Smashing Pumpkins (2015)
Interview Background
After interviewing his former Smashing Pumpkins bandmates Melissa Auf der Maur (a wonderful interviewee) and James Iha (amiable, if a little dull), I spoke to SP ringmaster William Corgan in the weeks after 2014’s Smashing Pumpkins album Monuments To An Elegy was released. I know I’m not in the minority when I admit I’m a ‘90s fan of the band who’d fallen in and out of love with Billy Corgan’s output over the years, despite still purchasing and routinely enjoying his albums (Zwan, TheFutureEmbrace and Machina are gathering dust in my collection, but Adore, Oceania and American Gothic remain favourites). Few would argue that Corgan is an intelligent, phenomenal talent, but media interviews have veered from insightful to sneering and petty. I went into this interview unsure of how Corgan would react to my own questioning, but felt confident in the fact that a) Monuments To An Elegy was an excellent album I had enjoyed absorbing and b) my knowledge of Corgan’s back catalogue and interests was strong. As it happened, not only did Corgan humbly call my number himself (no record label interruptions and tardy conference call companies here) he was a gracious, smart and surprisingly good-natured musician to converse with. The 15-minute conversation I was promised expanded to almost half an hour as Corgan covered literature, cats and New Order. A true icon.
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in mX, February 2015.
The Smashing Pumpkins - William The Conqueror
by Scott McLennan
Was Billy Corgan a Roman Emperor in a past life? Keeping tight rein over The Smashing Pumpkins since their 1987 formation, the Chicago musician admits sharing common ground with at least one dictator from Ancient Rome. Corgan opens eighth Pumpkins studio album Monuments To An Elegy with Tiberius, a song named after the first century ruler who philosopher Pliny the Elder called “the gloomiest of men”.
“I’ve been called the same,” Corgan laughs, “but I don’t think I ever was. Sometimes people confuse movie stars with the characters they play, so just because I played a gloomy rock star doesn’t mean I actually was a gloomy rock star.”
If Corgan’s ‘90s depiction of an egotistic virtuoso was merely a performance, it was Oscar-worthy stuff. The elaborate genius of alternative classics Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness proved Corgan was a staggering talent. With the platinum record sales came reports the frontman was also a venomous and arrogant diva, with short-lived Pumpkins manager Sharon Osbourne quitting due to health reasons – “Billy Corgan is making me sick”.
mX’s conversation with Corgan suggests he’s a far more measured and humble man today, reserving his bile for CNN presenter Anderson Cooper.
A recent segment on Anderson Cooper Live made fun of Corgan appearing on the cover of PAWS Magazine with his two cats, Sammi and Thom.
The 47-year-old remains livid over the attack.
“I don’t know if you know this, but it’s a charity magazine. Not only was I attacked for being on the cover with my cats, I was attacked for supporting a charity I’ve raised a bunch of money for. PAWS is an incredible Chicago-based no-kill animal shelter, so that’s what I was being attacked for – it shows how sick my country is. In America they try to whack down artists who are too uppity or outside the lines.”
If you were to be reincarnated, what animal would you be?
“These are very eerie questions – are you a psychology major?” Corgan chuckles. “You’re assuming I’d be evolved to come back as an animal. I’m of the opinion that cats are a higher form than humans.”
Maybe, to quote Mellon Collie hit Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Corgan could come back as a rat in a cage? The guitarist offers another big laugh.
“Your words, not mine!”
After debuting new songs and a unique Smashing Pumpkins line-up (including members of Rage Against The Machine and The Killers) the previous evening in his Chicago hometown, Corgan is in a buoyant mood. Rave reviews of the gig and praise for Monuments To An Elegy suggest The Smashing Pumpkins have come in from the cold.
“The album has been really well received and the concert we played last night was unbelievable, but it’s been a long road to get here. It’s been far more difficult than I could ever have imagined. If I knew when I was 25 what I know now then I think I would have quit while I was ahead. I’m serious. That’s not to piss on where I’m at now, though - we’re in a very nice chapter of the story now.”
Due to acrimonious splits, Corgan is the only original Smashing Pumpkins member still standing. Having played with UK icons New Order during their Get Ready tour of 2001, Corgan has a unique perspective on the feud between their frontman Bernard Sumner and former bassist Peter Hook.
“It’s unfortunate. Having been through these things myself I think it’s hard for fans to understand. It’s very similar to having strife in one’s family – you still have love there but you can’t get along. It’s the same in my Pumpkins family – we just didn’t have the ability to get along after a certain point. When someone says, ‘Oh, you guys should [re-form the original line-up]’, they don’t understand it runs deeper than whether you can all still play the tunes.”
If there was a series of Survivor featuring past and present Smashing Pumpkins members, who would be voted off first?
“That’s a trick question,” Corgan offers with a final laugh. “I’m not answering that!”
Okay then - who would win?
“Well me. Always.”
Monuments To An Elegy (Martha’s Music/Cooking Vinyl)
Unpublished Interview Material
It seems more than any other artist you have your own lexicon when it comes to titles, including a large number featuring exotic girls’ names. Have you met many children born to Smashing Pumpkins fans named Porcelina, Luna, Stumbleine or Ruby?
"(laughs) I have, yeah. I have even met children named Corgan, which is a really strange name. I have a picture in my office here of a fan who named their baby Corgan. I think [my love of language] started when I was young and I was frustrated by the world around me. I started thinking up my own versions of words while reading William Burroughs and [Jack] Keroauc and how words could be used in a different way. They could be weaponised and almost become weapons of subversion, but quietly so. There are a lot of ways to say ‘fuck you!’. As a kid I would look at words and think about how to organise them in my mind and by using them in a certain way I could make people react. I think that was the genesis of where it all began."
I see that Tiberius died when he was smothered by his successor Caligula. Does the Billy Corgan of the modern day have been enemies?
"(laughs) Maybe a pop star could smother me in my sleep and put me out of my misery? I have plenty of enemies, but I’m a Catholic Christian and I try to love thy enemy as much as I love thy brother. That’s sort of my general thought."
I’m intrigued that we’ve gone from one of the most wide-reaching, extensive tracklistings on a Smashing Pumpkins release with September’s box set of the incredible Adore to your shortest album release with Monuments To An Elegy. Is there anything in that?
"I think I went into the whole process thinking it had to be short. I got frustrated playing a lot of material the audience wasn’t aware of and I felt it was a lot of effort for not a lot of return. I do make music to be heard, despite what a lot of people might think. I thought I’d keep it short and sweet and maximise the energy in the material that is on the record. Instead of dissipating that energy out over 14 or 15 songs, we put the same energy into nine songs."
You sing ‘I’m so alive with a girl like you’ on Anti-Hero. You’ve always been someone who has included the idea of ageing in your music (eg Disarm’s ‘So old in my shoes’), but does this album focus on mortality more than previous works?
"I think that artists always explore their experiences and I’m in a position where I’m far later in the game than I could ever have imagined. If you could go back in a time machine and speak with me when I was 25 and asked if I would still be playing music, the answer would have been yes. If you had asked if I would still be playing this type of music, the answer would have been no. I’m constantly confronted with images, perceptions and people’s takes on my own history which make me have to evaluate my own position in a way I wouldn’t have to if I was just going through my own life for pleasure. In a way it’s a way of evaluating those feelings and trying to make sense of them. In a way I’m blessed… My mum’s passed away obviously, but my father is still very youthful looking. In a way I’ve gotten away with looking younger longer than most. I’m a clean liver so I don’t have the 20 years of alcoholism under my belt which takes your youth and throws it away. We’re living in such an image-conscious society where people getting plastic surgery, manipulating themselves and getting tattoos. As a public person, you’re put in a place where there’s always someone trying to have an opinion on the way you look. The way you look is one of the strangest things in the world to be criticised for, because there’s obviously not a lot you can do about it."
If you were to speak to that 25-year-old Billy Corgan, what would you say to him?
"Quit."
Surely not.
"No, I’m serious. I’d tell him to quit now while you’re ahead."
What would you have done if you had quit? Become a painter or an artist?
"Probably an author. I would have either gone into writing or gone back to school and followed other passions. I have always loved sociology, archaeology and history. The way people lived at different times on the planet is one of those things I’m still interested. We’re in a very nice chapter of the story now. The album has been really well received and the concert we played last night was unbelievable. The reviews of last night’s concert were amazing and this is a good time, but it’s been a long road to get here and far longer and more difficult than I could ever have imagined. If I knew then what I know now then I think I would have quit while I was ahead. That’s not to piss on where I’m at now – I’m just trying to explain the logic of the question."
As someone who has that author vocation at the back of their mind, will an autobiography help settle some facts and myths about Billy Corgan?
"I’m actually not writing it from that perspective at all. I’m not interested in writing wrongs and I think the book will only confuse people more. The true stories – or at least my version of the true stories – are probably even more confusing. There are so many events and situations where you’d wonder why you’d continue down a particular path, and yet I still continued down them. Trying to explain a spiritual point of view or an artist’s point of view in a material culture is really just a waste of time. All you can do is just create the thing and the people who want to understand you will and the people who don’t will reject it and try to kill you. That’s a pretty historically proven concept."
The idea of the Panopticon, which you obviously sing about on Oceania, has always been very interesting to me. The Panopticon does seem to reflect society today, where there are reality shows filming people but the subjects aren’t quite sure if they are on TV or not.
"You know we actually had a Panopticon jail here? It was called Statesville and it’s now closed down. Jimmy Chamberlin grew up in Juliette and they sent a lot of the Alcatraz prisoners when Alcatraz closed down. As we all know, and as has been admitted by governments, we are all being spied and somewhere this conversation is being recorded and will be held ostensibly forever. If somebody wants to take come back in 25 years and take out one tidbit of what you and I said to each other, they will be able to indict us on whatever crime we’ve committed – maybe making fun of Anderson Cooper?"
Is there ever any feeling, when you see someone like your Lost Highway soundtrack companion Trent Reznor winning Academy Awards, ‘that could have been me’?
"No, actually I think it’s deserved. He’s a great artist. He and I haven’t always gotten along, but I’ve never doubted he’s a great artist."
Melissa Auf der Maur told me she loved making videos with the Pumpkins, even James Iha once told me in an interview he thought making Tonight Tonight was pretty fun. You’ve worked with Jonas Akerlund. Jonathan Dayton and Jake Scott - what’s your favourite memory of your music videos?
"I think it’s always the process of collaborating that makes it interesting. For the video with Jake Scott, my vision was for the band to be flying over rooftops like in Mary Poppins, so he was able to translate that vision into something that was very poetic. I actually just saw Jonas in Los Angeles the other day after not seeing him for a number of years. Collaborating with him on the Try Try Try video where he had this idea of a couple addicted to drugs and what it meant to their relationship, those are my great memories – bringing ideas to film. You can get a little sentimental about it because back then there were actual budgets by which to make great videos and now we don’t have those resources. It’s difficult, even if you have a great idea to translate it to film now."
After interviewing his former Smashing Pumpkins bandmates Melissa Auf der Maur (a wonderful interviewee) and James Iha (amiable, if a little dull), I spoke to SP ringmaster William Corgan in the weeks after 2014’s Smashing Pumpkins album Monuments To An Elegy was released. I know I’m not in the minority when I admit I’m a ‘90s fan of the band who’d fallen in and out of love with Billy Corgan’s output over the years, despite still purchasing and routinely enjoying his albums (Zwan, TheFutureEmbrace and Machina are gathering dust in my collection, but Adore, Oceania and American Gothic remain favourites). Few would argue that Corgan is an intelligent, phenomenal talent, but media interviews have veered from insightful to sneering and petty. I went into this interview unsure of how Corgan would react to my own questioning, but felt confident in the fact that a) Monuments To An Elegy was an excellent album I had enjoyed absorbing and b) my knowledge of Corgan’s back catalogue and interests was strong. As it happened, not only did Corgan humbly call my number himself (no record label interruptions and tardy conference call companies here) he was a gracious, smart and surprisingly good-natured musician to converse with. The 15-minute conversation I was promised expanded to almost half an hour as Corgan covered literature, cats and New Order. A true icon.
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in mX, February 2015.
The Smashing Pumpkins - William The Conqueror
by Scott McLennan
Was Billy Corgan a Roman Emperor in a past life? Keeping tight rein over The Smashing Pumpkins since their 1987 formation, the Chicago musician admits sharing common ground with at least one dictator from Ancient Rome. Corgan opens eighth Pumpkins studio album Monuments To An Elegy with Tiberius, a song named after the first century ruler who philosopher Pliny the Elder called “the gloomiest of men”.
“I’ve been called the same,” Corgan laughs, “but I don’t think I ever was. Sometimes people confuse movie stars with the characters they play, so just because I played a gloomy rock star doesn’t mean I actually was a gloomy rock star.”
If Corgan’s ‘90s depiction of an egotistic virtuoso was merely a performance, it was Oscar-worthy stuff. The elaborate genius of alternative classics Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness proved Corgan was a staggering talent. With the platinum record sales came reports the frontman was also a venomous and arrogant diva, with short-lived Pumpkins manager Sharon Osbourne quitting due to health reasons – “Billy Corgan is making me sick”.
mX’s conversation with Corgan suggests he’s a far more measured and humble man today, reserving his bile for CNN presenter Anderson Cooper.
A recent segment on Anderson Cooper Live made fun of Corgan appearing on the cover of PAWS Magazine with his two cats, Sammi and Thom.
The 47-year-old remains livid over the attack.
“I don’t know if you know this, but it’s a charity magazine. Not only was I attacked for being on the cover with my cats, I was attacked for supporting a charity I’ve raised a bunch of money for. PAWS is an incredible Chicago-based no-kill animal shelter, so that’s what I was being attacked for – it shows how sick my country is. In America they try to whack down artists who are too uppity or outside the lines.”
If you were to be reincarnated, what animal would you be?
“These are very eerie questions – are you a psychology major?” Corgan chuckles. “You’re assuming I’d be evolved to come back as an animal. I’m of the opinion that cats are a higher form than humans.”
Maybe, to quote Mellon Collie hit Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Corgan could come back as a rat in a cage? The guitarist offers another big laugh.
“Your words, not mine!”
After debuting new songs and a unique Smashing Pumpkins line-up (including members of Rage Against The Machine and The Killers) the previous evening in his Chicago hometown, Corgan is in a buoyant mood. Rave reviews of the gig and praise for Monuments To An Elegy suggest The Smashing Pumpkins have come in from the cold.
“The album has been really well received and the concert we played last night was unbelievable, but it’s been a long road to get here. It’s been far more difficult than I could ever have imagined. If I knew when I was 25 what I know now then I think I would have quit while I was ahead. I’m serious. That’s not to piss on where I’m at now, though - we’re in a very nice chapter of the story now.”
Due to acrimonious splits, Corgan is the only original Smashing Pumpkins member still standing. Having played with UK icons New Order during their Get Ready tour of 2001, Corgan has a unique perspective on the feud between their frontman Bernard Sumner and former bassist Peter Hook.
“It’s unfortunate. Having been through these things myself I think it’s hard for fans to understand. It’s very similar to having strife in one’s family – you still have love there but you can’t get along. It’s the same in my Pumpkins family – we just didn’t have the ability to get along after a certain point. When someone says, ‘Oh, you guys should [re-form the original line-up]’, they don’t understand it runs deeper than whether you can all still play the tunes.”
If there was a series of Survivor featuring past and present Smashing Pumpkins members, who would be voted off first?
“That’s a trick question,” Corgan offers with a final laugh. “I’m not answering that!”
Okay then - who would win?
“Well me. Always.”
Monuments To An Elegy (Martha’s Music/Cooking Vinyl)
Unpublished Interview Material
It seems more than any other artist you have your own lexicon when it comes to titles, including a large number featuring exotic girls’ names. Have you met many children born to Smashing Pumpkins fans named Porcelina, Luna, Stumbleine or Ruby?
"(laughs) I have, yeah. I have even met children named Corgan, which is a really strange name. I have a picture in my office here of a fan who named their baby Corgan. I think [my love of language] started when I was young and I was frustrated by the world around me. I started thinking up my own versions of words while reading William Burroughs and [Jack] Keroauc and how words could be used in a different way. They could be weaponised and almost become weapons of subversion, but quietly so. There are a lot of ways to say ‘fuck you!’. As a kid I would look at words and think about how to organise them in my mind and by using them in a certain way I could make people react. I think that was the genesis of where it all began."
I see that Tiberius died when he was smothered by his successor Caligula. Does the Billy Corgan of the modern day have been enemies?
"(laughs) Maybe a pop star could smother me in my sleep and put me out of my misery? I have plenty of enemies, but I’m a Catholic Christian and I try to love thy enemy as much as I love thy brother. That’s sort of my general thought."
I’m intrigued that we’ve gone from one of the most wide-reaching, extensive tracklistings on a Smashing Pumpkins release with September’s box set of the incredible Adore to your shortest album release with Monuments To An Elegy. Is there anything in that?
"I think I went into the whole process thinking it had to be short. I got frustrated playing a lot of material the audience wasn’t aware of and I felt it was a lot of effort for not a lot of return. I do make music to be heard, despite what a lot of people might think. I thought I’d keep it short and sweet and maximise the energy in the material that is on the record. Instead of dissipating that energy out over 14 or 15 songs, we put the same energy into nine songs."
You sing ‘I’m so alive with a girl like you’ on Anti-Hero. You’ve always been someone who has included the idea of ageing in your music (eg Disarm’s ‘So old in my shoes’), but does this album focus on mortality more than previous works?
"I think that artists always explore their experiences and I’m in a position where I’m far later in the game than I could ever have imagined. If you could go back in a time machine and speak with me when I was 25 and asked if I would still be playing music, the answer would have been yes. If you had asked if I would still be playing this type of music, the answer would have been no. I’m constantly confronted with images, perceptions and people’s takes on my own history which make me have to evaluate my own position in a way I wouldn’t have to if I was just going through my own life for pleasure. In a way it’s a way of evaluating those feelings and trying to make sense of them. In a way I’m blessed… My mum’s passed away obviously, but my father is still very youthful looking. In a way I’ve gotten away with looking younger longer than most. I’m a clean liver so I don’t have the 20 years of alcoholism under my belt which takes your youth and throws it away. We’re living in such an image-conscious society where people getting plastic surgery, manipulating themselves and getting tattoos. As a public person, you’re put in a place where there’s always someone trying to have an opinion on the way you look. The way you look is one of the strangest things in the world to be criticised for, because there’s obviously not a lot you can do about it."
If you were to speak to that 25-year-old Billy Corgan, what would you say to him?
"Quit."
Surely not.
"No, I’m serious. I’d tell him to quit now while you’re ahead."
What would you have done if you had quit? Become a painter or an artist?
"Probably an author. I would have either gone into writing or gone back to school and followed other passions. I have always loved sociology, archaeology and history. The way people lived at different times on the planet is one of those things I’m still interested. We’re in a very nice chapter of the story now. The album has been really well received and the concert we played last night was unbelievable. The reviews of last night’s concert were amazing and this is a good time, but it’s been a long road to get here and far longer and more difficult than I could ever have imagined. If I knew then what I know now then I think I would have quit while I was ahead. That’s not to piss on where I’m at now – I’m just trying to explain the logic of the question."
As someone who has that author vocation at the back of their mind, will an autobiography help settle some facts and myths about Billy Corgan?
"I’m actually not writing it from that perspective at all. I’m not interested in writing wrongs and I think the book will only confuse people more. The true stories – or at least my version of the true stories – are probably even more confusing. There are so many events and situations where you’d wonder why you’d continue down a particular path, and yet I still continued down them. Trying to explain a spiritual point of view or an artist’s point of view in a material culture is really just a waste of time. All you can do is just create the thing and the people who want to understand you will and the people who don’t will reject it and try to kill you. That’s a pretty historically proven concept."
The idea of the Panopticon, which you obviously sing about on Oceania, has always been very interesting to me. The Panopticon does seem to reflect society today, where there are reality shows filming people but the subjects aren’t quite sure if they are on TV or not.
"You know we actually had a Panopticon jail here? It was called Statesville and it’s now closed down. Jimmy Chamberlin grew up in Juliette and they sent a lot of the Alcatraz prisoners when Alcatraz closed down. As we all know, and as has been admitted by governments, we are all being spied and somewhere this conversation is being recorded and will be held ostensibly forever. If somebody wants to take come back in 25 years and take out one tidbit of what you and I said to each other, they will be able to indict us on whatever crime we’ve committed – maybe making fun of Anderson Cooper?"
Is there ever any feeling, when you see someone like your Lost Highway soundtrack companion Trent Reznor winning Academy Awards, ‘that could have been me’?
"No, actually I think it’s deserved. He’s a great artist. He and I haven’t always gotten along, but I’ve never doubted he’s a great artist."
Melissa Auf der Maur told me she loved making videos with the Pumpkins, even James Iha once told me in an interview he thought making Tonight Tonight was pretty fun. You’ve worked with Jonas Akerlund. Jonathan Dayton and Jake Scott - what’s your favourite memory of your music videos?
"I think it’s always the process of collaborating that makes it interesting. For the video with Jake Scott, my vision was for the band to be flying over rooftops like in Mary Poppins, so he was able to translate that vision into something that was very poetic. I actually just saw Jonas in Los Angeles the other day after not seeing him for a number of years. Collaborating with him on the Try Try Try video where he had this idea of a couple addicted to drugs and what it meant to their relationship, those are my great memories – bringing ideas to film. You can get a little sentimental about it because back then there were actual budgets by which to make great videos and now we don’t have those resources. It’s difficult, even if you have a great idea to translate it to film now."
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