Micky Dolenz | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Billy Corgan welcomes Micky Dolenz for a conversation that peels back the curtain on a lifetime in show business. Dolenz explains why he always kept “Micky the TV drummer” separate from the real man, explains how the Monkees were a cast before they were a band, surviving the show’s cancelation and watching the Monkees phenomenon roar back when MTV picked up the reruns. Along the way he revisits his Circus Boy childhood, Boyce & Hart songwriting sessions, Mike Nesmith’s push for creative control, and the boundary-breaking film Head that foreshadowed the indie-film revolution. The result is a candid, inside-out look at fame, reinvention, and the craft behind an accidental pop-culture landmark. Watch The Magnificent Others on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:09Speaker 01

  I always separated the person and the persona. I always knew that the fans, the girls, the industry, the magazines, they were in love with Mickey Dolce, the drummer on the TV show, not with me.

• 1:33Billy Corgan?

  I want to try this in a different pathway, and hopefully we can bring out some fresh, interesting information. Because I know you've talked a lot about certain parts of your life, but I'd like to talk about some of the other parts of your life, too. So, Monkees breakup in 1970, was the breakup because the series got canceled, or were you breaking up and then the series got... Like, how did that sequence work?

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Well, the term breakup itself is just incorrect. A group's breakup, The Monkees was not a group. It was a cast of a TV show. So, when the show went off the air, when it was canceled, when the show was canceled, the cast...

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Did what all casts do when your series is canceled. You shake and you wave and you, you know, you go, you're merry way. You stay friends, possibly with, with some of the other cast members. But it's like William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy didn't hang out every day going, "Beam me up, Scotty, beam me up, poor Leonard." So, we did stay in touch. And there was some post-series music that had to be completed. There were some albums that had to be completed.

• 2:56Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  And a couple of tours that had to be completed that we were already contracted for.

• 3:02Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  But, but the bottom line is The Monkees was never a group. Well, you can, you can argue that. It became one.

• 3:11Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  When we went on the road. It was a TV show about a group.

• 3:17Billy Corgan?

  Okay. So, maybe a better way to ask a question is, the day you wake up, whatever that day is in 1970 something, and you go, "Right, that's done. What's next?" Like, what's your mindset at that point?

• 3:31Speaker 01

  I only speak for myself.

• 3:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm only interested in your perspective.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I'd already been in the business at that time 15 years from my first series when I was 10. I was used to having a show canceled. I'd already had one canceled when I was a kid.

• 3:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  After three years. And, um, so I kinda knew exactly what to expect.

• 4:00Billy Corgan?

  Are you, in your mind at that point, and even now, are you an actor first and a musician second? You know, I mean, like, what's the pecking order in your brain?

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Actor.

• 4:09Billy Corgan?

  Or, or actor? So, so the first thing you want to do is, "I need another acting gig."

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Well, actually, no. At the time, I'd already was fed up with acting. It'd been 15 years. I was, uh, wanted to direct. I wanted to write and direct and produce. I'd always been fascinated with behind the, the scenes.

• 4:27Billy Corgan?

  And you would...

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Even as a child.

• 4:29Billy Corgan?

  You directed the last...

• 4:30Speaker 01

  I directed the last episode.

• 4:32Billy Corgan?

  Last episode.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  And wrote. And that's the direction my mind was going.

• 4:36Billy Corgan?

  Okay, that's kinda what I'm after, yeah.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Production. And I started a little production company, Dolan's Productions, which still have today. And I did a couple of commercials, did a documentary, a few things, started working, trying to get that going. I think I kind of knew intuitively I wasn't gonna get a lot of acting jobs. I mean, I went to a couple of auditions, I remember, right after The Monkees. And I remember one, I walked in and the producer, whoever, said, "What are you doing here? We don't need any drummers." I'm like, "Okay, thanks."

• 5:22Billy Corgan?

  I'm such a good actor, you think of me as a drummer.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I played that part really well. But having said all that, you know, yeah, we did become a group in every sense of the word, if touring and recording is a group.

• 5:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I'm more interested, because, you know, again, back to, we've been interviewed a lot of times, people tend to focus at the bright lights. I'm in many ways more fascinated with what happens when the bright lights go off, how people react, not to adversity, but a new challenge.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Got it. I was used to it, like I say, I'd had a show that was canceled, kinda knew what to expect. And frankly, after those three, four years of just intense, being in the eye of the hurricane for three, four years, and it was, and just intense, not just filming the show, but then recording at night, and then going on the road and touring and all that, I just wanted to kick back and have a beer for a couple of years. And that's essentially what I did. It happened to, by coincidence or not, fall into the same couple of years that I was

• 6:40Speaker 01

  hanging with my best friend at the time, Harry Nielsen, and when John Lennon came to town for the lost weekend. Yeah, so I spent a lot of time with them, and I'm told I had a great time.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  But I was happy to do that. I had been working my butt off. You know, the show ran for two years, but we did fifty-two episodes, or fifty-six episodes in two years. Nowadays, that's like a six-year run for a series today. It was intense and wore me out, and I wanted to get into producing and directing. So that's what I kind of focused on, started a little company, did some commercials and stuff. And then I got very lucky. I was asked by my friend Harry Nielsen to go to

• 7:38Speaker 01

  England to star in a musical in the West End that he had written called The Point.

• 7:44Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  And my wife was English. As it turned out, I'd just married an English girl, so I could work there. The play was only a little pantomime season thing, three months, staying in Harry's flat. And I got lucky. I met an agent, a literary agent, and I said, "Oh, I'd like to direct and stuff. And what do you have?" And I had some stuff sent over, my monkey episode and things. She got me a gig at the BBC, directing drama

• 8:24Speaker 01

  of all things. And I never looked back. I did that, went on to LWT, all English television companies. One of those stories, I went over for three months and stayed fifteen years, just directing and producing and writing.

• 8:41Billy Corgan?

  So you felt over there, they were more receptive to your skill set, and it was less about this moment?

• 8:46Speaker 01

  It was interesting. First of all, The Monkees was much more appreciated and respected in many ways in England and in the States.

• 8:56Billy Corgan?

  That's fascinating.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Over the decades, I learned that. I realized that. I observed it.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  And I think I know why, because here, that idea of kind of a wacky sketch comedy.

• 9:14Billy Corgan?

  Goon, you talk about the Goon Squad. Was it the Goon?

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:18Billy Corgan?

  The Beatles loved it.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  That was the Goon, The Goon Show.

• 9:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, Goon Show, sorry.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  That was radio.

• 9:25Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  And, but that didn't exist over here, really. In movies, it did slightly with like The Marx Brothers. But on television, not at all, especially the improv, improvisation.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  And The Monkees came along, and of course, a lot of it was improv. They taught us improv to do the show. But American critics, I think, the kids got it, the fans got it, obviously. But the TV people and the critics, they didn't know what to make of it. But in England, that was a tradition already. The Goonies, then Monty Python, of course, and then all those kinds of shows. So, yeah, I was well, instantly well-received. And created my own shows, co-wrote shows, developed shows, very successfully for years.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  And it was wonderful because shortly after my second or third show premiered,

• 10:30Speaker 01

  I was known as Michael Dolan's, by the way. That's another story, instead of Mickey.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  That was because, one of the first big shows that I produced and directed and co-created was called Metal Mickey. By coincidence, it was the name of a robot. And it was your old, very classic theme. An out-of-place, weird fantasy Alf, kind of Mork and Mindy.

• 11:04Billy Corgan?

  Okay, I get you.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  And an out-of-place, weird, my favorite Martian.

• 11:10Billy Corgan?

  I get you.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Bewitched in a very domestic, straight situation.

• 11:14Billy Corgan?

  Okay, got it.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Classic, which I brought to the table. And the robot's name was Mickey.

• 11:21Billy Corgan?

  Oh, so.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Totally coincidental.

• 11:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  And he had a puppeteer running him. And every time we're on the set rehearsing, somebody would go, "Oh, Mickey." Both of us would turn around. So my boss said, "Why don't you just use Michael," which is my middle name. And that, from then on, I was Michael Dolan's. And after a while, articles in the paper, in the Daily Mail and The Times or whatever, about my new show, would say, "Michael Dolan, this producer-director is announcing," rather than Mickey Monkey X Monkey Mickey Dolan's. And that was very refreshing.

• 12:02Billy Corgan?

  So, like you said, you stayed 15 years.

• 12:08Billy Corgan?

  Were you, were you intrigued by the sustain of interest in The Monkees? Because, you know, in, in, in 76, you did Dolan's joint, Dolan Jones Boyce and Hart. Try to say that three times fast. And I didn't, you know, I, I have that record and, and, you know, obviously, Boyce and Hart, great writers, strongly associated with your, your, your success in The Monkees. And, you know, so, and I'm not saying it was a nod to where you'd come from. It might have just been, you know, this is the relationships that sustain. But even that, like, were you, because when you guys, you guys did some shows in that, "I'm Not Crazy," right?

• 12:49Speaker 01

  In what?

• 12:49Billy Corgan?

  When, when you did Boyce and Hart.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Boyce and Hart.

• 12:52Billy Corgan?

  Dolan Jones.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Oh, dear. Dolan Jones Boyce and Hart.

• 12:57Billy Corgan?

  Thank you, I need your help on that.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  The guys that sang him and the guys that wrote him.

• 13:00Billy Corgan?

  Right, but I mean, you must have been doing some of The Monkey stuff and...

• 13:03Speaker 01

  All, all, all Monkey stuff, yeah. Well, I mean, the songs.

• 13:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, all the big hits and then Boyce and Hart would do their...

• 13:11Billy Corgan?

  So somewhere in there, it's just, let's call it the general milieu of the 70s.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:16Billy Corgan?

  Were you intrigued that people were still interested in The Monkees?

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Not in, not at that point, because it had never really gone away. After I went to England for 15 years.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  And then came back in eighty-six. I was blown away. I was like, what the?

• 13:38Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  What the heck was that all about? Um, wish I'd have kept those old shirts, some stuff.

• 13:48Billy Corgan?

  If you want to sell me any of the guns, I'm there.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  I was blown away in the eighties, uh, when it all came back up, uh, MTV. I was coming over to do like an eight-week summer tour with my kids and my wife. At the time, it was supposed to be eight, twelve weeks, amusement parks. And that was it. I was gonna go back and start production on a new series in England. It was like a hiatus for me. And of course, three years later, we're still on the road. And I'm getting divorced. I mean, it was like one of those.

• 14:23Billy Corgan?

  Very rock and roll.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Very rock and roll. Um, but now I'm not surprised, because now I look back, I've studied it, I've given talks about it. Why it was what it was and what it became and I've, I've looked into it sort of, um, from outside, because I did get outside during those years in England. No singing, no monkeys, no, nothing, no acting. So I was able to really step outside.

• 14:53Billy Corgan?

  So when you saw it full breadth?

• 14:55Speaker 01

  I was able to step outside the bubble and look back. But I've always been able to do that to some degree. Because my parents were in the business and I was brought up very, uh, realistic.

• 15:10Billy Corgan?

  How were, how were your parents in the business? I didn't know this part.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Both, both of them. They were actors and singers, uh, met doing a play in Hollywood. Um, so I grew up in a showbiz family. My earliest recollections of going to work with my dad.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Was him getting shot off a horse bleeding. You know, in some action movie. And I'm like four or five years old. And that's what daddy did. I thought everybody's father was a was an actor. So I grew up in a showbiz family, but not your typical kind of Beverly Hills Hollywood showbiz family. Eyes and teeth, honey. Eyes and teeth. None of that. No stage mom, no acting lessons, no dancing, nothing. Hardcore working. My dad was off the boat from Italy. I'm first generation Italian.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  My mom was from Texas, came out to be an actress. So down home, we lived in the valley, right near here, by the ways, where I grew up. Born in Tarzana on a chicken ranch. And so not the typical showbiz family, shall we say.

• 16:27Billy Corgan?

  Was it because your family was working on, let's call it, the edges of the opportunities that were there because Hollywood just needed a lot of people to kind of run through the doors?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Well, when they got married, my mom didn't work anymore. She was an actress. My father continued to act. That was his job. And he did very well. He had a series called The Count of Monte Cristo. Was under contract to Howard Hughes. Took that money and parlayed it into a restaurant because he wanted to be in the restaurant business on Sunset Strip, which he did until he passed away.

• 17:02Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  So it was a very successful family and very successful. He was very successful in in the business, in the 50s, 40s and 50s.

• 17:11Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  And then passed away early 60s. But I grew up in a very down-to-earth showbiz family.

• 17:18Billy Corgan?

  I get that.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  I'd come home from Circus Boy filming and on the weekends had to clean the pool. So I had a pretty down-to-earth upbringing in that sense.

• 17:29Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  As much as you possibly can, being in showbiz. But that also, after the monkeys, to come full circle around to what you said. Yeah, after the monkeys, I always separated the person and the persona.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  I always knew that the fans, the girls, the industry, the magazines, they were in love with Mickey Dolan's, the drummer on the TV show. Not with me. And I always managed, for the most part, to keep the person and the persona separate. Not all the time, but...

• 18:13Billy Corgan?

  How was it that you were cast in Circus Boy? I mean, did your parents say...

• 18:18Speaker 01

  My father's agent. I was up for a few things. And I remember my mom would say, "Oh, there's a, you know, there's a pilot or a TV thing. Do you want to go?" And I'd go, "Meh, maybe, maybe not." Never remember being pushed into anything. In fact, I do remember, and my mom reminded me when the Circus Boy interview, audition, came up, she said, "There's a pilot." And I guess it was my dad's agent, probably, that had told her about it. "Do you want to go out for an audition for a series?" And I was like, "Oh, Mom, I can't. I got a baseball game." And I almost didn't go. And finally, for some reason, I ended up going.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  But just kind of looking at my watch, wanting to get back for the, for the, for the baseball game. But got that, I got that series in the 50s, 55.

• 19:15Billy Corgan?

  So you're about 10, 11 when you're doing the series, yeah. What, what studio was that show shot at?

• 19:22Speaker 01

  The same studio, same stage as The Monkees. Screen Gems, Television.

• 19:28Billy Corgan?

  That is mind-blowing.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Both shows were Screen Gems Television. 10 years to the day, almost, apart. 10 years old when I got Circus Boy, 20 years old. I think I might have gone to the first audition in the same friggin' office. Columbia Pictures, Lot, Gower.

• 19:47Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, Gower.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Sunset, Gower now. Same stage we shot on. At the ranch, right out here at the Hollywood, at Columbia Ranch.

• 19:58Billy Corgan?

  Such an extreme synchronicity.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  I remember when I got, when I went back for, for, for The Monkees and I drove through the little gate with the guy, with the guard. The guard said, "Hey, Mickey, you got another show. Great, welcome back."

• 20:12Billy Corgan?

  Oh, my God.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Same guy that had been there 10 years before.

• 20:16Billy Corgan?

  I have to ask about Bimbo the baby elephant.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  I don't like to talk about it, Billy. We were so close. There were two little Bimbos.

• 20:30Billy Corgan?

  Because Bimbo one could only work so long.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  The first Bimbo was a little baby Bimbo for the first season. And then, as you know, then you have a hiatus for six months. But he grew too big and wasn't cute little Bimbo. So they got another. And also, male elephants get to a certain age and they kind of get nuts. They can get a little bit wacky. And when they realize that it doesn't take much to pull that little steak out of the ground. They're taught that they can't pull the steak out of the ground. But they could very easily.

• 21:10Billy Corgan?

  Oh, they're taught that. That's interesting.

• 21:13Billy Corgan?

  Would you have a... In your reflection of, you know, not everybody, you know, it's like when I'm in Chicago, the idea of being me, being at a television show as a boy seems so magical. But what was the real experience like? Did you enjoy the work? Was it, you know what I'm saying? Like, how do you reflect on the work?

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Again, it was my family business. I followed in my father's footsteps. If he'd have been a banker, I'd have gone to the bank, probably.

• 21:40Billy Corgan?

  So it didn't seem unusual to you?

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Nothing unusual about it. I'd been on a set many times.

• 21:45Billy Corgan?

  Okay, that's kind of what I was after.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so, no, it was, much of it was just falling into place. I knew, already knew a lot of the lingo.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  It was great fun. I was in a circus, a 10-year-old kid in a real circus. They bought. A circus, an old defunct circus.

• 22:09Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  All the tents and all the equipment. They actually bought an old defunct circus for the sets and all that stuff. And hired a whole bunch of old, real circus roustabouts. And guys knew how to put the tin up.

• 22:24Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  And how to drive the wagons and all that stuff.

• 22:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  And there were real circus performers. Every week we had jugglers and flamethrowers and high-wire acts. And they would teach me how to do little things, walk on a wire and on the back of a horse. You know, doing that on the back of a horse and some flying, you know, stuff. And so, yeah, I was in a, for all intents and purposes, I was in a circus.

• 22:56Billy Corgan?

  So, you know, you're in your youth and you're entering puberty, in essence. Did, how did being recognized strike you?

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Well, again, kind of took it with a grain of salt. Seeing my father be recognized. Even then, I guess intuitively knew it was the kid on the TV that they were.

• 23:20Billy Corgan?

  That's interesting. That's pretty astute for a young boy. I would have gone the other way. I would have been like.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Well, also, my parents just brought me up like that.

• 23:28Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  They didn't let me get, you know, my dad would spank me when you could spank children.

• 23:35Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  If I got out of line. But it was all just, also just being around it, realizing that when I saw my dad as a Mexican

• 23:46Speaker 01

  general get shot off a horse with mustache and an accent, I knew it wasn't my dad.

• 23:55Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, yeah, I get you.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  So, I guess intuitively, I just, I guess, kind of sensed that.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  But there wasn't a lot of that back then, certainly not like the monkeys. No social media, no fan stuff.

• 24:12Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  A ten-year-old kid is not the same as a teenage heartthrob.

• 24:16Billy Corgan?

  Did they have you doing personal appearances, right?

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, actually, my first personal appearance was on a press junket across.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Across the United States by train, because we were bringing the elephant as part of the press when the show got picked up and was gonna air. Back then, you did press junkets.

• 24:39Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  We had to go by train because of the elephant, and we stopped in Chicago. And my first appearance was at the Pump Room.

• 24:52Billy Corgan?

  Oh, my God.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Is it still there, the Pump Room?

• 24:55Billy Corgan?

  It's still there. It's been renamed something, but everyone still in Chicago calls it the Pump Room.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  The Pump Room. That was my first, like, thing.

• 25:01Billy Corgan?

  Did they bring bimbo in the Pump Room?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Uh, or in the parking lot, probably, or something like that. Then we went to New York, Radio City Music Hall, and they brought the elephant on the stage. My first actual performance, funnily enough, I just remembered, was in Pittsburgh. We stopped in Pittsburgh on the train and went to Kennywood Park, famous amusement park. And they had a little bandstand, and they'd asked me, because I was playing guitar at the time, my first instrument I played was Spanish guitar, actually, but they said, "Do you know anything on the guitar? And you can sing." And I learned two or three little

• 25:41Speaker 01

  tunes of the time. "Purple People Eater," and "I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter," and something else. "Which Doctorate," was it? It was "Which Doctorate."

• 25:56Billy Corgan?

  "Which Doctorate."

• 25:56Speaker 01

  "I told which doctor I was. These are songs from the 50s, Billy, way before your time."

• 26:02Billy Corgan?

  But was that, was that, was that song written by, like, Allan Toussaint or something?

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Could. Could, yeah, I don't know.

• 26:07Billy Corgan?

  Sorry.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  But I learned these three little tunes, and I came out, and they had, they had three little, a little three-piece combo, guys on the bandstand. We played the three little songs, and then my elephant came out and did tricks with me and the trainer.

• 26:26Billy Corgan?

  All right.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  So, basically, my first gig was opening for an elephant.

• 26:31Billy Corgan?

  Let's go back to the, the Monkees reunion, because this, I wanted to come at it this way, because I wanted to understand, like I said, the edges of your story, because I think it's fascinating. Really helps me understand why you made some of the decisions you made, you know what I mean? Because as a music fan, you're always like, you always point at the obvious thing, right? So you guys get back together eighty-six, was it because this phenomenon was taking off? Because like us, we all grew up on Monkeys reruns, you know? So I saw those shows eighteen times, you know? Each show times eighteen by the time, you know, that reunion happens in the eighties. Is that, is that being pushed by a record company? You guys both all recognized, well, something's happening here. Like what, what were the forces that set it all into motion?

• 27:14Speaker 01

  I can tell you exactly. I was living in England directing, producing, writing. A producer tracked me down. I had not been in touch with any of the other guys at all. Well, Mike I had. Mike had been in touch with because he was also in production in L.A.

• 27:33Billy Corgan?

  He was doing his own kind of, basically early kind of cable.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Videos, yeah, music videos and cable stuff, yeah. And we had some interaction. I've shot a couple of things in England for his show here. He had called television parts.

• 27:49Billy Corgan?

  He kind of did the first MTV, before MTV, right?

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we kept in touch. Had no idea where Peter was, had no idea where Davey was. And had not been in touch for, literally for years. And this producer tracked me down. I was living in Nottinghamshire directing and producing television shows. He said, do you want to get back together and have a reunion? Be eight, twelve weeks in the summer, playing amusement parks and, and fairs and stuff. I talked to my wife, my, my boss at the TV company. Yeah, sure, we're on hiatus, eight, twelve weeks.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Go to the States, have some fun, kids, amusement parks, perfect age for the kids. Little did I know that the producer was aware that MTV was going to play the show.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Didn't tell us that.

• 28:57Billy Corgan?

  As they don't.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  As they don't. Didn't tell me that.

• 29:02Billy Corgan?

  That's a good one. That's a good one.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Good one. Didn't tell me that. So we get there. I'm not sure how mu- how big he th- thought it might become because it started small, a little amusement parks and Six Flags, you know, kind of things. But overnight it just exploded into this huge, huge tour, as big as the 60s, if not bigger, stadiums and, and things like that. It was enormous. And so caught, I think caught everybody a little bit by surprise.

• 29:39Billy Corgan?

  So, I'm not suggesting there was any lingering animosity, bitterness, anything like that. Like you said, you'd sort of moved on with your life, okay. But now you're back in the room with these guys. Had the relationship changed or you guys just go back to kind of where you left off?

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Well, for, and again, I can only speak for myself.

• 29:58Billy Corgan?

  No, no, that's what, that's what I'm asking.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, yeah, as far as I was concerned, I was, "Oh, hi, Davey. How you doing? Haven't seen you in a long time. How's it been going? What's going on? Peter, hey." Mike did not join us, but I, I had interacted with him. But it was, for me, it was always professional. I mean, it was always, these were the other cast members of the, uh, television show. So I would have felt the same way that I did about, uh, the, the other cast members of, of Circus Boy to some degree. But, having said that, when we did go on the road, originally in the 60s, uh, Mike Nesmith put it really well. He said, "That's when Pinocchio became

• 30:42Speaker 01

  a real little boy." And that's very accurate. Because we did go out there and we played every concert, all by ourselves. And we really were just a trio. We were a, a power trio.

• 30:56Billy Corgan?

  Because Davey just played tambourine.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Nez on the 12th string, me on drums, trying desperately to hear what was going on, Peter on bass, and then sometimes keyboard, trouble, uh, the trouble, uh, part on his right hand and the bass part on the left, trying to play these songs. And, um...

• 31:20Speaker 01

  It was intense, no monitors, of course. And, um, so there, so that obviously was different than, you know, there's a show that came along many, many years after The Monkees called Glee.

• 31:34Billy Corgan?

  Of course, yeah.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Um, I wasn't that familiar with it, but it was a, a show about a, a Glee club. A fictitious, imaginary Glee club. But they could all do it.

• 31:48Billy Corgan?

  I see what you're saying, yeah.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  The actors, entertainers, they could all act and sing and dance or whatever they did. That's the closest thing to what The Monkees was. A TV show about this imaginary group that lived in this beach house in Malibu and were trying to be the Beatles. Not competing with the Beatles on the TV show.

• 32:11Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  We wanted to be the Beatles.

• 32:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  And in that sense, it spoke to all the kids around

• 32:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  the world that were trying to do that. On the show, we never made it on the TV show. That's important to remember.

• 32:27Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  The Monkees never were successful on the television show, which does beg the question of how we could afford a beach house in Malibu, but, you know, um, it's TV for ya. But that's the interesting story, is they're almost Monkees .1 and then Monkees 2.1.

• 32:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So you're back, I, I guess, I'm not belaboring the question. It's more like you're back in a business relationship and it's like, great, this is working, you know, it's all good if Mike doesn't want to do it. I'm happy to sing these songs and by the way, when this is over, I'm gonna bang back to England and pick up my day job.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:05Billy Corgan?

  So that's the general state of mind.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:07Billy Corgan?

  Um, I'm curious, uh, because it, it occurred to me, so you're back, were you touring as The Monkees in 86 or was it?

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:15Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so, did you have to get permission for whoever owned the name or?

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Still do.

• 33:20Billy Corgan?

  Still?

• 33:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I can't use the, well, I can't use the logo without paying for it. The guitar logo, never, we never could. We had to get permission to this day to, to say The Monkees and pay a nice little chunk.

• 33:38Billy Corgan?

  They made a lot of money off of that, or done through the years.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Oh, thanks for reminding me.

• 33:44Billy Corgan?

  Sorry. No, I had to ask.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  No, we never owned it anymore. That William Shatner owns the Star Trek logo. But there were other members, I will say, of the group that were never comfortable or happy or and did get very upset about that, that we couldn't use the name.

• 34:06Billy Corgan?

  Did you guys ever try to figure out a way to see if they would sell it to you collectively or have somebody else buy it?

• 34:11Speaker 01

  We talked to lawyers a number of times and, yeah, you know, it went around and around. But nothing ever happened on that. But no, we never got royalties, residuals from the show.

• 34:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that part's crazy.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it was pre-SAG in perpetuity.

• 34:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, and the laws were different and all that, right?

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:35Billy Corgan?

  So, because I'm circling around the, you know, the 67, 68 part of your life, because I really, because when we get there, I kind of want to understand things in a different light, rather than just make assumptions, because you were there and I wasn't. So Circus Boys canceled. You're about, what, 14 years old?

• 34:54Speaker 01

  12.

• 34:55Billy Corgan?

  Oh, 12, okay, sorry.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  10, 11, and 12.

• 34:58Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so, just back to school?

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:02Billy Corgan?

  If the phone rings, I'm gonna...

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Parents, smartest thing they ever did, they took me out of the business. They tell me, they told me that the producers had said, would he be interested in doing another show? I was now a teenager.

• 35:21Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  I'd outgrown the cute little circus boy thing.

• 35:24Billy Corgan?

  Like Bimbo.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  That's why they told me it kind of went off the air, because I was starting to...

• 35:29Billy Corgan?

  Well, you were like Bimbo.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, like Bimbo, yeah. And I was a cabin boy. It was supposed to be like a rip-off of Treasure Island or something like that. And they said, no. They sent me to a child psychologist. They told me at the time it was an educational counselor, but it was a shrink. And I, because I did Rorschach things, this is after Circus Boy, to find out where my head was at. And I guess he must have said, "Take this boy out of there immediately. He is out of his silly mind." Because they took me out, back into school, right here at North Hollywood Junior High.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  And my roots and my blonde, bleached blonde hair growing out. But smartest thing they ever did, because I didn't go through that period after being a child star. That's where you get messed up.

• 36:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I get that. That's kinda when I was curious, yeah.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's so true. The fame and the fortune and the adulation is great and fun, especially if your parents have brought you up in a good, solid way. But then, all of a sudden, "Mommy, why don't they love me anymore? Why, what do you mean my show's canceled? What do you mean I'm not, people, you know, want me in there?" Going through puberty, as you said, is tough enough for anybody, anywhere, anytime, much less suddenly, "Your show's canceled and you're hazened at 14."

• 37:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  Right. So, I missed that, thank God. My parents, I just went back to school, boom, I'm driving down Van Nuys Boulevard trying to pick up girls at 16. And I, that was it. That was kinda, I think I did a couple of little guest shots in the summer, you know, some day jobs on some of the TV shows when I was 16, 17, 18. But my plan, which you may have heard, was to be an architect.

• 37:49Billy Corgan?

  That I did not know.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Oh. After high school, I thought I better get serious. My father passed away, which didn't help, but I thought I better get serious and get a career.

• 38:02Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Because I knew the show business was not no guarantee of nothing.

• 38:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  And my friend and I, a friend of mine, and I said, "Let's be architects. Let's start, you know, home remodeling. Let's go get our degrees." And I went to Trade Tech, L.A. Trade Tech, and I was into it. I was, to this day, I'm a builder. And I really was gonna be an architect, and if I couldn't make it as an architect, I could fall back on showbiz. That was the plan.

• 38:33Billy Corgan?

  That's funny.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  That was the plan.

• 38:35Billy Corgan?

  It's kinda the reverse of most people, right?

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And that year, if you want to jump ahead, anyway, I was in-

• 38:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I'm trying to, I'm trying to understand the period between, you know, child actor out of a gig and then-

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Well, high school. After high school, father passed away, um, family, my mom remarried, moved up north. And my friend and I were gonna be architects. And I was, I was into it. I went every day-

• 39:05Billy Corgan?

  Who was your, uh, who would have been your architect idol? If I asked you who your favorite singers were-

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Well, back then-

• 39:11Billy Corgan?

  Like, who's your, who's your, who's your architect that you would-

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Well, besides Frank Lloyd Wright, I, I guess, but I don't remember studying much about the history of architecture yet. I was into drafting. I was into-

• 39:26Billy Corgan?

  The idea that I have this vision and the-

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Actually, build, build, drawing and the math and-

• 39:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  And the geometry, because there was no CAD back then. It was pencil and a drafting board and, and, and all that. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And, but then, um, every summer, uh, after, you know, it's in the summer break, I would do day jobs. I've got a few day jobs doing shows like Peyton Place, Mr. Novak, uh, Ben Casey. I remember that show. And, uh, usually playing a bad kid, uh, delinquent. For some reason, the way I, I kinda looked, I, you know, lanky teenager, my hair all greased back.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  And, um, but then I'd go back to school. And that year, that pilot season of sixty-five, I, I remember, um, being up for three, at least three or four pilots about music, about kids and music. It was in the air, because of rock and roll, because of folk music, and because of the Beatles, of course. And one of the shows was like a folk group, like Peter, Paul and Mary. It actually went to pilot, that one. I was up for that. It didn't sell the pilot, but it did go to pilot.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Another one was like a Beach Boys surfing band, living in a surfing thing. That didn't go to pilot. I was up for that. And another one I remember was like one of those big new Christie menstrual Randy Sparks.

• 41:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, like eight people in the group.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Eighteen people. A Mighty Wind, that movie.

• 41:19Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Mighty Wind.

• 41:21Billy Corgan?

  That's pretty funny.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  That was a great movie. One of those big family, I'm gonna build a mountain.

• 41:28Billy Corgan?

  Well, like Gene Clark of the Byrds came out of that and the guy who did Barry McGuire.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:33Billy Corgan?

  They all came out of that.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  All of that.

• 41:35Billy Corgan?

  Because it was kind of a system. They would tour. They just kept replacing them with young people.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So there was a show about a group like that, that didn't pilot. And then there was The Monkees. And I remember thinking at the time when I went for The Monkey first audition, which is just reading some lines. Same studio, I went for Circus Boy.

• 41:57Billy Corgan?

  So amazing.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  I remember thinking, this is different. There is something a little bit different. Because usually they were producers in suits with smoke and a cigar.

• 42:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  We're gonna do a show that kids will like.

• 42:14Billy Corgan?

  I see.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  But Bob and Bert, Bob Raiferson, Bert Schneider, the producers of The Monkees, weren't much older than I was.

• 42:22Billy Corgan?

  Because the one kid, kid, his father was the president of the.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Bert Schneider's father was the head of Columbia Pictures.

• 42:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:31Billy Corgan?

  So he had a.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Nepo kid.

• 42:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but it worked.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Of course, yeah. And Bob Raffelson, of course, was a brilliant creator, writer. Anyway, they weren't much older, and I could sense that. And there was, they were Beatle fans. So it was slightly different. So I went for the audition. That was it. I went back to school. My agent said, "You got a callback." Oh, cool. Went back. Three or four callbacks. The audition process was extensive, much more than a regular TV series. You'd go and read some lines, maybe do a screen test, and that's it. You got it or not. Had to go back.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  There was improv, there was interviews, there was singing, there was playing. I played, my audition piece was Johnny B. Goode on the guitar, Chuck Berry. Then there were scenes, scene study on a set with cameras and the whole nine yards. So it was quite extensive, the audition process. But I did it, went back to school, architecture. And then my agent said, "You got the pilot." And I'm like, "Oh, cool." Didn't even think that much about it, because I knew nine out of 10 pilots don't even sell. You know? So I went and did the pilot, went back to school.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Because I knew the chances were it wasn't going to sell.

• 44:01Billy Corgan?

  Is it true that the pilot, like, they didn't really have you guys' clothes figured out? You're kind of wearing your own clothes?

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:07Billy Corgan?

  And I think I read, the pilot did very poorly or something? And somebody re-edited it?

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Initially, it did, yeah.

• 44:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  The story, and I wasn't privy to all this, because I wasn't a producer. But I vaguely remember stuff. Yeah, it was not our clothes, but it was clothes from wardrobe, from Columbia Pictures wardrobe. But hippie stuff that they cobbled together, and it looked pretty stupid, some, a lot of the stuff. There was no monkey mobile or anything like that. Yeah, so it was just kind of regular clothes, hippie clothes. So we did the pilot, and what I heard, even at the time, originally, there was a manager.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  In of us. And he was like the father knows best, your uncle's favorite father, uncle. He was the adult. And he was the one that would give us the advice. And Uncle someone's, I don't remember his name. What do we do about, well, boys, here's what you do. And typical father knows best kind of thing. They took him out, Bob Rapelson, in his wisdom, took the manager out completely. And put in the improv interviews that we'd done.

• 45:32Billy Corgan?

  Ah.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  As part of the audition process. Gave each of us an identity. And it tested much, much better. And the rest is hysterectomy.

• 45:46Billy Corgan?

  I love the Boyce and Hart part of this story. So we can kind of gloss over how we get to Boyce and Hart. Because I read Bobby Hart's book, which talks extensively about that. But the short version that I'm, this is all based on my memory is, is they originally gave it to Kirschner, Don Kirschner, that he was going to be the music kind of supervisor. Do you remember working with Kirschner first on music stuff?

• 46:17Speaker 01

  No, I remember very little about Donnie Kirschner because he was in New York.

• 46:24Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Out of New York and he very seldom, I don't remember him coming around.

• 46:29Billy Corgan?

  Do you know the backstory on how Boyce and Hart ended up being very involved?

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Nope. I've heard bits and stuff from.

• 46:37Billy Corgan?

  So let me give you what I remember and tell me if you.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

• 46:41Billy Corgan?

  If you, if you don't mind, I mean.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  No, please.

• 46:43Billy Corgan?

  Because I really.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was not privy, you know, to much of that at all.

• 46:48Billy Corgan?

  Because the reason we're here is I love what you guys did musically. I think that's, there's an enduring legacy there. That's. For me aged well over time in a way that I never could have imagined. And I think there's like all great things, it has a weird circumstantial set of aspects to it. So the story goes that they went to Kershner because he was the guy at the time or whatever. And they had started, whatever was going on musically, maybe it was the younger guy in the equation, Ray Felsen, right? I may have the names right?

• 47:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:28Billy Corgan?

  They just could tell it wasn't gonna work. It felt like inauthentic. And Boyce and Hart, when there were rumors that there was gonna be a show, they knew those people. So they wrote the Monkees theme and a couple songs, and then the whole thing stalled. So in the beginning, they thought it was their gig. So nine months goes by and the phone stops ringing and they think, well, that ain't gonna happen. Well, whatever went on early with Kershner, they decided it wasn't gonna work. So then they went back to Boyce and Hart and thought, well, this is the more authentic voice that we're looking for. We want the Monkees' music to feel authentic. But there was somebody in the process, in the chain, that wasn't buying it because Kershner was a sure bet

• 48:11Billy Corgan?

  and these were just a couple of young hippies who'd had a couple of minor hits. So they did this thing where, and this is Bobby Hart's story in the book, the studio brass came over and they had that band, The Candy Store Profits. And whatever Bobby Hart or Tommy Boyce said, said, "Just give us a half hour and we'll prove it to you." So the studio brass came in and listened to them play like four or five songs, including the Monkees' theme. And then they were like, okay, that's the vibe that we're looking for. So they kind of basically winked their way and got the gig. So for the first year, before you guys decided to kind of make it more about your own contribution,

• 48:55Billy Corgan?

  that's why they were in the driver's seat because it kind of fell back to them because of the politics with Kershner.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  That, that sounds very accurate, um, uh, from what I've heard.

• 49:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  But a lot of what you just described was done and said before I was even cast.

• 49:14Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but that's what I'm, that's what I'm saying. I wanted to know if you had a

• 49:17Speaker 01

  This is before.

• 49:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  I was still in, going to school, taking architecture, cause they were, they were doing this for the pilot.

• 49:26Billy Corgan?

  Right, I get you.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  And, so they would have been doing this behind the scenes when I was auditioning.

• 49:34Billy Corgan?

  As an actor, yeah.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, as an actor singer.

• 49:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I get you, but.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  It was very clear that they did not just want actors, uh, that they were gonna dub in their voices later like old Hollywood movies.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  They wanted, they wanted the real thing.

• 49:52Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  And that is, uh, part of what you said. They wanted something more authentic.

• 49:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  They wouldn't have bothered to have us play and sing as part of the audition process.

• 50:03Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  You had to, you had to be able to play and sing to get through the audition. So they clearly had in mind something more than an old Hollywood, you know, but well, oh, not even old Holly, but even to this day, um, uh, Sean Penn did not play guitar in, in The Django Reinhardt.

• 50:24Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, sure.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  But nobody, everybody knows that and doesn't care.

• 50:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  But on television, in that day and time, people took the rock and roll music very seriously, and some still do, you know?

• 50:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  And all of a sudden, these four guys come along, and, well, you know the story.

• 50:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  But the producers, Bob and Bert, were trying to keep it real.

• 50:53Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  As, as you could on television at the time.

• 50:57Billy Corgan?

  So the first time you go in the studio to record Monkey's songs, uh, have you got the gig, or is it part of the, the part of the pilot part? Do you remember that part?

• 51:06Speaker 01

  It's part of the pilot.

• 51:08Billy Corgan?

  Okay, so who are, who are you in the studio?

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Tommy and Bobby.

• 51:11Billy Corgan?

  Okay, did you get on with them right away?

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, instantly, cause they were our age.

• 51:17Billy Corgan?

  Did you feel like a sense of ownership, like, oh, this is kinda cool?

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, right from the get-go, I, like I mentioned before, I kinda got a feeling, this is different. This ain't old Hollywood, this ain't the guy with the cigar. These are people of my own age. These are people on the streets. I bump into them on Sunset Boulevard at Ben Frank's. And the whiskey, the same, the same people. When I went to my first audition with Bob and Bert, they were the producers. I walked into the waiting room and there are these two guys sitting there in jeans and t-shirts with coffee cups and bits of pizza. I thought they were there for the audition. That was Bob and Bert, the producers.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  And so it was right from the get-go.

• 52:08Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  There was something different about it.

• 52:13Billy Corgan?

  I read something years ago, so help me clarify this, because I read somewhere that you did a lot of your vocals in New York. Were they recording out here and you're recording vocals in New York?

• 52:24Speaker 01

  No, vice versa.

• 52:25Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  Recording New York and here. And vocals here.

• 52:31Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Because I would do vocals after filming the television show for 10 hours a day.

• 52:37Billy Corgan?

  So you're doing this at night?

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Then I'd go into the studio at night and do sometimes two lead vocals in one night. Because I needed so much material.

• 52:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, there was a lot of material.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  And they needed, they wanted a new song or two every week.

• 52:50Billy Corgan?

  That's crazy, if you really think about it, right? So, when you'd come in, they would already have recorded the song and there'd be guide vocals? And they, I think they said they did a lot of the background vocals, voice and heart?

• 53:02Speaker 01

  They did some background, early on especially.

• 53:06Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I guess, I guess I'm-

• 53:07Speaker 01

  The guide vocals, no, the guide vocals would have been on the acetates. Like, if it was a Carole King tune, it would be her singing, so I could learn the song.

• 53:20Billy Corgan?

  So you'd learn the song, then come in, hear their version, and then do your interpretation? Is that, am I getting that right?

• 53:26Speaker 01

  Um, I don't remember.

• 53:30Billy Corgan?

  I'm just, I'm such a studio nerd, I'm just curious, because obviously, recording back then was very different than it is now.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  It is very different. I don't remember.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Because it wasn't like today where you can comp all the tracks over, you know, you can't.

• 53:43Billy Corgan?

  So I'm saying like.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  I would learn the song off of an acetate.

• 53:48Billy Corgan?

  So they would have sent you a demo of the Monkees theme and then you go in to sing it? Because you've learned it?

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:53Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Or one of their tunes, or Clark's, or Carole King's song. But it was just piano.

• 54:02Billy Corgan?

  Ah, okay.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Oh, not a demo. No.

• 54:06Billy Corgan?

  It was just like a remix.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  They wouldn't have made demos. It would have been just her playing some song on the keyboard on a piano. Or Tommy or Bobby playing a guitar.

• 54:18Billy Corgan?

  Would they have asked you what key you want to sing in before?

• 54:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:20Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  They will, I would have routine'd it with Carol in person. Or Tommy or Bobby in person somewhere.

• 54:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So they had at least a sense and they gave them a chance to tweak the song a little bit after they heard you sing it?

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Well, the key, the key.

• 54:34Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  For starters.

• 54:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  But then very shortly, they learned my voice. So they didn't even have to ask. They just knew this key would work. And then I just remember going in and having routine'd the song. Learned it. Just go in and start recording vocals. With sheet music, I remember sometimes not, maybe I knew already knew the song real well.

• 55:11Billy Corgan?

  Well, you recorded so much, I get it. It's kind of a bit blurry, right?

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Jeez, oh god.

• 55:15Billy Corgan?

  And back then, you know, a vocal session was like an hour, maybe less, right? Depending on how much you got.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  Two lead vocals a night sometimes.

• 55:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  And sometimes I hear it when I listen to the old stuff. Oh god, I wish I could have done that one again.

• 55:30Billy Corgan?

  So, I don't want to belabor it because it's part of the Monkees mythology. But at some point, you guys are like, we want to have more of a hand in the making.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Well, Mike Nesmith did, yeah.

• 55:41Billy Corgan?

  So, okay, so, did you hear about this from Mike directly? Or was it sort of in the air? Like, let's call it this little bit of a rebellion about how this was going to go.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  No, it was all Mike.

• 55:53Billy Corgan?

  How did you feel about it? Did you feel like this isn't really worth getting that into, or?

• 55:58Speaker 01

  I think by that time, there was such a camaraderie between us that I would have bought into whatever he wanted. And I was a singer and I was a musician, so the thought of actually getting in there and playing, I think probably when we went on the road and played everything and did whole shows by ourselves.

• 56:26Billy Corgan?

  Did you guys ever play gigs where you had like the backup band? You know what I mean?

• 56:30Speaker 01

  No, never.

• 56:31Billy Corgan?

  Okay, that's it. I was just trying to understand the dynamic.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Well, what we did was this, it was very clever what the producers and David Winters, who staged the show, came up with. It was actually very clever. We had an opening act, The Sundowners, or another band that would come out and do 20 minutes or whatever of cover tunes, something like that. Then we would come out, just the four of us, drums, guitar, bass, do, I don't know, maybe a half hour. And then, three of us would leave.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Peter stayed onstage with his banjo, because he was a banjo and a pretty damn good banjo player, flailing banjo guy from New York.

• 57:25Billy Corgan?

  Clawhammer.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he did Triple Creek, just by himself, Triple Creek.

• 57:33Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  And then, the backup band would come out, and Nez came out and fronted now the backup band as a solo singer.

• 57:44Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Doing his roots, which was Can't Judge a Book by looking at his cover.

• 57:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  Bo Diddley.

• 57:53Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  He picked something and he played four maracas at the same time. Can't judge a book by looking at it. Come on. That's his roots from Texas.

• 58:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Peter, the banjo thing from New York. Then Davy came out, again with the backup band, just him, in like a tux, and he did his roots. Broadway, he did I'm Gonna Build a Mountain, Tony Newley.

• 58:20Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  Gonna build a mountain.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  And then, same band, Davey left, I came out and did James Brown.

• 58:30Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  My Roots, which I loved.

• 58:33Billy Corgan?

  What, James Brown's?

• 58:34Speaker 01

  It was, "I Got a Woman."

• 58:35Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  "I got a woman, way over town, I'm doing all the dancing and flying around." And they'd come out and put a cape on me, and... So that was showing each of us as our individual personalities, which was really smart. And then the backup band went off, we came back on and finished the show.

• 58:56Billy Corgan?

  Oh, sounds fun. When you have that level of pandemonium, I've heard some of the live recordings from those times.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Sounds like. It's just terrible.

• 59:06Billy Corgan?

  But you also got no monitors.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  It's exciting.

• 59:08Billy Corgan?

  It does sound exciting. And you said, you know, "I saw that they were reacting off of what they saw on TV." But when you've got 8,000 young people screaming like a jet engine, did that go to your head?

• 59:25Speaker 01

  How could it not? I mean, of course, you know? Especially by then, when I knew it was me.

• 59:34Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 59:34Speaker 01

  Now, this was for real.

• 59:36Billy Corgan?

  Right.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  I wasn't faking it. You know, when they were yelling and screaming at the kid on, the character on the television screen. That was me as an actor playing the part of a wacky drummer. But when I got on stage, and I'd been on stage before, before The Monkees, I'd had

• 59:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  cover bands, where I hadn't played drums, but I sang and played a little guitar in clubs and stuff like that. So when I was out there now, playing and singing these songs, and they were screaming, yeah, now I was like, "Yeah, I can do this, I am doing this, we are doing this." And if you listen to those live recordings, there was never a live album ever recorded, but some soundcheck kind of tapes that managed to get reproduced and...

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  They were literally, I think, were done with a mic just stuck up in the air to get a sense of the of the sound. But we weren't that bad, you know, having only rehearsed for maybe six months and never played together before. We weren't that bad. It was like a very early garage band stuff.

• 1:00:52Billy Corgan?

  You guys sound like a credible.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  Garage band.

• 1:00:55Billy Corgan?

  No, but, but, but, you know, the standard of playing then wasn't like it is now, where you like.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Punk band.

• 1:01:01Billy Corgan?

  People on YouTube watching, you know, your fingers.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 1:01:03Billy Corgan?

  Um, so, just to go one more step on the studio side of, now you guys are like, okay, we're gonna make a record. Who's running that? Like, once you wrestle away whatever control needs to be wrestle away, we're gonna do it. Now, we're gonna go in the studio.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:20Billy Corgan?

  Who's, who's, was it?

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Driving the train?

• 1:01:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, who's, is it a democracy?

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Nesmith. Always Nesmith.

• 1:01:26Billy Corgan?

  You were cool with getting out of the way on that, or?

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Didn't wanna ever be in the way. I just, I, I was like, where do I go? Where do I stand? Where do I, what do I sing? Yeah, I was the lead singer essentially, for most of the stuff.

• 1:01:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  And I was quite happy. He was a good producer. And he got a producer, Chip Douglas, also. And, no, I was quite happy, you know? He, he talked me into writing stuff. I wouldn't have been writing stuff if it wasn't for Nesmith. He said, you gotta write some songs, Mickey. Well, why? 'Cause that's where all the money is. Wish I'd have paid more attention. Got me writing songs, encouraged my playing, and, you know, no, he was totally all Nes.

• 1:02:20Billy Corgan?

  So.

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  Far as I'm concerned.

• 1:02:23Billy Corgan?

  Couple more things. And thank you for indulging me.

• 1:02:28Billy Corgan?

  Why did the show, because the show only literally ran from 67 to 68 and that's it. So like you said, the 56 episodes. What was your, did the show get canceled because the ratings went down? Or what was the circumstance in your?

• 1:02:41Speaker 01

  I couldn't tell you about that because I wasn't privy to that. First of all, like I said before, I remember that today it would have run five years or six years now.

• 1:02:54Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  And it beat everybody up pretty bad.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  I think it just, you know, one of those things, why did Faulty Towers only run 13? I remember, I was not that upset when they said the show has been canceled.

• 1:03:16Billy Corgan?

  Because of exhaustion or you felt it had been explored?

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  I think we all felt that we'd kind of been there, done that. The end of, by the end of the second season, we were jumping the shark a few times, I think, before that term even existed.

• 1:03:31Billy Corgan?

  Sure, but I know what you mean, yeah.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:34Billy Corgan?

  We say in wrestling, kabuki.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  We'd been on the road, we'd played, you know, concerts all over the world. We were hanging with the Beatles, you know, and going to sessions. And I think that the general feeling was, kind of been there, done that. I do remember us talking about what would we do if we wanted to do another year, another series. And we didn't want to do the same series. I remember not wanting to do the same thing. And I remember talking, and I don't remember who, where, or when, well, why don't we do something where it's more like a variety show?

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  Where it's more like, you know, we have sketches and we have music and we have this and that. And... Then, a year later, Laugh-In came along. And then, there were lots of shows like that after. Not that they took any of the stuff from us. It was in the air.

• 1:04:41Billy Corgan?

  But you guys in that formula, or...

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:43Billy Corgan?

  That would be interesting.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  That, well, and we did a special, which was supposed to be a little bit like that, but a lot of reasons, production reasons, it didn't come out that great. But that's what I remember us talking about. But I think, maybe, what happened is NBC said, "No, either you do another series like this, or you don't do anything at all," or something like that. But I was not privy to any of that information going on up in the, you know, in the top floors of NBC, or RCA, or...

• 1:05:21Billy Corgan?

  I'm sure somebody regrets that you guys don't, there isn't more in the can, because...

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  Sorry?

• 1:05:26Billy Corgan?

  It's shocking that, you know, I had to look twice to make sure my eyes, my aging eyes, were reading this correctly, which is that the show literally started, I mean, for you, it would have been longer because of all the setup and the auditioning. But in terms of actual air dates, the first air date is like...

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  Two years.

• 1:05:43Billy Corgan?

  Less than. You know what I mean? That's crazy.

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  Two seasons back then.

• 1:05:48Billy Corgan?

  But it's crazy to think that something that, I mean, here we are, talking about it, fifty-plus years later.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  No, it obviously struck a chord. I mean, it's, in the way I look at it, Billy, is that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts with something like The Monkees, or something like Star Trek, or something like A Great Movie.

• 1:06:14Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Something like Smashing Pumpkins. You can't take it apart and examine it like the story of, try to see how the watch works, so you take it all apart. It don't work anymore.

• 1:06:26Billy Corgan?

  No more.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  You can't do that. You can't say, "Oh, well, Star Trek was just William Shatner, his act." Or, "No, it was just the writing of, it was a special effect." No, it was Leonard Nimoy's ears. That was what... It doesn't work like that in our business.

• 1:06:43Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. You don't know why. There's no formula. If there were, there'd never be a flop.

• 1:06:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  It would always be right there. Something happens, you get these people, this people, this idea, that music, this guy, this... Who knows?

• 1:07:03Billy Corgan?

  Sure.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  And that's what happened with the monkeys, like it does with, you know, with other things too. But you can't really take it apart.

• 1:07:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So, kind of bring this to a close. So, I don't know if you've seen this book, I can't remember the title of it, but a guy wrote this book about, basically, breaking down the movie Head into a kind of a watershed cultural moment. Have you seen this book? Do you know what I'm talking about?

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  The book?

• 1:07:31Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:07:32Billy Corgan?

  Oh. It's kind of a long essay. But the guy sees Head, this rare moment where you guys had been through this insane cultural moment. And somehow, in your prescience or the willingness to let you guys do whatever you want, you create this kind of meta-take on what you've just been through. You know, and like, it's a rare moment where it's like you stop and go, "Let's talk about what just happened." And you almost leave breadcrumbs for future generations to peer back through what you guys have been through.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:08:08Billy Corgan?

  It's...

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:08:10Billy Corgan?

  It's interesting, and it talks about, you know, it's the scene, I don't remember who was in the black box and, you know... Not to get too discursive on Head as a movie, but I thought it was an interesting take. That... And I... So I went back and watched the movie from the perspective of the guy who wrote the book. So I read the whole book and I watched the movie. And from the standpoint that he laid it into, which was like, "Look, there's a lot more here than meets the eye." Like a Dali painting or something. It really struck me that there was this greater minded work between the four of you and whoever was making the movie, to kind of... You used to say like a send up of the monkey's mythology, but you didn't do it 10 years later.

• 1:08:53Billy Corgan?

  You did it as the whole thing was kind of winding down. Did you feel that at the time?

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's a bit of a long story how that all happened. I mean, I'll be glad to get into it. You can stop me when it gets boring. When it was decided we were gonna do a movie. I remember it being suggested, we do not do a 90-minute monkey episode, which is what everybody was expecting.

• 1:09:20Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  All the fans certainly were expecting a 90-minute version of a monkey episode. Davy falls in love with a girl, her uncle's a crook, and we run around the world and have adventures and play music and songs and stuff. But I do remember it being suggested, let's do something different. Bob Rafelson brought this guy on the set one day, when we were still filming, I think. Guy named Jack Nicholson. He was a B-movie actor, wanted to be a writer, wanted to get into stuff. Well, we all fell in love. I fell in love with him like instantly.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  He was the funniest, most charismatic, incredible character, just you couldn't help.

• 1:10:08Billy Corgan?

  Whatever happened to him, though?

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. You couldn't help but just love this guy. So he started hanging out, and Bob said, "Jack's gonna write the movie with me, or together or by himself, whatever." And he started hanging out with all of us. I remember, he came over to my house, we went out, we messed around, we hung out, you know, seemed like for a long time. And then we went up to Ojai, California, the four of us, and Bob and Bert and Jack. And a couple of roadies, I think. And we sat around all weekend at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa.

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  And I, and around a little tape recorder on the floor. And I got filmed, 16 millimeter film of us all talking about this movie. What we're gonna do, what we wanted to do, what we didn't wanna do, what would be funny, cool, weird, you know. And Jack went away and in his brilliance, him and Bob Ravelson, wrote this incredible movie that, looking back, didn't say all those things that... Yeah. Well, I've looked back and studied it a little bit myself, and also having had been there.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  The way I look at it personally is that, even at the time, I don't know that they knew what they were doing necessarily. It was not only a deconstruction of The Monkees and that big monkey thing that you mentioned and happened. Not only was it a deconstruction, and looking back at that, if you think about who these guys were, Bob Ravelson went on to be an incredible director, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda was in it, Dennis Hopper was there. They used the money from The Monkees to make Easy Rider.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  There's a book called Easy Rider: Raging Bull, which I did an interview for, about that era. Bob and Bert Scorsese, Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, were the new bucks in town. And they essentially, single-handedly, created the Hollywood independent film industry. It did not exist before Easy Rider, before those films. Sure. The Head was the first of that deconstruction, not just of the monkeys, but a deconstruction of the old Hollywood system.

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  You couldn't get a film made back then unless you were one of the big seven. You know, Billy Jack tried four walling, and there were attempts, but you really couldn't get a look in unless you were one of the big seven. There's a scene in the movie, how long ago did you see it?

• 1:13:17Billy Corgan?

  Maybe like a year, a year and a half.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  Okay, you remember, there's a scene where Mike and I are cavalry officers and we're being shot at by Indians with arrows. Teri Garr's first, one of her first little performances. She's sitting there bleeding with an arrow like this and, you know, and Mike and I are looking at the Indians and Max says, "It's too quiet." All these old Hollywood cliches. A lot of the movie, if you remember, was Hollywood cliches from old Hollywood movies.

• 1:13:46Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  And, and I'm like there, "What are we gonna do?" And Max says, "It's too quiet." And the Indians are, "Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo." And they're shooting. And I stand up and I get hit like with four or five fake special effects arrows. And I'm like, "Oh, jeez, Bob, I've had it, I'm fed up." And I break off all the fake arrows. "I, I can't do this anymore, all these fake arrows and, 'Come on lady, get up, you're not dying, you're just, it's just makeup.'" I'm fed up. And I turn around and I walk back through the big psych that was mountains and sky.

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  And I tear a hole through it and I burst through the psych. That to me was what the movie was about. Bursting through the old Hollywood. And I walk out into the cafeteria or do something like that. That's what I think the movie was about. To me, certainly, and I think that that is the underlying kind of thing. The deconstruction of old Hollywood. The old Hollywood studio system.

• 1:15:01Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:01Speaker 01

  And it's what they did. They did that. They single-handedly created the independent Hollywood industry.

• 1:15:09Billy Corgan?

  Can I tell you a related story if you don't mind?

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:15:12Billy Corgan?

  So, in 1998, we're in, the studios were Shepperton in England. You know, the famous studios. And we're shooting what became an $800,000 music video. I tried to get this concept that I had in mind off the ground, and I couldn't find anybody. And eventually, you settled on these guys from England. But the budget came in at $800,000. But we were so big at the time, they greenlit it remarkably. The quick version of the concept was, I think we build somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 sets. So think of it like a big U, or U. And then we would move through the different sets like this,

• 1:15:56Billy Corgan?

  and the camera would just follow us along. So there was like a Roman bath set, a vampire's lair.

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  God, that sounds familiar. That sounds familiar. What was the song?

• 1:16:07Billy Corgan?

  Ava Doors is the name of the song.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that sounds familiar. Sorry, go on.

• 1:16:10Billy Corgan?

  No, but here's what you triggered in my memory, and I think this is a beautiful way to wrap it up. Because you're right about when you walk through that set. But at other times, you've got to, like, I had to walk through that set. But here's my version of it. So, they had this idea, and it was a technique that people were using at the time, which was if they sped and slowed up the music, you would get like, like you were moving in slow motion, or you would get like you were hyperactive. But in order to do it at the time, they'd have to speed the track up, and then the camera would go with it. And then if they slowed the track down. Well, we had over 100 extras on set, all in costume.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:16:53Billy Corgan?

  Okay? As you know, like, this type of thing. The call time was 8:00 a.m. for all the extras. By...

• 1:17:03Billy Corgan?

  Maybe 5pm, the clock's running out, we haven't shot a single take. So the natives are growing restless, right? And you can see people getting really nervous, you know, over time. So, we did, we did a, I think we did like a first take. And, you know, we thought we were gonna shoot 10 of these, and then, but my whole thing was it was gonna be a one taker. So everything had to line up.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  I was gonna ask you that, it was one continuous take?

• 1:17:39Billy Corgan?

  Yes, this was my idea, but translated through their vision. And what made it not work was the speeding up and slowing down. That was what caused the technical delay. So by the time we shot the first take, the people in the stands around, it was kind of a Colosseum feel, were grousing, audibly showing displeasure, going out of character on screen. But in that, something happened where they reached a point with the camera, where, I can't remember what it was, I think it was an accident, and maybe because they thought it was a test take, the camera operator swung the camera around, and you saw the entire set, just for one moment. So we watched the test take, and they're like, "We got 7 more minutes."

• 1:18:22Billy Corgan?

  And I'm like, "But I gotta see this at least one time to at least tweak it so we have a chance to get the video we're paying $800,000 for." So they freaked out that the camera operator, in some reason, had swung the camera, and you saw the entire set, the train tracks, the crew with the coffee. And they started, and I said, "No, no, leave it." So now, with the clock running, they're arguing with me, "No, you can't have this break the fourth wall moment in your video." And I said, "It's my [bleep] video, and I think it's perfect, because it shows the complete artifice of this entire exercise."

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  Great.

• 1:19:01Billy Corgan?

  So we only had time for one more take. Like, and, okay? By that point, I literally got on a microphone, and I begged this, not an audience, 100 extras, "Please, we have one more take. Behave yourselves, you're embarrassing yourselves." Just, and as a, as a result of the day and the way they've been treated, and they didn't get enough sandwiches, there were people literally turning their backs to the camera as the camera was coming by.

• 1:19:33Billy Corgan?

  Right? So, you have to look very carefully for it. You get the fourth wall reveal, which is to me is my favorite moment of the whole video. I'm not even in it, but you get that one moment. And then the camera swings around. And when we get to the kind of the back end of this, this, the continuous sets, there's like the Roman scene. And there's people with their backs to me. And there's people audibly telling me, "Fuck you." As the takes going by. So I turn my back and I'm flipping off the crowd. Like, "Go fuck yourself." As the last take's happening, and that's the take.

• 1:20:05Speaker 01

  Oh my god, what a great story.

• 1:20:08Billy Corgan?

  You don't see me do it, you just see me turn and be like...

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Great story.

• 1:20:11Billy Corgan?

  And that's it. That's the take.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Well, we'll be right back with Billy Corgan after these...

• 1:20:18Billy Corgan?

  The Mickey and Billy Show.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  The Mickey and Billy Show.

• 1:20:20Billy Corgan?

  Thank you, Mickey, that was great.