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I Was Playing Heavy Metal When I Was 18. I Had To Evolve Out Of That Into An Alternative Consciousness About What It Meant To Change The Way I Played Guitar, And The Kind Of Songs, And The Subject Matter, And Singing About Child Abuse, And All This Stuff. I Had To Come From Somewhere, And I Had To Take Chances To Do That.

-Billy Corgan

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I Was Playing Heavy

Billy Corgan

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I Was Playing Heavy Metal When I Was 18. I Had To Evolve Out Of That Into An Alternative Consciousness About What It Meant To Change The Way I Played Guitar, And The Kind Of Songs, And The Subject Matter, And Singing About Child Abuse, And All This Stuff. I Had To Come From Somewhere, And I Had To Take Chances To Do That.

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I Know How Stupid People Can Be. I've Played In Front Of 5,000 People That Bought A Ticket To My Concert, And Some Guy Who's Bought A Ticket Decides He's Going To Throw A Bottle At My Head. That's A Simple Act Of Stupidity. That's Not Even Defiance.

I Was Raised A Christian, But I Wouldn't Call Myself A Christian Now. I Think When I Was Younger It Was Easier To Focus On The Negative, Nihilist Vision... This Is Sort Of Picking Up On The Other Half Of The Body, Which Is God And White Light.

Wrestling Is One Of The Last Truly Rebellious American Things Left.

The Weird Nihilism That Permeates Mellon Collie Is Extremely Relevant To What's Going On Right Now. So Many Kids Are Intelligent And Articulate, But They Don't Know What To Do With Themselves.

Most Great Records Really Start With The Drums.

Around The Mid-'90s Every Hair Guy Who Would Have Been In A Hair-metal Band Got His Tattoos And Suddenly Decided He Was Alternative. It Just Became Like A Thing.

In 1992, With The Weight Of A Perceived World On Our Shoulders, We Disappeared Into A Parking Garage To Write The Songs That Would Change The Course Of Our Lives Forever. 'siamese Dream' Represents All Of Our Dreams Coming True, While The Dreams Of A Happy Band Fell Apart.

The Smashing Pumpkins Was Never Meant To Be A Small Band. It Was Going To Either Be A Big Band, Or A No Band.

If There Was A Simple Ethic For The Band, It Was That We Want To Be Able To Do Whatever We Want To Do.

In The Music Business I Am Surrounded By People Who Don't View Music As A Sacred Voice. They View Music As Something That They Can Use And Exploit, Often Times Lazily. They Have No Sense Of The Tradition, They Have No Sense Of Honor About Those Who Came Before And Charted The Path.

Your Basic Person Wants To Talk About Material Culture, Internet Culture. I Think About God, Cats, Nature.

If I Have Resistance To Something, It Means There's Something Wrong. The Resistance To Me Is A Sign Of Fear.

And The World So Hard To Understand Is The World You Can't Live Without.

Smashing Pumpkins Has Never Been A Band About Hit Songs.

I'm Not Going To Die Glamorously. I'll Probably Be Eating A Twinkie, Take A Bite, And Fall Over.

I Think Humankind Is Going To Have To Evolve Into Systems That Are More Transparent. Then People Will Be Able To Make More Integral Choices About The Food They Eat.

I Met Scott Stapp When The Band Was First Coming Up, Great Guy. I Haven't Seen Him For Years, But A Great Guy.

We Have A Problem With Any Labels That People Try To Hang On Us, Because All It Does Is Drag You Down.

I Think The Original, 'they're The Next Jane's Addiction' Things That People Said About Us In The Beginning Have Been Pretty Much Wiped Out.

As A Healthy Person, My Breakfasts Are Very Bland And Boring. Think Kind Of A White Pasty Gruel. Or There Can Be An Occasional Banana Over The Top.

More Than Any Audience In The World, Americans Will Cross Their Arms, Stare At You And Say, 'ok, Whaddya Got?' - No Matter How Many Times You've Proven It To Them.

We Can Look You In The Eye And Talk To You About Life, Heart, Love Rock'n'roll, Whatever, But We Do Not Have The Moral Authority To Tell People How To Vote Or What To Do With Their Bodies. We Are Just A Rock Band.

Like Any Form Of Death, At Some Point You Just Have To Get Up And Say Yeah I'll Take It, Whatever's Gonna Happen Is Gonna Happen And Sorta Chop Your Head Off. It's Easy To Avoid All That...there's Always Another Moment, Another Girl, Another High, Another Drug, There's Always Something To Distract You.

I Think Long And Hard About What It Is I'm Actually Trying To Do, And Then I Kind Of Have To Narrow My Focus Into That. If I Don't, I'm Too All Over The Place.

I Usually Wake Up Far After Breakfast. That's As Much As You're Going To Find Out About My Dietary Requirements Other Than Marijuana And Vodka.

About Six Months Ago, I Listened To Siamese Dream. That Was The First Time I'd Ever Really Heard My Own Album, Because I Had Separated From The Experience Of Making The Record. And It Really Moved Me. It Made Me Cry, It's So Beautiful.

Despite All My Rage I Am Still Just A Rat In The Cage.

Destruction Is A True Sign Of Devotion. As I Always Tell My Girlfriend When She Threatens To Kill Me. 'you Should Kill Me And It Would Tell Me That You Love Me.

If The Next Record Is No Better Than Gish, Then We've Failed.

To Be Able To Put Your Arms Around 24 Years Of Music, It's Really Fun.

In The Beginning, Though, I Have To Admit That I Did Have A Chip On My Shoulder. I Did Want To Prove Everyone Wrong. But After I Went Through The Process And Came Out The Other Side, It Wasn't About Anyone Else.

I'd Reached A Point Where There Was A Direct Conflict Between What I Was Trying To Be And Who I Really Was.

I Don't Wanna Play This Kind Of Cartoon Character Anymore.

I Think A Spiritual Journey Is Not So Much A Journey Of Discovery. It's A Journey Of Recovery. It's A Journey Of Uncovering Your Own Inner Nature. It's Already There.

I Created A Paradigm By Which I Could Succeed, And Up Until Recently It Was The Only Way I Could Do It. I Could Not Take The Brunt Of Standing In The Light Of My Own Work. There Was A Faustian Bargain I Could Not Make. I Could Have You Mock Me For Wearing Funny Clothes That I Could Deal With. But I Couldn't Deal With Actually Standing In The Light Of My Own Musical Power. That's The Difference Now. It's Like, Okay, No More Of That, You're Done.

I Use Music As Some Kind Of Weird Salvation To Get Away From Life

The Music Business - And I Guess You Could Say Any Artistic Endeavor - Usually Rewards Those Who Are On The Leading Edge Of Where Everything Is Going, But You Can't Be Too Far.

My Father Was A Guitar Player, And I Was Raised With A Super High Standard Of What Good Guitar Playing Was.

Most People Are Living Lives Of Sort Of Survival. And Constantly Posing An Existential Crisis, Either Through Fantasy Or Oblivion, Really Has Been Pretty Much Explored In Rock And Roll. At Least In The Western Version Of Rock N' Roll.

There's A Difference Between Being A Poseur And Being Someone Who's So Emotionally Challenged They're Kind Of Just Doing Their Best To Show You What They've Got.

Do I Belong In The Conversation About The Best Artists In The World? My Answer Is Yes, I Do.

I Don't Have To Play By These Rules Or Do These Things... I Can Actually Have My Own Kind Of Version.

People Always Seemed To Pay Attention To Us. I Have No Idea Why -- There Was Just A Presence Between The Four People Or Something.

My Mother And I Parting Company At Four Years Old Is A Recurring Theme; Although It's Not Symbolically Necessarily Present, It's Present In All My Relationships.

I'm Viewed As This Weird, Crippled Character. But You Got To Take Your Lumps.

I Want To Make Great Songs.

I Believe That If The Tribune Company Ever Tries To Close Down Wrigley Field That You Will Have A Protest From Every Corner Of The Globe.

I Was Part Of A Generation That Changed The World - And It Was Taken Over By Poseurs.

The Deeper I Get Into My Life As A Musician, I'm Discovering That It Becomes Less And Less About Other People, And More About What I Want To Do. And That's A Good Place To Be.

Even If You Don't Believe In God, Exploring Fully The Idea Of A God Or Gods Should Pose No Threat To You.

You Have To Keep Adapting To The Times. If You Kind Of Go With It, It Can Kind Of Fun.

Rock In The Mainstream Culture Has Lost A Lot Of Its Mojo.

Mainstream Culture

I've Had A Lot Of Things Rendered As Not Being Effective Or As Some Indication Of My Lack Of Sanity, Only To Be Praised Ten, Fifteen, Twenty Years Later For What I Did Once In This Overt Consciousness.

I Look At Other Members Of My Generation Who Have Basically Done One Thing, And One Thing Well, And Have Been Handsomely Rewarded For It.

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My View Of The World Is Always Tempered By The Fact That There Are People Who Are Less Fortunate Than I Am.

I'm By Nature Kind Of A Glum Person, But I'm Not A Sad Pathetic

I Think I Kind Of Approached Music With This Sort Of, Like, Weird Thing Where I Kinda Set Myself Up Where I Could Kinda Be Myself But Not Really. I Kinda Had A Backdoor Out. So If You Criticized Me, I Kinda Had My Defenses Working. And The Problem Is That Some People Seize On That As Inauthenticity, Which Is Understandable. So That's Painful Because It's Not That You're Being Inauthentic...there's A Difference Between Being A Poseur And Being Someone Who's So Emotionally Challenged They're Kind Of Just Doing Their Best To Show You What They've Got.

Don't Judge Yourself By Someone Else's Standards. You Will Always Lose

Radiohead And Our Lady Peace Are Doing The Seven Layers Of Guitar, And I Kind Of Jumped On That Before Anyone Else Did.

It's What The Mainstream Does - They Absorb Things And They Blunt The Power Of It. And So The Next Generation And The Next Generation Has To Become More Shocking And More Provocative In Order To Get Any Rise Out Of Anybody.

At Some Point, You Protest Too Much They Think You're Guilty Just Because You're Protesting.

You Will Never See The Four Original Pumpkins On Stage Ever Again, Unless It's A Hall Of Fame Thing. But You Would Never See A Tour. There's So Much Damage, There's No Way.

I'm Very Disappointed In My Country Right Now, Because I Think We've Kind Of Lost Our Moral Compass.

We Love Cats More Than We Love Women [with Marilyn Manson].

I Don't Think People Are Fans Of Me Because I Wrote Hit Songs. I Think They're Fans Because I'm A Lunatic Or A Weirdo. The Hit Songs Came Out Of My Idiosyncratic Personality, Not The Other Way Around.

I Did 13-something Years Of Talking To Wrestlers And Promoters About Why They Did Certain Things And Why They Booked Matches A Certain Way And What They Were Thinking And Whether They Were Satisfied With The Draw. And I Got A Lot Of Insight In The Business.

The Funny Thing About Me That Most People Never Really Understand Is That, At Heart, I'm Really A Jock.

I Never Wanted To Leave The Smashing Pumpkins. That Was Never The Plan.

Rock And Roll Is Still Asking People Like Me To Live Up To The Old Guard's Concept Of What Success Is But It Doesn't Mean Anything.

There's Been Someone Up Here Screaming 'landslide' For The Whole Show... Normally We Don't Play 'landslide,' But On Occasion We've Been Known To Play It... So Since This Person's Been Screaming It All Show Long... That Just About Kills The Chances Of Me Playing It Tonight, Or Ever Again.

I Think It Would Be Very Interesting To See That Many People Would Probably Be Okay With Paying More For Services And Goods That They Felt Were More Holistically [generated]. Which Means The Death Of The Old System Which Rewarded People For Taking Advantage Of One Another.

Usually The Intention Of The Artistic Effect Is Too Sophisticated For Most People To Understand, Sort Of Like A Joke That They Don't Get So They Don't Think It's Funny.

You Give Me A @#$%& Kazoo And I'll Write You A Good Song.

Now The Expectation Is That, Once The Public Decides That The Artist Is Gentrified, The Public Demands That The Artist Stop Growing. And [the Public] Actually Puts All Their Energy Into Reasserting Or Re-establishing What The Artist Has Long Ago Left Behind. Because That's What They Want. The Source Of Creativity, The Gift That's Been Given, Be Damned.

I Lay A Lot Of Blame At The Feet Of Dusty Baker For Not Being More Strict About Fundamentals, Which I Think Would Give The Team A Stronger Day-to-day Identity.

I Work Differently Than Most People.

Today Is The Greatest Day I've Ever Known Can't Live For Tomorrow, Tomorrow's Much Too Long.

Been There, Done That, Seen It, Heard It, Pissed On It.

Been There Done That

It's A Simple Formula For Me Now, I Don't Play Any Song I Don't Want To Play.

Actually, I Was Having Dinner With Michael [stipe, Of R.e.m.] When Our Second Album Went Platinum, Which Up Until That Point Was The Highest Success We'd Ever Had. And He Turned To Me During Dinner And Said, 'welcome To The Deep Waters, Kid.' I'll Never Forget That.

One Thing I've Learned To Appreciate As I've Gotten A Little Older Is Direct Forms Of Communication.

In My Case I Don't Mind Playing A Character That Irritates People Or Makes People Question My Sanity.

When I've Tried To Reinvent The Wheel, I Get Bashed For Not Doing The Familiar Things.

Familiar Things

Time Is Never Time At All. You Can Never Ever Leave Without Leaving A Piece Of Youth. And Our Lives Are Forever Changed. We Will Never Be The Same. The More You Change, The Less You Feel.

If You've Sold Over A Million Records, You Are Not Punk Rock, You Are Milking The System For Everything That It's Worth.

Rock & Roll Is Not About What You Play, It's About How You Play It.

I've Been Too Productive For Too Long, And Despite What Anybody Wants To Strip Away From Me, I Am Influential. I Am.

Thinking About The Future And Thinking About The Past Is Really Only A Way Of Ignoring The Present.

Well, We Have Brought Certain Things Upon Ourselves. I've Certainly Brought Things Upon Us With My Mouth.

Indie World Won't Have Me, And Mainstream World Treats Me Like An Alien, But Here I Am Still Floating Between These Two Worlds.

There's Nothing Wrong With Technology. It's When Technology Is The Story And Not The Artist, That's The Problem.

You Can Only Be This High-powered Mojo Rock Band For So Long, Then You Just Can't Look People In The Eye. So, We've Projected Our Own Demise.

In My Particular Instance, I Came From A Family That Didn't Have Anything. Everything I Earned In Life I Made. Myself. With Songs That I Wrote.

The Music Is All We Care About -- So If That's Bad, Then We're Bad.

Everybody Can Close Their Eyes, Picture A Dream House Or A Perfect Place [where] They'd Like To Have A Picnic. But Actually Creating It - How Do You Create Something From Nothing? Anyone Who's Creative Understands That That's The Magic, That's The Alchemy.

Heavy Metal Is A Universal Energy -- It's The Sound Of A Volcano. It's Rock, It's Earth Shattering. Somewhere In Our Primal Being We Understand.

There Are People Out There Who Are Older Who Are Cool. I Want That.

If You're Really Going To Uncover Something As An Artist, You're Going To Come Into Access With Parts Of Your Personality And Your Psyche That Are Really Uncomfortable To Face: Your Own Ambition, Your Own Greed, Your Own Avarice, Your Own Jealousies, And Anything That Would Get In The Way Of The Purity Of Your Own Artistic Voice.

I Think When I Listen To Old Records, It Puts Me Back In The Atmosphere Of What It Felt Like To Make The Record And Who Was There And What The Room Looked Like. It's More A Sensory Memory.

I Put Up With The Music Business Because I Understand That I'm In The Tradition, I'm In A Tradition That's Of Far Greater Importance Than The Business I Seem To Be In. Everywhere I Go In The World, People Ask Me About The Business That I Seem To Be In, But I'm Not Really In That Business.

I Was Trying To Be This Person Who Is Cool, Eternally Rocking.

A Good Artist Is Willing To Die Many Times Over. What's Funny Is, I've Died So Many Times.

Shave Your Head, Wear A 'zero' Shirt. Take Away Your Identity. What Do You Have? You Still Have Yourself.

If Practice Makes Perfect, And No One's Perfect, Then Why Practice?

Rhetorical Question

I Feel Completely Free To Do Whatever I Want And How I Want To Do It. I Feel Unburdened By My Past.

It's Wonderful To Read Interviews By Old Blues Guys - They Talk About All Their Influences, They Talk About Who Taught Them How To Play, And Who They Saw, And How They Were Determined To Play That Way.

I've Thought Many Times, 'i Can't Write This,' But On My Own Little Planet I Found The Courage To Write It Because It Was True. I Put Aside Fear Of Father Being Angry With Me. It's Hard Though; The World Pales In Comparison With The Stature Of A Parent. In Some Small-consolation Way, My Parents Feel I'm Helping People By Giving Them Something To Identify With. They Feel Proud In A Sort Of Reverse Way. My Mom's Proud Of The Fact That Lots Of Kids Look Up To Me.

There's Something Going On Right Now In America, Where The American Spirit Or Character Is Reasserting Itself Around Liberty. I Think It's An Important Time, And I'm Trying To Document That As An Artist. If I Just Filter What I Read Through The Media, If I Just Go Through What I Read Through The Media, I'm Not Really In Touch With The World I Grew Up In. I Know There's A Gap There, I Talk To My Relatives, I Talk To People I Meet Traveling Around, And Their Mind Is On Something Completely Different.

People Think I Take Some Sort Of Masochistic Pleasure Out Of Putting Out Music That's Gonna Be Unpopular.

I Reached A Point In My Life Where I Felt Like I Was Living Through Some Old Character.

Music Is 99% Of My Life. But I Know I Need A Break. Besides, If You Give People Too Much, They Start To Not Want It. We Need To Restrain Ourselves.

I'm Like The Fugitive, Running From The One-armed Indie-rock Community!

We Had A Wonderful Time With This Kind Of Grunge Awareness, Where Suddenly Rock Was Cool Again. People Wanted To Head Loud Guitars. It Was A Great Time, And I'm Glad We Were There. But The Gimmick Part Has Worn Off.

The Point Is To Let The Music Be Itself. If It Doesn't Mean Anything To You, Then It's Bullsh*t.

Compliments And Criticism Are All Ultimately Based On Some Form Of Projection.

I Don't Think '90s Music Was As Significant As '60s Music In Terms Of Changing The World, But It Was Significant, And I Think It Was Similarly Disillusioning When You Realize The Mainstream Just Views It As Like A Curiosity.

It Was Shocking To See Nirvana Play, Because It Was Like, "here's This Little Guy With A Monster-guitar Sound." And It Was Heavier Than Black Sabbath. That Was Shocking.

I Get More Out Of Life Just Being Myself, By Just Being A Human Being. Not By Being A Rock Star, Not By Being Whatever. Sometimes I Act Like A Jerk, But I Think People Respect Me For Being Myself. That's The Ultimate Thing About The Smashing Pumpkins.

To Re-embrace What I Once Loved About Music Has Been A Warming Process For Me, Because It's A Good, Earned Feeling Now.

The Reason I Don't Play Any Of The Old Songs Is Because I Really Honor My Old Band, And I Think That Those Songs Are Best Served Within The Context Of That Band.

Once A Pumpkin, Always A Pumpkin.

I Really Think It's A White, Bourgeois Idea To Pretend That You Don't Have Influences. It Seems To Be The Obsession Strictly Of White People In College.

I've Always Been Spiritual But I've Never Had A Proper Context, And It Took Me Awhile To Find The Proper Context. It's Hard To Realize You Can Have Any Kind Of Relationship With God You Want...and So I Now Have A Punk Rock Relationship With God.

As Far As A Theoretical Point Of View For My Generation, I'm Probably The Most Successful Theoretician. I Mean, Double Albums And Concepts And Dresses And Major Disasters And Wonderful Successes And Yet You Don't See The Critical Review Of My Work. Why? Because It's All Focused On The Persona. Billy Corgan. But I Get To Sort Of Jump In And Be Billy Corgan. But Then I Get To Sort Of Jump Back Out And Be Like, Sensitive Man In The Corner.

It Seems To Me That References To Bands Like Black Sabbath And Led Zeppelin Meant More To Me A Year Ago And All Those Old Things Are Totally Losing Importance.

Every Year That Goes By, I Lose That Much More Motivation To Play Rock.

Being Overly Identified With [a Certain Period Of Time] Becomes A Noose Around Your Neck, And People Don't Want You To Grow Up, They Don't Want You To Change, They Don't Want You To Evolve.

There's A Lot Of Days Where You Feel Forgotten.

Live Simply; Make Compassionate Choices When It Comes To Food.

In A Weird Kind Of Way, Music Has Afforded Me An Idealism And Perfectionism That I Could Never Attain As Me.

We Were Just A Little Immature In The Past. I Think We Actually Wanted To Create Difficult Situations For Ourselves Just To Be Able To Use That Emotion For Stimulation.

Difficult Situations

There Is Something Mighty Suspicious About Declaring An Emergency For Something That Has Yet To Show Itself To Be A Grand Pandemic.

Sometimes People Just Like Being Around Each Other, And Good Things Come Out Of That.

If You Don't Fit Into This Kind Of Like Gossipy, Trendy, Web-hit Thingy, You're Relegated To Sort Of Second-class Celebrity Status.

It Makes Me Crazy To Think That Somebody Might Attack My City Or Any Other City.

Where Is This Great Love For Rock And Roll That Existed For 50 Or 60 Years?

I Rummage Around In Artistic Things From The Past. If You Don't Understand The Context, They Wouldn't Make Any Sense. I Rummage Around In Conceptual Ideas Of The Future, But If You Don't Know The Source Of The Thinking, [it] Wouldn't Make Any Sense.

Everybody Likes To Run Around On Their Phones, Including Me, But We Don't Always Want To Hear Who's Sweating Somewhere In Some Non-air-conditioned Factory To Create Those Things So That They Can Keep The Prices Down.

Intoxicated With The Madness I'm In Love With My Sadness Bullshit Beggars, Enchanted Kingdom Fashion Victims Through Their Charcoaled Teeth

People Act Like Nirvana Invented Grunge; They Just Took It And Personified It.

The Simplest Way That I Can Understand Therapy Is That We're Born A Certain Way, We're Taught To Be Something Different, And We Spend Our Whole Lives Trying To Unravel It.

The Pumpkins Love Rock-and-roll, We Absolutely Love It, But We Also Think It's A Flatulent, Ego-serving Kiddie Playground. You Can Have Your Cake And Eat It Too.

If You Don't Have Some Sort Of Belief System By Which To Center Your Life, It's Hard Sometimes To Understand Why You Would Put Up With Your Family.

I Started Thinking That If Post Modernism Is About People Opening Up All Their Skeletons, I'm Going The Other Way. I Don't Want Anyone Knowing Anything About Me Anymore.

I'm Definitely Responsible For Coming In With Some Basic Chord Changes, Or Ideas. Everybody In The Band Looks To Me To Come Up With The Basic Seed, So It's Not Very Productive To Come In With Nothing.

That's The Age That People Are Exploited, Exploitable, And They're Easily Manipulated. The Problem With Me Is, You Can't Manipulate Me Anymore. I've Seen It, I Know It, I've Been There. And That's Partially Why, Particularly In America, You See Issues With Artists As They Get Older. And They Like To Keep It A Young Man's Game. Because That's How They Can Fudge Around With The Rules.

It's About The Girlfriend Who Left Me Last Year. I Tried To Put All My Anger In Those Words, Even Though I'm Just As Much To Blame For The Break-up. 'soma' Is Based On The Idea That A Love Relationship Is Almost The Same As Opium: It Slowly Puts You To Sleep, It Soothes You, And Gives You The Illusion Of Sureness And Security. Very Deceivable.

My Pat Line About The Cubs And Payroll Is That The Amount Of Merchandise The Cubs Would Sell Off A World Series Championship Would More Than Cover For A Big Payroll.

We Don't Make Music For People To Take Drugs To, We Make Music For People To Live Their Life.

Not Let The Child Run The Circus, Just Have That Child Be The Source Of The Creative Voice.

I Think Rock & Roll Has Prepared Me For A Lot Of Flexibility.

This Is Not A Reaction Against A Negative World. It's A Response To A Negative World.

The Mythology In Rock N' Roll Is That I'm A Bit Of A Loose Cannon. Yet I've Produced More Music Than Anybody In My Generation. So How Much Of A Loose Cannon Am I? But The General Public Believes That I'm A Loose Cannon, So Let Them Believe It. I'm Not Going To Correct Them.

People Always Called The Cure Gloomy, But Listening To The Cure Made Me Happy. There Was Something About The Gloominess That Gave Me Comfort, And I Think We're The Same Way.

Music Is Supposed To Be Interwoven Into The Fabric Of Society; It Is Not Supposed To Be A Plaything That Is There To Serve The Population's Titillation Of The Moment.

I Don't Know If God Would Agree With Me, But Believing In God Is Kind Of Unimportant When Compared To Believing In Yourself. Because If You Go With The Idea That God Gave You A Mind And An Ability To Judge Things, Then He Would Want You To Believe In Yourself And Not Worry About Believing In Him. By Believing In Yourself You Will Come To The Conclusion That Will Point To Something.

I Realize I'm A Mirror.

I'm Prepared To Spend The Rest Of My Life Playing Clubs, If That Means I'm Playing Music That I Believe In.

I Have A Musical Ancestry As Much As I Have A Family Ancestry. Honoring Those Ancestors Gives You Access To A Greater Source Of Appreciation And Information Than You Would Have If You Were Just Going On Your Own Ego System.

Twenty-eight To 31 Is The Tough Period. You Have To Be Really Careful Because It's So Cataclysmic, So Life-altering. People Do Really Dramatic Things Like Get Married, Or They'll Get Divorced. Your Chances Of Committing Suicide Go Way Up. It's Basically Psychic Death. You See The Signs Of It Around 27, And You're Still On The Out-end Of It Around 31. Everyone I've Talked To Who's Gone Through That And Come Out The Other Side Walks Out Of It Like, "my Life Is Great".

I Don't Have A Problem With 'idol' Or 'x Factor,' I Have A Problem With When Those Things Are Not Given The Proper Contextual Hue.

I Think The Days Of Working With Producers In The Conventional Sense Are Over For Me.

I Don't Like That The Government Is Going To Manipulate The Information To Try To Convince Me That What I'm Eating Is Not What I'm Really Eating. If People Choose To Eat Cardboard Because It's Ten Cents Cheaper, Then Let Them. That's At The Root Of Freedom. But In The Reverse, I'd Like To Know If What I'm Eating Or Consuming Or Buying Is Somehow Hurting Or Exploiting Someone In Another Part Of The Planet.

There's Nothing More Satisfying Than Going To A Market And Meeting The Person Who Picked The Strawberries, Or It's Their Farm That The Strawberries Came From, And Giving Them A Fair Value In Exchange For What They're Giving You.

Most Of My Arguments With Musicians Through The Years Have Had More To Do With Their Attitude About Music, Or Their Attitude About Their Own Lives, Or Their Personal Responsibility. Music Has Never Really Been The Big Centerpiece Of The Fight.

The Killer In Me Is The Killer In You.

That Was A Terrible Super Bowl, I Have To Say. I Mean You Got The Big Peyton Manning Walk Off Into The Sunset Win, But What A Shnoozo.

Most People Don't Know That Wrestling Came Out Of The Circus.

Well, All Rock And Roll Is Based In Artifice.

You Have To Be Willing To Deal With The Ups And Downs Of The Music, The Ups And Downs Of The Audience.

My Version, Of Course, Is Not This Flag-waving, Let's All Get On The Jesus Train And Ride Out Of Hell. I'm Not That Kind Of Guy. It's An Embrace That Life Is Good, Worth Living And Yeah, It's Not Easy, But There Are More Pluses Than Minuses.

I Want People To See Me Happy.

I Was Playing Heavy Metal When I Was 18. I Had To Evolve Out Of That Into An Alternative Consciousness About What It Meant To Change The Way I Played Guitar, And The Kind Of Songs, And The Subject Matter, And Singing About Child Abuse, And All This Stuff. I Had To Come From Somewhere, And I Had To Take Chances To Do That.

We Are The Most Beloved And Hated Band In The World.

Well, I'm Known As A Guitar-rock Guy, You Know? You're Not Supposed To Play With Synthesizers. This Is Not In The Rulebook.

I'm Passionate About Creating New Systems That Are More Holistic To Humankind. What Do I Mean By That? I Mean, Create New Systems Of Business So That People With Ethics Both Exploit Their Goods And Their Gifts While Not Exploiting The Earth, Exploiting One Another.

I Went To See A Shaman. He Put His Hands On Me, And I Cried Like A Baby For An Hour.

I Do Not Think Wrestling Is Going To Save The World.

I Like My Home And I Like The Nature.

For A 6-foot-3 Guy With No Hair And A Whiny Voice, I've Done All Right.

Jesus Teaches Us To Forgive And I've Got To Trust Him On That One.

Beware Of Those Angels With Their Wings Glued On.

The Difficulty, If You're In The World - And This Is For Anybody - Is The Eventual Disappointment That Comes With Having To Meet Other Versions Of Reality. Imposed Systems That Ask You To Compromise Or Sacrifice Things Which You Consider Holy Or Sacred.

You've Got To Be Ready To Be In A Great Relationship.

Great Relationship

My Earliest Memory Is Of Feeling Different. My Parents Told Me That I Wasn't Like Other Children.

I'll Come In With A String Of Riffs And Direct The Musical Ideas. But You Still Need A Band And Their Input To Make The Ideas Come Alive. You Can't Underestimate Band Chemistry.

I'm A Pisces, And Pisces Have This Weird Inability To Be Completely Spontaneous. We're Too Conscious Of Our Actions. I've Always Been Way Too Sensible For My Own Good.

Everybody I'm Working With Now Is A Friend. And I Would Be Very, Very Remiss To Work With Anybody In The Future Who Has Not Shown Me Who They Really Are.

What Most People Do Is Try To Find A Comfortable Persona That They're In Alignment With And The Public Likes And Appreciates Them For.

I'm An Experimental Artist In A Field That Doesn't Celebrate Experimentation. It Celebrates Self-destruction, Which I Guess You Could Say Is A Creative Endeavor.

When You Move Artistically, The Natural Inclination Is To Denounce Everything That's Gone Before.

That's The Great Thing About Rock N' Roll: The Myth Is Ultimately More Important Than The Reality. And That's What You Learn - You Just Learn To Go With The Mythology.

I Think God Is The Most Unexplored Territory In Rock And Roll Music.

I Walked Away From Going To Church When I Was 8. I Didn't Set Foot In Another Church Until I Was 28.

Going To Church

All I Can Go On Is My Own Value System.

When Alternative Music - Which Is Supposed To Be The Standard-bearer Of Where White Rock Is Headed - Becomes Either Too Cute Or Too Manufactured, That's Just Really Not Good.

As A 28 Year Old Who's Lived Long Enough To Know The Difference, I Know Now That The Feelings I Felt An 16 Were Not Necessarily Correct. But However Overly Dramatic, The Desperation And Hopelessness I Felt At 16 Was My Reality.

I Grew Up In The Suburbs And Basically Associate The Suburbs With Cultural Death.

The Ideology Of The Smashing Pumpkins Was Ultimately More Valuable Than The Music Of The Smashing Pumpkins. That's What Critics Can't Put Their Finger On.

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