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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".

-Billy Corgan

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Twenty-eight To 31 Is

Billy Corgan

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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".

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

I Didn't Find Jesus. He's Been There The Whole Time.

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

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.

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.

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.

Great Music Completely Obliterates Any Conceptions Of Genre.

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.

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

Most Great Records Really Start With The Drums.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 Like My Home And I Like The Nature.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I Grew Up In A House Of No Love Or Emotion - It Kind Of Sticks With You.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Been There Done That

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.

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

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

My Step-mom Would Tell Me That She Would Get Complaints From Adults That I Stared Too Much At Them.

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.

I'm Not Interested In Pop Art.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

We're Both Cat Lovers [with Marilyn Manson].

I Realize I'm A Mirror.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

I Had Concussions As A Kid Playing Football And Basketball, And Know What It Feels Like And To Have Someone Say 'just Rub Some Dirt On It, And Get Back In There.'

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

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.

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

Familiar Things

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

It's Important For People To Talk And Get Beyond The Wall Of Facebook And Social Media.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

All I Can Go On Is My Own Value System.

The Great Thing About Rock N' Roll Is, If You Want To Fight - Like, Fight The System, Fight The Man, Fight The Government, Fight The People In Front Of You - It's Don Quixote All Over Again. You're Really Chasing Windmills.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Mainstream Culture

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

I Work Differently Than Most People.

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.

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

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 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.

I've Always Believed That We Could Reach Past Genre -- We Didn't Ride The Grunge Coat-tails; We've Always Been On Our Terms.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

We've Turned Into A Whining Society.

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

Smashing Pumpkins Has Never Been A Band About Hit Songs.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 Want People To See Me Happy.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Life Is Everything And Nothing All At Once.

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

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

I Mean, I'm Certainly Not A 'teaophyte,' Or Whatever The Word Would Be.

Injuries Are Nothing To Be Ashamed About.

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

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.

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.

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

I've Rarely Done Anything That's Overtly Self-destructive Without Consciously Knowing What I'm Doing. And Then Of Course, The Astute Journalist Jumps Forward And Says, "why Are You Being Calculated?" Calculated Seems To Assume A Sinister Intent. My Intent Is Always For Artistic Effect.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Great Relationship

I Want To Make Great Songs.

Well, All Rock And Roll Is Based In Artifice.

I'm Sort Of Like A Lame, Single Guy In A Red Sports Car.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

James, That's A Bad Situation. I'm Not Saying It's Not Repairable, But It's Pretty Far. When You Go From Being In One Of The Best Bands In The World To Some Cover Band... As Far As I'm Concerned, He Was Playing Down At The Pub.

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.

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

Rhetorical Question

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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 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.

Personally, I Think Jesus Would Like Better Bands.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

Always Fighting

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

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

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.

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

I Hate How In Magazine Pictures, They Always Stick Me Somewhere In The Back. It Means They Don't Think I'm The Cute One.

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

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

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.

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

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

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'.

You Know Americans Are Obsessed With Life And Death And Rebirth, That's The American Cycle. You Know, Awakening, Tragic, Horrible Death And Then Phoenix Rising From The Ashes. That's The American Story, Again And Again.

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

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.

All Humans Are Part Male And Part Female. The Other Side Must Be Explored To Gain Complete Understanding Ofourselves And The World We Live In. Forme, The Idea Of Having A Feminine Perspective Is A Willingness To Be Vulnerable.

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

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