Corgan: Reissues provide “an insight into our process” 11:06 pm // Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Posted by alex in billy corgan, gish, interview, siamese dream.trackback
Billy Corgan recently sat down with music personality Matt Pinfield to discuss, among other topics, the upcoming reissues of Gish and Siamese Dream.
On the reissues themselves: “I want to create … an addendum to the album itself. And even where the quality level may not be great or the demo wasn’t meant to ever be heard by the public, it gives you an insight into our process going in, and … maybe even how we viewed ourselves coming out of the album.”
On James and D’Arcy’s involvement: “The relationships are really fractured. … I can’t work with them on a business level. I have no personal relationship with them. I think it’s unfortunate for them because they’ve cut themselves off from their own fans through the Pumpkins. And this should be a celebration of what we got right. … Siamese Dream now is considered a classic, and we’re all proud of that, I’m sure. The fact that we can’t celebrate that together is a shame.”
On the Siamese Dream recording sessions: “As the album wore on, and James and D’Arcy in particular realized they were not going to participate on the album as much as they’d hoped going in, it got very sour. Dark’s probably an appropriate world. There were many days where I worked 12-13 hour days … and they would never once come in to check on the progress of the recording. … They would just sit in the other room and just basically be unhappy. … The end of the band was sowed during the making of that record.”
On the advice he would give his younger self: “‘Calm the fuck down.’”
On the band’s legacy: “The thing I’m most proud of is we got the music for the most part fairly right. Somehow, in the midst of all this chaos, we did a fairly good job of the music. And the good thing is, that’s the thing that, pretty much, you get judged on. … At the end of the day, it’s pretty much gonna come down to, who’s got the better music. And I feel very confident about where we stand in our generation.”
On “Siva”: “Probably the first Smashing Pumpkins song where I felt, ‘Okay, I’m onto something.’”
On his public image: “I’ve been accused of being way too serious, and there’s some merit to that. But as I’ve often said to journalists, I’m in a band called the Smashing Pumpkins. I mean, I’m in a band with a joke name. So let’s start there: I’m not that serious.”
On his position as the leader of the Smashing Pumpkins: “Leader is too strong. [I'm the] ringmaster of an ever-evolving circus.”
Listen to the full interview here.
Loved the interview. Matt can seem to be too much of a fan but felt he keep the interview going. A fine line in the Iha/Darcy argument. Hard to argue that you need to results, but can you blame them for not checking on how the songs are going?
I guess that shows why I didn’t really get into Siamese Dream, the sounds all kind of sounded the same to me. I felt that way for the most part with Zeitgeist too. Will have to check out the rest of this interview
@Jonk, really? You “didn’t really get into SD”? allow me to be a bit shocked, given your frequent presence here. You are a rare kind!
I wonder why Butch Vig isn’t participating in the promotion for these albums since produced both.. he was a big part of the promotion for the Nevermind anniversary interviews
Yeah, I didn’t like SP in the 90s, but I grew to really respect them. I got into Audioslave, and read a newspaper column that suggested Zwan was the new great superband, so I really got into Zwan. I know not everyone likes Zwan, so I try not to post about it too much.
I wanted more, so I got the Best Of cd and dvd. I then worked backwords through the SP discography (Machina, then MCIS, then Siamese). Siamese Dream and Zeitgeist had a lot of Billy in there, so for me it slightly kind of took away the things I admire about what he does. I’m really digging this new line-up cause you can really sense every member’s contributions to the sound and it sounds natural.
That being said, what I heard from the Amazon preview tracks that HU posted last week of Siamese- I wanted to hear more haha
@Jonk, Interesting. You are the “anti-fan” in a way. But I think this is totally cool. Why not? It is just very rare that someone doesn’t recognize “Siamese Dream” as a classic unforgettable album. Fans or not actually. Again: why not? Taste is in nature.
I love Zwan too by the way. Their album is a treat, most people (Most 90′s SP fans actually) didn’t really give it a chance, arguing that “Billy Corgan can’t possibly be happy”, lol.
Siamese Dream is my second fav album after MCIS, I must say though. I guess I’m more of a “classic SP fan”. Although no, this isn’t true, I don’t complain and bash Billy enough to be labelled that haha! ;-)
@Jonk
That’s cool. Some SP is certainly much more “BC solo” then others. Was listening to some of the new live Oceania tracks the other day and was thinking that Nicole represents the first time that SP has really had a strongly creative and melodic bassist. Paz came pretty close but had to compete with three guitarists.
Well if the Siamese Dream sound/quality is truly due to the fact that it was almost “Billy solo”, we can be confident that the new mixture/version of the band is capable of reproducing something of that level. Most fans are hoping for that kind of result.
Zwan is awesome. In terms of future archive reissue stuff, that’s probably what excites me the most (along with the Chicago Kid songs).
haha I guess I can be an anti-fan sometimes? I like wearing jerseys of my teams especially when they’re sucking, so all the fair-weather fans can know what’s up haha.
Dang though, listening to that BBC stream of the remastered Siamese Dream- good stuff. Reminds me of Zeitgeist kind of. For the most part I liked Zeitgeist though, despite my earlier comment.
Matt Pinfield asks great questions. Who else would ask about Honeyspider? :)
That’s some of the most positive stuff I’ve heard Billy say about D’Arcy and James in a while. Great interview.
MSOTS is my favorite album ;]
I love Matt Pinfield. Good to see him back in the game. Best interview w Billy I’ve heard for a long long time.
Very interesting interview. You can always count of Matt to ask some probing questions, given the scope of his musical knowledge. In this interview, and also the one he did with Zane Lowe for BBC, Billy seems much more relaxed and willing to talk about the past with a little more optimism and objectivity.
Has anyone grabbed the audio from the Zane Lowe interview?
So Billy said the lyric in Rhinoceros is “open your eyes to these mustard lies”. Haha, in your face ‘Anonymous’ http://www.kissthisguy.com/sub_vote.php?id=8549
But congrats doug, you were right all along! http://hipstersunited.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/hu-podcast-59-astral-planes-and-record-store-day/#comment-19905
When BC talked about how he hated SP being lumped in with the rest of the grunge bands because he thought SP was more sophisticated, is he indirectly saying that he thinks SP is a better band than Nirvana, Pearl Jam etc.?
@Graves whats wrong with that? At the time he probably did think that. He was an arrogrant rock star. He admits to that. Has never said otherwise. He wanted SP to be the greatest band in the world. Same as Oasis were “bigger than the beatles” etc.. etc.. Its not like Billy is the first/last rock star to see themselves above other bands…
@Graves: I don’t think Billy is saying his work is better than Nirvana or Pearl Jam necessarily. I think he’s saying it’s different, it’s broader, and reaches higher. If you want to classify that as better, then so be it.
I see a conflict between art and entertainment, and most people get the two worlds confused because they are sold to the same audience. People who go for entertainment (usually less sophisticated work), get angry at art-pieces that they don’t understand. They often criticize challenging art harshly, poking fun and calling names like a child in a playground. And it’s sometimes hard to blame them when you have pretentious art critics and snobs telling you that a canvas painted black is a sublime piece of transcendency with all this depth, and then telling you that the pretty painting hanging on your mother’s wall is worthless. And implying that you are dumb for liking it.
I think Nirvana and Pearl Jam are somewhere between these two worlds, and are thus more accessible to more people. SP’s work varies wildly, swinging from high-concept sophisticated art, to simpler, more direct work that can be entertaining to a wide audience that doesn’t understand the piece on a deeper level – they just access the raw power of a song. And so SP is attracting both types of people, and the clash shows up in their own audience, and spills out into the world around them.
I’m an artist and a writer, and I have personally seen this dynamic with my own work. People get down right angry when they can’t understand a piece of work. I’ve felt it myself as a younger artist unable to grasp something – I got angry at that piece of art because I felt stupid, or that the people who liked it looked down on me. On the other side, when a piece of art is praised by millions and is clearly not as ambitious, meaningful, or far-reaching in scope, and is spit out by some fifteen year old backed by a money making machine while the sophisticated piece you spent months on is ignored or put beneath the bubble-gum piece, it is disheartening and unfair. This society looks for flaws more than strengths. You can make 1 masterpiece songs, 1 dud, and your album is knocked for that. Meanwhile the other person makes a 10 song bland fest and there’s nothing exciting to say, and it gets better reviews. It’s just like school – the nerds don’t like the popular kids and vice versa.
Go to any movie forum and read reviews of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. It is an arty, very sophisticated movie. Some people say it’s a work of genious, and many other people get downright angry with it. You can hear the bile in their reviews of it. They say it has no plot, no point, no reason for being. But it does have a plot. It’s just hard to understand, you have to put some work into it, and the critics who tend to like this type of work have a history of demeaning the ‘common’ people who don’t get it. And they usually don’t explain the meaning either – they want to stay separate – they are elitist.
So both sides are at war on some level, and here’s Billy, trying to reach everyone. He wants it all, which I think is commendable. And he gets a LOT of grief for it, so yeah, he gets frustrated when his art is put down while Katy Perry is lauded.
The Smashings Pumpkins WERE (And are if you ask me) better than their grunge contemporaries. And yes they were also “broader”, had a wider range in styles, clearly. Pearl Jam is awesome too though, but they’re an easier band to label.
Nothing wrong with what Billy said about his band vs. the grunge classic bands.
I didnt catch that part of the interview, but I wonder if it somewhat has to do with the cities they were based in? Seattle still thinks they’re the sh*t
@jibernish: Well said!
@jibernish David Lynch is definitely on the deep end of the art spectrum, he’s hit or miss with me personally. I prefer a more balanced approach of art with comprehension like Christopher Nolan’s Memento (or Prestige or Inception); it challenges the audience to really think, but doesn’t come off as condescending or pretentious and still manages to be thoroughly entertaining. That’s how I view SP’s work, art mixed in with just the right amount of action…of course compared to Katy Perry, Billy Corgan might as well be the equivalent of (insert some pretentious french filmmaker).
that was great … i don’t think i’ve heard billy sound that level-headed since … can’t remember when … guy sounds really at peace … hopefully it lasts
@Sean: I personally prefer Lynch to Nolan, but respect Nolan quite a bit. I like my movies a bit on the abstract, arty side. On the other hand, I prefer music that has more of a ‘handle’ to grab on to. I agree with you, for me, SP is just the right amount of action and art and all that mixed together.
And that’s my stance: that Nolan and Lynch and SP are all great – there’s no need to put any of them down just because you prefer one over the other. Art reaches people where they are, and we’re all in different places – so it’s great that there’s so much different art and entertainment out there. And as silly as I think Katy Perry might be, she is reaching a lot of people where they are – and that’s not so bad (just don’t come around here saying her music is awesome while SP is terrible). My beef with sugary forms of entertainment is the motivation behind it – I know a lof ot entertainment is manufactured to titilate me, to get me to part with my money. What I love about SP and David Lynch and other forms of art, those pieces are made first and foremost to please the artist, and if they reach others along the way, then great. Art isn’t manipulative in that way. Billy isn’t manipulative in that way. His work, to me, is pure and made with good motivations and intentions. I think art does try to manipuate – by pushing us rather than placating us. As you move towards the entertainment end of the spectrum, the focus is more on placating, dulling, and satisfying the audience. A lot of people just don’t want to be pushed. Billy has always pushed me. And I give him the benefit of the doubt that just because I don’t love something right away, he might very well be ahead of me, and I’ll get it in time.
anyways, i’m off topic and kinda rambling.
and by pleasing the artist I mean they are telling the truth as they see it, from where they are, hoping others will relate. They don’t change their words or visuals or sounds, moving away from the truth, just to get more money from me. So I can trust what they are saying, I can step into their shoes and see where i relate to them, with a level of safety becuase I trust they aren’t lying to me. And I can trust that what I learn from the piece comes from an honest, true place and I won’t go down some rabbit hole to nowhere.
Terrific interview. Billy also seems to be in a better place about the original smashing pumpkins line up too..
Great interview because it was all aboot the good old days with lots of new tidbits. Soma is about infidelity? Huh.
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