September 20, 2022 • 57 mins
Welcome to your new favorite music podcast, Thirty-Three with William Patrick Corgan. Each episode, Corgan, along with co-hosts Joe Galli and Kyle Davis, bring you an exclusive look at the newest smashing pumpkins album, ATUM, track by track. We'll break down the songs, going deep into the story, the lyrics, the melody, the connections to past albums and the connections to the world we all share. We'll also be digging into the Pumpkins' deep catalog to talk about their past hits, B-sides, and fan favorites.
This episode, we'll be premiering the track "Butterfly Suite," as well as the song "Eye," which first appeared on the original motion picture soundtrack to David Lynch's Lost Highway. And we'll be welcoming sound engineer, producer, musician, and great friend to Billy Corgan, Tommy Lipnic.
Make sure you like, subscribe, share, rate, & review the podcast wherever you are listening be it iTunes, Spotify, iHeart app, or wherever you get your podcasts!!!
And to continue the conversation use the hashtag #WPCThirtyThree and follow our hosts on social media:
Billy Corgan - @billycorgan (Instagram) & @billy (Twitter)
Joe Galli - @joegalli (Instagram) & @joegallinews (Twitter),
Kyle Davis - @kyledavisatl (Instagram) & @kyledavisatl (Twitter)
Still not satiated? Stop by smashingpumpkins.com for merch and tour dates while making sure to go over to WPCThirtyThree.com where you will find playlists, lyrics, and more on the influences that make the Smashing Pumpkins music you love. Thirty-Three: New episodes every Tuesday!!!!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to another episode in this musical journey
like no other, giving music fans at in depth, invigorating
an exclusive look at the newest smashing pumpkins album, autumn.
This is episode two of thirty three, your new favorite
music podcast. Every episode features a world premiere of a
new song and on every episode of thirty three we're
(00:23):
gonna break down that song with smashing Pumpkins Front Man
Billy Corgan. We're not only breaking down the songs, we're
gonna go deep into the story, into the lyrics, the melody,
the connections to past albums and the connections to the
world we all share. Every episode is a world premiere.
That's why you gotta catch every single episode of thirty three.
We're also gonna be giving you exclusive insights to previous hits,
(00:45):
b sides, fan favorite tracks from billy corgan's catalog. You
can expect to not only hear deep and entertaining conversation,
but also interviews with musicians, artists and people who have
influenced the new album autumn, and much, much more. I'm
Joe Galley, one of your hosts for thirty three. On
this episode we'll be listening to a beautiful song called
butterfly sweet, as well as the song I which was
(01:05):
featured on the soundtrack of the film lost highway. We're
also gonna be welcoming sound engineer, producer, musician and great
friend to Billy Corgan, Tommy Lipnik. He'll be coming on
later in this program also joining us on this journey
is my friend and broadcast partner, Kyle Davis. Joe, you
just nailed everything that needed to be done there. I'm
sorry about that. The dog's bark into the background. But
(01:26):
we're also gonna have all sorts of stuff on here.
The music, the spotify playlist. If you want more information
about the songs we're doing, including lyrics and everything in
the sort, go to w PC THIRTY THREE DOT com.
It's gonna be everything that is thirty three. But that's
enough for me, because you're here for one reason, one
reason alone, William Patrick Corrigan, the frontman of the smashing pumpkins. Billy,
(01:46):
how you doing with the dog? So excited? My puppy
loves you. We try to start early with the FANDOM.
I'm great. Thank you. Happy to be here, and today
we're gonna be taking a deep dive into this new
song called Butterfly Suite, which is the part two of
the thirty three chapters of the autumn album. As I
said in the first podcast, if you have or haven't
heard it, every song represents a part of this particular
(02:08):
journey in this story that I've mapped out. It is
the sequel to melancholy from and also machinery from two thousand.
So here we are in the third chapter and this
is the actually the first song of the musical. That
where action starts to take place. I have to say
in listening to the song, we were able to hear
it just before and fans, you're gonna be hearing it
in just a few minutes on this podcast. But I
mean it's just so beautiful in the flow that you
(02:31):
have there and it almost you get that feeling like
you're you're floating in space, and I feel like it
could totally fit into one of these sci fi you
know we are. We're going to talk about the tie
in with I being a part of a movie as
well from but like this feels like it could be
plugged into anything that's being made today as a major
motion picture. I agree with you on completely on that.
(02:51):
I'm waiting for the Netflix, this mini series that come
out with all this stuff. So if everybody's loving this,
make sure when they were gonna sell the rights of
that billy for you. We're gonna make that stuff happen.
But one of the things that really struck me about
it is, you know, interpretation. You've got this whole concept
of where this is going and I need you to
paint the picture for the listener. They're gonna hear this.
Do you want to give them a little sampling of
(03:12):
where their minds should be taking them as they're listening,
or do you just want to leave it open to
their interpretation? No, that's what we're here to do. I
actually want to explain for the first time the story
behind the songs, particularly in this instance, because it is
a musical. Every song is written and every lyric has
written to the narrative form, which is a kind of
a challenge. If you're just writing about yourself and you're
having a funny day, you can write about your funny day.
In this particular instance, with every song and every lyric
(03:34):
pushing forward the narrative of the story of autumn and
the lead character, shiny. This song is critical because this
is the first song where action takes place. The theme
autumn is just basically to set the mood here. Now
we open up on two spaceships, one to the left
and one to the right. This is the picture in
my mind as I was working on the musical. In
the left spaceship, at a very vast distance from the
(03:56):
right one, you have shiny, who has been exiled into space,
and right you have June who, unbeknowns to shiny and
because she sort of had financial independence, was able to
arrange through bribes to put herself into space next to shiny.
But they're at a distance. He doesn't know who's over there,
other than occasionally little origami sort of birds come floating
past the spaceship, so he knows somebody is sort of
(04:16):
being nice. He has no idea that this person on
the right, if you can picture it in your mind,
knows who's in the spaceship on the left. So every morning,
because she's in love with Shiny and has been love
with shiny most of her adult life, shiny is sort
of her God or her muse or her man or
however she wants to quantify in her mind. Is She
a Groupie? Is She a fan? Is She's somebody that
(04:37):
has a sense of destiny. It doesn't really matter at
this point in the story. And so on. On this
particular morning, like many other, they've been in space for
a very long time. Somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty years.
June gets up and sings her love song to Shiny
every morning, and butterfly sweet is that love song and
it addresses how she feels about him and how she's
basically sacrificed her the rest of her adult life to
(04:59):
be near him. In a sort of form of loyalty
and fidelity, she's placed herself in space, given up her
life on earth to be next to him. And so
in the middle of the song, kind of where the
song breaks down, unbeknownst to her, shiny punches in a code.
Everybody who gets put into space has a particular code
that allows their ship to break orbit and float off
towards the Sun and kind of an honorable suicide, which
(05:20):
in the story is called the march of life. So
as she's singing her daily Love Song, kind of Oklahoma,
kind of I love shiny type of song. It's got
a little bit of a wink in it when you
hear the song it's not meant to be overly serious,
although it is a pretty song and it has a
sort of disassociative quality which feeds into the narrative. Here
in the middle of her singing, this pain too shiny,
(05:40):
unbeknownst to her, because she can only see the ship
floating in space. Shiny punches in the coat and the
ship floats off towards the Sun and immediately she recognizes
that she's lost him, that he has taken the march
of life, that he is now on this inevitable march
towards the sun where he will be burned up and
be killed. And she doesn't know what to do. And
so the last part of the song is her grappling
with the feeling that her worst fears have come to
(06:02):
the fore. But yet, because of her sense of destiny,
she feels like she must do something. It's it's incredible
the way that you're able to paint what essentially could be,
you know, a narrative that would fit in a mini series,
into a three minute song. Yes, and also in my mind,
and that this is just how you know, my mind
was working and I'm listening to the song and their
(06:22):
spaceships and stuff lying through air. The spaceships that I
picture in my head are very, you know, late eighties
prog rock looking sort of things flying through space, and
so I'm just kind of trying to figure out exactly
what you're seeing is in your mind as to what
the structures are that are there and the way shiny
looks and the things that are there, because in my mind,
I guess it's so animated and it kind of ties
(06:44):
into things that I've loved in the media that I've
entrusted throughout my years here. But we're going through your
love that you asked this because actually you don't see shining.
The music to way later in the story. I might
be given a little bit away, but I guess it's
some movies, so you should expect that. Um, no, you don't.
Actually she's shiny. All you see is a ship and
you see June seeking to shiny over in his ship
(07:04):
and again she's at a distance and he's at a
distance that they can actually see each other. They can
see the craft. Um, each craft is sort of a
single person, beautifully designed kind of Art Deco of the
future spacecraft. And Uh, and that's basically their living prison cell.
It's very comfortable, they have a nice life in them,
but they've been excelled. In shinese case, he's been put
(07:24):
there because he's dangerous to whoever controls the the earth there.
You know the things that go on. You can do
you can do the math on the order of the
Earth Right. And in her case she's put herself there willingly.
She's imprisoned herself in her own version of this jail
only to be close to the man that she loves.
So you actually all you see in the beginning of
the movie. Beyond this sort of Intro, which I describe
(07:46):
in an episode one, is now we come up on
the two space ships floating side by side and as
June gets on top of her craft, sort of think Oklahoma, right,
something like that, like a Roger's Hammerstein. In the movie
she could maybe get up on top of the craft.
It doesn't make any sense because I see there's no
oxygen in space. or She just sings out of window.
It sort of doesn't matter. You can play as cute
see as you want, but the fact of the matter
is she gets up every morning and there is no
(08:07):
morning because in space the sun never sets. In her
morning she sings to the man she loves and she's
in the middle of this beautiful kind of Ode that
she sings every morning. How much I love you. Shiny
is her butterfly that she's chased into the heavens. He
punches in the march of life. You'd actually don't see it.
All you see is a ship breaking away and symbolically,
she immediately knows what he's done. There's no question in
(08:28):
her mind that he's made the decision on that particular
morning to kill himself. Now, because of the way the
march of life works, it takes a while for the
ship actually to float into the sun, so it's not
an immediate death and an earth the population is sold
at the march of lights is sort of an honorable
way to end your existence in space. So there's nothing
dishonorable about it, sort of fundamentally psychologically, but certainly shiny
(08:49):
has had enough. He's been in space for twenty years.
He wakes up on that particular morning, he says I'm done. Boom,
he punches in the coat and off he floats, and
the science nerd in me has just kind of been
awakened when you bring that up, that this beauty full
song is sung, but shiny, probably never hears it. Space
is a vacuum. How can the sound travel from one
ship to another? I don't know if this is where
your mind was at, but just in the way that
(09:10):
you're describing it is. Maybe there has been this beautiful
song that's happened every Earth Day, every Earth Thawn in space,
but it never really gets to be heard. And speaking personally,
I've had the experience literally thousands of times where people
will stop me and say you don't know what your
song did for me. You got me through this super
(09:30):
difficult time. You gave me the courage to ask the
person I love to marry me. You gave me the
courage to come out, because I was, you know, afraid
to tell people about my sexuality. You gave me the
courage to tell my family about who I loved and
that I've been in a relationship, the same sex relationship,
with some three years. I've heard thousands of these stories
and it always blows my mind the influence that my
(09:51):
music has, because music is like a Ray. Right away.
You want to talk science. Well, it floats out into
space on some level. So where our music go and
what it penetrates? Lovingly, Um we were really unaware of
our influence on people. Were completely unaware of that influence
on others, and so I think it's very similar. In essence.
(10:13):
She's trying to return the love that China has given
her through his music. She's trying to make it very
personal and he's completely unaware because he kind of lives
in his own little digital mountaintop and has for years,
and the minute he got exiled, of course he lost
all connection to his influence as an artist and as
a person on the planet. You know, we've we've talked
about that. These characters are not quite you but kind
(10:34):
of maybe a facet of something that you're trying to
convey your feeling at the moment. Is there something that
speaks volumes to you about having somebody who might never
realize how appreciated they are just looking one Dang saying?
I guess that's all I've said and it's time to
end that story. I don't really know because, Um, I've
had people through my life say I have a sense
of destiny with you, or I listen to your song
(10:55):
and I have to talk to you. I mean, it's
gone from everything from very sweet to very dangerous. So
I have a very disassociative relationship with others interpretations of me, Um,
not just the public personality, but how my music sort
of speaks to them in a particular way that they
feel they have to communicate that back with me. The
easy version is somebody stops just says, Hey, I love
(11:16):
the music you've made. It's inspired me. Like that's easy,
that's easy. That like it's like chewing on a cracker.
It's like feels good great. When it gets more complicated,
like I did this because of you, and now, because
I did this, I feel I've got to tell you
and then I want you to react, and if you
don't react in a certain way, I feel like you're
almost disrespecting me. That's where it gets super complicated. So
I'm not trying to overly foreshadow the story, but let's
(11:40):
just say on the surface this is a very complicated
relationship between two people who do not know each other.
She has a very intense relationship with shiny that he
is completely unaware of, and on some level he has
engendered that type of response. So in that way he
does have a relationship with her, even though he does
not know her. So in a way it's kind of
abstract kind of song about andem. You can take it however.
(12:01):
You want to foreshadow a little bit, you've got to
see how the story plays out to know whether her
sense of destiny has any meaning. I'm excited to hear this,
I'm excited to experience this, I'm excited for everything that
is autumn and I just gotta ask. I'm this for
myself and other people want to know. Kyle's get a
kyle uh, Egyptian God, same name, kind of considered the
(12:22):
beginning in the end, any sort of foreshadowing? You've been
googling Kyle. I'm very proud. I have been googling. It's
a wealth of information. Thank you. You know, I have
an interesting relationship with words and their meanings. I do
believe that the meaning of words, the Etymology of words,
the the actual phonetics of words is super powerful. UH,
some people believe that magicians cast spells. I'm not here
(12:44):
necessarily expouse that at this particular moment, but let's put
it this way. If you go back to Sanskrit language,
which is about seven thousand years ago, if my memory
serves me correct, one of the words in Sanskrit was
Wah w a, and what does that word mean water?
Why are we still using Wah with or seven thousand
years later? There's something about that that that sort of
resonates in a human being. You know. I mean the
(13:05):
sound of Wah to water still translates. So whether or
not a particular word translates into my own particular meeting
is less important that the feeling of the word translates.
And on that note we're gonna keep things moving right along.
We're gonna take a quick break right now. When we
come back, right after this break, it will be the
world premiere of butterfly sweet. Stay tuned. Hello, friends, welcome
(13:29):
back William Patrick Corgan here on the thirty three podcast.
This is very exciting. Another world premiere, the Butterfly Sweet,
the second song on the Autumn Mountain, but the first
song with a vocal. This is a really cool kind
of winky song. I hope you get it. If you don't, well,
we can talk about it later. This is the butterfly sweet.
Please enjoy. Sweeps, squalling rain to scant, three pinks and rain,
(13:59):
hello to without escape above the frights and brains, times
to wander. Loved a tone aboutts. It's sad on all
US run it's morning, go we bring good morning. Tell
you so do ever sat on, I I love hands
(14:25):
begun to hold you from fun singing out ons of flying.
I'll funt with my designs, her dancing's rents, which right.
It's morning going the morning swing shown to ever. Shadow
(14:54):
land has begun. I'm here. Way Stay with Gil please.
Scape's cloud eye t stay unto eye along. I can't
(15:46):
spray on, helve. It takes one time, helove. It's war time.
(16:12):
Have a sad tis AL has begune crash around the chest,
then a drip to palm like hell ranges as there are, man,
(16:34):
say dream with you again. Say What a Beautiful Song
(17:09):
that was, butterfly sweet. You heard it here first, right
here on thirty three. And now we're gonna welcome sound engineer, producer,
musician and friend of Billy's, Tommy Lipnick, to the program Tommy,
welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Twenty eight
years I've known you, Tommy, and the reason I wanted
to have you on to this show today for our
(17:29):
second episode is because you're probably one of the only
people that was actually at the melancholy sessions, the machine
a sessions, and also the autumn sessions. So you've spanned
all three concept albums that the smashing pumpkins have made.
So let's start here. When I first talked to you
about doing another concept album, the third in the trilogy,
give me a sense of what your first thought was. Yeah,
(17:50):
you're the guest buddy. Okay, sorry. Oh, I'm loving this
so far. This is perfect the banter. You guys all
have headphones and I'm doing it on a freaking eye. Well,
you are calling from Pakistan. Yes, you know. Um, I've
always thought that you had a vision much bigger that
you never finished, and so I thought that this is a,
(18:12):
you know, another installment, if you will, you explain this
to me whatever years ago, about your installment or your
series of records and visuals that went with this, and
I don't think if they ever were finished. And I
think we're getting to a better a better position in
the story now. Well, it's funny that you mentioned that,
because part of the thing was when we did our
(18:34):
first concept album, which was melancholy, I didn't want to
talk about the concept much because we were under such
dress from the press and seemed like every word that
came out of my mouth that was started being attacked
by so my way of dealing with fame at that
point was just become this character zero and sort of
high behind the veneer, of shaving my head, sort of
neutralizing my public personality and, strangely enough, of course, going
(18:55):
backwards in one way on the persona. The band seemed
to get bigger and I am more well known for
being a Weirdo. So I never really had to totally
explain the concept. I tried to explain the concept to
a certain degree on the machine album, which was much
more about the band falling the part which I'm gonna
ask you about in a second. And so this is
really the first time of the three concept records D
(19:18):
and Now I'm actually gonna explain the process, the way
the record was made and also the thematic concepts behind it.
Let's go back real quick to melancholy, because you were there. Um,
did you have a sense then that I was making
something conceptual? I don't remember if I talked to you
about at the time. No, funny, you were just saying
that I was. I was thinking about that and and
I can actually remember we towards the end, Um, we
(19:41):
were all sitting around one night, you and I and
I think flawed maybe, and you just said had. Finally,
that showed me some sketches and some ideas about where
it went next, which then came Machina and everything. So
it was right at the end of melancholy. Hadn't fleshed
out the idea to me before the end of it.
And then how I love the fact, guys, that you
(20:04):
have basically created this trilogy. And the fact of the
matter is, at the beginning I was a fan of
the music back in the day and I never realized
it was a concept album. I just thought it was
a bunch of songs that hit me on the feelings
that I felt and everything like that. Then I hear
that there's a second part, obviously, and here we're in
part three. Looking at the time, Tommy, is this where
you thought the story was gonna go? Did Billy ever
(20:25):
share like so part three, you know, all those years ago,
I know exactly the end goal here. Um, yes, I
didn't think it would take quite so long. I thought
it would come a little more rapidly, you know, one
and then maybe another record, than than the second part,
than the third. I didn't think it would take whatever
it's been twenty five years to get to part three.
(20:45):
But it was a very interesting thing because once again
the time and the pressure and record company and MTV
and all that crap was happening in ninety for whatever Um.
And so all of a sudden, I actually I remember
B c when you were telling me about it, I
wanted to go right into machina and there was issues
(21:08):
with business and stuff and releasing it for free and this,
that and the other, and went right in and started recording. Uh,
and I think that's right around Howard was there at
the Riviera Um and just started recording the second part
and then we finally explained to me the whole story
and I thought we wouldn't be years from now. I
(21:29):
thought we'd be five years from now or five years
when the band broke up. I mean that pretty much
ended in my mind. That ended the concept that it
would ever kind of get a third act. I love
doing the concept records. I know it's sort of obscure
to people, but that's also part of the point of
the podcast, is actually explaining all this work, because it's
antithetical on one level to a pop rock career. Right,
(21:50):
pop rock career, you just want to make the best
catchy songs, get on the radio, have a bunch of
people show up and with your lighters to do work
that's more like a movie or a movie soundtrack for
a set of characters which are not wholly explained, is very,
very confusing the public. So I understand that. I guess
that's why I'm sort of why don't you have you
on his guest is because you were actually in the
room when these records were being made. How much of
(22:10):
a sense did you have that I was going after characters,
in essence, playing someone different than myself on the public
side of things? Interesting? Uh. Well, the point is, knowing
you so well as a person, Um, I don't think
people realize that zero was a character and you've got
a lot of heat and all that nonsense going on
at the time. But then when you fleshed out the
(22:32):
idea to me, the whole thing made sense, Um, and
that's where machine and one, a machina two and the
last and the ghost child, you know, all those other
things that sort of everyone knows about now, but the
time I think, Um, Um, everyone agrees, as you just said, uh,
that they just thought it was a pop record. And
(22:52):
I remember you and I talking about nineteen, seventy nine
and just how does that fit in the whole thing?
And you said, Oh, you're just like that, as it
sounds like new order. Um, but yeah, I for could compliment. Yeah,
I believe it for us, yes, Um, and it was
just one of those things that it all made sense
to me being there, but if you just took it,
(23:14):
if you took it in pieces, as singles, as the
way the music industry used to be, none of it
made sense. It was a cohesive piece of work I
could see coming together, but I don't think the public
really got it. Maybe because some of the super fans,
because I remember the Machinea, the free pressing was just like,
you know, priceless if you can get your hands on one.
(23:36):
So there were some people that were understanding it and
understanding that it was more than one record, two, three, four,
but I think the public missed the whole book. This
is slightly indulgent, but I think it's interesting in this
particular form being a public two things I'm gonna ask you.
The first one there's a follow up. The first question is,
so there's the character of zero and then five years
(23:57):
later there was the character of glass and now twenties
something years later, we have the character of shiny in
the new record. The characters that I've played in public.
I've tried to explain to people through the years that
I'm actually not those characters. But you actually know the
person that I really am, your godfather to my son, Augustus,
you know. You know my family, you knew my father. Heck,
you even knew my mother, you know, who's passed away
now for Cheez, twenty some years right, twenty seven years
(24:20):
actually today, today we're recording, this would have been here
seventy fifth birthday. So God bless my mother. So the
indulgent question is, how different am I, the person that
you know, versus what the Public Perceives need to be
Visa v through these characters? UH, pretty much polar opposite.
People don't understand your humor. Um, they don't understand you're
a normal guy that loves baseball and they they really
(24:47):
it's maybe a testament to the depth of the characters,
but the people really believe you are these characters and
I think that you know when people meet you in person,
especially friends of mine that haven't met you over the
last three decad AIDS, so like, Oh wow, billy's a
lot nicer than I read and I'm guilty of this.
I am. I am definitely guilty. This billy can tell
(25:08):
the story. I met him. He's got a zero gear
from head to toe and I said, can I ask
you a question? He said, Kyle Shoe, and I said, uh,
is this just something you had personally made for yourself,
or is this like promotion? What? And he looked at
me and he goes do you think I'm and I said,
what do you mean? You're a rock star, you're not
a guy to me, you're not a normal human being.
I don't understand you. And he goes, Kyle, it's to
promote an album. I I'm a normal person. Why would you?
(25:31):
Why would you even think that? So you're right, I am.
I worked with the man. I'm guilty of it every
day going, oh, he's not supposed to curse on my podcast. Oh,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Well, the funny thing is that
people would think that, you know, it would be this incredible,
you know, work being done every day then, back then,
I'm not a Vegan, but back then billy and I
(25:52):
would go to demon dogs, which was a very legendary
famous spot in Chicago and just hang out and talk
and very, very normal. But people, I think it's you know,
it's a misconception. It's maybe people want to read into it,
but it's not not him. He's been my best friend
most of my life. Slight diversion then, on the question,
(26:13):
because you've become friends with and know some of the
biggest musicians in the world. We don't have to name drop,
but you would certainly know a lot of Tommy's friends.
I'm giving you a little the public can't see what
you're doing. This is a podcast, uh, it's it's not
a visual medium. Let's establish that matter. But real quick,
do you do you think the public, because they're desirous
(26:35):
of people in essence being larger than life, that the
personalities that you know either adapt that as their personality
or they really are larger than life and I'm just
a weird, normal person who sort of stumbled into something
bigger than myself. What's your sense of that? That's a really,
actually good question, because most people you know, we grew
up on Bowie and, for example, James Addiction New Order.
(26:57):
I think those, especially you know sad lean curtis, who's
no longer with us, he succumbed to being Ian Curtis
of joy division and he couldn't take it and he
ultimately took his own life. But I think that a
lot of people are. It basically falls into two categories.
From people that are a complete persona on stage and
(27:21):
then they turn it off when they come on stage.
And I know some people I live in Las Vegas
for a while and some people that are from there
that have done very, very well. Um, they can walk
out of a stadium with the crowd and nobody knows
who they are. Um, I don't know if it's it's
because of what has happened. Um, you know, the public's
(27:43):
understanding of Billy, shall I say, or something along those lines. Um,
I'll tell you one thing. Six Five, he cannot do that.
But you find guys that played it, you know, fifty
people and just walk out, you know, without luggage and
nobody cares. A lot of people seem to. And then
you see it a lot in the business with some
(28:04):
some friends of both of ours, that the character or
the person they play consumes them and they have to
try and live up to that. You know, did that
life of excess or whatever or, you know, opulence and
it just doesn't work for them. And Uh, I think
is a good balance between the two. All Right, here's
(28:25):
my other indulgent question, because you really are when the
only people on this planet has actually been in the
room with the band over various eras, not only the
band in rehearsal, the band on stage, but also how
the band works and records. I'm going to toss this
to you as an open question. I'm really curious for
the answer. What is your perception of the way the
band actually works in terms of the recording environment? Can
(28:47):
you take people into the room because you've actually been
there for countless hours? Um, it's interesting. I think it's
like from from other people that I've worked with and
or seen witnessed. I think it's different in the way
that it's a lot more collaborative. But then you know,
(29:08):
a lot of people give you a lot of grief,
or used to or still do, that you do everything,
which is in one sense true, one sense not. But
I think what you your basic, your real talent, is
throwing everything against the wall and finding the best parts.
So the band, you guys spend hours and hours working
on things in the old days. I think it's changed now.
(29:31):
It was more of a band scenario before and able
to sort of, it's still the best parts of that
out and then continue to focus on those bits. And
actually I think that that's something. You know, the riffs
and the things that we just did. A NATURVILLE is
very similar to that, but it's one of it's a
lot of people just get songs. One Guy Brings in
(29:55):
a song and then that's the way it is and
you just recorded edited. I think that it's more of
a give and take between everyone, and then you're really
more of a producer and songwriter than just a songwriter,
because you see the bigger picture. You can pick something
out of you know in the old days, for example,
(30:16):
one a riff that James had and a lick that
Jimmy played in. You know something and reverse those put
them together and then you have what you end up
hearing on the record. I don't think a lot of
other people work like that. If there's, you know, it's
either everybody. It's kind of like what they call it,
Orchestra leader Um. You're able to find the parts that
(30:38):
are good and then continue to push in that directly.
Last bit. We're a little tight on time, but you
know I've have taken a certain amount of grief through
the years for avoiding the guitar at times and focusing
on the synthesizer. So, truth be told, my obsession or
possession with the synthesizer started with you and it actually
dovetails into the song that we're going to play as
the sort of classic song for the day, which is
(30:59):
I which you were also in the room for the day.
I recorded it by myself in that particular instance, and
of course we'll play the song in a minute. I
did the song completely by myself because the band was
all away, everybody was away on holiday, and had to
turn this song and for a movie soundtrack, and so
Tommy brought a bunch of inches sins into the studio.
So this is the first time I ever worked with
really truly ventured sins, and together we put that track
together in one day, and so what you hear is
(31:20):
the result of me and Tommy working on that one day.
But talk really quickly about your love of synthesizers and
how it sort of fed into what became such a
critical part of the smashing pumpkin sound. Well, I think
the most interesting thing is is the balance between Billy's
love of uh, you know, metal and hard rock, and
then also a love of, you know, older eighties cent stuff.
(31:41):
And I happened to be a big scented vintage synth
fan and I had a thing, if you remember BC,
called Synthasaurus at this giant rack with basically one of
every sin made into a rack, and it was just
like handy. It was like handing a kid candy. He
just poked in one and poked in the other. And
what is this one? And this one a wave sent
(32:04):
this one's analog, this one's digital, and we just sat
there and played with it and it and it became
so seamlessly molded in and woven through the guitar parts
that it really brought a whole new sound out and
it just like it was experimental, just like throw. It's
like it's like throwing BC, throwing you a different tuning
(32:25):
guitar and see what you come up. So it's your fault.
That's the point. I just wanted you on the public
record that the synthesizer part of the sash, because it's
your fault. I thought that's where this was going, that
love it or leave it. The Smashing Cup kints fans.
We're gonna blame you for this. Other they love it
or hate it. That's fine, as long as they buy
me some more sense. Cool. Well, Tommy, thank you so
much for joining us on this portion of the podcast.
We're gonna take another quick break. When we come back,
(32:46):
we're gonna be listening to and breaking down the song
I featured in the soundtrack for the film lost highway.
Stay tuned. This is thirty three. We'll be right back.
(33:10):
I like, I wait, I stop, I is te I am,
I'm I'm out. I think cale. Is it won? I
(33:39):
can't sleep all to me. Is it the one? I
to the gate, so to Muse S to o r enough,
(34:28):
just such a sky. It taste wor? Is it one right,
(35:11):
can't see yea. Is it one you to the gate
(35:36):
to sell me, Tay to right, your your yours. You're normal,
(36:11):
Jim Sat, Jim Jist said. You're you're welcome back, music fans,
(37:51):
you just listened to. I featured in the nineteen seven
David Lynch Film Lost Highway, starring Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette.
You can rent the film on Amazon, itunes and Google
play right now. The song was also featured on the
rotten apple's greatest hits compilation that was released in November
of two thousand one billy. Tell me a little bit
about how this song got into this movie and tell
(38:14):
me anything you can about David Lynch, because I am
obsessed with here. Let's take one quick step back. Isn't
it funny that Patricia Arquette was in that movie and
yet here in the N W A, our wrestling company,
we work with David Arquette, we just saw the other
day during our taping. So we had this weird six
degrees of separation with the arquette family, both in wrestling
in the movie. Um, I got a call. Somebody said
(38:35):
David Lynch wants to talk to you about putting a
song in this movie. Howard willing, the producer of the
new album out, was there that day and I was
working on the door album, and so I sent a
song from that album that I was working on, called
tear or tear. I can never make up my mind
how to pronounce it. Well, first I met with David
Lynch at his house and he told me what he
was looking for. So then I sent him the song
(38:56):
and then about a week later they said he wants
to talk to you and I kind of got the
feeling it wasn't in that well, and I do a
very bad David Lynch impression, but he goes billy. That's
just not gonna work and he didn't like the song
at all. Were you a David Lynch fan going into this?
By the way, I don't remember when Blue Velvet came out,
but I remember seeing in the theater and thinking like
obviously this was a new visionary and that's been proven
(39:17):
out over time. And David's a lovely person, really easy
to communicate with, certainly a fantastic artist. So I didn't
want to disappoint him and I certainly wanted my song
in a David Lynch movie. So now I'm scrambling because
now I need a fresh idea because everything else I
have is sort of tabled for the door album. So
I had been Um I was with a music a
publishing company which was, I believe, Virgin Music Publishing, Chris List, sorry,
(39:41):
it was Christmas music publishing, and I'd signed a big
deal and as part of the big deal they would
try to put you in collaborations with things. So one
day this guy called. His name was Tom sturgis. Who
happened to be the son of Preston Sturgis, who was
one of the most famous screenwriters in Hollywood history, and
Tom had certainly gotten a lot of his father's intelligence.
was really a really brainy guy. Saw something in me
very early on and so I'm forever in his dead anyway,
(40:01):
Tom Calls Me and says, would you be open to
working with Shaquille O'Neil? And now Shaquille O'Neil at this
point is one of the biggest stars in the NBA
and obviously still a massive star, and he was putting
out wrap records and I was a huge fan. I
used to go to bulls games all the time. So
I'm thinking, Oh, this is kind of a fun thing,
and so I sat down to this rickety piano that
I had in New York when I was living there,
and I had written this little riff thinking of like
kind of, I don't know, Dr Dre or something that's
(40:23):
like something that would kind of loop really well, like
a so cal, kind of a cool Dr Dre kind
of under melody type of thing. And I wrote the
melody and I so I felt good, okay, now I've
got something. So when I called Shaquilla and Neil on
the phone, I can at least say I've got something
and I'm coming into a situation sort of prepared. That
seemed to me to be professional. So I called Shaquille
and Neil on the phone and it sounded like there
(40:44):
was a party going on like behind him, like if
there's not about, there's like five people and I can't
do a good shack impression, but the conversation went something
like this. Hey, what's up? I explain who I am. Yeah,
I heard about this. Uh, I said, is this something
you want to do with me? You know I'm in
this band, and he's like yeah, sort of. Why don't
you come down to Orlando and just this the whole
sensation of talking to him and getting the sense he
(41:06):
didn't know who the heck guy was and I was
probably walking in not as somebody who's on MTV eighteen
times a week, but somebody that's not really aware of,
and it seemed to me that was not going to
be a good situation because I've been in other situations
like that prior and that's not to cast any shade
on Shakil. He was lovely to talk to. It was
more a sense of like if you go into a
situation somebody doesn't really know who you are, you might
as well just be a guy walks in off the street.
(41:28):
So the chance of it being successful. In my mind
at that particular moment, and I'm certainly more immature than
I am now, I thought, well, this is probably not
gonna work. What did that feel like? By the way,
they have Shaquille O'Neil, just treat you like a normal
human being, after who you know. It was it was
it wasn't. I wasn't insulted or anything. It was more
the sense of like, look, if he knows me as
a musician and has a sense that I've got something
(41:49):
in my pocket that might be valuable to him. It's
situations like that. If you present somebody an idea and
they don't get it right away, well, they're going to
go back to what they know, which is their own instinct.
If you have a little bit of credibility coming in
the room, they might be more willing to give you
an opportunity to sort of prove them right or wrong.
And my experience in working with people prior to that
was if they didn't know who I was and didn't
(42:10):
understand what I did, being kind of a little bit
more from left field, the chances of working were very,
very small. So now I'm looking at having to get
on a plane go somewhere to hang out with obviously
a huge, huge star. I'm not sure how much time
I'M gonna get. Am I gonna end up working in
a studio by myself? I had had other strange experiences
with people in the music business along this line where
I sort of innocently, naively kind of jumped into a
(42:30):
situation and kind of blew up in my face. So
whatever about the conversation. Sort of maybe think, okay, this
isn't gonna work. Now I've got this riff leaning over
here that I liked. Now David Lynch rejects me on
the on the movie theme that I handed him, and
I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do this song. Well, then
d day comes, I have to record this song on
this one particular day, all the rest of the band,
as I said before, is on vacation. No one's in town.
(42:52):
I'm by myself and it's just me and my buddy Tommy,
who you just heard from, in a studio, a small
project studio, and in that one day. What you hear
was what came out of that one day session. Everything,
the vocals, the parts. Okay, so I handed and he
loves the song. Great, I'm happy. Now I'm just being
a David Lynch movie. In a million years, I never
could have guessed it would not only be a hit
song and very successful with a song that the smashing
(43:14):
compkins would still be playing and we will be playing
on the on the upcoming tour. So that really blew
my mind, Um, and that just shows you how sometimes
things happen so random. But I was on a good
role then and I certainly was feeling the song. I
love playing the song and it's you know, it's hits.
Everything from people get married to the song too. You know,
I've walked into a couple of strip bars in my
life and it's not somebody's dancing too the song, not
that you boys have ever been in a strip bar,
(43:35):
but you know, it's got a certain ambiance to it.
It has a certain ambiance. It's one of my favorite
songs from your catalog and I have to be completely
honest with you, I have no idea what the song
is actually about. To me it's kind of like an Angsty,
like an unrequited love type of thing. That's just me.
We all bring her own stuff to the music. You
figured you'd feel like a little bit of connection with
it because of my interpretation, there's so much self blathing
(43:56):
and everyone loves kyle except for Kyle. So that's the problem.
But that's my interpretation is it's this just feeling unworthy
and there's obviously an addiction element to it and it
and it feels like it could be plugged into a
lot of your other work as far as how it
would fit in certain other albums, and so I'm wondering
if that is always we don't have us. Well, exactly,
(44:19):
but if you could, if you thought it. I do
think there's an addictive element. I think that love, Um
miscast can be something that you don't know how to
grapple with. You know, like if you look at the lyrics,
I lie way to stop, I hesitate, I am I breathe,
I'm not. You know, it's just the confusion of like
you're in love with somebody or you think you're in
love with somebody and you don't know how to get
(44:40):
through to him, so you end up turning kind of
turning on yourself Um and that's what I get all
these years later and singing the song is. That's the
sort of enduring feeling that there's a sort of emptiness
sometimes when you feel like you're in love and there's
a confusion. Is this love is? Is this what love
is supposed to feel like? Am I the one who's
not living up to the vision? And certainly if you've
ever been in a relationship that's not going well, those
(45:01):
types of things are haunting. You know it has a
sort of haunting quality. I certainly can say from my
own life experiences that nothing is more haunting than being
in a relationship and feeling more lonely than you would
feel if you were alone, because at least if you're
alone you can go out and just sort of hang
out and talk to some people and you feel like
all your options are in front of you. When you're
a relationship and it's not going the way you want,
and I was in one of those relationships at the time,
(45:22):
you feel trapped and in that I felt super risolate
and Super Lone and for me, coming from a background
of so much abuse as a child, that then triggers
all this other stuff in me where it's like I
really do feel trapped, and that may have nothing to
do with my partner. That just maybe all the stuff
I'm bringing into a relationship. And also the song was
kind of on the tail ended between melancholy and a door,
(45:43):
and to me it has much more of a door vibe.
So was this kind of like a transitionary song where
you're like that hit, I get a vibe from it.
I'm going to run with that now. That's a great point.
You know, technically speaking it's the end of the melancholy
era that the song was done. So it technically speaking
is a melancholy song, but really in spirit is a door.
And what was so confusing of out that, and uh,
I've talked about this many times, but I can maybe
(46:03):
shed some different light on it here, was we had
had a song on and it was obviously our first
kind of classic spotlight song in Episode One of Nineteen
Seventy Nine. That was a huge, huge hit, very electronic
it's basis. Now you have, I very electronic, very little
guitar in it. So in a short period of time,
you know it, guess about a year or so, I've
got two really big hit songs that are very electronic based.
(46:25):
So in my mind when I made the adore album,
I'm thinking, okay, I can definitely kind of pursue this
vibe a little further than I have. I don't have
to be as reliant unless like heavy music, as I
had been up to that point. And the negative reaction
to the album being voiced more along the electronic right.
In my mind it was more of an electronic folk album.
That was very shocking to me that people were so
(46:47):
violently against the record. It was as if the general
public had made up its mind that the smashing compas
was a rock and roll band. As long as we
are a rock and roll band and we did some
weird music, that was cool, but if we were going
to be more of an electronic or a mental band
and the heavier stuff was gonna go by the wayside,
that seemed to engender it's super violent reaction unless you've
actually stood in the middle of that. One thing I
(47:08):
would point too quickly is Neil Strauss, who's a WHO's
a long time friend but at that point was working
for the New York Times. Most people would know him
as the as the author of the dirt the Motley
Crew Book. He's also wrote the I think, the game
about the pickup artists, a fantastic book. If you get
a chance to read anything by Neil, he's a fantastic
writer anyway. So Neil at that point was a New
York Times writer, but I knew him a little bit socially,
(47:30):
kind of through Courtney love's world, and Neil did the
you know, the Big New York Times the door albums
coming out. It's a big shift. I think the interview
came out maybe four to six weeks after the album
and the New York chimes actually ran like a pie
chart showing the lack of sales on the door four
to six weeks in as a post to melancholague. The
minute that article came out the record company just ran
from me. It was like it was over. I went
(47:51):
from the Golden Child who was making gazillions of dollars
for the label. Two they stopped answering the phone. I
had that experience of literally falling from the top of
the mountain to the bottom of the mountain in about
a twelve to eighteen months span and it literally went
back to that article. It's not Niel's fault, you know,
it has a lot to do with the fact that
the album didn't have enough sort of radio classics to
make it passible in that world at that time. And
(48:13):
what's even more ironic is the adore album has gone
on to be one of the most loved albums the
band's ever done, and many people rate it as an
equal to Siamese as far as a fan favorite. So
I've had such strange experiences and it all goes back
again songs like this. Right, let's trace it back real quick.
I got a song called Tear David Lynch re Jackson.
I've got a little riff that I wrote for Shaquille O'Neil.
(48:34):
I whip it up into a song in one day
because the Shaquille and anything doesn't worked out to give
it to David Lynch. It becomes a big hit song.
That gives me the sense of like, Oh, I got
some house money here, I can try to go further
with this sound than I already have and I make
an album sort of based around this sort of confidence
that I have because of the success I have. It
totally blows up in my face and nightmares andsue. So
that just shows you, like a quick how intuitive pursuit
(48:58):
in the arts when it pays off, like a weird
bet in Vegas, you almost start to think, oh, I
know what I'm doing, but you actually don't. You don't
know anything you're doing. You just get lucky or you're
in the right place at the right time, and when
you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, no
one can explain to you what happened because it's the
same process that got you over the finish line all
those other times. I'll tell you one quick story, because
we were talking before about my mother. Feels like the
(49:19):
songs of self fulfilled prophecy, a little bit about love
that my bearded quiet. It might not be right, and
yet somehow I'm loving the fact that this comes full
circle for you. Let me tell you one quick story
about my mother again. It has been here seventy fifth
birthday on the day we're recording this today. I was
ragging one time about how I made a certain amount
of money because of something I've done, and my mother said,
I can't believe they pay you all that money for
one song, and I said they don't pay all that
(49:40):
money for one song. They pay you all that money
because you can do it again and in that particular
period I did it again and again and again to
where I started to think that I couldn't mess up.
And so when when the sand ran out of the HOURGLASS,
which it did not too long after after I, you know,
I found myself sort of wandering a desert that I
was not prepared for because up to that point, everything
I've done that I'd taken risks on, I was reward
it for. Do you think that you are just ahead
(50:02):
of the curve with you adjusted your sound to that
more electronics sound, because there's so much of it now.
Do you think that like where audience is just not
ready for that at that time, since people can go
back and look at the album with, you know, so
much reverence, I think it's a combination of yes, we're
ahead of our time in terms of production and style,
(50:23):
and that's born out over time. Some of the biggest
fan favorites that we play in concert now our songs
like I and a vidoor, which was a single that
would follow I not too long after. But I also
think it had a lot to do with people had
a hard time getting out of particular lane. If you
were an alternative rock band, that's all you were, that's
all you could be if you were in the country.
That's all you could be. Garth Brooks famously made an
(50:45):
album where he changed his name, I think was, to
Chris Gaines and he wore a wig and he was
like an alternate personality. Well, why do you think I
was playing forms of an alternate personality through zero and glass?
Because I felt like the world kept saying no, No,
you've got to be smaller than you are, not bigger
than you are, and my artistic impetus was success. Maybe
want to take more chances, not less, and that's why
I always say that the music business is full of sociopaths,
(51:07):
because they put their finger up in the wind. They go, Oh,
people love me for this, I'm gonna give more and
more and more and more of that, and that's how
people end up being cliches in theself. And listen, there
are cliches in the business that I'm in that are very, very,
very well rewarded for being cliche, so I cannot cast
any shade of them. I'm kind of the counter cliche,
but in that I guess I'd become my own cliche.
Billy Corgan his own cliche. It's not it's not a
(51:29):
good podcast. Name. But here we are. Do we have
merch yet, because that could be the first merches his
own cliche. That's different. We have a saying in the
national wresting Kyle is gonna Kyle, and if you get
to know Kyle, which you will do this podcasters, you'll
understand what that means. Kyle's gonna Kyle. It basically just
means I'm gonna say the wrong thing at the wrong time,
but it's going to be from the best that's that's
why we can say Kyle's gonna because it comes from
(51:49):
a good place. But then you have songs like this
that we just listened to, like I where it comes
from like so such a seat, because and then, if
you the reason I wanted you guys here is not
only are we working, paige riots and I and I
and I, and I love you as people, but also,
you know, in many ways you represent a lot of
the general public who has a kind of a tangential
relationship with my music. I wouldn't say you guys are
like the deep, deep dive fans. The reason I didn't
(52:11):
want deep deep fans here is because I wanted you
guys to ask me to tell you side of questions.
I don't think it's a sad song, not at all really.
To me it has that angstyness to it and it
puts me in a place that kind of makes me
think it's the middle of the night, I'm alone, there
might be a little bit of moonlight in the sky.
It's kind of romantic, kind of dark, kind of Gothy,
and in my mind it ties so deep in, like
I mentioned before, and I don't know why, it ties
(52:32):
into like addiction and all kinds of other things, and
so there is to me it has that darkness to it.
At the risk of sounding kind of Um religious here,
I think one of the things that attracts people to
me as a personality on the musical and artistic side
is I'm able to express a particular feeling what you
guys would say would be dark or the VIBE, and
I'm not offended at all. I see it more as
(52:53):
a triumph in essence to be able to articulate those feelings.
It's more of a song of survival. In essence. The
person is able to articulate these things because they have
enough of a brain that they haven't lost their mind.
If I told you the circumstances of that went into
this song and I told you the circumstances of my
life which hopefully one day I'll write this book, you
guys would be like, no, this is actually this is
a positive that you're actually still standing here talking about
(53:15):
these things. And I think I've known many, many people
in my life who've struggled with different forms of addiction,
whether it's food or gambling or or drugs or sex
or even rock and roll. The reason they're attracted to
people like me, I think, is because they see me
as a survivor in it, not a victim in it,
which is why I always like to say I'm not
a victim and I don't think the smashing comp because
(53:35):
music is a music a victimhood, and I'm not saying
you guys are saying this, but oftentimes that's projected on us.
The cure gets a similar VIBE, like Oh, it's a
bunch of sad f's, you know what I mean. I
think for people who are o g Goss like me,
we don't see it that way. We actually see it
as a sort of a it's a form of resistance.
With the black clothes and the black VIBE is the
way to say stay the heck away from me, because
(53:55):
I need that to survive. I can't sort of operate
in your world the way you want me to operate.
What do most people do? They cope with outside things,
they find people that kind of confirm them, hashtag their
way through life, kind of thing, right most people who
are very sensitive people, they have to navigate the inner
world of their feelings, and that's why I said this
song is more haunting about trying to survive an addictive relationship,
(54:16):
and so I see it one more survival and if
you look at the music at the end, it's more
triumphant than defeatist. I think you just summarize exactly why
this podcast needs to exist and why we want to
have these conversations with you, because, as somebody who creates
content for the masses, uh, it's easy to misinterpret it
and everybody kind of brings their own experience as their
own life and their own interpretation of things. So to
be able to put it on the record and say, listen,
(54:37):
if you're feeling this way about it, there's this other
version of it that also exists. I mean, are you
good with the fact that people will always kind of
look at something you've made and make it. I'm totally
cool with it. Here's the image that I have in
my mind. Go stand in an art gallery sometime, and
I'm talking like, you know, the Art Institute of Chicago
or the Louve in Paris. Just pick a great painting,
(54:57):
put yourself behind where people would stand and watch the painting.
Just watch people come and look at the painting. It's
a rembrand's right. It's not a question of whether Joe
Galley or Kyle Davis or billy corgan likes it. The
world is stored to decide this is a masterpiece. Step
back and watch how people actually interface with the masterpiece.
One Guy will come up, look at it for three seconds,
look at his uh, look at his watch or his
phone and walk off. Somebody will sit there for an
(55:19):
hour and just gaze at it. To me, it's about engagement.
So great work will engage people. How they engage is
totally not my business. All I can do in this
particular instance in realm. Uh. It's a bit broad for
a podcast, but this in the in the realm of
thirty three of the PODCAST, is to illuminate for you
the way I perceive it. But I have no skin
(55:40):
in the game for how people perceive this is why
the characters exist. It's meant to confuse and and sort
of throw up smoke screens so that you can't actually
get to the heart of the artists, and that's a
discussion will have in another time. I think that's a
great place to leave it right there. Kyle Davis, I
know you've got some plugs ready for us to talk
about where fans can find all of our great content
(56:01):
that we have online, our website and all that other
good stuff that people could go and enjoy this podcast
anywhere and everywhere. I mean lyrics, featured songs, all sorts
of stuff. We're gonna BE PUTTING ON A W PC
thirty three DOT com. Click on that, save it to
your favorites. Go check that out wherever you listen to podcast,
via apple, spotify, I heart, anywhere you find all these things,
(56:22):
make sure you subscribe. Click on it like rape. Make
it happen. The more people know, the more we get
to bring this to you. Joe, I'm happy to be here, Billy.
Thank you for sharing with us. What do you got
for us right here at the end? Well, you're asking
sad people to Click on things, and that's really hard.
We love you and we hope you're enjoying the show.
(56:43):
This is a big dive off the cliff for me
to go super deep into my work, but I know
that there are people out there that are interested and
so that inspires me. So thank you for listening and
we'll talk to you soon. FO
Hello and welcome to another episode in this musical journey
like no other, giving music fans at in depth, invigorating
an exclusive look at the newest smashing pumpkins album, autumn.
This is episode two of thirty three, your new favorite
music podcast. Every episode features a world premiere of a
new song and on every episode of thirty three we're
(00:23):
gonna break down that song with smashing Pumpkins Front Man
Billy Corgan. We're not only breaking down the songs, we're
gonna go deep into the story, into the lyrics, the melody,
the connections to past albums and the connections to the
world we all share. Every episode is a world premiere.
That's why you gotta catch every single episode of thirty three.
We're also gonna be giving you exclusive insights to previous hits,
(00:45):
b sides, fan favorite tracks from billy corgan's catalog. You
can expect to not only hear deep and entertaining conversation,
but also interviews with musicians, artists and people who have
influenced the new album autumn, and much, much more. I'm
Joe Galley, one of your hosts for thirty three. On
this episode we'll be listening to a beautiful song called
butterfly sweet, as well as the song I which was
(01:05):
featured on the soundtrack of the film lost highway. We're
also gonna be welcoming sound engineer, producer, musician and great
friend to Billy Corgan, Tommy Lipnik. He'll be coming on
later in this program also joining us on this journey
is my friend and broadcast partner, Kyle Davis. Joe, you
just nailed everything that needed to be done there. I'm
sorry about that. The dog's bark into the background. But
(01:26):
we're also gonna have all sorts of stuff on here.
The music, the spotify playlist. If you want more information
about the songs we're doing, including lyrics and everything in
the sort, go to w PC THIRTY THREE DOT com.
It's gonna be everything that is thirty three. But that's
enough for me, because you're here for one reason, one
reason alone, William Patrick Corrigan, the frontman of the smashing pumpkins. Billy,
(01:46):
how you doing with the dog? So excited? My puppy
loves you. We try to start early with the FANDOM.
I'm great. Thank you. Happy to be here, and today
we're gonna be taking a deep dive into this new
song called Butterfly Suite, which is the part two of
the thirty three chapters of the autumn album. As I
said in the first podcast, if you have or haven't
heard it, every song represents a part of this particular
(02:08):
journey in this story that I've mapped out. It is
the sequel to melancholy from and also machinery from two thousand.
So here we are in the third chapter and this
is the actually the first song of the musical. That
where action starts to take place. I have to say
in listening to the song, we were able to hear
it just before and fans, you're gonna be hearing it
in just a few minutes on this podcast. But I
mean it's just so beautiful in the flow that you
(02:31):
have there and it almost you get that feeling like
you're you're floating in space, and I feel like it
could totally fit into one of these sci fi you
know we are. We're going to talk about the tie
in with I being a part of a movie as
well from but like this feels like it could be
plugged into anything that's being made today as a major
motion picture. I agree with you on completely on that.
(02:51):
I'm waiting for the Netflix, this mini series that come
out with all this stuff. So if everybody's loving this,
make sure when they were gonna sell the rights of
that billy for you. We're gonna make that stuff happen.
But one of the things that really struck me about
it is, you know, interpretation. You've got this whole concept
of where this is going and I need you to
paint the picture for the listener. They're gonna hear this.
Do you want to give them a little sampling of
(03:12):
where their minds should be taking them as they're listening,
or do you just want to leave it open to
their interpretation? No, that's what we're here to do. I
actually want to explain for the first time the story
behind the songs, particularly in this instance, because it is
a musical. Every song is written and every lyric has
written to the narrative form, which is a kind of
a challenge. If you're just writing about yourself and you're
having a funny day, you can write about your funny day.
In this particular instance, with every song and every lyric
(03:34):
pushing forward the narrative of the story of autumn and
the lead character, shiny. This song is critical because this
is the first song where action takes place. The theme
autumn is just basically to set the mood here. Now
we open up on two spaceships, one to the left
and one to the right. This is the picture in
my mind as I was working on the musical. In
the left spaceship, at a very vast distance from the
(03:56):
right one, you have shiny, who has been exiled into space,
and right you have June who, unbeknowns to shiny and
because she sort of had financial independence, was able to
arrange through bribes to put herself into space next to shiny.
But they're at a distance. He doesn't know who's over there,
other than occasionally little origami sort of birds come floating
past the spaceship, so he knows somebody is sort of
(04:16):
being nice. He has no idea that this person on
the right, if you can picture it in your mind,
knows who's in the spaceship on the left. So every morning,
because she's in love with Shiny and has been love
with shiny most of her adult life, shiny is sort
of her God or her muse or her man or
however she wants to quantify in her mind. Is She
a Groupie? Is She a fan? Is She's somebody that
(04:37):
has a sense of destiny. It doesn't really matter at
this point in the story. And so on. On this
particular morning, like many other, they've been in space for
a very long time. Somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty years.
June gets up and sings her love song to Shiny
every morning, and butterfly sweet is that love song and
it addresses how she feels about him and how she's
basically sacrificed her the rest of her adult life to
(04:59):
be near him. In a sort of form of loyalty
and fidelity, she's placed herself in space, given up her
life on earth to be next to him. And so
in the middle of the song, kind of where the
song breaks down, unbeknownst to her, shiny punches in a code.
Everybody who gets put into space has a particular code
that allows their ship to break orbit and float off
towards the Sun and kind of an honorable suicide, which
(05:20):
in the story is called the march of life. So
as she's singing her daily Love Song, kind of Oklahoma,
kind of I love shiny type of song. It's got
a little bit of a wink in it when you
hear the song it's not meant to be overly serious,
although it is a pretty song and it has a
sort of disassociative quality which feeds into the narrative. Here
in the middle of her singing, this pain too shiny,
(05:40):
unbeknownst to her, because she can only see the ship
floating in space. Shiny punches in the coat and the
ship floats off towards the Sun and immediately she recognizes
that she's lost him, that he has taken the march
of life, that he is now on this inevitable march
towards the sun where he will be burned up and
be killed. And she doesn't know what to do. And
so the last part of the song is her grappling
with the feeling that her worst fears have come to
(06:02):
the fore. But yet, because of her sense of destiny,
she feels like she must do something. It's it's incredible
the way that you're able to paint what essentially could be,
you know, a narrative that would fit in a mini series,
into a three minute song. Yes, and also in my mind,
and that this is just how you know, my mind
was working and I'm listening to the song and their
(06:22):
spaceships and stuff lying through air. The spaceships that I
picture in my head are very, you know, late eighties
prog rock looking sort of things flying through space, and
so I'm just kind of trying to figure out exactly
what you're seeing is in your mind as to what
the structures are that are there and the way shiny
looks and the things that are there, because in my mind,
I guess it's so animated and it kind of ties
(06:44):
into things that I've loved in the media that I've
entrusted throughout my years here. But we're going through your
love that you asked this because actually you don't see shining.
The music to way later in the story. I might
be given a little bit away, but I guess it's
some movies, so you should expect that. Um, no, you don't.
Actually she's shiny. All you see is a ship and
you see June seeking to shiny over in his ship
(07:04):
and again she's at a distance and he's at a
distance that they can actually see each other. They can
see the craft. Um, each craft is sort of a
single person, beautifully designed kind of Art Deco of the
future spacecraft. And Uh, and that's basically their living prison cell.
It's very comfortable, they have a nice life in them,
but they've been excelled. In shinese case, he's been put
(07:24):
there because he's dangerous to whoever controls the the earth there.
You know the things that go on. You can do
you can do the math on the order of the
Earth Right. And in her case she's put herself there willingly.
She's imprisoned herself in her own version of this jail
only to be close to the man that she loves.
So you actually all you see in the beginning of
the movie. Beyond this sort of Intro, which I describe
(07:46):
in an episode one, is now we come up on
the two space ships floating side by side and as
June gets on top of her craft, sort of think Oklahoma, right,
something like that, like a Roger's Hammerstein. In the movie
she could maybe get up on top of the craft.
It doesn't make any sense because I see there's no
oxygen in space. or She just sings out of window.
It sort of doesn't matter. You can play as cute
see as you want, but the fact of the matter
is she gets up every morning and there is no
(08:07):
morning because in space the sun never sets. In her
morning she sings to the man she loves and she's
in the middle of this beautiful kind of Ode that
she sings every morning. How much I love you. Shiny
is her butterfly that she's chased into the heavens. He
punches in the march of life. You'd actually don't see it.
All you see is a ship breaking away and symbolically,
she immediately knows what he's done. There's no question in
(08:28):
her mind that he's made the decision on that particular
morning to kill himself. Now, because of the way the
march of life works, it takes a while for the
ship actually to float into the sun, so it's not
an immediate death and an earth the population is sold
at the march of lights is sort of an honorable
way to end your existence in space. So there's nothing
dishonorable about it, sort of fundamentally psychologically, but certainly shiny
(08:49):
has had enough. He's been in space for twenty years.
He wakes up on that particular morning, he says I'm done. Boom,
he punches in the coat and off he floats, and
the science nerd in me has just kind of been
awakened when you bring that up, that this beauty full
song is sung, but shiny, probably never hears it. Space
is a vacuum. How can the sound travel from one
ship to another? I don't know if this is where
your mind was at, but just in the way that
(09:10):
you're describing it is. Maybe there has been this beautiful
song that's happened every Earth Day, every Earth Thawn in space,
but it never really gets to be heard. And speaking personally,
I've had the experience literally thousands of times where people
will stop me and say you don't know what your
song did for me. You got me through this super
(09:30):
difficult time. You gave me the courage to ask the
person I love to marry me. You gave me the
courage to come out, because I was, you know, afraid
to tell people about my sexuality. You gave me the
courage to tell my family about who I loved and
that I've been in a relationship, the same sex relationship,
with some three years. I've heard thousands of these stories
and it always blows my mind the influence that my
(09:51):
music has, because music is like a Ray. Right away.
You want to talk science. Well, it floats out into
space on some level. So where our music go and
what it penetrates? Lovingly, Um we were really unaware of
our influence on people. Were completely unaware of that influence
on others, and so I think it's very similar. In essence.
(10:13):
She's trying to return the love that China has given
her through his music. She's trying to make it very
personal and he's completely unaware because he kind of lives
in his own little digital mountaintop and has for years,
and the minute he got exiled, of course he lost
all connection to his influence as an artist and as
a person on the planet. You know, we've we've talked
about that. These characters are not quite you but kind
(10:34):
of maybe a facet of something that you're trying to
convey your feeling at the moment. Is there something that
speaks volumes to you about having somebody who might never
realize how appreciated they are just looking one Dang saying?
I guess that's all I've said and it's time to
end that story. I don't really know because, Um, I've
had people through my life say I have a sense
of destiny with you, or I listen to your song
(10:55):
and I have to talk to you. I mean, it's
gone from everything from very sweet to very dangerous. So
I have a very disassociative relationship with others interpretations of me, Um,
not just the public personality, but how my music sort
of speaks to them in a particular way that they
feel they have to communicate that back with me. The
easy version is somebody stops just says, Hey, I love
(11:16):
the music you've made. It's inspired me. Like that's easy,
that's easy. That like it's like chewing on a cracker.
It's like feels good great. When it gets more complicated,
like I did this because of you, and now, because
I did this, I feel I've got to tell you
and then I want you to react, and if you
don't react in a certain way, I feel like you're
almost disrespecting me. That's where it gets super complicated. So
I'm not trying to overly foreshadow the story, but let's
(11:40):
just say on the surface this is a very complicated
relationship between two people who do not know each other.
She has a very intense relationship with shiny that he
is completely unaware of, and on some level he has
engendered that type of response. So in that way he
does have a relationship with her, even though he does
not know her. So in a way it's kind of
abstract kind of song about andem. You can take it however.
(12:01):
You want to foreshadow a little bit, you've got to
see how the story plays out to know whether her
sense of destiny has any meaning. I'm excited to hear this,
I'm excited to experience this, I'm excited for everything that
is autumn and I just gotta ask. I'm this for
myself and other people want to know. Kyle's get a
kyle uh, Egyptian God, same name, kind of considered the
(12:22):
beginning in the end, any sort of foreshadowing? You've been
googling Kyle. I'm very proud. I have been googling. It's
a wealth of information. Thank you. You know, I have
an interesting relationship with words and their meanings. I do
believe that the meaning of words, the Etymology of words,
the the actual phonetics of words is super powerful. UH,
some people believe that magicians cast spells. I'm not here
(12:44):
necessarily expouse that at this particular moment, but let's put
it this way. If you go back to Sanskrit language,
which is about seven thousand years ago, if my memory
serves me correct, one of the words in Sanskrit was
Wah w a, and what does that word mean water?
Why are we still using Wah with or seven thousand
years later? There's something about that that that sort of
resonates in a human being. You know. I mean the
(13:05):
sound of Wah to water still translates. So whether or
not a particular word translates into my own particular meeting
is less important that the feeling of the word translates.
And on that note we're gonna keep things moving right along.
We're gonna take a quick break right now. When we
come back, right after this break, it will be the
world premiere of butterfly sweet. Stay tuned. Hello, friends, welcome
(13:29):
back William Patrick Corgan here on the thirty three podcast.
This is very exciting. Another world premiere, the Butterfly Sweet,
the second song on the Autumn Mountain, but the first
song with a vocal. This is a really cool kind
of winky song. I hope you get it. If you don't, well,
we can talk about it later. This is the butterfly sweet.
Please enjoy. Sweeps, squalling rain to scant, three pinks and rain,
(13:59):
hello to without escape above the frights and brains, times
to wander. Loved a tone aboutts. It's sad on all
US run it's morning, go we bring good morning. Tell
you so do ever sat on, I I love hands
(14:25):
begun to hold you from fun singing out ons of flying.
I'll funt with my designs, her dancing's rents, which right.
It's morning going the morning swing shown to ever. Shadow
(14:54):
land has begun. I'm here. Way Stay with Gil please.
Scape's cloud eye t stay unto eye along. I can't
(15:46):
spray on, helve. It takes one time, helove. It's war time.
(16:12):
Have a sad tis AL has begune crash around the chest,
then a drip to palm like hell ranges as there are, man,
(16:34):
say dream with you again. Say What a Beautiful Song
(17:09):
that was, butterfly sweet. You heard it here first, right
here on thirty three. And now we're gonna welcome sound engineer, producer,
musician and friend of Billy's, Tommy Lipnick, to the program Tommy,
welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Twenty eight
years I've known you, Tommy, and the reason I wanted
to have you on to this show today for our
(17:29):
second episode is because you're probably one of the only
people that was actually at the melancholy sessions, the machine
a sessions, and also the autumn sessions. So you've spanned
all three concept albums that the smashing pumpkins have made.
So let's start here. When I first talked to you
about doing another concept album, the third in the trilogy,
give me a sense of what your first thought was. Yeah,
(17:50):
you're the guest buddy. Okay, sorry. Oh, I'm loving this
so far. This is perfect the banter. You guys all
have headphones and I'm doing it on a freaking eye. Well,
you are calling from Pakistan. Yes, you know. Um, I've
always thought that you had a vision much bigger that
you never finished, and so I thought that this is a,
(18:12):
you know, another installment, if you will, you explain this
to me whatever years ago, about your installment or your
series of records and visuals that went with this, and
I don't think if they ever were finished. And I
think we're getting to a better a better position in
the story now. Well, it's funny that you mentioned that,
because part of the thing was when we did our
(18:34):
first concept album, which was melancholy, I didn't want to
talk about the concept much because we were under such
dress from the press and seemed like every word that
came out of my mouth that was started being attacked
by so my way of dealing with fame at that
point was just become this character zero and sort of
high behind the veneer, of shaving my head, sort of
neutralizing my public personality and, strangely enough, of course, going
(18:55):
backwards in one way on the persona. The band seemed
to get bigger and I am more well known for
being a Weirdo. So I never really had to totally
explain the concept. I tried to explain the concept to
a certain degree on the machine album, which was much
more about the band falling the part which I'm gonna
ask you about in a second. And so this is
really the first time of the three concept records D
(19:18):
and Now I'm actually gonna explain the process, the way
the record was made and also the thematic concepts behind it.
Let's go back real quick to melancholy, because you were there. Um,
did you have a sense then that I was making
something conceptual? I don't remember if I talked to you
about at the time. No, funny, you were just saying
that I was. I was thinking about that and and
I can actually remember we towards the end, Um, we
(19:41):
were all sitting around one night, you and I and
I think flawed maybe, and you just said had. Finally,
that showed me some sketches and some ideas about where
it went next, which then came Machina and everything. So
it was right at the end of melancholy. Hadn't fleshed
out the idea to me before the end of it.
And then how I love the fact, guys, that you
(20:04):
have basically created this trilogy. And the fact of the
matter is, at the beginning I was a fan of
the music back in the day and I never realized
it was a concept album. I just thought it was
a bunch of songs that hit me on the feelings
that I felt and everything like that. Then I hear
that there's a second part, obviously, and here we're in
part three. Looking at the time, Tommy, is this where
you thought the story was gonna go? Did Billy ever
(20:25):
share like so part three, you know, all those years ago,
I know exactly the end goal here. Um, yes, I
didn't think it would take quite so long. I thought
it would come a little more rapidly, you know, one
and then maybe another record, than than the second part,
than the third. I didn't think it would take whatever
it's been twenty five years to get to part three.
(20:45):
But it was a very interesting thing because once again
the time and the pressure and record company and MTV
and all that crap was happening in ninety for whatever Um.
And so all of a sudden, I actually I remember
B c when you were telling me about it, I
wanted to go right into machina and there was issues
(21:08):
with business and stuff and releasing it for free and this,
that and the other, and went right in and started recording. Uh,
and I think that's right around Howard was there at
the Riviera Um and just started recording the second part
and then we finally explained to me the whole story
and I thought we wouldn't be years from now. I
(21:29):
thought we'd be five years from now or five years
when the band broke up. I mean that pretty much
ended in my mind. That ended the concept that it
would ever kind of get a third act. I love
doing the concept records. I know it's sort of obscure
to people, but that's also part of the point of
the podcast, is actually explaining all this work, because it's
antithetical on one level to a pop rock career. Right,
(21:50):
pop rock career, you just want to make the best
catchy songs, get on the radio, have a bunch of
people show up and with your lighters to do work
that's more like a movie or a movie soundtrack for
a set of characters which are not wholly explained, is very,
very confusing the public. So I understand that. I guess
that's why I'm sort of why don't you have you
on his guest is because you were actually in the
room when these records were being made. How much of
(22:10):
a sense did you have that I was going after characters,
in essence, playing someone different than myself on the public
side of things? Interesting? Uh. Well, the point is, knowing
you so well as a person, Um, I don't think
people realize that zero was a character and you've got
a lot of heat and all that nonsense going on
at the time. But then when you fleshed out the
(22:32):
idea to me, the whole thing made sense, Um, and
that's where machine and one, a machina two and the
last and the ghost child, you know, all those other
things that sort of everyone knows about now, but the
time I think, Um, Um, everyone agrees, as you just said, uh,
that they just thought it was a pop record. And
(22:52):
I remember you and I talking about nineteen, seventy nine
and just how does that fit in the whole thing?
And you said, Oh, you're just like that, as it
sounds like new order. Um, but yeah, I for could compliment. Yeah,
I believe it for us, yes, Um, and it was
just one of those things that it all made sense
to me being there, but if you just took it,
(23:14):
if you took it in pieces, as singles, as the
way the music industry used to be, none of it
made sense. It was a cohesive piece of work I
could see coming together, but I don't think the public
really got it. Maybe because some of the super fans,
because I remember the Machinea, the free pressing was just like,
you know, priceless if you can get your hands on one.
(23:36):
So there were some people that were understanding it and
understanding that it was more than one record, two, three, four,
but I think the public missed the whole book. This
is slightly indulgent, but I think it's interesting in this
particular form being a public two things I'm gonna ask you.
The first one there's a follow up. The first question is,
so there's the character of zero and then five years
(23:57):
later there was the character of glass and now twenties
something years later, we have the character of shiny in
the new record. The characters that I've played in public.
I've tried to explain to people through the years that
I'm actually not those characters. But you actually know the
person that I really am, your godfather to my son, Augustus,
you know. You know my family, you knew my father. Heck,
you even knew my mother, you know, who's passed away
now for Cheez, twenty some years right, twenty seven years
(24:20):
actually today, today we're recording, this would have been here
seventy fifth birthday. So God bless my mother. So the
indulgent question is, how different am I, the person that
you know, versus what the Public Perceives need to be
Visa v through these characters? UH, pretty much polar opposite.
People don't understand your humor. Um, they don't understand you're
a normal guy that loves baseball and they they really
(24:47):
it's maybe a testament to the depth of the characters,
but the people really believe you are these characters and
I think that you know when people meet you in person,
especially friends of mine that haven't met you over the
last three decad AIDS, so like, Oh wow, billy's a
lot nicer than I read and I'm guilty of this.
I am. I am definitely guilty. This billy can tell
(25:08):
the story. I met him. He's got a zero gear
from head to toe and I said, can I ask
you a question? He said, Kyle Shoe, and I said, uh,
is this just something you had personally made for yourself,
or is this like promotion? What? And he looked at
me and he goes do you think I'm and I said,
what do you mean? You're a rock star, you're not
a guy to me, you're not a normal human being.
I don't understand you. And he goes, Kyle, it's to
promote an album. I I'm a normal person. Why would you?
(25:31):
Why would you even think that? So you're right, I am.
I worked with the man. I'm guilty of it every
day going, oh, he's not supposed to curse on my podcast. Oh,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Well, the funny thing is that
people would think that, you know, it would be this incredible,
you know, work being done every day then, back then,
I'm not a Vegan, but back then billy and I
(25:52):
would go to demon dogs, which was a very legendary
famous spot in Chicago and just hang out and talk
and very, very normal. But people, I think it's you know,
it's a misconception. It's maybe people want to read into it,
but it's not not him. He's been my best friend
most of my life. Slight diversion then, on the question,
(26:13):
because you've become friends with and know some of the
biggest musicians in the world. We don't have to name drop,
but you would certainly know a lot of Tommy's friends.
I'm giving you a little the public can't see what
you're doing. This is a podcast, uh, it's it's not
a visual medium. Let's establish that matter. But real quick,
do you do you think the public, because they're desirous
(26:35):
of people in essence being larger than life, that the
personalities that you know either adapt that as their personality
or they really are larger than life and I'm just
a weird, normal person who sort of stumbled into something
bigger than myself. What's your sense of that? That's a really,
actually good question, because most people you know, we grew
up on Bowie and, for example, James Addiction New Order.
(26:57):
I think those, especially you know sad lean curtis, who's
no longer with us, he succumbed to being Ian Curtis
of joy division and he couldn't take it and he
ultimately took his own life. But I think that a
lot of people are. It basically falls into two categories.
From people that are a complete persona on stage and
(27:21):
then they turn it off when they come on stage.
And I know some people I live in Las Vegas
for a while and some people that are from there
that have done very, very well. Um, they can walk
out of a stadium with the crowd and nobody knows
who they are. Um, I don't know if it's it's
because of what has happened. Um, you know, the public's
(27:43):
understanding of Billy, shall I say, or something along those lines. Um,
I'll tell you one thing. Six Five, he cannot do that.
But you find guys that played it, you know, fifty
people and just walk out, you know, without luggage and
nobody cares. A lot of people seem to. And then
you see it a lot in the business with some
(28:04):
some friends of both of ours, that the character or
the person they play consumes them and they have to
try and live up to that. You know, did that
life of excess or whatever or, you know, opulence and
it just doesn't work for them. And Uh, I think
is a good balance between the two. All Right, here's
(28:25):
my other indulgent question, because you really are when the
only people on this planet has actually been in the
room with the band over various eras, not only the
band in rehearsal, the band on stage, but also how
the band works and records. I'm going to toss this
to you as an open question. I'm really curious for
the answer. What is your perception of the way the
band actually works in terms of the recording environment? Can
(28:47):
you take people into the room because you've actually been
there for countless hours? Um, it's interesting. I think it's
like from from other people that I've worked with and
or seen witnessed. I think it's different in the way
that it's a lot more collaborative. But then you know,
(29:08):
a lot of people give you a lot of grief,
or used to or still do, that you do everything,
which is in one sense true, one sense not. But
I think what you your basic, your real talent, is
throwing everything against the wall and finding the best parts.
So the band, you guys spend hours and hours working
on things in the old days. I think it's changed now.
(29:31):
It was more of a band scenario before and able
to sort of, it's still the best parts of that
out and then continue to focus on those bits. And
actually I think that that's something. You know, the riffs
and the things that we just did. A NATURVILLE is
very similar to that, but it's one of it's a
lot of people just get songs. One Guy Brings in
(29:55):
a song and then that's the way it is and
you just recorded edited. I think that it's more of
a give and take between everyone, and then you're really
more of a producer and songwriter than just a songwriter,
because you see the bigger picture. You can pick something
out of you know in the old days, for example,
(30:16):
one a riff that James had and a lick that
Jimmy played in. You know something and reverse those put
them together and then you have what you end up
hearing on the record. I don't think a lot of
other people work like that. If there's, you know, it's
either everybody. It's kind of like what they call it,
Orchestra leader Um. You're able to find the parts that
(30:38):
are good and then continue to push in that directly.
Last bit. We're a little tight on time, but you
know I've have taken a certain amount of grief through
the years for avoiding the guitar at times and focusing
on the synthesizer. So, truth be told, my obsession or
possession with the synthesizer started with you and it actually
dovetails into the song that we're going to play as
the sort of classic song for the day, which is
(30:59):
I which you were also in the room for the day.
I recorded it by myself in that particular instance, and
of course we'll play the song in a minute. I
did the song completely by myself because the band was
all away, everybody was away on holiday, and had to
turn this song and for a movie soundtrack, and so
Tommy brought a bunch of inches sins into the studio.
So this is the first time I ever worked with
really truly ventured sins, and together we put that track
together in one day, and so what you hear is
(31:20):
the result of me and Tommy working on that one day.
But talk really quickly about your love of synthesizers and
how it sort of fed into what became such a
critical part of the smashing pumpkin sound. Well, I think
the most interesting thing is is the balance between Billy's
love of uh, you know, metal and hard rock, and
then also a love of, you know, older eighties cent stuff.
(31:41):
And I happened to be a big scented vintage synth
fan and I had a thing, if you remember BC,
called Synthasaurus at this giant rack with basically one of
every sin made into a rack, and it was just
like handy. It was like handing a kid candy. He
just poked in one and poked in the other. And
what is this one? And this one a wave sent
(32:04):
this one's analog, this one's digital, and we just sat
there and played with it and it and it became
so seamlessly molded in and woven through the guitar parts
that it really brought a whole new sound out and
it just like it was experimental, just like throw. It's
like it's like throwing BC, throwing you a different tuning
(32:25):
guitar and see what you come up. So it's your fault.
That's the point. I just wanted you on the public
record that the synthesizer part of the sash, because it's
your fault. I thought that's where this was going, that
love it or leave it. The Smashing Cup kints fans.
We're gonna blame you for this. Other they love it
or hate it. That's fine, as long as they buy
me some more sense. Cool. Well, Tommy, thank you so
much for joining us on this portion of the podcast.
We're gonna take another quick break. When we come back,
(32:46):
we're gonna be listening to and breaking down the song
I featured in the soundtrack for the film lost highway.
Stay tuned. This is thirty three. We'll be right back.
(33:10):
I like, I wait, I stop, I is te I am,
I'm I'm out. I think cale. Is it won? I
(33:39):
can't sleep all to me. Is it the one? I
to the gate, so to Muse S to o r enough,
(34:28):
just such a sky. It taste wor? Is it one right,
(35:11):
can't see yea. Is it one you to the gate
(35:36):
to sell me, Tay to right, your your yours. You're normal,
(36:11):
Jim Sat, Jim Jist said. You're you're welcome back, music fans,
(37:51):
you just listened to. I featured in the nineteen seven
David Lynch Film Lost Highway, starring Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette.
You can rent the film on Amazon, itunes and Google
play right now. The song was also featured on the
rotten apple's greatest hits compilation that was released in November
of two thousand one billy. Tell me a little bit
about how this song got into this movie and tell
(38:14):
me anything you can about David Lynch, because I am
obsessed with here. Let's take one quick step back. Isn't
it funny that Patricia Arquette was in that movie and
yet here in the N W A, our wrestling company,
we work with David Arquette, we just saw the other
day during our taping. So we had this weird six
degrees of separation with the arquette family, both in wrestling
in the movie. Um, I got a call. Somebody said
(38:35):
David Lynch wants to talk to you about putting a
song in this movie. Howard willing, the producer of the
new album out, was there that day and I was
working on the door album, and so I sent a
song from that album that I was working on, called
tear or tear. I can never make up my mind
how to pronounce it. Well, first I met with David
Lynch at his house and he told me what he
was looking for. So then I sent him the song
(38:56):
and then about a week later they said he wants
to talk to you and I kind of got the
feeling it wasn't in that well, and I do a
very bad David Lynch impression, but he goes billy. That's
just not gonna work and he didn't like the song
at all. Were you a David Lynch fan going into this?
By the way, I don't remember when Blue Velvet came out,
but I remember seeing in the theater and thinking like
obviously this was a new visionary and that's been proven
(39:17):
out over time. And David's a lovely person, really easy
to communicate with, certainly a fantastic artist. So I didn't
want to disappoint him and I certainly wanted my song
in a David Lynch movie. So now I'm scrambling because
now I need a fresh idea because everything else I
have is sort of tabled for the door album. So
I had been Um I was with a music a
publishing company which was, I believe, Virgin Music Publishing, Chris List, sorry,
(39:41):
it was Christmas music publishing, and I'd signed a big
deal and as part of the big deal they would
try to put you in collaborations with things. So one
day this guy called. His name was Tom sturgis. Who
happened to be the son of Preston Sturgis, who was
one of the most famous screenwriters in Hollywood history, and
Tom had certainly gotten a lot of his father's intelligence.
was really a really brainy guy. Saw something in me
very early on and so I'm forever in his dead anyway,
(40:01):
Tom Calls Me and says, would you be open to
working with Shaquille O'Neil? And now Shaquille O'Neil at this
point is one of the biggest stars in the NBA
and obviously still a massive star, and he was putting
out wrap records and I was a huge fan. I
used to go to bulls games all the time. So
I'm thinking, Oh, this is kind of a fun thing,
and so I sat down to this rickety piano that
I had in New York when I was living there,
and I had written this little riff thinking of like
kind of, I don't know, Dr Dre or something that's
(40:23):
like something that would kind of loop really well, like
a so cal, kind of a cool Dr Dre kind
of under melody type of thing. And I wrote the
melody and I so I felt good, okay, now I've
got something. So when I called Shaquilla and Neil on
the phone, I can at least say I've got something
and I'm coming into a situation sort of prepared. That
seemed to me to be professional. So I called Shaquille
and Neil on the phone and it sounded like there
(40:44):
was a party going on like behind him, like if
there's not about, there's like five people and I can't
do a good shack impression, but the conversation went something
like this. Hey, what's up? I explain who I am. Yeah,
I heard about this. Uh, I said, is this something
you want to do with me? You know I'm in
this band, and he's like yeah, sort of. Why don't
you come down to Orlando and just this the whole
sensation of talking to him and getting the sense he
(41:06):
didn't know who the heck guy was and I was
probably walking in not as somebody who's on MTV eighteen
times a week, but somebody that's not really aware of,
and it seemed to me that was not going to
be a good situation because I've been in other situations
like that prior and that's not to cast any shade
on Shakil. He was lovely to talk to. It was
more a sense of like if you go into a
situation somebody doesn't really know who you are, you might
as well just be a guy walks in off the street.
(41:28):
So the chance of it being successful. In my mind
at that particular moment, and I'm certainly more immature than
I am now, I thought, well, this is probably not
gonna work. What did that feel like? By the way,
they have Shaquille O'Neil, just treat you like a normal
human being, after who you know. It was it was
it wasn't. I wasn't insulted or anything. It was more
the sense of like, look, if he knows me as
a musician and has a sense that I've got something
(41:49):
in my pocket that might be valuable to him. It's
situations like that. If you present somebody an idea and
they don't get it right away, well, they're going to
go back to what they know, which is their own instinct.
If you have a little bit of credibility coming in
the room, they might be more willing to give you
an opportunity to sort of prove them right or wrong.
And my experience in working with people prior to that
was if they didn't know who I was and didn't
(42:10):
understand what I did, being kind of a little bit
more from left field, the chances of working were very,
very small. So now I'm looking at having to get
on a plane go somewhere to hang out with obviously
a huge, huge star. I'm not sure how much time
I'M gonna get. Am I gonna end up working in
a studio by myself? I had had other strange experiences
with people in the music business along this line where
I sort of innocently, naively kind of jumped into a
(42:30):
situation and kind of blew up in my face. So
whatever about the conversation. Sort of maybe think, okay, this
isn't gonna work. Now I've got this riff leaning over
here that I liked. Now David Lynch rejects me on
the on the movie theme that I handed him, and
I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do this song. Well, then
d day comes, I have to record this song on
this one particular day, all the rest of the band,
as I said before, is on vacation. No one's in town.
(42:52):
I'm by myself and it's just me and my buddy Tommy,
who you just heard from, in a studio, a small
project studio, and in that one day. What you hear
was what came out of that one day session. Everything,
the vocals, the parts. Okay, so I handed and he
loves the song. Great, I'm happy. Now I'm just being
a David Lynch movie. In a million years, I never
could have guessed it would not only be a hit
song and very successful with a song that the smashing
(43:14):
compkins would still be playing and we will be playing
on the on the upcoming tour. So that really blew
my mind, Um, and that just shows you how sometimes
things happen so random. But I was on a good
role then and I certainly was feeling the song. I
love playing the song and it's you know, it's hits.
Everything from people get married to the song too. You know,
I've walked into a couple of strip bars in my
life and it's not somebody's dancing too the song, not
that you boys have ever been in a strip bar,
(43:35):
but you know, it's got a certain ambiance to it.
It has a certain ambiance. It's one of my favorite
songs from your catalog and I have to be completely
honest with you, I have no idea what the song
is actually about. To me it's kind of like an Angsty,
like an unrequited love type of thing. That's just me.
We all bring her own stuff to the music. You
figured you'd feel like a little bit of connection with
it because of my interpretation, there's so much self blathing
(43:56):
and everyone loves kyle except for Kyle. So that's the problem.
But that's my interpretation is it's this just feeling unworthy
and there's obviously an addiction element to it and it
and it feels like it could be plugged into a
lot of your other work as far as how it
would fit in certain other albums, and so I'm wondering
if that is always we don't have us. Well, exactly,
(44:19):
but if you could, if you thought it. I do
think there's an addictive element. I think that love, Um
miscast can be something that you don't know how to
grapple with. You know, like if you look at the lyrics,
I lie way to stop, I hesitate, I am I breathe,
I'm not. You know, it's just the confusion of like
you're in love with somebody or you think you're in
love with somebody and you don't know how to get
(44:40):
through to him, so you end up turning kind of
turning on yourself Um and that's what I get all
these years later and singing the song is. That's the
sort of enduring feeling that there's a sort of emptiness
sometimes when you feel like you're in love and there's
a confusion. Is this love is? Is this what love
is supposed to feel like? Am I the one who's
not living up to the vision? And certainly if you've
ever been in a relationship that's not going well, those
(45:01):
types of things are haunting. You know it has a
sort of haunting quality. I certainly can say from my
own life experiences that nothing is more haunting than being
in a relationship and feeling more lonely than you would
feel if you were alone, because at least if you're
alone you can go out and just sort of hang
out and talk to some people and you feel like
all your options are in front of you. When you're
a relationship and it's not going the way you want,
and I was in one of those relationships at the time,
(45:22):
you feel trapped and in that I felt super risolate
and Super Lone and for me, coming from a background
of so much abuse as a child, that then triggers
all this other stuff in me where it's like I
really do feel trapped, and that may have nothing to
do with my partner. That just maybe all the stuff
I'm bringing into a relationship. And also the song was
kind of on the tail ended between melancholy and a door,
(45:43):
and to me it has much more of a door vibe.
So was this kind of like a transitionary song where
you're like that hit, I get a vibe from it.
I'm going to run with that now. That's a great point.
You know, technically speaking it's the end of the melancholy
era that the song was done. So it technically speaking
is a melancholy song, but really in spirit is a door.
And what was so confusing of out that, and uh,
I've talked about this many times, but I can maybe
(46:03):
shed some different light on it here, was we had
had a song on and it was obviously our first
kind of classic spotlight song in Episode One of Nineteen
Seventy Nine. That was a huge, huge hit, very electronic
it's basis. Now you have, I very electronic, very little
guitar in it. So in a short period of time,
you know it, guess about a year or so, I've
got two really big hit songs that are very electronic based.
(46:25):
So in my mind when I made the adore album,
I'm thinking, okay, I can definitely kind of pursue this
vibe a little further than I have. I don't have
to be as reliant unless like heavy music, as I
had been up to that point. And the negative reaction
to the album being voiced more along the electronic right.
In my mind it was more of an electronic folk album.
That was very shocking to me that people were so
(46:47):
violently against the record. It was as if the general
public had made up its mind that the smashing compas
was a rock and roll band. As long as we
are a rock and roll band and we did some
weird music, that was cool, but if we were going
to be more of an electronic or a mental band
and the heavier stuff was gonna go by the wayside,
that seemed to engender it's super violent reaction unless you've
actually stood in the middle of that. One thing I
(47:08):
would point too quickly is Neil Strauss, who's a WHO's
a long time friend but at that point was working
for the New York Times. Most people would know him
as the as the author of the dirt the Motley
Crew Book. He's also wrote the I think, the game
about the pickup artists, a fantastic book. If you get
a chance to read anything by Neil, he's a fantastic
writer anyway. So Neil at that point was a New
York Times writer, but I knew him a little bit socially,
(47:30):
kind of through Courtney love's world, and Neil did the
you know, the Big New York Times the door albums
coming out. It's a big shift. I think the interview
came out maybe four to six weeks after the album
and the New York chimes actually ran like a pie
chart showing the lack of sales on the door four
to six weeks in as a post to melancholague. The
minute that article came out the record company just ran
from me. It was like it was over. I went
(47:51):
from the Golden Child who was making gazillions of dollars
for the label. Two they stopped answering the phone. I
had that experience of literally falling from the top of
the mountain to the bottom of the mountain in about
a twelve to eighteen months span and it literally went
back to that article. It's not Niel's fault, you know,
it has a lot to do with the fact that
the album didn't have enough sort of radio classics to
make it passible in that world at that time. And
(48:13):
what's even more ironic is the adore album has gone
on to be one of the most loved albums the
band's ever done, and many people rate it as an
equal to Siamese as far as a fan favorite. So
I've had such strange experiences and it all goes back
again songs like this. Right, let's trace it back real quick.
I got a song called Tear David Lynch re Jackson.
I've got a little riff that I wrote for Shaquille O'Neil.
(48:34):
I whip it up into a song in one day
because the Shaquille and anything doesn't worked out to give
it to David Lynch. It becomes a big hit song.
That gives me the sense of like, Oh, I got
some house money here, I can try to go further
with this sound than I already have and I make
an album sort of based around this sort of confidence
that I have because of the success I have. It
totally blows up in my face and nightmares andsue. So
that just shows you, like a quick how intuitive pursuit
(48:58):
in the arts when it pays off, like a weird
bet in Vegas, you almost start to think, oh, I
know what I'm doing, but you actually don't. You don't
know anything you're doing. You just get lucky or you're
in the right place at the right time, and when
you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, no
one can explain to you what happened because it's the
same process that got you over the finish line all
those other times. I'll tell you one quick story, because
we were talking before about my mother. Feels like the
(49:19):
songs of self fulfilled prophecy, a little bit about love
that my bearded quiet. It might not be right, and
yet somehow I'm loving the fact that this comes full
circle for you. Let me tell you one quick story
about my mother again. It has been here seventy fifth
birthday on the day we're recording this today. I was
ragging one time about how I made a certain amount
of money because of something I've done, and my mother said,
I can't believe they pay you all that money for
one song, and I said they don't pay all that
(49:40):
money for one song. They pay you all that money
because you can do it again and in that particular
period I did it again and again and again to
where I started to think that I couldn't mess up.
And so when when the sand ran out of the HOURGLASS,
which it did not too long after after I, you know,
I found myself sort of wandering a desert that I
was not prepared for because up to that point, everything
I've done that I'd taken risks on, I was reward
it for. Do you think that you are just ahead
(50:02):
of the curve with you adjusted your sound to that
more electronics sound, because there's so much of it now.
Do you think that like where audience is just not
ready for that at that time, since people can go
back and look at the album with, you know, so
much reverence, I think it's a combination of yes, we're
ahead of our time in terms of production and style,
(50:23):
and that's born out over time. Some of the biggest
fan favorites that we play in concert now our songs
like I and a vidoor, which was a single that
would follow I not too long after. But I also
think it had a lot to do with people had
a hard time getting out of particular lane. If you
were an alternative rock band, that's all you were, that's
all you could be if you were in the country.
That's all you could be. Garth Brooks famously made an
(50:45):
album where he changed his name, I think was, to
Chris Gaines and he wore a wig and he was
like an alternate personality. Well, why do you think I
was playing forms of an alternate personality through zero and glass?
Because I felt like the world kept saying no, No,
you've got to be smaller than you are, not bigger
than you are, and my artistic impetus was success. Maybe
want to take more chances, not less, and that's why
I always say that the music business is full of sociopaths,
(51:07):
because they put their finger up in the wind. They go, Oh,
people love me for this, I'm gonna give more and
more and more and more of that, and that's how
people end up being cliches in theself. And listen, there
are cliches in the business that I'm in that are very, very,
very well rewarded for being cliche, so I cannot cast
any shade of them. I'm kind of the counter cliche,
but in that I guess I'd become my own cliche.
Billy Corgan his own cliche. It's not it's not a
(51:29):
good podcast. Name. But here we are. Do we have
merch yet, because that could be the first merches his
own cliche. That's different. We have a saying in the
national wresting Kyle is gonna Kyle, and if you get
to know Kyle, which you will do this podcasters, you'll
understand what that means. Kyle's gonna Kyle. It basically just
means I'm gonna say the wrong thing at the wrong time,
but it's going to be from the best that's that's
why we can say Kyle's gonna because it comes from
(51:49):
a good place. But then you have songs like this
that we just listened to, like I where it comes
from like so such a seat, because and then, if
you the reason I wanted you guys here is not
only are we working, paige riots and I and I
and I, and I love you as people, but also,
you know, in many ways you represent a lot of
the general public who has a kind of a tangential
relationship with my music. I wouldn't say you guys are
like the deep, deep dive fans. The reason I didn't
(52:11):
want deep deep fans here is because I wanted you
guys to ask me to tell you side of questions.
I don't think it's a sad song, not at all really.
To me it has that angstyness to it and it
puts me in a place that kind of makes me
think it's the middle of the night, I'm alone, there
might be a little bit of moonlight in the sky.
It's kind of romantic, kind of dark, kind of Gothy,
and in my mind it ties so deep in, like
I mentioned before, and I don't know why, it ties
(52:32):
into like addiction and all kinds of other things, and
so there is to me it has that darkness to it.
At the risk of sounding kind of Um religious here,
I think one of the things that attracts people to
me as a personality on the musical and artistic side
is I'm able to express a particular feeling what you
guys would say would be dark or the VIBE, and
I'm not offended at all. I see it more as
(52:53):
a triumph in essence to be able to articulate those feelings.
It's more of a song of survival. In essence. The
person is able to articulate these things because they have
enough of a brain that they haven't lost their mind.
If I told you the circumstances of that went into
this song and I told you the circumstances of my
life which hopefully one day I'll write this book, you
guys would be like, no, this is actually this is
a positive that you're actually still standing here talking about
(53:15):
these things. And I think I've known many, many people
in my life who've struggled with different forms of addiction,
whether it's food or gambling or or drugs or sex
or even rock and roll. The reason they're attracted to
people like me, I think, is because they see me
as a survivor in it, not a victim in it,
which is why I always like to say I'm not
a victim and I don't think the smashing comp because
(53:35):
music is a music a victimhood, and I'm not saying
you guys are saying this, but oftentimes that's projected on us.
The cure gets a similar VIBE, like Oh, it's a
bunch of sad f's, you know what I mean. I
think for people who are o g Goss like me,
we don't see it that way. We actually see it
as a sort of a it's a form of resistance.
With the black clothes and the black VIBE is the
way to say stay the heck away from me, because
(53:55):
I need that to survive. I can't sort of operate
in your world the way you want me to operate.
What do most people do? They cope with outside things,
they find people that kind of confirm them, hashtag their
way through life, kind of thing, right most people who
are very sensitive people, they have to navigate the inner
world of their feelings, and that's why I said this
song is more haunting about trying to survive an addictive relationship,
(54:16):
and so I see it one more survival and if
you look at the music at the end, it's more
triumphant than defeatist. I think you just summarize exactly why
this podcast needs to exist and why we want to
have these conversations with you, because, as somebody who creates
content for the masses, uh, it's easy to misinterpret it
and everybody kind of brings their own experience as their
own life and their own interpretation of things. So to
be able to put it on the record and say, listen,
(54:37):
if you're feeling this way about it, there's this other
version of it that also exists. I mean, are you
good with the fact that people will always kind of
look at something you've made and make it. I'm totally
cool with it. Here's the image that I have in
my mind. Go stand in an art gallery sometime, and
I'm talking like, you know, the Art Institute of Chicago
or the Louve in Paris. Just pick a great painting,
(54:57):
put yourself behind where people would stand and watch the painting.
Just watch people come and look at the painting. It's
a rembrand's right. It's not a question of whether Joe
Galley or Kyle Davis or billy corgan likes it. The
world is stored to decide this is a masterpiece. Step
back and watch how people actually interface with the masterpiece.
One Guy will come up, look at it for three seconds,
look at his uh, look at his watch or his
phone and walk off. Somebody will sit there for an
(55:19):
hour and just gaze at it. To me, it's about engagement.
So great work will engage people. How they engage is
totally not my business. All I can do in this
particular instance in realm. Uh. It's a bit broad for
a podcast, but this in the in the realm of
thirty three of the PODCAST, is to illuminate for you
the way I perceive it. But I have no skin
(55:40):
in the game for how people perceive this is why
the characters exist. It's meant to confuse and and sort
of throw up smoke screens so that you can't actually
get to the heart of the artists, and that's a
discussion will have in another time. I think that's a
great place to leave it right there. Kyle Davis, I
know you've got some plugs ready for us to talk
about where fans can find all of our great content
(56:01):
that we have online, our website and all that other
good stuff that people could go and enjoy this podcast
anywhere and everywhere. I mean lyrics, featured songs, all sorts
of stuff. We're gonna BE PUTTING ON A W PC
thirty three DOT com. Click on that, save it to
your favorites. Go check that out wherever you listen to podcast,
via apple, spotify, I heart, anywhere you find all these things,
(56:22):
make sure you subscribe. Click on it like rape. Make
it happen. The more people know, the more we get
to bring this to you. Joe, I'm happy to be here, Billy.
Thank you for sharing with us. What do you got
for us right here at the end? Well, you're asking
sad people to Click on things, and that's really hard.
We love you and we hope you're enjoying the show.
(56:43):
This is a big dive off the cliff for me
to go super deep into my work, but I know
that there are people out there that are interested and
so that inspires me. So thank you for listening and
we'll talk to you soon. FO
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