• 1:10:30Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:10:30Billy Corgan?

  Did you ever know Wayne the singer? Do you remember him?

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:10:33Billy Corgan?

  So when we were in an indie band in the eighties in Chicago, Wayne had a band called Deep Blue Dream, which I was in briefly. He tried to talk me out of the pumpkins, say, he was a very good singer. They were kind of like the cult at that point, if you remember like rock cult, you know, Rick Rubin's version of the cult. Wayne was like, look, I'll be the lead singer, you'll be the lead guitar player, we're gonna be huge. Tried to talk me out of the band, I was like, no, I'm gonna stick with my band. But Wayne had a car, like an old car, and he had painted the Kiss logo on the on the hood of the car. So anywhere you would go in Chicago, you'd be driving, oh, there's Wayne's car because he had the Kiss logo. And one of my favorite stories about Wayne was he was in the studio recording a song and he was having trouble figuring out the solo.

• 1:11:18Billy Corgan?

  And somebody heard him mumbling to himself and they, what was he saying? He said, I was wondering what Ace would do. Cause he was such a Kiss fan. So in his mind, Ace, like if he could figure out what Ace would do on the song, that was the apotheosis of like accomplishment.

• 1:11:34Speaker 02

  It's the highest compliment and the Melvins bus that Nirvana drove around had the Kiss logo all over it and all. I mean, I know all those stories.

• 1:11:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  I remember Mike McCready was telling me that when he first started Pearl Jam, when he first started guitars and everything, that he'd listen to Ace and you know, and in particular,

• 1:12:00Speaker 02

  was one of the first solos he learned from a song called She. I said, Mike, I don't know how to tell you this, but that's note for note, note for note guitar solo from The Doors. Ace liked it so much, he just reproduced it. He goes, no.

• 1:12:20Billy Corgan?

  I didn't know that. I learned something. Alright.

• 1:12:23Speaker 02

  So, my point is, it's always very appreciative when somebody says, you know, "Love your stuff," or "this stuff." Everybody's got bits and pieces of stuff. Listen to Zeppelin songs, you'll hear lots of blues, very recognizable blues songs.

• 1:12:39Billy Corgan?

  But in the moment of the time, and I do want to talk about Paul, but in the moment of the time, did you feel that you had something magical, or was like, "This is just our band and we're gonna go forward no matter..."

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Now, we were aware that culturally, because kids of all ages, you get grown up-

• 1:12:56Billy Corgan?

  But again, I'm sorry, I'm on my musical rant.

• 1:12:57Speaker 02

  Oh, the musical.

• 1:12:58Billy Corgan?

  No, but I'm saying, did you feel you had something... Obviously, that lineup produced a lot of music that people still listen to. Did you feel that at the time?

• 1:13:08Speaker 02

  The impact and the success and the culture was a much bigger...

• 1:13:15Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 1:13:18Speaker 02

  Had a much bigger impact. There was not a lot of discussion of, "You know, that's a decent song and maybe we should get Rolling Stone a good..." Never cared about-

• 1:13:27Billy Corgan?

  But I'm asking you, that's what I'm saying. That's my indulgence with this interview.

• 1:13:31Speaker 02

  So, my sense of some of those tunes are

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  pretty decent material, and I could point to a thousand bands that were much, much better.

• 1:13:45Speaker 02

  And maybe not as successful.

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  I mean, Humble Pie opened for Grand Funk Railroad at Shea Stadium. Humble Pie could wipe the floor with Grand Funk. Are you kidding?

• 1:14:00Billy Corgan?

  Grand Funk's a pretty good band, though.

• 1:14:02Speaker 02

  I liked it too, but you can't touch Marriott and even with Jerry Shirley-

• 1:14:08Billy Corgan?

  Peter Frampton in that band?

• 1:14:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I think when they opened, they may have had Jerry Shirley, yeah.

• 1:14:17Billy Corgan?

  But I get, I get what you're saying.

• 1:14:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, uh, and, you know, Jimi Hendrix is opening for The Monkees. So the fact that The Monkees are headlining, does that make him a better band? I loved The Monkees for different reasons, but when you see Hendrix, it's another world. And he was booed off the stage.

• 1:14:34Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but part of my rap is, I think we're seeing in the, in the streaming era, we're seeing a democratization now where what people actually listen to is, is creating the true dynamic of music culture, not a, not a critics culture.

• 1:14:45Speaker 02

  For young people, yes.

• 1:14:47Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so that's my point, is I would say to any young person watching, that if you hear on the street, "Ah, Kiss, they're okay," it's like, that's the wrong take. Kiss is a great [bleep] band for a variety of reasons, and primarily among them, for me, is musical.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  Well, it's appreciated, but it seems to continue.

• 1:15:07Billy Corgan?

  I got a really good story, which we'll, we'll end on. But, um, I, I, it wouldn't be fair if we don't touch on Paul. At what point did you realize that your, your bandmate who you, you, you guys never left the band, the two of you, that you guys had something that was sort of unique?

• 1:15:25Speaker 02

  From day one. He, uh, didn't like me when we met each other.

• 1:15:29Billy Corgan?

  Does he like you now?

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  Uh, sure. You, sort of, I think we both have this, sort of like, the brother that we never had.

• 1:15:39Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:39Speaker 02

  That doesn't mean you agree. I mean, Kane and Abel didn't get along very well, but they were brothers.

• 1:15:45Billy Corgan?

  Um, like when you did the reality show, was it true that he was like not happy about you?

• 1:15:49Speaker 02

  He hated it.

• 1:15:50Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:50Speaker 02

  And I offered him, "Take over a year, call it the Paul Stanley Family Jewels, you know, I've got an eight, eight-season commitment, 167 episodes, take over a year, do it," he hated it. He didn't agree with the, he wanted to be more English, like, "We just play guitar, we don't do the other stuff," and I had a different point of view. I think movies and licensing, he was not as much of a fan of toys, games, licensing and merch.

• 1:16:18Billy Corgan?

  When it did help bring the band back to a certain degree, did it?

• 1:16:21Speaker 02

  No question. Paul was, Paul was there much more musically when I was asleep at the wheel. Paul's able to write any kind of music and sing almost anything, a much better vocalist, better-looking guy, in a better shape.

• 1:16:34Billy Corgan?

  Talented guy.

• 1:16:35Speaker 02

  But...

• 1:16:36Billy Corgan?

  And driven, like you.

• 1:16:37Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And great family guy, no drugs, no booze. You can't find that in rock and roll, you know, in bands. But early on, at the very beginning, we recognized in each other.

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  I'm gonna do better with this guy than if I do it on my own. So when our first band, Wicked Lester, had our equipment stolen in Chinatown, we had nothing. We turned to each other and I went, "Well, you know, what are you gonna do?" And he's gonna, "Well, what are you gonna do?" I said, "Well, I'm gonna go upstate and I know this guitar player. I'm gonna put another group together." And he said, "Can I come with you?" And so, right away, we were hitchhiking on Route 17 to put another band together. And eventually wound up in New York and put Kiss together. I'll give you a quick story. We started poking fun of each other's songs. I'm going, "All you ever..."

• 1:17:36Speaker 02

  Paul starts saying, "All you ever write about is monster songs." I'm like, "I'm the god of thunder and all that." "What? What did you say?" "Oh, that's a good idea. I'm gonna go home and write that thing. I'm the god of thun..." "Yeah, that's what I'm gonna write." He goes, "Oh, you like that, huh?" So he went home right away and wrote "God of Thunder" before I had a chance. But before the conversation ended, and I said, "And all you ever write about is stupid girl songs. I'm Christine 16 and all that stuff, just like that." And he said, "What? What did you say? Oh, you like that?" So I immediately went home and wrote Christine 16. When I told him, I made the mistake. When we first put the band together, we were co-writing rock and all that kind of stuff. And I said to him, "I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna write a song. I've got a great idea.

• 1:18:21Speaker 02

  You've got Brown Sugar, you know, about this prostitute and everything. And about this black prostitute. I'm gonna write my own Brown Sugar called Black Diamond. How cool is that song?" He goes, "Yeah, that's cool. Out on the streets for a living and Black Diamond." He goes, "That's cool." He went home and wrote the song before I had a chance to write my own Black Diamond. I said, "What the..." And so when he showed the chords, I go, "That's really good, but you need this riff on top." Otherwise, it's, you know, you know, A minor, you know, it's got just chords, chords.

• 1:18:58Speaker 02

  And so, we complimented each other on a lot of stuff. So wherever, I'd like to think he knew and continues to know stuff I don't, and vice versa.

• 1:19:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I have that with Jimmy Chamberlain, the pumpkin drummer. It's like-

• 1:19:13Speaker 02

  You don't have to say the pumpkin drummer to me.

• 1:19:15Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but it's that weird thing where it's like, why are we together in this life? But when we play-

• 1:19:22Speaker 02

  Either that person makes your stuff better-

• 1:19:24Billy Corgan?

  Well, duh, that guy-

• 1:19:26Speaker 02

  Or not.

• 1:19:27Billy Corgan?

  That guy is unbelievable. Okay.

• 1:19:29Speaker 02

  And I would argue the same thing about Ringo. Pete Best may have been the original drummer-

• 1:19:34Billy Corgan?

  Anybody who has an unkind word to say about Ringo and the Beatles is insane.

• 1:19:38Speaker 02

  I'm there, and I have Ringo. How lucky am I? I have Ringo when I have my birthday- Who sent me a video, says, "All right, Gene, happy birthday," and I'm going, "Ohhh."

• 1:19:48Billy Corgan?

  He's in love, Gene. Okay. This is our big finish. You may remember this, probably not. Reunion show, Tiger Stadium, 1996. Right? Is that accurate? You don't remember. You were there, it was sold out.

• 1:20:07Speaker 02

  Ninety-five.

• 1:20:09Billy Corgan?

  Okay. Doc McGee was your manager?

• 1:20:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:12Billy Corgan?

  Right? Alice in Chains was opening.

• 1:20:14Speaker 02

  Sad story, it was gonna be Stone Temple Pilots. And Wieland and I had a discussion, and I said, "This is your chance. It's gonna be a lot of media, things sold out in forty minutes. You guys open up, and, uh, but I want you to be straight, you gotta promise me." Gene, I prom- you know, like all addicts, I promise. Then he died. And then I saw Layne backstage. We got Alice in Chains, because we loved the band. And before he went up on stage, he said, "Layne, this is your chance. I want you to be straight," and all that stuff, and how- And shortly thereafter, he died.

• 1:20:50Billy Corgan?

  Lane's a tough one, because obviously Scott too. But I remember watching from the side of the stage. They kinda had played for a couple of years because of Lane's drug issues. Lane was super skinny. He's wearing this, almost like this black spider kind of...

• 1:21:05Speaker 02

  You can't, it's just...

• 1:21:06Billy Corgan?

  But his voice, that voice that would come out of that body?

• 1:21:09Speaker 02

  Nobody sounded like that.

• 1:21:11Billy Corgan?

  Unbelievable. Anyway, here's my story.

• 1:21:13Speaker 02

  And so, why don't you recognize that magic that affects everybody in yourself to keep yourself alive? What is that? That goes with Cobain and other people.

• 1:21:25Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's... The effect... When I have you back some other time, we should talk about that. That would be a great subject to delve into.

• 1:21:30Speaker 02

  I wrote a book called Twenty Seven, that's about the Twenty Seven.

• 1:21:33Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 1:21:34Speaker 02

  Mind blowing, all these super talented and lucky people who'd never realized the amazing impact they had, just to keep themselves alive.

• 1:21:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, it hurts my heart for my generation when I think of all the people that would still be here making music.

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  I know. Or just keeping their families happy.

• 1:21:53Billy Corgan?

  How about just being alive, huh? Okay, my story. So, I'm a big rock star and I'm seeing Kiss at the big reunion show, Tiger Stadium. Sold out in forty minutes, according to Gene. And, of course, I want to know where I'm gonna watch the show from. So I talk to somebody and they say, "No stage access, none."

• 1:22:13Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 1:22:14Billy Corgan?

  No stage access. I say, "Well, you can go out to front of house and watch the show." I said, "I'm not going through that fucking crowd." Me, like me ninety-five, ninety-six me, like, right? No way, that crowd's gonna kill me.

• 1:22:30Speaker 02

  No, they won't, but go ahead.

• 1:22:31Billy Corgan?

  Where can I watch from? "Well, maybe you could stand in front of the stage." "Well, I'm gonna be like this all night, I don't know, I wouldn't watch it like that." So I'm like, I'm literally, "You guys are about to go on." It's like, maybe ten minutes to showtime. And I'm literally standing by myself, and I could see the ramp up to the side of the stage, your side. And Doc McGee comes up and goes, "What are you doing?" I said, "Well, I'm just trying to figure out where I'm gonna watch the show from." He goes, "Come with me." He walks me up on the side of the stage, where your bass tech is. He says, "Stand here, okay?" There's nobody on the fucking stage, except you guys, your techs, and me.

• 1:23:09Billy Corgan?

  Okay, now, I know it must have come from the band, "Nobody on the Stage", at least that's what I guessed. So, you do your bit with the blood and the fire and the da-da-da, and you're coming over to take your break, you got a towel, you're wiping yourself down. And you know, when you're in full gimmick, as we would say in wrestling, yeah, you're a little wound up, right? And you're imposing, you got the boots on, you're a big guy already, and here you come, and I'm standing there, and I'm thinking, "Is he gonna see me and get pissed off?" Now, we had met, of course, many times, but I'm somewhere I'm not supposed to be. And what am I gonna do, tell you in the middle of the show, "Well, Doc said it was okay"? So you're wiping yourself down, and I see you go...

• 1:23:51Billy Corgan?

  I'm thinking, "Oh, here it comes, he's gonna get mad", and you go, "Billy"? And you waved me over, and you said, "Are you enjoying the show"? And I said, "Yes, it's amazing." He said, "Great, have a good time." So, I of all the Kiss fans in the [bleep] goddamn world, got to be onstage with you guys during that [bleep] night. What a great [bleep] night. Because you're a great [bleep] band, and I'm proud to know you.

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  Well, you're very nice. But for me, the most important thing is, hopefully, they liked it, 'cause your bosses and my bosses buy tickets, and it's all for them. And without them, we'd be asking the next person in line, "Would you like some fries with that"?

• 1:24:32Billy Corgan?

  To be honest, I don't know how many people were there, 60,000 people? I didn't give a shit about any of them. All I know is... I'm being straight up with you, okay? God bless Kiss World, God bless the band, everything. All I know is, if you could've told me that the kid looking at that poster at 10 years old on the back of the wall...

• 1:24:49Speaker 02

  Oh, I understand.

• 1:24:50Billy Corgan?

  Would be standing, watching you guys onstage as an invited guest...

• 1:24:53Speaker 02

  I understand.

• 1:24:54Billy Corgan?

  And have you come over and welcome me... You know who I am, right? There's that little kid in all of us. It was a great [bleep] moment, so thank you for that.

• 1:25:05Speaker 02

  How about five bucks?

• 1:25:06Billy Corgan?

  No, you don't get [bleep] for me.