Billy Corgan is obsessed with wrestling

0:00Billy Corgan: If you'd like to join the Obsessed community, head over to joincampsite.com. We'll give you updates on episodes, some behind-the-scenes access, and a whole lot more. That's joincampsite.com. Hope to see you there.

0:15David Greene: Campsite Media.

0:21Billy Corgan: You know, one thing I love about our show is the totally weird places that our conversations go. I mean, one of our guests was the celebrity chef, Michael Simon, and he and I ended up talking about our trip to the spa together to get a pedicure. Yesterday, I brought David in. He got his first pedicure of his life, and he enjoyed it very much. I will say that the paraffin, the hot wax, frightened him a little bit. It was hot. It was hot. I didn't know what it was. It's like purple in a bag, and they're wrapping your foot in a bag with purple goo, like hot purple goo. And of course, we also had on Tig Notaro, comedian, author, actor.

1:03Billy Corgan: She ended up giving my wife advice on how she can satisfy her obsession with half-popped popcorn kernels. Has she tried sorghum? I have no idea. Should I tell her to try sorghum? Yes. Tell her to try sorghum. Tell me more about sorghum. Sorghum is like an even healthier grain than popcorn. All right, so that brings us to our guest today. It is Billy Corgan, who is the front man for the great band The Smashing Pumpkins. But the thing that I ended up talking to him about was this smoothie that they sell at a bougie grocery store in Los Angeles where I live. The grocery store is called Air One. They have these ridiculously expensive smoothies.

1:48Billy Corgan: They often name them after celebrities, and they named one after Billy Corgan. It is called the OG Goth. And wouldn't you know it, I got to ask the OG Goth himself about his smoothie.

2:02David Greene: I don't like things that are too sweet. It's like almond butter? What's the... It's kind of got a kind of a almond buttery, peanut buttery kind of thing. It's tasty, meal-ish, protein-ish, but very, very yummy. Because to me, sorry, we're talking smoothies now.

2:23Billy Corgan: you asked. So that is the conversation you are going to hear next with Billy Corgan. We're going to cover smoothie ingredients. We're going to cover his obsession with wrestling. We're also going to talk some music. Yeah, I promise. And just his general approach to life. So conversation with Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins coming up next. This is David Green is Obsessed.

2:47Billy Corgan: Billy, nice to meet you.

2:49David Greene: Hey, how are you doing?

2:50Billy Corgan: I'm good. Thanks for doing this. So this show is about things that we obsess about.

2:58David Greene: I don't know. I obsess about a lot of things. I don't know if you have enough time for me.

3:02Billy Corgan: I mean, I want to get to a bunch of them if we have time. But I guess the thing that interested me, like smashing pumpkins aside, it seems to be like wrestling is a thing that you have obsessed about a ton over your life.

3:16David Greene: No, that's not true, actually. Actually, I loved it when I was a kid. And then goth teen land, I was like not into it. I didn't really pick it back up again to my late 20s. I'd occasionally watch something, but I was like, that's not for me anymore. And I missed a lot of cool stuff. And then I caught the bug again in my late 20s. And then I've kind of never looked back. But working in the business was not something I expected on doing. And then secondarily, working in the business completely kills your fandom.

3:44Billy Corgan: Working in the business makes you less of a wrestling fan. Oh, that's interesting.

3:47David Greene: Yeah. I love working in the wrestling business. It's an exciting thing, and it's been certainly a Herculean challenge to try to bring back this great brand, but it'll kill your interest in it. I mean, you know, to be fair, I mean, the music business has killed a lot of my love for music. I've had to really fight to kind of stay connected to music. So I guess it's a similar dynamic.

4:08Billy Corgan: Why does getting deeper inside a thing kill your love of it?

4:12David Greene: i think because i'm an obsessive compulsive person so you know once you lift every rock and turn over every stick i mean the mystery goes out of something you know yeah i mean when i listened to you know led zeppelin 4 i wasn't focused on the guitar sound and the out of tune vocal and it didn't stop anybody from listening including me it's later you start to break this stuff down And at first it becomes like a passion project. Like, oh, I wonder how they did that. And why did they do that? And at some point you start sort of almost being critical, not because you're trying to be negative. It's like in order to understand something, you almost have to see the good and the bad in something.

4:52David Greene: And I started doing that with everything. And it's like I was talking to somebody recently, you know, who was very much in the Pro Tools perfect world. And they were like, I can't listen to the Bee Gees anymore. I was like, what do you mean? It's like, oh, the vocals are too out of tune. You know, it's like, what are you talking about? But that's the world we live in now where it's like things are so hyper-examined, things are so gamed that it's almost difficult at some point to stay in the fresh energy of discovery.

5:18Billy Corgan: Yeah. I guess I've gotten that way with audio. Like I listen to really great storytelling audio. And if there's some production like glitch, I just can't unhear it. Like I'm focusing on it and it takes me out of actually experiencing the story.

5:33David Greene: Yeah. I think there is another side that you can get to. I think if there's anything beautiful about it, if you can find your passion after you have too much knowledge on a subject or too much self-awareness, it does take out a different sweetness. Like when I think of how amazing the bands I grew up listening to are, given the technology, given the times, given the lack of information, they actually are even more amazing than I thought they were. So I think there's a sweetness there, but you almost got to go through the loss of innocence to get to the other side.

6:05Billy Corgan: I love that lesson. I'm going to think about that a lot and how I can apply it to my knowledge.

6:08David Greene: Try that one. See if that works.

6:11Billy Corgan: Well, tell me about the National Wrestling Alliance. I mean, you bought the rights to it in 2017. You had to love wrestling enough to want to get on, get in the inside more.

6:22David Greene: I'd worked in the independent circuit, which is kind of like the independent music circuit. You know, there's a lot of voices down there and a lot of them are smart and interesting, but they don't necessarily like independent music. they don't necessarily confront the essential existential problem, which is how does wrestling be successful at the highest levels. Then I have worked for the second biggest company in the world at the time, which was TNA. Now also surreptitiously, I think, owned by WWE. Back then they were completely wholly independent. And I learned how to produce television and write for television for the first time in my life.

6:59David Greene: That all fell apart, lawsuits and stuff like that. So then the opportunity came up to own the NWA and it was like, okay, you can own a really cool historic brand and you can have total control. That was the attraction. It wasn't really the wrestling business itself. In fact, at that moment, I was never lower on the wrestling business than I was then.

7:20Billy Corgan: So you're talking about like television storytelling. I mean, that is something that we should all kind of pause and remind ourselves. Like this is not a sport in the traditional sense. wrestling pro wrestling it it is entertainment television yeah yeah i mean you know the common

7:35David Greene: thing that you hear from the from the guy in the street is wrestling is fake and i guess if you said it in court it's true but it's not true in the literal sense of application meaning they are doing incredibly dangerous physical things in the ring and they train like crazy for it right i mean the physicality is totally real the physicality is real the the toll on their body to look the way that they do the cosmetics are super important to the to the sport um and like all athletes they have a a shelf life you know if you're lucky you can go into your 50s but most people you know they might be in the business for 10 or 15 years so they have a clock kind of running there's different dynamics and of course there's different systems by which they can apply their trade whether it's at the local vfw hall or working for uh you know the biggest company in the world which is wwe and so getting into that ecosystem is very very complicated understanding its arcane aspects its roots into carny uh circus stuff going back to the late 1800s it's a strange complicated business and so yes to the outside observer it's no it'd be it might be watching a marvel movie and saying oh they're just it's not real you know like that's the equivalent reaction that somebody in wrestling has to somebody saying that it's fake.

8:54David Greene: It's like, yeah, so are movies, so are theatrical plays. It's sort of like what you're really asking of yourself. And the physical demand and the psychological demand of professional wrestling is very, very high. So I have great respect for what people do. Trying to innovate in the business, very, very difficult. Trying to be successful in the business, I would say is even more difficult.

9:14Billy Corgan: So you were drawn, though, when you got back in to this, to the non-wrestling sides of wrestling, it sounds like. It was like the idea of controlling this sort of company that brings together entertainment, storytelling, wrestling, the idea of being able to control it wholly, control the storytelling, the business side. I mean, that was more of the obsession, so to speak.

9:37David Greene: Sort of. I mean, it is fun to make up a world. And wrestling is like creating a living movie that you're sort of making up as you go along. So that's attractive. And it pressed the same buttons for me as improvisational music or something. It's the idea of putting yourself into a very high intense pressure situation. It's seeing if you can pull off, let's call it the sketch that you have in your mind. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but the thrill is trying. And wrestling is one of the last bastions in American culture that still doesn't feel like it's been social media to death or perfected to death.

10:14David Greene: Music certainly suffers from it. as do as almost everything else in American life. So it's got a kind of a rebellious streak. So that's also part of it too.

10:25Billy Corgan: I mean, I just, I think about maybe this is stereotyping too much, but if I had thought about there must be some rock musician out there who's big time into wrestling, this person must be bombastic, brash, just qualities that have never been in my mind. When I think about you as a musician, as a personality, like it, you're the opposite. what I would have imagined as, you know, a rocker getting into pro wrestling.

10:50David Greene: Yeah. Well, my life is full of contradictions. I know to some people, they think there's a lot more thought behind it all, but there really isn't. I'm ultimately really impulsive and my impulsivity has gotten me into a lot of trouble. So I think I've toned that part of my personality down. I'm just very much artistically a person who just jumps in with both feet. I mean, The greatest example is when I said to my record label after we made our successful second album that we were going to do a double album. We didn't have the songs for a double album. I didn't know what the double album was going to be about.

11:25David Greene: I fought them tooth and nail to make a double album to then turn around and figure out, okay, now that I've just written this check with my mouth, how are we actually going to pull this off? And I spent the next eight months of my life like in sort of constant turgid turmoil trying to figure out like how to pull this craziness off. And, you know, obviously we did, but it wasn't easy. It wasn't even wise. It certainly wasn't career wise at the time. And in many ways, it was a form of kind of suicide. But that's just the way that I am. And I seem to operate best under those types of pressures. I don't know what about my makeup or my life brought me to that, but that seems to be my most successful modality.

12:05David Greene: So wrestling, I guess, is an extension of that sort of that not thinking very clearly, jumping in, and this feels like I'm supposed to be here type of vibe.

12:16Billy Corgan: What gives you the feel of I'm supposed to be here? Say more about that.

12:19David Greene: For me, it's an intuitive faculty. I think you just trust that you're in the right place with the right group of people. you know if you look at my band there were times where I was like okay these are the right people in the right room and there were other times there was like these are the wrong people in the wrong room get me out of here sure and I've been back in the same room with two of them for for now seven years again I don't think I could explain to them or you why one day it felt like they were the right people and one day it felt like they were the wrong people they probably think I'm crazy but that's to me that again that's an intuitive thing I think you just say yeah, this feels right or no, this doesn't feel right.

12:54David Greene: How did I end up on this island? And I suppose it feels from the outside a bit herky-jerky and even publicly the way fans respond to different decisions. But I don't know. I'm an all-in person. I don't know how else to describe it.

13:08Billy Corgan: No. And I think what you're saying is so important because I feel like, and it's one of the risks of our show, we could kind of overanalyze why people love things. And a lot of it is just a gut feel. Like, I like it here, and I like the people around me, and I like whatever's going on. It's okay to feel that.

13:24David Greene: Yeah, there's no, I mean, start here, and people get grumpy when I self-aggrandize, but I don't know how else to put it in any other context. I mean, at some point, I was in a room somewhere in Illinois, and I decided that my life was not only in rock and roll, but I was going to be successful at it. And everybody told me I was crazy, everybody, including my own father who was a musician. There was no empirical data to suggest that I was going to be successful. I had no trust fund. I had no connections to the music business, you know, at least the people in LA, you know, I mean, I, by all accounts, I shouldn't have succeeded, you know, but I did.

13:58David Greene: Um, and it was just a felt sense that I needed to keep going and pursuing it. And not only just pursue it, I pursued in a very unique, specific only to me way in terms of the type of music I pursued, the lyrical themes, everything, including even the way I sang and I produce my records. And I had a therapist once who told me, you know, once you pull that off, no one's ever going to tell you that you're crazy again, because he said, I sit here every day and I try to manage people's delusions. That's literally what a psychologist does, is to manage someone's delusions, not to dissuade them of their delusions, but to say, hey, by the way, this is probably borderline delusional.

14:35David Greene: What's the productive version? What's the non-productive version? Like, if you want to take a painting class, yes, but don't expect to end up in the Louvre. Well, that's very Chicago, right? I heard the same thing. Hey, you want to play gigs, go to college, play gigs on the weekend, but don't expect to end up on the cover of Rolling Stone. Well, once you end up on the cover of Rolling Stone with that same delusion, no one can tell you. No one can tell you otherwise. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But it's not a perfect intuitive faculty. It's not like every time I felt that little ping of that's where I need to be.

15:03David Greene: In fact, a lot of things were mistakes at the time that ended up being course corrections that ended up be very profitable. I don't mean financially profitable, emotionally profitable down the road because I was willing to do the thing I shouldn't have done. I ended up doing the thing I was ultimately wanting to do. Supposed to do, I guess, is kind of the thing I'm trying to point to. It's like there's a lot of things we're supposed to do, but I don't think for most people, they ultimately, when it's all said and done, they do have regrets because they didn't sort of at some point sort of bet against the house.

15:34Billy Corgan: Can I go back to childhood though, since you brought it up you got into wrestling this is the pre-losing innocence time um because you were watching it with some of your family right when you were a kid in chicago yeah my uh my great-grandmother

15:47David Greene: was in her 80s uh barely spoke english belgian national and my grandfather was probably in his 60s at that point um definitely had his issues with life um very taciturn withdrawn so there i am on a Saturday morning watching wrestling, you know, 1971 in Chicago. I mean, God knows what I was watching. I mean, I, I remember what it felt like. And certainly the modern NWA in many ways is a reflection of that impression. What did it feel like? It's like somebody turned on the channel to the Mars channel, you know, like suddenly we were watching a program from Mars. Like who, who are these people and what are they doing and why are they screaming?

16:28David Greene: And what is all this strum and drang about it was sort of interesting to me and i didn't know what i was watching i mean you know obviously it's simple they yell and they get mad and they get in the ring but i didn't i had no understanding of the greek kind of tragedy subtext of the whole thing it was just like interesting to me that there were these incredibly outsized characters that seemed to be from another planet i think wrestling appeals to like the basis part of my nature it's like if i have a base level creativity that's where wrestling lives and music i guess would live on the higher level of creativity that might sound weird to people but i think it's fun to like do dumb stuff yeah and wrestling when it's great is dumb and fun at the same time it's not supposed to be you know greek it's not supposed to be shakespeare let's put it that way so it's it's the opposite end of a

17:15Billy Corgan: spectrum on creativity compared to your music i mean say more about that what what is the high level that you put into your songwriting and kind of your music career that is the opposite of the kind of base level stuff that wrestling gives you.

17:27David Greene: Yeah, I think music for me in its highest achievement is finding your highest voice, your highest level of melodic and technical capability and exhausting it completely and seeing if somehow that translates. Wrestling is really more like a communal vibe. It's community theater. It's like, can you appeal to everybody in the room? When I do music, I'm not worried about appealing to everybody in the room. And in fact, I assume most people won't like what I do. And that's been historically and traditionally correct.

17:58Billy Corgan: Speaking of more of the base level creativity, tell me about NWA power. Is it power with all the R's? How do I say it?

18:08David Greene: Just power. Just power. Okay. You can say it. It's just a little fun.

18:12Billy Corgan: The extra R's are not necessary.

18:13David Greene: It's a little, it's just having fun with the thing.

18:15Billy Corgan: Yeah. So it's on Roku now, right?

18:17David Greene: Yeah. Roku, most people know as a portal to other things. So Roku eventually figured out that they could create their own channel. So you go into the Roku portal, but you want to go to the Roku channel. And we're actually on Roku Sports Channel. They're building it up. It's a recent thing. So it's cool on there. They've been great. It's definitely our biggest look so far since I've owned the company.

18:37Billy Corgan: And for the uninitiated, what are people going to experience if they jump on Roku and they're watching NWA Power? It's an hour-long program, usually about four matches a show.

18:47David Greene: And it has all the traditional things. People, you know, getting mad at each other and talking junk about each other and just really, really high quality professional wrestling. I think that's what we do really, really well at this point. What we lack in, let's call it production, blow the rest of my fortune on wrestling, we make up for a really, really high quality efficiency in the ring. It's hard to explain. It's like having a very, very high level of in-ring product and emphasizing that as a sort of qualitative statement. It would be similar to an indie band saying, look, we can't afford a million-dollar record, but we can afford million-dollar songs.

19:22David Greene: And that's kind of our – that's what we get by on, and that's how we've rebuilt the brand.

19:27Billy Corgan: Have you wrestled yourself a lot?

19:28David Greene: No, no. I have no interest.

19:30Billy Corgan: You've never done it. You've been a fan, but have never done it yourself.

19:33David Greene: No, I've been in the ring a few times, and I've done a couple physical things, but no, I have no interest. I'm really honestly more interested in the creativity of it all and the art of it all.

19:41Billy Corgan: You have just been honored by the International Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame. for your contribution to the sport yeah what what is what did that mean to you well you know uh

19:51David Greene: wrestling is a very much a closed society and most of the people who gain traction in it either come from known families or have put 20 years in the ring in themselves and then they make a name for themselves coming in as an interloper i.e a allegedly famous person really didn't buy me much it bought people trying to use me and my money to get for their own gain but that's that's probably pretty obvious right building a reputation on my own name in wrestling that's totally distinct from the music thing has been a has been a 10 12 year journey and it's not over i'm still here um so it feels good because i have probably over the last seven years eight years probably hired 500 600 different wrestlers to perform in an nwa ring so there's pride in i've brought the business back i create employment opportunities some people that have worked for me have gone on to bigger and better things and i don't uh throw shade on that that i mean that's my facility in the business at this point if i can continue to grow well at some point we would be competitive at the top level but at this point we make our name on on rep and so it's part of building that rep and so that's

21:05Billy Corgan: that's honorable to me in the albany times union uh they did a story recently and it it this made me curious the way they started it billy corgan has his feet firmly planted in two worlds in one he's an alt rock icon as lead singer and primary songwriter of smashing pumpkins in the other he's the owner and promoter of the professional wrestling organization national wrestling alliance despite his efforts and high profile status as an artist and personality however he's found that the two worlds rarely intersect what efforts are you making for them to intersect

21:39David Greene: and where is that not happening good question i mean this is where you can can misread let's call it fans that you have um i'm the type of fan that i'm interested in whatever the people i'm a fan of are doing. I'll at least give it like a poke around. A lot of my fans, when I announced my entree into professional wrestling, not only weren't interested, they were against it. They were like, don't do this, Billy. Oh, yeah. You know, why don't you spend more time writing a good song? That was one of my favorite comments. I saw that pretty routinely. When I got into professional wrestling, I guess it would have been about 12, 13 years ago, it was kind of not the best period for my life publicly, musically.

22:23I was kind of on the rebound, but maybe they wouldn't have seen that.

22:27David Greene: So it seemed like if he could just get his act together musically and oh, wait, now he's going to do wrestling, like what the hell, you know, it was kind of that was the vibe. I think the most fair comment I've seen from fans through the years is it's not for me, but I hope you have success in it. And I think I've kind of rounded around to, okay, that's nice. At least if people kind of think good thoughts, I'll take that it does strike me as odd that if you're a fan of somebody's musical life and there are people who have been with me for 30 years um it strikes me as odd that not once could they sit down and watch a one-hour program and decide whether or not kind of like they owe it to you

23:07Billy Corgan: it's like they've loved your music for three decades like why not they definitely don't owe

23:11David Greene: it to me no they definitely don't but I'm saying I think that's kind of odd I'm the type of person who at this point would have been like okay I gotta check what uh what what is he doing you You know what I mean? Just the curiosity of it all. I think the most, uh, I've seen this through the years. Um, I finally checked it out. It's really, really good. I can see why you're in it. It's not for me, but I wish you well in it. That's like, that's perfect.

23:33Billy Corgan: That's what you're going for.

23:34David Greene: I think that's like, wow, thank you. Like, that's the, like that, that feels right to me. Like, I know it's important to you. I gave it a chance, not for me, but I think it's cool what you're doing. That's the right vibe. Yeah. And so over the time that vibe has taken over the other vibe and that's the general vibe in the fan community but but i've given up on thinking that because i have i don't know how many people listen to us on spotify last year but if like 0.001 percent would give a fuck about the nwa i'd been at much different point in my life but it

24:03Billy Corgan: just doesn't work that way well people definitely still care about smashing pumpkins do they do they i mean well let's see you're reissuing melancholy and the infinite sadness right a reissue of that album has it been it's been 30 years yeah shot the original yeah does it feel

24:20David Greene: like 30 to you no no it feels more like 20 i know that may not be a big distinction but 10 years is

24:26Billy Corgan: a lot of time and yeah decades of difference why does it feel like 20 and not 30 i think it's

24:32David Greene: because it's been busy i mean that album obviously blew the doors open to a musical life and i've never looked back i mean i've worked consistently since then and you know a lot of the music that I worked on hasn't come out yet from different periods. And then there were aborted things and cluster messy things that happened. So, but I've worked continuously and then I've taken on other things, starting a family. Now I have three kids, have a tea house. My wife has a fashion brand. I'm now doing podcasting. And then of course the NWA. So it's, it's, it's, I'm just as busy as I've always been musically, but I've tacked all this other stuff on.

25:11Billy Corgan: aren't you supposed to be like toning things down as you get later in life and not ramping up like what no i'm not there yet i'm not there yet i mean i don't don't don't be but it's amazing

25:20David Greene: you're just trying to add all this stuff yeah i mean uh if you don't mind the the slight diversion not at all maybe it's easiest to put in the wrestling context but i found that i had to do other things non-music to balance out my love hate thing with music and by getting some more life balance, I found my love of music came back like full force. And that's been about now 10 years of like, okay, I'm in it to win it again. And I can look back now with some empathy that there were hard years in there, you know, somewhere in the 2000s where I was like, it was hard for me to put 100 % of myself into music because I was just going to die.

26:00David Greene: I couldn't survive it emotionally and I couldn't survive the kickback. knowing I was making music at the time that not only was not working whatever that means but also was going to be wholly rejected not by the outside world which doesn't surprise me but like by people who were telling me that they didn't jump off a roof because of one of my albums but they couldn't be bothered to listen to whatever I was doing or everything I put out was the worst thing ever and even the other day I was looking for something because uh we're putting together a Zwan reissue which was the band Jimmy and I had from 2001 to 2003.

26:32David Greene: Yeah. And I was clicking around the internet looking for a song that I didn't recognize, but a fan said we had played it. And somehow I came across a Reddit post. I didn't read the postings, but I just saw the headline and it said, this is the last great song you wrote. And it was a song from like 2004. You know what I mean? I'm just like, oh my God, this is so crazy. Like I haven't written one good song. And it's just that world, that swirling world of negativity, trying to navigate that and stay focused. So if music comes from within, if the passion comes from within, that's easy. And so I've been lucky that I've been able to find it again with music.

27:07Billy Corgan: What is the love-hate when you use that phrase to describe your relationship with music?

27:12David Greene: Well, I think I should be clear. It's the music business. And as a big executive once told me, with an English accent, by the way, it's called the music business for a reason, Billy. That was the quote. It's called the music business for a reason, Billy.

27:28Billy Corgan: Yeah. What do you take from that?

27:30David Greene: Well, I mean, I'm in business now myself. I mean, I run a label and, you know, I do deal with outside personalities. And at some point, you know, it's about economics. It's about other things and whether or not your artistic boxes get checked or the artist feels that you're doing everything you can do when you probably have about 40 concerns that you're trying to balance. when you're an artist in the throes of your 20 something passion you can't understand why the record label which by the way you're making millions and millions of dollars for is not doing everything in their power to to make it work so you have the beginning story which is no one cares about me which every artist goes through then you have the wow they care about me but wait they're they're taking advantage of me most artists that are successful go through that then you have the hey i'm actually getting this done can we all work on the same team and then you then you realize the frailty of the human ego including your own and then of course there's the inevitable point where it all just sort of slows down or stops and then you find out who your friends are and then you know i mean i had my band turn against me i mean i had managers turn against me i've been in massive lawsuits i mean you you go through all those behind the music things uh that can break your heart i mean as i've said many times james eha of the pumpkins and i didn't talk, I think, for about 17 years.

28:51David Greene: And we were really, really close in the early days of the band. So to go from you're really, really close, you start a successful band, you're in a successful band, the band breaks up after a great run of success, and then you don't talk for 17 years. I mean, that's pretty intense. That's a lot of who am I, who are you, who were we? And now being back in the band together for the last seven years, you get back into like, well, what was that? what was the other thing now where you know it's like are we on chapter three or book three or star wars three or where are we at i talked to somebody recently and they were like how many people have floated in and out of your life in the last 30 years that's a tough question to answer i would say and i'm i'm i didn't sit down with a piece of paper but i would say if you took people that were let's call it in a form of intimate circle like they had your telephone number and you were in business with them or are you in some form of friendship or personal relationship with them?

29:47Billy Corgan: I'm like counting in my head what's in my own.

29:49David Greene: Not the closest circle like your mom and your dad, but like let's call it the outer circle and maybe even one more circle outside of that. I would say in those 30 years there's probably been 400 people that have come and gone. And if you want to blame me for it all, that's totally cool. Maybe it was all my fault. But that's a lot of people to come in and in and out. Yeah, and be gone. That you had dinners with and birthdays with and were there when their mom died or they were there for you when your mom died. And then you wake up one day and go like, wow, what happened to Bob? Like Bob's long gone.

30:18Billy Corgan: How do you reflect on that number and that reality that you're...

30:22David Greene: Well, there's two different ways. I think the kindest way is that it's a cruel business and it's a law of attraction thing. And when you're hot and you're making a lot of money and you're getting a lot of energy around you. And again, remember we were pre-internet mostly. so when you generated that kind of energy i mean it felt pretty organic because it was i mean when you walk through the mall you felt it it wasn't like somebody looked at their now when i'm in the mall i see people look at their phone and then look at me like you know what i mean like is that you either the point is you were either recognized in the mall or you weren't right there was no research to be done in the moment there's no like is that him and then double check google we can Yeah.

31:02David Greene: So that's the kindness version. I think that the negative version is just it's impossible to form and sustain real relationships when the center of the relationship is something that neither the artist can define or the people around he or she can define.

31:19Billy Corgan: Why can't that be defined?

31:22David Greene: I don't think it's any different than why can Shohei Otani hit three home runs in one game and strike out four times in the next.

31:31Billy Corgan: Touche, yeah

31:32David Greene: You know what I'm saying? Even if somebody gave me a magic formula and said, look, you can recreate your 1993 or 1995 success by doing X, Y, and Z I would do it, but somehow it doesn't work, it's like there's no magic formula, and when you do it no one tells you how to do it, and when you do do it, you think you know what it is, and then one day it stops, and I don't know, I mean at one point I think we had 11 charting singles in a row, and the songs were very different, it wasn't like one formula. There was electronic music. There was acoustic music.

32:03Billy Corgan: Yeah. You guys varied a lot. It was amazing.

32:05David Greene: Yeah. We were just on an unholy roll. And then one day it just stopped, you know, just stopped. I don't know. I mean, so I can appreciate that from a business perspective, like, hey, you got the thing they want. We're more than happy to whore you out. And if you're willing to whore yourself out with us, great, even better. And then one day it stops and you look around and go, well, I need another chance. And at some point they just go, you're out of chances.

32:28Billy Corgan: I mean, where are you now? You guys just did a big Asia tour. Like, do you, do you, what's your mindset right now at this moment in kind of the Smashing Pumpkins journey?

32:39David Greene: Well, there's no plans for the band to record. So that's where I'm focused. You know, we've, we've come off every long run with it, with it, with a plan to go into some other recording cycle. So this is the first time I think in seven, eight years where there's no plan. So that feels a bit strange to me. Are you at peace with that?

32:55Billy Corgan: Or do you want to come up with

32:56David Greene: the plan and start recording again well you're not going to stop me you know what i mean so let's put it that way i'm i'm going to work with or without anybody um so that's that's the given but if you look at the band from an outside perspective the band's as hot or popular or whatever kind of catchy term you want to use as it's been since like late 90s 2000 i mean and the thing i would point to and this is a obviously anecdotal because i'm using my eyes But I would say every show that we played over the last year, and you could go back even further, but certainly the last year. And we played, we did a full Europe run.

33:36David Greene: And I also did a, I did my own run solo in America. I did about 13 shows, 16 shows. And then we did Asia, seven shows in Japan, Singapore. And then we went, did two shows in the Middle East. Every show was at least, I would say, 60%, 25 and under.

33:56Billy Corgan: Hmm. That's amazing.

33:57David Greene: Amazing.

33:58Billy Corgan: Does feel good?

33:59David Greene: It's amazing. It's like, who are you and where'd you come from? But welcome. This is awesome. So whatever's going on with young people and what we represent or our generation represents is very, very interesting because I can't point to like one thing. It wasn't like there was a movie or a commercial or, you know, I don't know. There wasn't the one thing, but there they are. Suddenly there's a really young audience standing in front of us and we're sort of like, okay, this is great.

34:23Billy Corgan: Do you have any cultural observation about that age group that might explain it at all? Or are you just sort of like, I'm going to, I'm just going to enjoy this, whatever.

34:30David Greene: I have my guess if you want to hear it. Yeah, I do. My guess is that that generation in particular has only known the plasticine world of pop. Auto-tuned vocals, gritted drums, and the only time they can get anything else is from before. Yeah. So if they're attracted to The Cure or Led Zeppelin or Nirvana or Pearl Jam or like, at least they're listening to some point where high achievement met organic heartfelt representation. That's my best guess. And we're still young enough and playing at a high level enough and viscerally enough that it's sort of like, well, there it is. they don't even have to do the math like oh i can imagine what it used to be like it's like there it is it's still present yeah and i think you see uh deftones foo fighters green day nine inch nails um there's a lot of artists of the gen x times that are out there playing very youthful rock infused shows with no compromise production musically aesthetically vibe attitudinally if that's even a word.

35:51David Greene: And so if you're 20 years old, it's like there it is. It's not on YouTube. There it is. It's right in front of you. And I think there's something really holographically compelling about that. Now, that's my guess.

36:04Billy Corgan: I think you nailed it to me. I guess I wonder that there's something full circle about going back to what you started describing. We're talking about wrestling, actually, that you go through this love of something and then a loss of innocence and then reclaim the love in some pure way. Am I wrong in thinking that your musical journey kind of has followed that course too?

36:29David Greene: I don't know if this is an answer, but I mean, I've always tried to document wherever I am. So if I'm up, I document up. And if I'm bummed, I document bummed. I don't try to performatively be something I'm not. Now I've used artifice to create the contrivance by which I can present myself as honestly as possible if I don't feel me as I am. because a lot of people still to this day have issues with the way that I just naturally am. But the earnest messaging has always been to try to most closely represent what I feel. So if I'm losing, I'm losing musically too. I'm not trying to create bummy music.

37:03David Greene: I'm just being honest, I guess.

37:05Billy Corgan: Where are you now in your life that's being reflected in kind of the music that you're creating?

37:10David Greene: Don't honestly don't know. That's kind of where I'm at right now. I'm trying to figure that out.

37:14Billy Corgan: Figure that out going forward.

37:15David Greene: Yeah. I mean, I have three kids under 10, right? So nine, seven and a baby. So that's part of it. You like being a dad? Oh, it's amazing. It's the best. It's the best thing. I don't, I don't know if I'm really good at it, but I'm, I, I trying, you know, I told my kids the other day, yesterday they were driving me batty. And I just said, you know, I'm a human being. Like I, I'm not super dad here. I'm just a guy, you know, I'm just trying my best, you know?

37:38Billy Corgan: And were they patient then?

37:39David Greene: No, no, they don't, they don't care. And that's fine. They, they shouldn't, they, I I'm okay with them expecting the best for me. I I don't have any issues with that. But I'm also okay with being honest with them. Yeah. I'm definitely, sorry, philosophical, but I'm a firm believer in this idea that you don't want to be your kid's friend. You want to be their parent. But I think there are times where you could raise your hand and say, look, I'm just one dude here. You know what I mean? I don't have all the answers. And they're too young enough to understand that I certainly, I didn't see good parenting modeled.

38:10David Greene: I didn't, I mean, it was all from television. I mean I had three parents you know one beat the fuck out of me another ended up in a mental institution the other one ended up in jail and that's just giving you the cliff note version of the story so I don't have good like you know Sally was a great parent and I'm going to follow what Sally did I don't have any of that

38:33Billy Corgan: you're kind of charting the course on your own and figuring it out

38:35David Greene: well I try to remember what I liked about what my parents did like I loved that my father in his wisdom, he was big on you decide. He wasn't do this. It was like, okay, here's door number one, door number two, you pick. And here's the consequences for both. He always put it back on me, behavior. So I think I learned at a young age that if I was willing to think it through, I had more freedom and latitude in how things rolled. But I do think there's something about that and i try to do that with my kids it's like look you want freedom you got to earn freedom with trust i'm not just going to hand it to you but i we're talking about kids under 10 you know yeah wait till they turn 14 we'll see how good i am i'll call you back exactly

39:32Billy Corgan: well i am our show is called david green is obsessed and i always wrap up by by turning and saying um billy corgan is obsessed and explore some other just a couple of other obsessions like in a lightning round um i do want to start with smoothies though because you have a new smoothie line named after you at erwan which is um for the uninitiated and you should all consider yourself lucky because i am obsessed with erwan and i'm embarrassed to say that i live in Los Angeles and I go there way too often and my wife tries to get me to stay away from there because you can very quickly get sucked into these wonderful new products, including the OG goth smoothie from Billy Corgan.

40:15Billy Corgan: Were you involved in the development of said smoothie?

40:19David Greene: My wife is the foodie of the family. And she does have a relationship with the Air One ownership. got it so she had reached out to them and said i would love that billy do one of these and they were amenable to that so i let her develop the recipe knowing what i would like okay so until i actually did the commercial for them i had never tried the smoothie but it was exactly what i would have done so i was she nailed it she's she's really that that that that person so um what do

40:47Billy Corgan: you like about the smoothie like what what are the ingredients that i don't like i don't like

40:51David Greene: things that are too sweet it's like almond butter what's what's the it's i it's kind of got a kind kind of a almond buttery, peanut buttery kind of thing. It's tasty, mealish, proteinish, but very, very yummy. Because to me, sorry, we're talking smoothies now.

41:10Billy Corgan: It's a very important chapter in your journey. I did.

41:15David Greene: You know, I think when you take a sip of a really sweet drink, it might be attractive, like the first five sips, but then it starts to wear on me personally. So I like something that's like, it doesn't overdo it. You know what I mean? It's a little understated, so it sort of works for the whole drink. And they did an awesome job of like creating the colors too. I saw a lot of people commenting on the color, which for foodies, I'm not a foodie, but like color is a big deal for foodies too.

41:40Billy Corgan: Do you feel like the OG goth?

41:43David Greene: Well, you know, I was a goth starting in 85 when I was 18. And goth in terms of popular culture, I know it went back further in UK culture. But as far as American culture, I think it had only been around for a few years. So I was pretty early on the train. You were before it was cool. I'm going to say that was OG. I was long, long before it was cool. I mean, nothing makes me laugh now to see all these kids being goth, you know? Yeah. And yeah, so I guess you call me OG. I mean, I'm not pure OG, but I'm in the early classes.

42:15Billy Corgan: And I love the price. the og goth billy corgan smoothie costs 19 and 79 cents which obviously i see what you did there with the song nothing to do with that but i did think it was funny yeah it's pretty good um all right what's one more non-music obsession that uh you've not told many people in your in your network about but you're going to share with us um right here right now well let's see i can do a quick poke around um i collect records i'm sure that's not a big surprise i collect books

42:46David Greene: That's probably not a big surprise. I collect wrestling memorabilia going back to the 1920s. That's not a big surprise. I did have a period where I was collecting salt shakers. That's probably it. Salt shakers?

43:00Billy Corgan: Yeah. What got you? Just like the design of salt shakers seemed? I like, I'm not trying to make anyone mad at me.

43:07David Greene: So I'm going to start by saying that. This is my disqualifier. I grew up with, I didn't grow up with a lot of money. So when I, when I made money, I kind of didn't know how to spend it. so I fell in the obvious trap which is like oh if I spend a lot of money I will get x whatever I thought I was going to get eventually I figured out that buying buying something for 20 bucks that I was really interested in was just as good as buying a Ferrari I know that sounds strange but I literally got the same dopamine hit so what I started doing is I allowed myself to buy lots of cool little things so my house is full of lots of cool little things and I found salt shakers, historic salt shakers, going back to the early 1900s, there's lots of cool.

43:49David Greene: I think it's not as big a thing as it used to be, but there was times in American culture where you could almost tell the way the world was rolling by the salt shakers that were being sold at the time. So I probably have like, you know, 300 salt shakers, you know.

44:01Billy Corgan: And we're talking like ornate salt shakers, not like, you know, Mickey Mouse salt shakers.

44:06David Greene: No, no, we're talking about really cool art deco ones from the 1920s down to you know the tourist tchotchke one of a girl riding on an alligator and the girl is the salt and the alligator is the pepper so i love that um and then ancillary related to that and for the uninitiated there was a period after the war world war ii um where in order to get the japanese economy back up and running america started importing a lot of porcelain from Japan and they were marked occupied Japan, which told the American public it's okay to buy. Yes, it's from Japan, but it's occupied Japan, meaning U.S. forces.

44:44David Greene: Right. And this was one of the things that they propped up the Japanese economy with, was all these cool kind of tchotchkes from Japan. So occupied Japan figurines are kind of cool. So imagine a kind of anime version of a baseball player in the 1950s. That's kind of gives you the visual. So I kind of collected that stuff for a while too. I love these obsessions. My wife is against it. I will tell you honestly. She's like, can we get rid of all this stuff?

45:09Billy Corgan: No. I mean, go in storage somewhere safely, but yeah.

45:13David Greene: Yeah. But in storage, just not the same. I mean, maybe it's a guy thing, but I just want to show off my stuff. I don't know what that is.

45:20Billy Corgan: It's whatever it is. I like it and I'm with you.

45:22David Greene: My recent thing is I've been collecting

45:24Billy Corgan: um vintage movie posters oh nice is there one that you you love that you found recently i recently

45:31David Greene: bought um they did a an estate sale of the cecil b de mill estate i guess it must have still been in the family all these years because he didn't pass away for many years and i bought uh from his private collection a silent film that he had done that starred an opera star and he had the vision And as crazy as it sounds, to cast an opera star who was super popular. Opera stars, of course, at the time were like the rock stars of today. He cast, I think her name was Miss Farrar. Geraldine Farrar seems to be the name that strikes my mind. Anyway, he cast her in a silent movie. And people were like, are you kidding?

46:08David Greene: Why would you cast an opera star in a silent movie? But it was very successful.

46:13Billy Corgan: That's amazing.

46:14David Greene: So it's an interesting piece of movie history, this kind of chance that he took. So it's a beautiful, big, large-scale, litho-printed poster of her for whatever the movie was. It might have been Salome or Camille or one of those famous opera. He basically cast her in the dramatic opera that you can't hear her singing, that she sings in. I don't know. It's only it can be in movies. It makes no sense, but it was successful.

46:37Billy Corgan: That's amazing. I love everything that you collect seems to have some sort of interesting cultural detail from a certain moment, a time and place.

46:44David Greene: See, that's one of those things. In the 90s, I almost bought the Cowardly Lion costume that was available for sale.

46:51Billy Corgan: From Wizard of Oz?

46:52David Greene: Yeah. At the time, it went for$250 ,000. And I think now it's probably worth between$2 and$4 million. Jesus. You know, the shoes just went for$33 million. Wow. And the witch hat just went for, I think,$2.5 to$3 million. But at the time, in the 90s, the Cowardly Lion costume went, I think, for$250. But I almost bought it. But, like, it would be the same question. like people would ask me why would you want the cowardly lion costume one might ask okay right yeah and i and my answer is always the same it's like you come over to my house and somebody goes what the hell is that you know well that's the cowardly lion costume the thought of of just standing there and being that guy always makes me laugh in my mind yeah like what's that oh you ever see you know that movie you know so um so yeah but but now you can see the prices on these

47:38Billy Corgan: things have really gone crazy so well if i ever come to your house i know how to to endear myself to you, look for something and be like, what the hell is that, Billy?

47:45David Greene: Why do you have it? I'll leave you on this. I actually have the oldest recognized women's wrestling belt in the world.

47:54Billy Corgan: Oldest recognized women's wrestling belt in the world. Okay.

47:57David Greene: There were a few ones that went before it, but the first world title recognized, and there was just a movie about Mildred Burke that came out recently. She was the original women's champion. And when she became the women's champion in 1937, somewhere around there, women could not wrestle in most states in America. It was illegal. She was the one who broke that barrier down and opened it up where women could go earn a living on the road in all 50 states. So I have that belt and I bought it from the family.

48:26Billy Corgan: And there's so much more meaning even beyond wrestling in terms of the statements.

48:30David Greene: So if you come to my house, I can,

48:31Billy Corgan: you could say, what's that? And I can tell you the story. I just, now I know, but I'm ready to come to your house and take a look at that wrestling belt. That sounds very cool. Billy, this has been a real pleasure. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Dave. It's great to meet you. and yeah, can't wait to keep following where your journey goes. Okay, awesome.

48:45David Greene: Thank you.

48:52Billy Corgan: David Green is obsessed as a production of Campside Media. It is hosted by me, David Green. Our senior producer is Lane Rose. We are mixed by Ewan Leitrimuen. The executive producers of Campside Media are Vanessa Gregoriadis, Matt Scherr, and Josh Dean. Special thanks to our operations team, Ashley Warren and Sabina Mara. If you have an obsession you would like to share, hope you do, you can send us an email. The address is obsessed at campsidemedia.com. That's obsessed at campsidemedia.com. And hey, if you enjoyed the show, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Really appreciate you listening.