Billy Corgan

27:58where you can see the sky. Best network based on analysis by Ookla of Speedtest Intelligence Data 1H 2025. The greatest music stories aren't always in the songs themselves. They're in the late night studio sessions, the chance encounters, and the cultural moments that shaped entire movements. For music lovers who find themselves going down rabbit holes about their favorite artists, Claude, an AI thinking partner, helps you explore those deeper questions. Whether you're wondering about the connections between different scenes, trying to understand what drove a particular creative period, or exploring how social movements influenced sound, Claude works through these complex cultural puzzles with you.

28:39It's built for people who know that understanding music means understanding the human stories behind it. Claude doesn't just compile facts. It helps you see patterns across decades of music history, ask the kinds of follow-up questions that reveal deeper truths, and works through the nuanced relationships between artists, movements, and moments. Whether you're a music journalist, industry professional, or someone who just lives for understanding the stories behind the sounds, Claude matches your level of curiosity about what really drives great art. Try Claude for free at claude.ai slash brokenrecord and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner.

29:17This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. One of the things I think is universal to nearly everyone is that warm feeling you get when you find someone you feel comfortable sharing parts of your life with that otherwise you might just keep to yourself. Often it's a friend, sometimes it's a loved one, but in those moments you really take a load off. That's one of the things I've enjoyed most about therapy, that there's someone regularly in my life that I'm able to talk to about things I'd probably keep to myself for longer than I really needed to. And they're clinically trained and licensed to help.

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30:18Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash broken. That's BetterHelp.com slash broken. From an artist's perspective, the way that you started writing lyrics, where I imagine when you start out, it's common to take on a character. And then you hear someone like Courtney say, look, like, I want you to write from your heart. I want you to write from you. That seems like a really, really big jump. How long did that actually take? And like, how long was that process? How many albums did that last? Well, it strangely coincided with the need for us to make a successful record.

31:03I'm the type of person where I couldn't stand being successful if I wasn't authentic. which sounds strange because we're talking about avatars but most fans of my work know that the voice in the music is very authentic all the character stuff all around it is a bunch of smoke but but the voice singing is pretty pretty on point so yeah it was like okay you've got to make a really successful record you've got to live up to the success of these new grunge bands which have sort of exploded on the world scene it's your major label debut oh by the way you have to write pop sons which go on the radio, somehow put all those pieces together and get back to me later.

31:41The only thing I found that resonated deeply with me that I was willing to kind of die for was to speak with an authentic voice. And it went on for about eight months where I just, you know, I'm painting an analogy, but you put pen to paper and you're just too afraid to write what you want to say. That went on for eight months, almost killed myself repeatedly, ended up living in a parking garage. I mean, it was a very haunting time. It sounds kind of strangely dramatic in hindsight, but at the time it was like, it was very heroin. And I was sober, most of it too. I was not, I mean, I was dealing with it full frontal.

32:26And I reached a point where I made up my mind that I couldn't deal with the pressure anymore. I was going to kill myself. So I started giving everything away. I started doing all the things you're not supposed to do. I started planning my own suicide. I started envisioning what people would look like standing around my casket. I went through the whole mental ideation and I got to the point where I made up my mind, okay, I'm going to kill myself on Friday. And I set the date and I counted the days down, four, three, two, one. And I got up the day where I was going to kill myself. And I was like, I really don't want to kill myself, but I kind of made up my mind to do this.

33:01And something broke in me. And I'm not making this part up. I literally was like, well, if you're not going to kill yourself, then you need to be honest. And within the next 24 to 48 hours, I wrote two of the most famous songs that we ever had, which was Today and Disarm. And out came tumbling this unafraid voice. It was pretty shocking. and I still can't even explain it to this day. It was like the door finally broke and I was like, okay, I'm just going to be me. What do you attribute that to? I think it's like if you face your greatest fear, you become kind of unafraid. Yeah. I don't, that's, I'm not being artful in how I'm explaining it, but it's like you've kind of faced it down.

33:50Yeah. You face the final boss at the level or something, you know? and and what i would say and and i'm not a person asked for public empathy but i will say for the point of illustration if anybody knows anything about me that has been a calamitous decision being myself in public has not been a joyride yeah it's been a very complicated oftentimes confusing to me way to go through business but as an artist i'm i'm fine to stand by it because the work is there. What it's done to my life, what it's done to my personal relationships, what it's done to the band, that's all for books and wonderful podcasts like yours.

34:32But I stand by the artistic version of it because I don't know any other way. That's all I know. And that's without training. Again, not asking for anything, just illustrate the point. I didn't go to college. I had no artistic training. I had no mentor. I had nobody to sit me down and say, this is how you write a song. This is how you play guitar. I had none of that. Everything is completely self-taught. And if I'm a suicidal personality in terms of how I attack the public sphere, well, I think you can understand where the root of that comes from, because that's the way I did it. And that's the way I broke through.

35:09So why wouldn't I keep doing it? Because I don't know any other way. Yeah. Have you had any other moments in your life that were that rock bottom? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Early 2000s, there were some periods that were really, really rough. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I that's why I've been willing to talk publicly about, I guess you would call it suicide prevention. Yeah. Many private conversations with people who are going through it, because I understand that once you're in it, it's like a. Yeah. It's like one of those Star Trek things where they lock on the ship and the ship gets pulled in and there's nothing you can do, you know?

35:48That's how it felt to me. Like, I just couldn't escape the gravity. But I did, and I did multiple times. And I don't wear it like a badge of pride. I'm almost kind of ashamed that I had to get to that point. But I can also talk proudly that I was able to do something with it. Alchemically, like, led into gold stuff. So around the year 2000, that would be the Machina album, which just turned 25 in February. So about a month ago. So is that a period? I know that was a really hard period for the band. How do you think about that period now that you have some distance?

36:30well you know when the when jimmy chamberlain left the pumpkins in in 96 and my mother died i made the decision to record the adore album which was basically career suicide and i was told at the time it was career suicide and i persisted and it basically was career suicide now it's considered a really really a warmly thought of record machina was the response to the negativity around the door. It was like, we have one more record on our album contract. We signed it together. Let's reform is for and let's just kind of do a record, give our best college effort like the Beatles did, make one more record and go out on a fiery ball of glory.

37:11And it didn't work out that way. We didn't make it through the entire period without our basis, Darcy leaving. And then, you know, there were a multitude of problems in making the record and also promoting the record, including the record company, completely abandoning us. But the funny part was, towards the end of it, I announced the band was going to break up, which was always part of the plan. We threw on the internet in a moment of, I guess, I was just kind of pissed off at the record company. I threw out another record, which is commonly known as Machina 2. Yeah, for free. Friends and Enemies of Modern Music.

37:48And the fans love that record. I went back to the record company and I said, you know, I know this sounds crazy and I know we're leaving, but fans really like this record. Why don't we put the two records together as an intact unit and put it back on the market? And I think you'll get your money back and we'll be in a good place. And they told me to fuck off. But they asked for CD copies that they could hand out. So they still helped market Machina 2 behind the scenes, but they wanted nothing to do with it publicly or commercially. So when I made the reissue deal with what was then EMI Records, now our catalog is absorbed into Universal.

38:29But at the time I made a deal, I said, because they wanted all the albums reissued with box sets. I said, I only make this deal if I'm allowed to put Machina 1 and Machina 2 together into an intact unit. So we're prepping that now. Oh, nice. And so Machina 1 and Machina 2 will be reunited as they were written into one crazy, it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 songs. It's like a Wagner song cycle or something. It's like the ring cycle. It goes on forever, but it really is the story of a band disintegrating. And by extension, my personality disintegrating into some sort of spiritual being trundles on post 2000.

39:17So it's hard to talk about that period. But contextually, I think to your question, I look back on it more fondly now than I did at the time. Have you thought about selling the catalog? I've been approached many times and I've said no every time. Do you think it'll ever come to a point where you will? I don't know. my lawyer whose name I will leave out of this for his his own his own sense of sanity but um he's one of the top catalog guys in the world wow so I'm lucky in that my guy uh knows the business so when we first sat together with the idea that we were going to work together and he's a huge fan from way back um he talks about buying Siamese dream the day it came out So he's a convert.

40:04He believes in what I do. So the first time that we really sat down to have a conversation about, okay, we're going to work together. What does this really mean? The first question out of his mouth was, do you want to sell your catalog? And he was asking more strategically than to encourage me to do that. And I said, no. And he said, why? And I said, because it's undervalued. That I completely agree. so until the catalog is at its true value it's not even worth entertaining it would be very very very hard for me to sell my catalog yeah yeah i hear all the arguments and and there's fiscal arguments and there's hey there's still your songs you know and but for me this has been my ticket to sanity so i have a incredibly close emotional attachment.

40:57And as I like to say, for the 30 that people like to listen to, and I'm blessed to even have that many, there's still another 370 sitting there that don't really get listened to much. So I'm more on the Irving Berlin, Diane Warren tip, which is you're going to hear all my songs eventually and I'm going to do what I got to do. So handing them over to somebody and figuring that they're going to take care of my other children in this euphemistic case is hard for me to believe. Yeah, it's interesting how now it's totally acceptable. People don't bat an eye when they hear, you know, so-and-so institutional artist sold their catalog.

41:33It's just sort of, you know, okay. Yeah, I don't ascribe anything to those things because everybody should make decisions based on what's best for them and their family. But it's hard sometimes when you see people you truly respect and have always been held up as paragons of virtue or independence. Yes. kind of quote unquote sell out to the man. And there may come a day where I too will sell out to the man. But let me add one other thing. And I have thrown this out there and people always look at me with this really puzzled look. And then they realize that I'm serious. Both my children have some musical ability, but I would never push them into music if they didn't want it.

42:11There's no, this isn't the Brady Bunch or something, right? But I do not rule out that the brand of the Smashing Pumpkins will continue, not just past me, but it would continue. Because it's set up as an artistic institution, I see it as being completely possible that my children would take over the Smashing Pumpkins at one point, but play their own songs and not even necessarily play mine. It's like being in the Flying Will Enders or something. Yeah. It's not a Hank Williams Jr. situation where he had to play his father's songs. Right. I could see a scenario where my children would take over the brand, but not even feel the need to play my music.

42:55Are you careful that you're not putting pressure on them? Oh, yeah, very much so. Yeah. My son, totally on his own, has asked for a guitar. Wow. A ukulele and a bass. And he plays the ukulele pretty well for a kid who doesn't practice much. Yeah. And my daughter has found some program where you sing along the songs and it analyzes your pitch. Oh, wow. She's only six years old. So the other day, my wife sent me a clip of my daughter in bed singing Sweet Dreams by The Eurythmics. Oh. So both of them show interest. Annie Lennox. Sure, but I would never push them into it. Because the one thing my father said that did resonate over time was he didn't want me to go in the music business because in his estimation, it was a shit business.

43:44So I understand what he meant. Was he wrong? No, it's a shit business. Yeah. No, but I've said publicly, and I'll say it to you, it's a rapacious business. It still is anti-artist. Oh, for sure. It's believable after 100 years of business. It's still wholly anti-artist. which which is why you still see those contentious types of relationships between artists and labels or artists and their handlers yeah if you really get behind the scenes and you talk to people who truly run the music business they'll tell you that they're and i think it's a bit of a rationalization but they'll tell you that part of their logic is artists don't last most are are lucky to have three or four years so they're oriented around a concept which is i don't really have to worry about your future because it's not my future right i find that completely shocking because if you have a billy eilish or you know a bob marley i don't know how you don't go, my goodness, this is such a rare flower.

44:59Yeah. We really got to do everything in our power to nurture and let this artist fly with the biggest wings possible because, by the way, make more money. They go into this other mode, which is like, oh, we better be careful. We're going to lose control. Yeah. I thought it was really interesting. Your conversation with Sharon Osborne on your podcast because she has been in the music industry since she started working with her dad when officially working with her dad when she was 15. And back then, the music industry was so much more upfront about just being ruthless. There were no protections in place for artists.

45:43So that was just interesting to hear that whole lineage. And I was curious in your interview with Sharon, you seemed like you were giving her a lot more room to talk. Whereas the Tom Morello, you were so excited. You were like, you know, jumping in and I'm sorry for interrupting you, but you had, you were like, so, you know, like excited about it because there's just a lot of commonality, I think. But with the interview with Sharon, is there a reason you had a different approach? Did it have anything to do with your past with Sharon? A little bit, a little bit. Sharon and I made up behind the scenes, I mean, easily over 15 years ago.

46:26Yeah. But I think there's a sweetness and an affection there that we have naturally. And I wanted to be careful in getting her to talk about stuff that maybe she wouldn't normally talk about in a way that would make her feel safe. And I think part of that was also an understanding that if I wasn't careful, it might come off that I still had a bone to pick, given our very public falling out circa, around Machina, actually. Yeah. So, I mean, I know that Sharon and I are cool and she knows that I'm cool with her, but at the same time, I could see where maybe people would be misinterpreting my approach.

47:08So if you see any nervousness there, it's not between Sharon and I. It's because I want to make sure that nobody misreads what's going on. Because like I said, this is a long ago healed thing between us. Yeah. How did you end up, well, how did the Avatar eventually break down? And was that in the Machina era? I think I rationalized that once I was out of it with the pumpkins, It was like, okay, that was a contrivance of that. I'm 33 years old. I'm going to be on my own now, and I'm going to get a new record deal and I'm going to soldier on as, quote, unquote, Billy Corgan, whoever that is. And I genuinely tried in the band that followed the Pumpkins, which was Juan, to just be a member of the band.

47:55Yeah. And I'll tell you a funny thing that happened. Juan was very much put together as a kind of an equal ensemble. All front members of the band could sing, and two of the male members had sung for their own bands or in their own situations. And Paz, the bass player, could sing well too. So I was trying to find something that had a little bit more balance to it than say the Pumpkins, at least on paper. And I kind of got comfortable with not being the front guy even though I was the front guy. Yeah. And I read a review of us back when I read reviews that chastised the show as being boring and chastised me for sort of laying back or something.

48:43So in a moment of peak, if that's the way you pronounce that word, I decided the next night that I was going to go out there and put on an old-fashioned show in the way that I knew how to do in the pumpkins. And so I was jumping all over and I had a great time and the show was great and it was really well-received. I had no idea, none, that that night there was a critic for Rolling Stone in the audience. As only fate would have it. I had no idea there was a reviewer there. Usually somebody will come back and tell you so-and-so is in the house or something. They're on the guest. So imagine that I've done this whole tour where I've really kind of laid back.

49:20And then in this one night, I decide to be my machinist self or something. And then this review comes out and the reviewer chastises me for making the show about me.

49:33I thought, well, you know, damned if you do, damned if you don't. So in my brain, that equals, well, if I'm damned if I do, I'm going to do it. I'm going to make it worse. So that set into motion a whole other round of various versions of whatever this is. And it gets awfully disassociative at times. But I'm interested, I guess. So that's my excuse. Yeah. It's not healthy. It works, though. It does and it doesn't. I mean, I don't know how it, I'm sure, personally, emotionally, it's extremely hard. Publicly, entertainment-wise, it works. Let me take a philosophical leap. A child that's abused or a child that feels neglected that changes its personality to gain attention or love ultimately knows, and Alice Miller talks about this in the great book The Drama of the Gift of Child, that the child is aware that it's inauthentic.

50:47So there's a sorrow attached to the personality because the personality is the device by which they're removed from their own, the love that they really want, which is self-acceptance or the acceptance of the parent. So to persist at 57 with this disassociative set of characters, it means on some level, I'm still not getting the love that I would like to get. There's a sadness to that, you know? And to illustrate this example, again, not asking for any empathy or sympathy, I will be walking through an airport, and that's usually where people can get to me because I'm in the world at a catch-a-plane.

51:28And I can't tell you how many times people have come up and talked to me as if I'm the agent for the person that wrote all the songs. What do you mean? They talk to me like I'm not Billy Corgan the artist. They talk to me like I'm Billy Corgan the human being. Can Billy Corgan the human being talk to the person they're really interested in? I know it sounds strange, but I'm telling you, this is a common experience. Like, can you have a meeting with that guy? Yes. Because something's going on with him that obviously isn't right. Yes. Like, do you talk to your twin? Because they see you in the world and they see, oh, he's a guy.

52:09But they don't want that guy. They're not interested in that guy. So it's weird because you're constantly in this position of almost being put down. Yeah. But they're putting you down with you. I know it sounds very strange and it's hard to translate, but I've had this experience many, many times. It's like, in my world, we call them Siamese zombies. They're people who are in love with Siamese dream and there's no other record for them in the Pumpkins canon. And that's all they want to talk about. And they'll talk about it for hours. And if you even remotely go off the subject, their eyes glaze over and they get bored.

52:44I call them Siamese zombies, right? Because it's literally talking to a zombie. Yeah. Okay. they will talk to me and say you know it would be really nice if you could talk to the guy who wrote those songs because I would like more of those songs yes you know I'm the guy who wrote those songs and they're like yeah but if you were really the guy who wrote those songs you would write more of them and I'm like no I'm the guy who wrote those songs and I choose not to write more songs like that and they're like no no no no no there's something wrong in this exchange it's like I'm not even there I know it's super bugged out This is real.

53:19But again, I think it speaks to the disassociative nature of our culture. Oh, yeah. Digital avatars, real avatars, real human beings, real human beings in a digital currency culture are inconvenient because they cry, they bleed, they sigh, they yawn, they look away. It's inconvenient to this digital agape that needs to go on. And the pop stars have become very skilled at nurturing this digital agape to their benefit. So everybody else seems like they're moving slow. That also seems like it's a product of the nature of your job, which is pouring all of your emotional life into something that becomes a product that people consume.

54:05I'm okay with that. And that's crazy. It sounds I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is, that's the wrong set of pouring emotions. Can you pour a different set of emotions? Yeah. As if there's a choice. That's a weird, weird, like it's like saying to your partner, you're loving me wrong. Yeah. Can you fuck me this other way? And they're like, no, I'm loving you the way I love. This is all I know. I'm giving you everything I got. Nah, nah, nah. I saw this TV show. Can you love me like that? Yeah. Yeah, it really is this embrace of an inauthentic world. And what's even more frightening is that nobody seems to care.

54:48And when I say nobody, I'm being hyperbolic. But I mean, you don't hear this big hue and cry in the culture. What happened to our authentic culture? I think because people are entertained, bread and circus. So as long as they're entertained with the inauthenticity. And I think the rising suicide rates with young people are some small indication and they're through the roof that something is amiss. But nobody's going to hit the pause button and even do any kind of deep dive study on how this associative culture is influencing young people. And again, I go back to the analogy I made. I think they look down the pipe and they say, there's no room for me to be me.

55:28We have to take one more break and we'll be back with Leah Rose and Billy Corgan. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at Ooclas Speedtest, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage. With Supermobile, your performance, security, and coverage are supercharged. With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity, even in times of high demand.

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56:54They're in the late night studio sessions, the chance encounters, and the cultural moments that shaped entire movements. For music lovers who find themselves going down rabbit holes about their favorite artists, Claude, an AI thinking partner, helps you explore those deeper questions. Whether you're wondering about the connections between different scenes, trying to understand what drove a particular creative period, or exploring how social movements influenced sound, Claude works through these complex cultural puzzles with you. It's built for people who know that understanding music means understanding the human stories behind it.

57:27Claude doesn't just compile facts. It helps you see patterns across decades of music history, ask the kinds of follow-up questions that reveal deeper truths, and works through the nuanced relationships between artists, movements, and moments. Whether you're a music journalist, industry professional, or someone who just lives for understanding the stories behind the sounds, Claude matches your level of curiosity about what really drives great art. Try Claude for free at claude.ai slash brokenrecord and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner. Lexus is a company that believes in the importance of setting a standard, which I can appreciate as someone who holds themselves to lofty if not ridiculous standards, especially with the car I drive.

58:09The standard Lexus has set for themselves is to experience amazing. Lexus measures success by the feeling and emotions evoked in a driver, like exhilaration and joy. Amazing can only be achieved by knowing people on a deeper level. The standard of amazing results in a feeling in drivers that their car was built in anticipation of them. machines that make you feel more human. Because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing. Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. Do you really think with everything that's going on and how fast things escalate in media, that people will get to a point where authenticity will make a comeback?

58:51Do you really think that's possible? I do, but I'm going to paint it in a bleak, cynical way. Yeah. I think you will end up with a culture which is 80 to 90 percent inauthentic in a bifurcated culture which celebrates the 10 or 15 to 20 percent remaining. And they will set up their own economy and celebrate their, for lack of a better word, authenticity. Yet you're going to get to the point where you're going to have artists say, they will say on their records, there's no auto-tune on this record. You know, like the performance you hear we actually recorded. Yeah. you know, this photo is not airbrushed.

59:31And you see little glimmers of that, like when famous actresses will post pictures with no makeup. Yes. There's some... The Pam Anderson no makeup tour. Sure. There's some acknowledgement of it all. But I do think it's going to end up in a bifurcating type of thing. Yeah. Crassly, it'll become a business model. It's the thing that the real people will point at the non-real people and say they're not real. Yeah. And the non-real people will say, we're having a lot more fun over here. Enjoy your no makeup and enjoy your no auto-tune. We're over here having a great party. And oh, by the way, we're on all the major media platforms because it's all about clicks.

1:00:10So as long as we get clicks, we don't care what you think because clicks are the new cast. Yeah. So that's the cynic in me. But I do feel, and I'll make one last grand prognostication, which is I do think you're going to see the old media system. These would be how it interlaces with entertainment. Pick your poison. Grammys, Oscars, Emmys, MTV Awards. I'm not just talking about ratings. I think that whole system of elites basically picking and choosing winners or losers is about to explode. Yeah. I'm not saying it's going to vanish, but I think it's about to explode. I think we've reached the tolerance point for the deception of it all.

1:00:53And I'm not saying that people don't win awards. I've won awards. I'm proud to say I've won a couple Grammys. But that system has become so burdened by the weight of artifice that it can't longer sustain itself. What markers will we use, though, as if you put yourself in a journalist's seat? A lot of the times when we write the intros for this show, we'll say, you know, so-and-so artist, three-time Grammy Award winner, like when you were talking about Diane Warren, you listed off her many awards. If those shows, those old institutions blow up and disappear, and they're already, you know, irrelevant, very close to it, and there's no more platinum albums, like, you know, Eminem comes out in 2003 and goes like triple platinum on the first day.

1:01:47That's gone. So what will be the markers of success? I know it's a hard thing because I think you're asking a great question, but I think you'll ultimately, I guess I'm personalizing it. I think you would survey the landscape and you will see who has influence. Yeah. Using myself as an example, right? Under the old system, I was told repeatedly for 15 to 20 years of my life, my influence was gone. My value was severely diminished. what value I had was in the past. And so my only value in the present was to reap the past. I was told this repeatedly by some of the most famous and influential people in the music business.

1:02:30No joke. In boardrooms where they just looked at me and said, here's where you are, take it or leave it. I refuse. I fought. I stuck my crazy foot in the ground. And I think now you see that I do have more influence than they would have given me credit for. It's hard to quantify what that influence is. Yeah. In the old guard, it would have been, well, so-and-so mentioned you in an interview where your album, the number four most influential alternative record of 1993. No one gives a shit about any of that anymore. So you almost have to do a daily read of who actually can put their thumb on the scale and move something.

1:03:15And I'll bring it back selfishly to the podcast. My voice in the podcast is important, not because it's me, but because I have the authority to stand there and have these conversations. You don't even have to like my music, buy my music, care about me as an artist, care that I'm a father and an entrepreneur. But you cannot deny that I've spent 35 years in the game. Yeah. Okay. I know the game really well. And by the way, I'm on the record speaking about the game for 35 years. Yeah. So just the ability to stand in that forest and say, I know what I'm talking about. You can disagree with me. In fact, go ahead.

1:03:57But at least I have a right to stand here. That's a different type of authority. Has nothing to do with record sales. It has nothing to do with whether my song is on the chart. That is the. Yes. What I'm after is this is where the legacy media is so flat-footed because they're so reliant on the New York Times system on down that has existed in our entire lifetimes. The New York Times was like the Pope, and then everything flowed down from the Pope. That shit is gone. And it doesn't matter your political stripe or social stripe. You can easily jump on YouTube or Twitter. I still call it Twitter.

1:04:37Me too. OK, God bless. You can you can pretty much figure out who can put their thumb on a scale and actually move stuff. This is a new economy that's very unprecedented. And and you can see the legacy media is completely looking around saying, what happened? They burned out all the ish words. They burned out all the cancel culture. They lost that game. And now there's this whole new rise of people and everyone's going, who the hell are these people? and why are they eating 300 ,000 views, 60 ,000 views, 300 ,000 views? Who are these people? In that economy, I'm actually quite valuable. So that's weird because, again, I'm speaking again personally, I was told for 20 years, you have no value unless you ring the bell of 1979 into eternity.

1:05:28And to be fair, even people in my personal life that know me, that have known me for 20, 30 years, they don't understand it because they're told by their family or their friends or their workmates that their assessment of my value, these are people in my, they don't even get it. Yeah. They think I'm crazy because I'm like, no, you don't understand. It's like who can walk in a room and actually say something that has any meaning in a world that has very little meaning anymore because it's all been so game. Yeah. It's like the whole world's Disneyland now, right? It's not funny at some point. It gets a little, it's like, I used to have his drummer, he went to Disneyland one time four days in a row and I thought, oh my God, I love Disneyland, but four days in a row, I start to lose my mind with it's a small world.

1:06:17Okay, that's what, to me, it's like we're all in Disneyland day after day after day. Like, and we can't get out of it. The screaming headlines, the hyper-politization of every facet of our society. It doesn't matter your politics. We're just all sort of tired. So at some point you look around and go, I just want a quiet song and a quiet hymn or a tree to sit under. Yes. So, of course, in the digital landscape, we're going to find those voices and those people, which is why anachronistically doing a podcast, which feels more like a PBS special from 1972 than 2025, is gaining really good traction because it feels like just a nice, quiet poem where two people can have a conversation about stuff that is important.

1:07:06And you know how I know it's important? Because I know it's important. It's life. It's like, read Sanskrit. It's like it's there all the way back 4 ,000 years. Life, love, ambition, you know, flew too close to the sun. This shit's never going to get old. No, you're so right. For me, it seemed like a big turning point was your 2017 appearance on Rogan. I feel like that really showed all of us this like really thoughtful, eloquent, the elder statesman within the business. It showed us a new side of Billy Corgan. That was my experience. I don't know if everyone had that experience, but like I was watching it with my husband the other night and he's like, damn, this guy's like smart.

1:07:52And I'm like, I know, it's crazy. and he's got like these crazy stories. So what was a turning point for you where you were like, I want to do this. I want to get into the whole podcasting thing. I didn't. Honestly, I didn't particularly have any yen for it. Right? Yeah, yen. That's a good word.

1:08:13I did a podcast a few years back built around our album Autumn at 33 Songs. I did the podcast. Nobody cared. Nobody was ringing me up to do a podcast deal. So I thought, okay, that's just not for me, although I enjoyed it. I was very intrigued with what Rick Piatto does. Yes. And he's pivoted a couple times, and he's even pivoting again. Very smart guy, very capable musician, and musical mind as well. And both Jimmy and I from the Pumpkins have had the honor of being interviewed by Rick. Yep. But I think what Rick showed is there are a lot of musicians out there who just want to hear about music, not through the prism of the drama and the and tell us a good tour story motley crew one more time yeah like tell us how you actually recorded that bass sound because people are still talking about that bass sound 40 years later and i thought okay if there's a market there for what rick's after on the deep dive kind of let's call it the nerd side of the equation which i love there's no distance saying nerd then i know there's this other side of the conversation which more gets into the interior life of a writer.

1:09:19Right. And by extension, the interior life of an actor or a scientist. And so that's my ultimate ambition is to broaden the scope even past the arts where you can talk to anybody, whether they're a successful podcaster, a successful race car driver, because I think that interior life discussion is something that's really fresh. Yeah. If you can do it in a non-click-baity way, then I think we all benefit from that. So that's kind of the whole setup. And then the other part of the story is I had no plans in doing it. And then I was on Bill Maher's show, Club Random. Yeah. I did the appearance. They pulled me aside and said, we'd like you to be a host on his new podcast network he's doing.

1:10:01Wow, that's cool. Yeah. And one thing that struck me right away, and I've known Bill for over 25 years, is Bill, you know, is very much a free speech guy. Yes. And I'm a free speech. I'm not a free speech absolutist, but I'm very much a free speech person. I think our society ultimately benefits from open dialogue, however uncomfortable, that we always come out on the better if we just are willing to have the dialogue. Like I hear you and I agree, but I disagree, but we work forward. Anyway, sorry, I'm over explaining. But and even just as a sidelong illustration of that, you know, I just did the appearance on Rogan and a new one.

1:10:40Yeah. And it's done very, very well, you know, in the economy of podcasting. You know, lots of people have watched it. But within 12 hours of my appearance on there, here come the fans who are mad at me for being on Rogan's podcast. Yes. We didn't talk politics at all in two hours and 45 minutes. And going back to being, you know, why I wanted to work with Bill and Bill's stance on free speech. There's no politics in my podcast. There's no politics at all. I mean, we talk a little bit about it with Tom Morello, but even then, it's more philosophical than pontificating on current events. I don't want the artistic sphere, and I'm going to extend that to scientists as well.

1:11:22I don't want the artistic sphere that I'm after to be poisoned by people's polemic need to pick winners and losers. I want us all to win. That's why I want. That's why I called it what it is. I really think these are magnificent people that I want to share with the audience from my perspective. Okay. But when you see people trying to go after you because, quote unquote, you know, I love these buzzwords, disinformation and all this stuff. I mean, it's unbelievable to me. First off, Joe's the number one podcast host in the world. For years. For many years. Yeah. Second of all, Joe's been a public person for 30, going on 35 years.

1:12:03So I'm not supposed to go on somebody's podcast because a percentage, it could be 50%, it could be 100, I don't care. A percentage of the U.S. population has an issue with the man's politic. And somehow by being on his podcast and talking about nothing about politics, I'm somehow endorsing his position. Joe doesn't even know what my political position is. He didn't even ask me. There was no qualification of, do you agree with me or you disagree with me? Let's just come on and talk about whatever we're going to talk about. That to me is not a society I want to be part of. And I would say we've had about seven to 10 years of that society and it's not working.

1:12:46It's not working. So why people persist is beyond me, but they're going to persist. I acknowledge that. Let them persist, But I think they're going to find it's a losing strategy. You seem very aware, which I appreciate, of how each outlet, each podcast is different and the host approaches it differently. So for Rick Beato, you sit down and you know you're going to get like a really intense technical conversation about choices you've made artistically. And you seem prepared for that and up for it, too, which is great. with Bill Maher. What's it like being in his little club random? Like he's like smoking blunts, which is so crazy.

1:13:29And like doing shots, like what's it like being right there? Well, you know, my father was a weed smoker and smoked continuously. So it'd been a while since I had a good contact high. So as Bill's smoking away, I start to get a little bit buzzed. Yeah. And then you're thinking like, you know, I'm pretty much a sober person in life. So I'm sitting here thinking, am I about to do something stoned, which I'm not used to being stoned? Am I about to do something that's going to get me, you know, blown up here in public? So there were times where I was kind of like, as long as I was afraid to say something, I was afraid to say it wrong.

1:14:06Yes. But like I said, I've known Bill for a long time. And Bill's a very interesting mind in that, like all great professional comedians, you're never quite sure where they're going to go. it's not that they're always after the joke, but they're kind of after the bit. Yeah. Take me to the bit. So we are talking about Gilligan and masturbation. And it was interesting. Yeah, it got pretty interesting. But it reminded me of about 8 ,000 other stoner conversations I've had. Right. Yeah, which is kind of perfect for a podcast. Sure. I think that that's fun. I think it's pretty brilliant that Bill's got this super serious side on his HBO show.

1:14:47And then there's the other side that wants to have a laugh and be amused and or irritated, which he's really good at being irritated. Totally. And then going on Howard, what's that been like for you? Are you nervous before these appearances or you seem very much at ease, but are you in your head about it to where you're thinking about the audience and you're thinking about the number of people watching? No, not at all. No, if I could give any insight, when you're with the highly skilled interviewer, you learn to just let them lead you where they want to go. Most interviewers are not that skilled.

1:15:22And so you learn in your media years to kind of push it where you want it to go. Yes. Great interviewers have a way of leading you and you just let them lead you. Yeah. You have to trust that they're not going to try to pull a gotcha. So with somebody like Howard, I trust Howard and I'll tell things Howard. I'll tell things to Howard I wouldn't say to anybody. Why? To me, that thinks, okay, he knows how many people are listening and he knows this is going to get a lot of airplay. No, no. I know he's not going to ask me the fucked up follow-up question. Oh, what do you mean? He's not going to ask me the clickbait question that would follow the revelries.

1:16:00Huh. It's just call it a certain type of trust. Yeah. I do remember when I was on Joe's show last time, seven years ago, I told him a story about finding a sawed-off shotgun under my father's bed, which my father heard and had a funny response to. But that's not a story I would ever tell. But I also felt I could tell a show. Yeah, and he laughed. Oh, calculus in my mind, like, oh, this will be good. Yeah. Let me put it this way. If I really wanted attention, just imagine the things that I know that I have never said. Right, which you're saving for the book. I'm talking about things I know about famous people that I've never said.

1:16:42Yeah, that's what I want to know. Well, you got to ask. I want to know all that shit.

1:16:50So are you actually writing a book? Is that something you're actively working on? In fact, just before I came on with you, I was working on my book. I was fixing a whole batch of really poor writing. But yeah, I've been working on my book. My hope is to finish this year a book basically between the ages of zero and 19. Wow. before I would take some time off and then start, you know, 19 onto whatever. How are you remembering things and do you trust your memory? I have an insane memory. I do. I don't know if that's inborn, but I just do. I think part of it was wanting to remember all these things that had been done to me in some sort of need to catalog.

1:17:32I don't know, like the man in the iron mask or something. I felt like I needed to write it all down. Yeah. So I did in my brain and I've kept it. Even my wife recently said, it'll be good if you finish this so you can finally let these things go. Do you think that'll happen? I don't know. I don't know. Because I think it's the act of putting something out in public that creates the alchemy for that. As long as it's private, it sort of remains kind of a secret. And having done it before publicly, like we were talking about with the album Siamese Dream, I do know that there's something that happens.

1:18:07Yeah. It puts an electrical charge in the air. And if it's true, it puts a really interesting electrical charge in the air. Because again, it's authentic. Yeah. I know, I know, well, I don't know, but I assume or I feel that when people do read my book or books, they're going to have a hard time believing a lot of what they'll read. But I know that this stuff happened. So that's all I know. But there are times when I'm writing it and I'll read it back. I'm like, wow, it's hard to believe that this stuff actually happened. Yeah. Because sometimes I'll read my wife passages and I'll kind of get her reaction.

1:18:42And I'm like, it's crazy that this actually happened. She's like, I know you've had a crazy life, but there it is. Yeah. Is there anything else you want to talk about as far as the show, about your process? I really appreciate the depth of this discussion. It's a lot of fun. And yeah, I hope people enjoy the show if they see it. It's a unique entity, and I think very much like my music, it'll win if it's unique, and it'll lose because it's too unique or something. And I'm okay with that because I wouldn't want to do it any other way, I think is what I'm after. Yeah, it's fun. It seems like you're having a lot of fun, and it seems like you're comfortable.

1:19:19I like your cue cards. I'd like to ditch the cue cards if possible. But I also don't want to take my eyes off the guests. you know there's rude about looking away so i don't know i don't know how i haven't figured out how to sort that out it's a lot it's like you know you're balancing a lot because you're trying to like you said expert interviewers can lead the guest in a way that they felt feel held and comfortable yeah yeah and i go back to my own experiences where i would walk out everything that was intense but i enjoyed it you know kind of like this interview it's like it's all good i don't mind.

1:19:58I don't mind walking up to certain lines if I feel like the intention is to get to something fresh. You know, I've the other the other experience of being held up as clickbait is a weird, weird thing. And I'll give you one little inside hint on that. I've learned to stop saying people's names. Yeah. I just don't say people's names because if I say their name, it's going to get clickbaited. Totally. Because they need the name for the clickbait. So I I just don't say the name anymore. Yeah. They just made me a better, I don't want to say liar, but they just made me a better evader. You know, I've just become more evasive.

1:20:37Yeah. No, I get that. But it's smart. I would do the same thing. I wouldn't tell anyone anything. I would be private. I kind of like the public running into the wall part of it. That part doesn't bother me. It's when it gets interpreted into something that it isn't. Right. Would you ever have anybody on the show and just like, maybe somebody who you had beef with in the past or maybe still have some sort of issue with, would you ever have them on and just like argue with them? It would depend on the subject. For example, it would be really interesting to have a discussion with Tom Morello about politics.

1:21:14But only if we lived in a society that would welcome the discussion and not penalize either one of us for having the discussion. Yes. We all live in that society. So Tom and I can only have that discussion in private. And I think for somebody who had rolled their eyes and say, why do I want to listen to musicians talk about politics? I think that's a fair point. But musicians understand what it's like to stand behind the wizard's curtain. Musicians have access to a lot of information that most people would not know that musicians have access to. Tom even talks in his interview about how he worked for a sitting U.S.

1:21:46senator. Yeah. That's that's an uncommon experience. Yeah, that was really interesting. I know some really highly placed people in the political sphere. And I know a lot of stuff that I wouldn't talk about because it's private information, but it certainly gives me a perspective on maybe the political world that most people wouldn't have. But would I ever discuss that in public? No fucking way. Because we don't live in a society that can maturely sit by and listen to two people talk about political perspectives in an open way that you go, okay, I hear you. Okay, that's good. Good. I learned something.

1:22:17No, it's like, oh, you're good. You're bad. yeah and again back to the joe rogan thing it's like i mean when i see when i see my own fans writing words like misinformation i mean that's straight out of the cia buddy you know what i mean it's like i do buzzwords for a living you know rat in a cage you know what i mean it's like you can't play meme word games with somebody like me that's what i do for a living this idea that you're going to use words against me. Like the vague word of misinformation. It's like, what does that mean? It's a perfect word because nobody knows what it means, but everybody knows what it means.

1:22:55Yeah.

1:22:59So I would love it. So I would have to be, in the spirit of your question, it would have to be something that has of no consequence. Like arguing over what's the better Judas Priest album or something. That'd be fun. Yeah, sure. Is that a business model? I don't know. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Billy, for coming on. I love talking to you. Thank you. God bless. And I can't wait for more of your episodes. Can't wait to see where you go as an interviewer. Thank you so much. God bless you. Thank you. Thanks to Billy Corgan for speaking his mind and opening up about his difficult history. You can listen to Corgan's new podcast, The Magnificent Others, now on YouTube and all podcast platforms.

1:23:44And you can hear our favorite songs from Corrigan and the Spash and Pumpkins on a playlist at brokenrecordpodcast.com. To see the video version of this episode, visit youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at thebrokenrecordpod. You can follow us on Twitter at brokenrecord. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tallade. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad-free listening for$4.99 a month.

1:24:25Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.

1:24:43The more you learn about your favorite artists, the more you want to know. Claude helps you keep digging, finding new threads and rabbit holes to explore. Whether it's discovering deeper meaning behind a detail in an interview or figuring out the influence behind an artist's particular era, Claude thinks with you to find the next clue. If you can't get enough of the stories behind your favorite music and artists, Claude will help you discover new layers you didn't know existed. Try Claude for free at Claude.ai slash Broken Record. This episode of Broken Record is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve.

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1:25:54Subject to credit approval, terms apply. I'm Glenn Washington, the host of KQED's Snap Judgment podcast. And at Snap, we don't just tell stories. We live them. Every week, a different journey, like on a plane with Rihanna. A racetrack in Tijuana. A year inside an Oakland homeless encampment. Real people, real voices with original music and cinematic sound. Snap Judgment from KQED. New episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Thank you.