20 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com May, 2016
ROCK&ROLL
He didn’t tell me [laughs]. I’m sup-
posed to be in L.A. for a few days, and
we talked about getting together and
writing a song for his album. If that’s
part of the movie, then I guess I’m
in the movie. He operates on his own
helium frequency, and I just follow
along happily.
Are you gonna see Guns N’ Roses on
their upcoming reunion tour?
I hope so, yeah. I said fi ve years ago
it would defi nitely happen, that it was
just a matter of where and when. The
chemistry of that band is a big part of
what people love. It would seem like a
crime not to be able to enjoy and ap-
preciate that accomplishment in this
digital era.
My fear is that a show performed by
people who don’t like each other
might not be very good.
Well, listen. I’ve been on the other
side of the coin. I’ve had people de-
mand that I get onstage with any
number of ex-bandmates because
that’s what they want to see. I’ve said
staunchly, much to my detriment, that
the only way that would happen is if
we were in a place of love and appre-
ciation for one another. I’ve taken a lot
of shit for that, as if somehow I’m ruin-
ing somebody’s generational memory.
But to me it’s true of the value system
of the band that I grew up in. We only
did what we truly believed in, even
when tons of people told us they didn’t
like what we were doing.
Last year was the 20th anniversary
of Mellon Collie and the Infi nite Sad-
ness. A lot of people would have used
that as an opportunity to do a tour
where you play it straight through, but
I imagine that’s your idea of hell.
The only way that would happen for
any album is if we staged it almost like
a Broadway show, where it involved
visuals and the music rewritten into a
particular form. Getting up and play-
ing an album that was never meant to
be played live in that sequence smacks
me as consumerism. That stuf is the
dregs of the music business, and I have
a hard time believing that anyone out
there doing it really wants to do it.
The trend does seem to be dying
down at this point.
Fans are bored with it. That’s noth-
ing disrespectful. The millennials love
Siamese Dream. Who would have
guessed that? No one is harder on the
millennials than me. But they love Sia-
mese Dream? Great. But I’m not gonna
go out there and hack around just to
reclaim some light that I don’t feel has
gone out. I’m still more than capable
of producing new work. I just wrote a
new song this morning.B
illy corgan doesn’t
know exactly where he is right
now, but it’s somewhere out-
side Albuquerque, New Mexi-
co. The Smashing Pumpkins frontman
recently began work on a fi lm project
that has him travelling back roads
along the old Route 66 and hanging
out with the everyday Americans he
encounters. “I’m still fi guring it out, but
I’m hoping to get it made into a series,”
he says. “I’m trying to rekindle my un-
derstanding and appreciation for the
core American value.” Corgan is also, at
the time of speaking, gearing up for the
Pumpkins’ In Plainsong Tour, where
they’ll play stripped-down versions of
tunes from their catalogue. “We’ve or-
ganically stumbled into a new way to
play,” Corgan says. “Although I know
that no matter how many interviews
I give where I explain it, there will
be some guy in the back of the room
going, ‘Why are they not playing “Bul-
let With Butterfl y Wings” real loud?’ ”
You recently quit Twitter. Was it re-
freshing to be free of that?
I’m not a big fan of social-media
models that take a lot from people who
have notoriety and don’t give a lot in
return. I’m a father now, and I’ve spent
a lot of time rebuilding my musical life
to something that I’m proud of. Get-
ting into Twitter fi ghts just seems be-
neath my position.
Original Smashing Pumpkins drummer
Jimmy Chamberlin is playing on the In
Plainsong Tour. Is he back in the band
full-time now?
I run sort of an open-door policy
with the band. We’re long past the
point of trying to define what the
band is. It’s gone through so many
iterations, and the subject has been
so delved into over and over again.
There’s no straight answer anymore,
and nobody seems satisfi ed no matter
what answer I give anyway.
On your tour with Marilyn Manson last
year, you surprised a lot of people by
just playing all of the Pumpkins’ hits
from the 1990s.
I said to myself, “Look, we’re going
to be playing to mainstream Amer-
ican crowds, many of which haven’t
seen the band for a few years. Let’s just
keep it simple.” What’s weird to me is
that I’ve played so many di cult shows
[set-list-wise], so that when I did that
it was treated as some sort of weird
capitulation. But we’ll never be one of
those bands that just plays the same 10
songs over and over.
Manson recently said you guys were
going to make a movie together. Is
that true?
Billy
Corgan
The Smashing Pumpkins
singer on the group’s
acoustic tour, quitting
Twitter, and why you’ll
never see the band do its
classic albums live
By Andy Greene