BILLY CORGAN: 'Why Would I Get On Stage With Someone Who Doesn't Call Me For Christmas?'

Australia's News.com.au recently conducted an interview with THE SMASHING PUMPKINS mainman Billy Corgan. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

News.com.au: Is there a battle for you between playing old hits and showing people you're still writing new material?

Corgan: I've come into a different place of peace with that. It's a simple formula for me now, I don't play any song I don't want to play. I don't care what song it is. At the same time I don't play too much new stuff and I don't play too much old stuff. Maybe the concert's a little shorter but the show feels lighter and more to the point.

News.com.au: Did you play songs you didn't want to play to keep people happy?

Corgan: I made a bargain in my brain which was, "OK, if I'm gonna play these five songs you want to hear I'll play these five songs I don't give a fuck if you don't wanna hear." I'd play songs that were a bit hard to digest in a live context. That was the trade-off I was making. I've gotten out of that kind of relationship with myself. It probably sounds a bit silly and childish, but now it's all coming from a good place. I tend to be reactionary. Sometimes you can create something in your mind that's not there. Right now we're not playing "1979" and no one's complaining because the show is good.

News.com.au: Do you feel like you have something more to prove now you're the only original Pumpkin in this line up?

Corgan: I feel my public persona at times has overshadowed my musical accomplishment. I get frustrated when I see people who've done less than me and had less success than me enjoying more ass-kissing. I'm held up to different standards. I partially asked for that to happen. I've always invited the toughest rock and roll questions with THE SMASHING PUMPKINS. At the same time I'm in my 20th year here of putting out records. It's not a mistake I wandered into the garden. I've had success literally for 20 years, that's a long time in a business that chews people up and spit them up. So I get frustrated when I feel I have to prove something. So in a childish way in the past my reaction would be to over-prove the point. You want heavy PUMPKINS? I'll give you evil PUMPKINS. You want hit songs? I'll give you hit songs, I just won't play them the way you want to hear them. I'm out of that now. I'm really happy to play the songs in the way they were recorded, in a way that the whole history of the band is respected. Because I'm respecting my own past. But I'm not a slave to do it. I've saved all my money, I don't need to do or be anything. I'm an independent artist, I'm not on a label, I literally just do what I want to do.

News.com.au: There are fans who'd want to freeze frame you in the "Siamese Dream" era ...

Corgan: I know. My friends tell me they saw Bruce Springsteen show where people would only cheer when he played songs form the '80s and they'd talk through new songs. It's a cultural thing. It's an old-fashioned way to look at music, the "hope I die before I get old" mentality, that rock and roll doesn't have a future. You're too young and dumb when you have your moment and when by the time you realize it you're too old and on drugs and it's too late. We're writing a new rock and roll story, you get up to too close to the sun, you burn out, you crash to the ground but then you pick yourself up and dust off what still means something. There's a lot of bands way past any point people thought they'd exist AC/DC, THE [ROLLING] STONES, Paul McCartney. The key for me is releasing new music of a high quality. That's where I differentiate myself from a lot of peers; they're just out there making money, they're not putting out new music and if they are it's shit music. I want to be judged against the highest quality of work not that just that I've ever done but that anyone has done. I refuse to become an oldies act. I'm just not interested. I think it's fucking boring. And I think anyone who thinks that way is fucking boring. If you want to come and only hear five songs they're welcome to, they might get those songs but that's not what the show is about, those songs are integrated into a much bigger picture.

News.com.au: What do you say to people who still think you're going to reunite the original lineup?

Corgan: The band has really been about the truth. We had a drummer (Jimmy Chamberlain) who was whacked out of his band on drugs, we kicked him out of the band because he was gonna die. You know how many millions that decision cost me? I was more interested in this guy living than making more money. Anyone else would have stopped for three months, put him in rehab and put him right back on tour. This is the truth. I'm gonna play my music. If your reason for not going, whether there's one original member, two original members, there original members…if that's your sole reason for not going you're not a fan of my music and certainly don't respect what I've accomplished. So you'd go if it was Billy Corgan playing SMASHING PUMPKINS songs but not if it's Billy Corgan in SMASHING PUMPKINS playing SMASHING PUMPKINS songs. Doesn't that sound shallow? I don't live in a shallow world. I don't give a fuck about the pop world. That world isn't there for me in the down times, when I doubt myself, when I'm scared or lost or feeling lonely. That world only cares about me when they like me. When you learn that lesson again and again you realise that the only thing that matters is what you believe in, what you love, those you love and those that love you. If someone is not going to come see me play after 20 fucking years because they disagree with the way I present myself and not even give me an opportunity… I meet fans who are excited to be a SMASHING PUMPKINS fans again because we're going to keep releasing new music. It's back to why they liked the band. They didn't love the band because they loved James, D'Arcy, Jimmy and Billy, they loved the band because the band represented something they believed in, they liked the message, they liked the music. What about the fan that says "I love 'Siamese Dream'?" Me and Jimmy made the whole record. So you're not going to go because the drummer's not there but the guy who wrote almost the whole record is there. They're arguments for the pop world. I live in alternative world, I don't live by those rules. I don't give a fuck about those rules.

News.com.au: Presumably you don't want to share a stage with your former bandmates…

Corgan: Why would I get on stage with someone who doesn't call me for Christmas? Because the guy in the back row who doesn't give a fuck about my new song, that's the only way he wants to hear "Bullet with Butterfly Wings"? They're silly arguments to me. I understand. I really do. I've been in that situation as fan, it's only one or two original members in a band. I've seen bands with members who weren't part of the original band and I really enjoyed the show, I enjoyed the way they played. And I've seen original lineups where they obviously hate each other and it's boring because there's no chemistry. It's more about people's fantasy. It's like their porn. It's their porn fantasy of my world but my world has never been like that. When was my band ever intact? The only time the band only really worked together on the same page in any way that resembles normalcy was "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" and even then I still did 85% of those songs.

Read the entire interview from News.com.au.