The Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan joins Nicole to talk about the band's new album, ‘Aghori Mhori Mei.’
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00:00Hi I'm Nicole Alvarez for KROQ and I'm here with Billy Corgan. I want to start
00:04really quickly by saying that I spent time with Agori Morimei and first of
00:09all when I read the title I could pronounce it right away so I was very
00:12proud of myself because I saw the video of you explaining it but what a
00:15beautiful title. The album three times made me very unexpectedly emotional and
00:21later when we go to the album I'll tell you which songs but the guitar work is
00:26outstanding Billy and it's such a confident album. It's outstanding, it
00:32really is. Oh thank you, thank you so much. We really, you know, we're difficult in
00:37our own weird way but we really wanted to make an album that people just felt
00:40really warm about. It was just that time in our lives to sort of make peace with
00:45a bunch of stuff including our past and somehow this record seems to bring all
00:49that together so when I hear that it really it feels really good, thank you. So
00:53you were on the heels of releasing a very ambitious rock opera and you didn't
00:58have to do anything for quite some time so a lot of people were expecting this
01:02in maybe 2025. The fact that you felt compelled to write it immediately and
01:07while on tour must have meant that you had some sort of inspired urgency. Why?
01:13Why the quick turnaround? Well when I was, you know, real quick when I was making
01:19Autumn we started during the pandemic and, you know, like everybody we were all
01:24locked inside and we were freaking out about what was going to happen and how
01:27long is this going to last and so in making the record, you know, the whole
01:33concept we ended up doing some kind of more I guess quote-unquote traditional
01:39pumpkin style rock on the record but it was really in the character of the story
01:43but doing the music I found I was like, you know, I still really enjoyed
01:48playing guitar like this, this kind of old-school way-ish thing and so even
01:55before I finished the record I told my partner in crime which is Howard
01:58Willing who makes the records with me, I said we got to go right into another
02:02record and we got to make a rock record. I just feel that. So the minute then
02:07when I started meditating on it I was like we really need to go back to the
02:11way we used to play. Not to try to recreate it but to sort of redefine
02:17ourselves in the right frame of mind or something and it just took a life from
02:21there. So what you heard is that started like even before the last
02:26record was finished being recorded. Is it fair to say were you trying to reframe
02:31the original mindset like the old-school mindset? Yes. Perfect. That's exactly it.
02:36Okay, that's what I thought. On paper you would think, you know, you pick up a
02:41guitar and go let's do like a Siamese Dream type song. Not at all. You got to
02:47get back into the mindset that you were in when you wrote those types of songs
02:50and then those types of songs start coming out of you naturally. It takes a
02:54hot second. Yeah. If you've ever, I'm trying to make people laugh, but if
02:58you've ever done a thing where you dated somebody for a while and then you broke
03:02up for a while but then you get back together, the relationship's not quite
03:07the same because you've broken up. You've got to almost kind of figure out
03:11like a new version of the old version. That's a good thing though because you
03:15bring with you the lessons that you've learned. So you go back, you go back to
03:19the old school but with a new version of yourself. It does take a second, right, to
03:23get your footing. Yeah, because there are some stuff that we did that, you
03:28know, it doesn't age well, you know. So even if you pick up a riff and go, oh this
03:31is pretty cool. You're like, yeah, it's a bit musty. Okay. But can we figure out a
03:35different way to say this, you know. And somehow over time it felt like kind of,
03:40you know, you cross the street and kind of pick up one thing and then go to the
03:42other side and try it. Which is really how those records were made back in the
03:46day. It was a lot of experimentation and then it just kind of took on a life of
03:50its own. So of all the things I kept reading, you kept mentioning the
03:55phrase, you can't go home again. And I wanted to talk to you about that phrase.
03:58That's a phrase that's always, that I've always carried since I was a teenager
04:03for some reason. I want to know when it impacted you and what it has to do with
04:07this record. Well, you know, when I was successful in the 90s and I had money
04:15and I had status, I fell into that temptation to go back to where I grew up
04:20thinking that somehow people would treat me differently or look at me differently.
04:25And I learned really quickly that nobody gave a shit. Wow. So it was weird. Oh very.
04:35Like when I put out a poetry book, I think in 2004, I was doing these autograph
04:41signings and I would do an autograph signing to say in Boston, like on the
04:46night there was a playoff game with the Red Sox. Right. And the guy from the
04:50bookstore would come and say, this is the biggest autograph signing we've ever had
04:54ever. And he would name check, you know, famous authors. Right. So in the hubris
05:00of the moment, I decided to set up an autograph signing at the mall that I
05:05used to hang out in Bloomingdale, Illinois, when I was a kid. Right. There
05:09was a Borders or something. It was the worst attended book signing of the
05:16entire country. Oh, no. I think the signing only every signing I was doing
05:22was lasting like two hours. Right. This signing, I think, lasted 15 minutes.
05:27There was like 30 people there, like nobody cared. It was like crazy to me.
05:31And even to this point, I'm just trying to be funny. I've never been invited back
05:35to my high school that I graduated with honors. I was an honor student, never
05:40been invited back to my high school ever for anything, not a charity function,
05:46not a come talk to the music class about your experiences. That shows you the
05:51world that I grew up in this pernicious, bitter world. Yeah. So when I did try to
05:56go home again at different times in the 90s, in the 2000s, it was like getting
06:00slapped in the face with a fish or something. It was like, hey, kid, this
06:04part of your life is over. There's no making peace with this. So when you're
06:08in a super successful band and most of the people you run into are fixated on a
06:14certain era of your musical life, you just learn that that's what they're
06:18fixated on. You can't talk them out of it. You know what I mean? That's what
06:21they care about because it's when they lost their virginity or when they jumped
06:25off a roof or something, right? People also feel safer staying in like the
06:29nostalgia of their lives for some reason. People just feel safer there. I get it.
06:34I respect it. You know what I mean? I'm not here to tell you you should think
06:38differently. I wish it was different, but I'm not here to tell you you're wrong.
06:41Right. So as an artist, you just move on into other pastures, good and bad. And
06:47you know, you take your lumps as you go. And it's not as simple as, you know, Bob
06:52Dylan talks about in his book Chronicles, he would make these records
06:55and people would try to convince him to be 66 Bob Dylan again. And he would try
06:59to give him Bob Dylan 66. He's like, it's just not that simple. You cannot. I'm not
07:04that guy anymore. I'm not on, you know, I'm not on Adderall and driving in a 66
07:09Buick. You know, it's 1982 or something, right? Yeah. It's just different. The
07:14clothes are different. The hair is different or the hair is gone, whatever.
07:17Right. So but I became fixated on the deal. Okay. I know I can't go home again.
07:22I know for sure I can't go home again. But what if you tried? What would be the
07:27results of like, what would that movie look like? Is it is it one of those sad
07:31Michael Moore documentaries? You know what I mean? Where the water's all bad
07:34and people are dying? Or what does that feel like? Is it? Is it a sad thing? Is
07:38it a happy thing? Is there something kind of beautiful about trying but failing?
07:43And so that was the spirit that we made the record under.
07:46And it could be all of those things. Let's get to the record because I love it
07:49so much. So a gory Mori may, of course, like a Dungeons and Dragons nerd, I
07:53immediately did a deep dive on the internet to try and figure out what like
07:56each word meant. And I found this Reddit site where they're trying to like, they
08:01all think they know the Reddit site is really funny. By the way, the things that
08:05they're saying on there are hilarious. But I want to let you talk about I never
08:10asked any artists about album title, but this one is stunning. So I want to know a
08:14little bit about it.
08:16Um, is the phrase cipher? It's kind of a cipher. You got to play with the letters
08:22and you got to play with the order and you'll you'll start to kind of get it.
08:25Okay. Okay. So it's 10 songs straight up. And the first thing I noticed was the
08:29guitar work. One of the things that I love about the pumpkins in particular,
08:34when I listen to your music, I'm not in the 3d anymore, I automatically go into
08:38another dimension. And it's fantasy. And it's beautiful. And it's scary. And it's
08:43dark, but it's illuminating. It's all of those things. It's a dream world for me.
08:47And you captured that right away. Track number one, Eden. Yeah. From the second
08:52it starts, I was very haunted. But then like that guitar jolts, and boom, I kind
08:57of knew from the first few steps of this record, that you knew exactly where you
09:02were going. So tell me about tell me about Eden.
09:06You know, it just kind of came out of a jam, you know, and once we figured out it
09:11was one of those types of songs, because somewhere along the way, we stopped doing
09:14these kind of long movie songs, you know, if anybody knows, like Siamese Dream,
09:17there's songs like Soma and Hummer and, you know, all these parts, and it's very
09:22proggy. So we sort of gave ourself permission, like, Okay, if we're going to
09:25kind of try to go home again, I guess we got to do these kind of songs. But are
09:29they going to be good? Does it have that feeling? And by the way, are we going to
09:32say something new? Or is it just going to sound like we're trying to be the old
09:34band or something? And somehow that song just like leapt out of the speakers? Yeah.
09:40Um, and you know, it's like, it's got like 14 parts in it, and solos. And I can't
09:47wait to play it live. I can tell you that every time I hear it. I'm like, Oh my
09:50God, I want to play this live so bad. Can you imagine a show starting with that
09:52song? It's just yes, I can. And I did. And I did. And also, we'll get to this. But
09:57the way you end the album honors the beginning of the out. It's like just so
10:01good. Here are the three songs that I got unexpectedly emotional by emotional. I
10:07was like bawling. It was Saigome, Pentecost and Who Goes There. Those three
10:13songs penetrated my soul. And I want to know. That was just my general
10:19experience. Tell me about some of the energy that you put into this and some of
10:25the feelings that you had yourself making these songs and then listening to
10:29them back. Well, I think you know, part of it and I think what you maybe
10:33unconsciously recognizes, there's there's certain tonalities that we used
10:37to play with that were both sentimental, but also sort of sad. Who goes there
10:42is melancholy, melancholy. I don't mean the record. I mean, that's the word
10:46melancholy, right? OK, we were really good at that. It's the way we would kind
10:49of do it. So going back into that languaging, I felt like, wow, I'm it's 30
10:55years later, 25 years later, and I'm standing on the same street and playing
11:00these same types of chords. But I'm saying something different, you know, I
11:05mean, it's it's it's the wisdom or it's the heartache of like, wow, it didn't
11:09turn out the way I liked because, as I said in a recent interview, I mean, if
11:13you would go back in a time machine and talk to me in 1995. And tell me, hey, by
11:19the way, this is the way your life's going to turn out, I would have not
11:22believed you for a million dollars. I was so sure my life was going to turn out
11:25completely differently in a good or bad way, in a good way, in a good way. I
11:31mean, the heartache that I went through between nineteen ninety six or so and
11:38two thousand twelve or so was like it was like something out of a Kafka novel,
11:43you know, everything from, you know, business people turning against me, ban
11:49problems. Those are obvious. Those are always hard to deal with because it's
11:52the family of the band, lawsuits, friends that you were thought were your best
11:58friends, just completely abandoning you. People used to ask for twenty tickets
12:02when you come to town. Not only don't ask for tickets anymore, they don't even
12:05want to see you for dinner. You know, you go through this whole like what
12:08happened to the life I thought I was going to have? Yeah. And of course, I
12:13think that's for everybody. I'm not saying I'm special in that. I just
12:16definitely I I convinced myself that I was going to have this other life. And
12:21like a lot of people who grew up with a lot of trauma, you end up recreating
12:25abandonment and all these types of things. So it's a really hard lesson
12:29learned. But I've also been blessed and I have an incredible wife. My children
12:36are fantastic and I have such a happy home life. And I think it's important
12:39also point out that James and Jimmy also have children and a very happy
12:44home life. So even though we've been through these hard times, including with
12:48each other, the fact that we all have this family now, both behind the scenes
12:52and we're back together as a family, it feels good to play that kind of
12:56heartache sound but have something fresh to say like good and bad, you know,
13:02or good and not so good. But it feels like it's from a perspective of
13:05humility and appreciation, not the arrogance of youth. Like I know what's
13:09going to happen. You know, listen to me. I'm the Pied Piper as you we all go
13:13off the cliff together at the end of the 90s. You know, I I've seen you in
13:17many roles. You've been a hero of mine forever. You're an artist. You're
13:21humanitarian. I love you in the wrestling world, all of that. But my
13:24favorite role that I've seen you in and I got to see it firsthand when you
13:28brought them here to K-Rock was fatherhood. I it is I feel like it's
13:34softened you up a little bit. I don't know if I'm correct in saying that,
13:39but it's a beautiful shine that jumps off of you when you talk about family
13:45and whenever I've seen you with your kids. Oh, thank you. How has that
13:48changed you? They're adorable, by the way. Oh, thank you. Well, first of
13:52all, credit to my wife. She's such a great mother. And we're so blessed. Me
13:58and the children are blessed that she's that's sort of the rock of our
14:00family. But to your point about me, I think I think I am a softie. The world
14:07made me hard. The music business made me hard and crazy. And my children
14:12forced me or allowed me to go back to who I really am. And best way I could
14:17say to anybody, whether you understand me or don't understand me is when I
14:22look at my kids and I look at their future, everything else seems so second,
14:28like way down the totem pole of the priorities. So how people view me,
14:33whether I'm winning this fight with this critic, and it seems so silly to me
14:38now that I was that guy and fighting these wars that meant nothing except
14:42maybe only to me. So my children have helped me reorient and say, look, you
14:47being available and you being somebody we can be proud of is so more important
14:53than anything else. And so it allows me to walk through life with the grace
14:57that maybe I didn't have before. But it's not say I didn't have it. I just I
15:01didn't feel it. I just felt like people were going to take advantage of me. And
15:04to be fair to myself, people did take advantage. Yeah. You know, I mean, I
15:09mean, I love where the band is. But, you know, there's been times where people
15:13sued each other. You know what I mean? You know, we didn't start a band to one
15:16day sue each other. You know what I mean? We started a band to rock. You know,
15:20when it gets into all that stupid stuff, it's there's a lot of heartache. And
15:24I caused it, too. I'm not saying it's their fault. We were all part of the
15:27problem. So I hope that makes sense the way I'm saying it makes it makes total
15:33sense. I think this is a record that both old school pumpkins fans are going
15:37to love and appreciate and be surprised with in some parts. And new fans are
15:41going to be like, fuck, yes, I think you made an excellent record. So at the end
15:47of the day, if you were to answer the question, can you go home again? How
15:50would you answer that?
15:53I think you go home again, but you're going to stand on the curb. You know
15:56what I mean? You can't quite go in. I'll tell you one quick thing before we go,
16:00right? Yeah. Not too long ago, my childhood home, the home that I spent the
16:06most years in the house where I was abused a lot and all that stuff was being
16:10sold. And it was being sold, you know, was being listed as Billy Corgan's
16:14childhood home for sale. I think I remember this. Yeah. And and, you know,
16:20I'm still crazy in there. And I thought, you know what I'm going to do? I'm
16:22going to buy this house. I'm going to tear it down. I almost bought that house
16:26and tore it down.
16:29So if I'd done that, at least I could go home again and stand where the house
16:32used to be. That's right. But the house is still there. It's all been rehabbed.
16:36It looks all nice online. So so I went home and I just stood on the curb and I
16:40sang a nice song. Maybe that's the best way to put it.
16:42That is the best that is the best thing you could have possibly done before we
16:46go. Just two quick questions. One of them is for a lot of us, music is our
16:50escape. And thank you for providing that in this like constant 24 hour vicious
16:55news cycle and this insane world that we live in. How do you keep your mental
17:00health in check without letting the gloom and doom be what's the main
17:06character?
17:07I think that and I've been through some serious mental health struggles,
17:12almost killed myself multiple times. I'm so grateful I didn't. I wouldn't be
17:17talking to lovely you today, but it's important to have something that's
17:22bigger than yourself. So if that for you is God, if that for you is family,
17:27if that for you is community, even if it's an artist that you really, really
17:31like. Use that inspiration to bring the best out of yourself. And when I was
17:39super depressed somewhere in the 2000s, I remember talking to a therapist and I
17:45was like, look, I'm going crazy here, something bad's going to happen. And
17:49they suggested I do charity work. Now, when I was super depressed and lower
17:54than low, the idea of helping someone else seemed completely crazy. Like how
17:59could I help someone? I can't even get out of bed. But something about the act
18:04of charity or compassion or giving of another seems to sort of dispel the cloud.
18:12And one of the greatest things that ever happened to me when I was a youth and
18:15going through all this abuse at home and everything was I started volunteering at
18:20the old folks home and I would go there once or twice a week. And all they wanted
18:26me to do was sit with the aged who'd been abandoned by their family and would
18:32cry because their daughter didn't call them anymore. And all they wanted to do
18:35was have someone sit, hold their hand and listen to their story. And it helped me
18:40get through my hard years of childhood because I was like, wow, there's this
18:44whole other world out here. And I'm not the only one going through stuff. It
18:47wasn't that it was Misery Loves Company. It was like, I'm not the only one going
18:51through this. So if you can find it yourself to do something nice for someone
18:56else, whether even if you just pick up the phone and call someone that you love
18:59and say, I love you, I appreciate you. You're such a light in my life. It will
19:03make you feel better, even though it doesn't have anything to do with you. It's
19:06crazy how it works. Trust me on this. It's like a secret. It's like a hack. It's
19:11like a life hack thing. I agree. You're an excellent participant in the human
19:15experience, I must say, Billy Corgan. Last thing. Do you ever are you ever
19:20curious as to like what your fans or your friends favorite pumpkin song is? Do
19:24you ever ask people, hey, what's your favorite pumpkin song and why? I'm this
19:28is just like a curious question of mine. Sure. Because I've always wanted to tell
19:32you mine. I don't know why. Oh, please do. But to finish your question. No, I
19:37don't usually ask. I'm honestly when I meet fans, and I get it, they want to
19:42tell me I saw you here. But what I really want to know is I just want to ask them
19:46how they are. I learned so much from talking to people. I love it. And once
19:52you get past that first minute of awkward, like, oh my god, it's you. And I
19:55was like, I just say, even today, I was walking down the street here. I say to
20:00people say something. How you doing? How you feeling today? You know, oh, we're
20:04coming to your show. Oh, great. Where'd you come from? Yeah, you know, it's
20:08amazing people. I drove four hours to come see you play. You know how humbling
20:11that is? Yeah, that somebody would get in a car drive four hours one way four
20:14hours back just to see a concert. It's like, wow. And that's the kind of thing
20:18that you you stare at your phone, you think my god, this world so insane. Yeah.
20:23And then you walk down the street and somebody's like, Oh my god, I've been a
20:26fan for 25 years. And I brought my daughter, who's never seen you play. We
20:31drove four hours. I mean, are you kidding? That's like, it's amazing. So
20:36to talk about me in that sense seems silly, right? You know, like, what's your
20:40favorite song? It seems like I'm going to give you a different perspective
20:43really quickly. I think it's a great conversation starter. And since you love
20:47conversation, for example, if you were to ask me what my favorite Smashing
20:50Pumpkin song is, it's always been and will always be we only come out at night,
20:55period. And you could ask me why. And I could tell you it's because it reminds
20:59me of me and my friends. At a time in our youth, when the only thing that
21:04mattered was sneaking out of the house at 11 o'clock at night in Miami and
21:07going out and the world that we lived in. And then from there, you can ask a
21:11million different questions. So I do think it's an amazing conversation
21:16starter and a way to get to know people better. Because we attach it to a
21:20memory. Do you know that you know how that song was written? Do you know that
21:24story? Tell me, tell me, tell me. I love that song so much. So you know what a
21:29zither is? No. Or an auto harp. I mean, it's like it looks like a little weird
21:37harp and you press the key and it plays a chord. You press another key plays a
21:40different chord. OK. It's like a grandma thing, right? Right. So I bought I bought
21:45one because I thought I might be able to use it on the album Melancholy. And the
21:49band laughed at me and they said, why the hell would you buy a zither? And I was
21:53like, I don't know. And they're like, well, that's a waste of money. So I got
21:58so mad, I took the zither home that night and I wrote that song and the
22:02zither and I brought it in the next day, totally finished with all the words. And
22:05that was my way of saying the band, fuck you. Well, fuck you is right. That is the
22:09song of my life. Like you don't understand. It takes me back to this
22:13place. And I I've always wanted to just share that with you for some reason
22:16because I don't I talk to a lot of people and not a lot of them bring up that
22:19particular song. But that's my jam. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. And I
22:25can't wait to see you on the road. Awesome. Cool. Bye.