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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.

-Billy Corgan

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There's Something Going On

Billy Corgan

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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.

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More From Billy Corgan

Well, All Rock And Roll Is Based In Artifice.

In Our Lives In A Lot Of Ways It's All About Fake. You've Got People Wanting Things For Fake Reasons.

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.

In My Corgan Brain, I've Decided It's Almost As Simple As 'all You Need Is Love.' Almost.

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.

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

As Long As You Have Faith, You're Willing To Try To Take Another Chance. God Wants You To Amble Toward The Right Spot On The Horizon. The Idea Is That You're Willing To Get Up And Keep Moving Toward That Light.

I Want People To See Me Happy.

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

The Title Of A Song Is Like The Wrapping On A Present.

Billy [corgan] And I Used To Spend Quite A Lot Of Time Together In Los Angeles, When I First Moved There.

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

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.

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

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".

Being In A Rock Band Is Just An Excuse Not To Get A Job

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

We Need To Get Back To A Level Of Social Responsibility That We Haven't Seen For A Long Time.

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.

Instead Of Taking The 'i'm Cool, I Hope You Adore Me' Path (with My Music), I Chose The Path Of How To Connect. I Think That's The Reason A Lot Of People Feel A Deeper Connection With Our Band Than Other Bands, And I Also Feel That's Why People Polarize On Us. If You Don't Get It, It Seems Preposterous; If You Do Get It, It's Really Heavy - It Has A Weight To It.

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

I Was Brought Up Roman Catholic. I'm Not Even Baptized.

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

That's The Real Endeavor: To Try To Create That Direct Conduit From The Pure Consciousness Of Your Creative Voice To The Person Who's A Craftsman Who Can Go Into The World And Consistently Deliver New Things Worth Paying Attention To.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

A Missive To All You Metal Bands, The World Is Totally Over The Rock Thing. Rock Is Deader Than It's Ever Been.

Stay In School. Lie To Your Teachers, But Stay In School.

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.

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

Rhetorical Question

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

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

I Don't Think I'm Before My Time, I Just Don't Think I'm In My Time.

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.

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.

The Things I'm Guided To Do Are Really Strange To Me.

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

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.

I Work Differently Than Most People.

What Bothers Me Is When Music Becomes Entertainment. Of Course, Music Is Supposed To Be Entertaining, But Go Back To Any Period Of Time - Music Had A Cultural Significance On Different Levels, Whether It Was Folk Music, It Was The News Of The Village, Or It Had To Do With The Rites Of Passage.

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.

I Often Have Deer On My Property And There's A Fox And Owls. You're Not Going To See That In The City.

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.

What Has Gone On In My Childhood, And The Personal Problems That We've Had In The Band, Have Given A Lot Of People Hope. (it Shows) If You Keep Your Nose Pointed Straight You Can Actually Get Somewhere -- To A Happy Place.

Calm, Open Debate, And Logical Thought Drive Strength To Its Maximum Effectiveness.

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.

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

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

We've Turned Into A Whining Society.

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

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

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.

I Dont Think We're The Type Of Band People Look At And Say, 'i Want To Grow Up To Be Just Like That'. We're Like A Train Wreck.

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

I Want To Make Great Songs.

I Had Such A Big Mouth For So Long That It Doesn't Faze Anybody Anymore.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Been There Done That

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.

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.

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.

I Mean My Point As An Artist Is I'm On My Own Little Weird Journey Across The Sky Here And Whether Or Not Anybody's Listening, Or Listening To The Degree I Would Like Them To, At The End Of The Day Has To Be An Inconsequential Thing Because I Can't Chase This Culture.

I've Become A Guy Who's Like A Complaining, Whining Neurotic.

I Always Thought Kurt Cobain Was The Perfect Embodiment Of The Great Alternative Guitar Player.

Life Is Everything And Nothing All At Once.

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

I'm Attacking The Pomposity That Says This Is More Valuable Than That. I'm Sick Of That.

Like Any Good Tree That One Would Hope To Grow, We Must Set Our Roots Deep Into The Ground So That What Is Real Will Prosper In The Light Of Love.

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 Never Seemed To Fit In. But It Made Me Try To Strive For Things Ten Times Harder.

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

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

I Like My Home And I Like The Nature.

The Desire To Hit A Big Home Run Is Dominating The Music Business.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Familiar Things

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

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

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.

To Me, Music Was About Being Accepted And Escaping From This Crummy Existence.

I've Seen Foreigners Really Shift On Their View Of America, And That's Hard For Me To Take.

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.

People Try To Make A Big Deal, Like I Don't Want To Play My Old Songs. That's Not It. I Don't Want To Play My Old Songs If That's My Only Option. That's A Different Thing.

I Want To Be Able To Look Back And Think That As Long As I Was Going This, I Did The Best That I Could.

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

As A Citizen Of The Great City Of Chicago, I Find It Impossible To Root Against The White Sox. The White Sox Organization Has Been Much More Consistent, In My Lifetime At Least, At Putting A Winning Ballclub On The Field.

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.

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

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

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'm From A Lower Middle Class Background; All My Family Were Immigrants.

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

I Feel Like I'm Always Fighting Not To Repeat Myself.

Always Fighting

Everything About Life Makes Me Lonely.

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.

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.

The Killer In Me Is The Killer In You.

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

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

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

Mainstream Culture

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

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

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.

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

If I Had Spent Fourteen Months In A Small Room With Jesus, I'd Want To Fist Fight With Him.

The Closer I Get Back To Being Who I Really Am, The Stronger The Music Gets.

These Days You're Not Just Competing With The Tedium, You're Competing With The Cellphone.

Saturn Return Is Just The Return Of Your Planets To Their Original Position.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

You Could Have A Zillion Facebook Followers. Those People Don't Buy Records. It's About A Hundred To One...record Companies, They Don't Have Any Money So They See Social Media As The Free Marketing...so,...'billy, Light Yourself On Fire And Stand Upside Down, And That'll Market The Record'. I've Spent A Lot Of Time Thinking About This. I Don't Think People By Records Because Of Anything That Happens On Facebook. They Buy Records Cause They're Friends Say 'i Bought This Record And I Love It'.

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 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 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.

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

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

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

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 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.

We Weren't Like Mates Who Decided To Form A Band. The Other Three Met Me Because They Were Interested In Being In The Band That I Was Starting.

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.

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.

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.

Fur Is A Contentious Issue. Meat Is A Contentious Issue. Gmos Are A Contentious Issue. I Think This Whole Thing Going On About Whether Or Not Products Should Be Labeled If They Have Gmos In Them - I, As A Consumer, Would Like To Know If I'm Eating Gmo Food. If I Choose To Buy It Then It's My Choice.

Why Is It That All Non-conformists Look The Same?

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

Injuries Are Nothing To Be Ashamed About.

I Mean There's Certainly A Lot Of Progressive Rock And Metal That Exists At The Underground Level, Which Has Its Own Vitality, As It Should. But It Seems To Have Lost Its Ability To Really Charge Up The Hill.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

I Don't Have Any Sentimental Notion About How People Are Going To Remember Me.

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

I Have A Hard Time Thinking Of Men Trying To Sing My Songs, Because I Think My Perspective Is Definitely Feminine.

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

I Do Not Trust Those Who Make The Vaccines, Or The Apparatus Behind It All To Push It On Us Thru Fear.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Ultimately, Running A Band Is About The Relationships You Have With People.

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.

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.

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

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

For Someone Who's Had The Level Of Success I've Had, There's Been Very Little Critical Review Of My Work, Which Is Pretty Fascinating.

Critical Spirit

When You Present People With Things From The Heart And From The Soul, They Make Better Choices: They Make Better Choices About Their Bodies, They Make Better Choices About Their Partners, They Make Better Choices About The Environment.

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

Great Relationship

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Say You Write A Song About A Chandelier, And The Chandelier Gives Off Light. And The Light Is The Color Red And Red Reminds You Of The Color Your Not Supposed To Wear Around A Bull. So You Name The Song 'cow.'

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

Soon You Won't Even Have The Choice To Live Or Die As You Wish!

Somewhere Between The Intellectual Idea Of Why We're Attracted To Certain Things And The Pragmatic Reality Is Some Form Of Ever-evolving Truth.

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

I Realize I'm A Mirror.

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

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.

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

We're The Worst Band In America... That Makes Us The Best.

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

That's At The Root Of The Human Interaction: Fair Trade.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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