This Is The End

Do you know who your saviour is? Well, the I of the morning is on! Are you ready for redemption? Then read on this is chapter six in a series of missives designed to speak directly to your heart on a mission most important to you your salvation!

With this intro to a very long letter posted on the net under the heading "The Smashing Pumpkins Message from Dublin s Olympia", you d be forgiven for thinking that Billy Corgan has completely lost his marbles. That gig at The Olympia, by the way, was a strange one. The hordes had come to worship for the very last time and what a positively uplifting yet lopsided affair the whole thing was. There was no shape to the set, we got versions of David Essex s Rock On and Peter Gabriel s Games Without Frontiers and James Iha told jokes.
All in all, a good night and a much better way to say goodbye to your fans than the travesty they spooned out last Christmas when they played Vicar Street to a bunch of U.S. prizewinners who either had no idea who Smashing Pumpkins were or who were disappointed that they d won this trip to Dublin via a beer promotion/competition and the band chosen to round it off wasn t U2. A strange messy night. Soon after, the band s manager split. Sharon Osbourne cited medical reasons. She was sick of Billy Corgan.
Corgan, clearly a control freak who leaves nothing to chance, is a cool, calm, collected interviewee, always erudite and polite. So why does the word "bonkers" keep forming in front of my eyes?
In the early nineties I interviewed him in London, just as Gish began causing a ripple or ten. In the mid-nineties in Amsterdam, in the midst of a seemingly chaotic tour promoting the multi-million-selling Melon Collie And The Infinite Sadness a somewhat nervy Corgan tried successfully enough to work through the frazzled tensions emanating from the other three band members (this was before the sacking of Jimmy Chamberlain and subsequent sudden departure of the very sulky Darcy) but today in the relative quiet of the Clarence Hotel (to be joined in an hour by Bono for a bite to eat) in the centre of storm-tossed Dublin, he s as civil and courteous as ever and seemingly very much at ease with himself and the world. Except for one or two things.
DAVE FANNING: Billy, emotionally, spiritually, and musically, you said it s time to split. Is that it? Those three things?
BILLY CORGAN: Ah God, it sounds so concise when you say it. I mean it s a bit more complicated for everybody.
Well how about this: since the age of nineteen, for thirteen or fourteen years, you ve been a Smashing Pumpkin.
Yeah.
You ve seen the world through the eyes of a Smashing Pumpkin.
Yeah, my whole adult life, yeah.
And is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Oh, it s a good thing. Oh yeah, a very good thing. It s been a charmed time.
But there is a time to let it go and now s that time?
Yeah, we always said to each other that we would know when the end was and we felt pretty strongly this was the end. And we also, I think, leave on the sort of terms that if we want to pick it back up, it s not like... angry lawsuits, you know? It s on our own terms, and if and when we decide to ever pick it back up it ll be on our own terms as well, you know? So, I feel very comfortable with it.
And, the last gig s in the hometown?
Yeah, yeah.
Which, as well as everything else, should bring home to you how much the band means to others, not just yourselves.
Yeah. That s a complicated issue for me because the band s never really been about preaching to the converted. And in some sense of the word we ve sacrificed the converted at different times to try to reach the unconverted. Both in art terrorist ways and in pop culture ways. So, candidly, between me and you (laughs), I m the type of person who has a hard time completely accepting the enormity of any situation until much, much later. I sort of have an ability to square that out in my mind.
You know, my mother s death didn t truly hit me for about four years. And so I think it ll be the same thing now. I don t think what the band means to me, what the band means to other people, will really hit me. I ve had very few moments actually in the band where I fully understand what the band really means to people.
But you ve still got no doubts right now, that you re doing the right thing?
The simple fact of the matter is, that the band fought long and hard, gave it a good go, and, you know, we re just worn out inside. It s not easy being a Smashing Pumpkin. I m not asking for anybody s sympathy. I m just saying, it s not been an easy walk, and we ve made it not an easy walk. We could ve made it an easier walk, we could ve exploited ourselves, where we could ve made loads more money; we didn t. We always took the high road. We ve always taken the high road.
And, you know, like, any sort of great art, it s oftentimes not appreciated the depth of what a band is aesthetically doing in any given moment. Or a painter like Picasso or something. It takes people a long time to actually understand, oh that was good, and that was ground-breaking, and that meant something. You know, all the bad reviews, all the fucking dis, being dissed out, it takes its toll on people. We re human beings and it just wore us down.
But, were there bad reviews? Did Adore get knocked?
In the two major major magazines in America, Spin and Rolling Stone, we ve never gotten a great review, ever.
Really?
I ran into Bono the other day and he said that they ve got their first four-star review ever in America with this new album. And we ve never had a great review in America, by any sort of major writer, except for some sort of local writers in individual cities. But we ve never had that moment where everybody says this is a great album . Our great albums weren t perceived as great albums in their time. Now they re
perceived as great albums in hindsight, and I do believe that Adore, and Machina will be seen in a similar light over time. In some ways they re deeper albums, and I think that will give them more in the future as well. So, again, these are just factors, but it contributes to a general state of just, like, fatigue.
In terms of various problems the band had breakdowns, chemical problems, emotional issues were you wise, in retrospect, to be so open about all that?
Well, this goes back to the band s true purpose. And the band s true purpose was to take rock n roll into a new space, and we did that. Oftentimes at the sacrifice of our own personal lives, but the band did move into new territories of music, in general. And that s part of the band s deepest agenda: always to push. So the band has always lived in a glass house. The windows have always been open. We haven t hidden much. And this swirling black cloud that s been the band, it s like a tornado. It s out of control and there s no stopping it, it just keeps going, you know? And it ll go on after this; there ll be even more speculation after the band breaks up.
Do you subscribe to the three album theory: that you can say it all in three albums and that s it? And that you went somewhere else with album number four, and the fans didn t necessarily go, or enough of them didn t go, and the record company didn t go either?
Right. Judging by most bands that I really love, I think their emotional years last about seven or eight and that seems to be about it. After that, I know, with us, we just became more distant with each other. We didn t spend as much time together. We didn t seem as concerned about each other s well being. We didn t spend as much time practising.
Money and friends and all the bad sort of behind-the-music scenes stuff enter in and it s like an athlete, you know? If you watch the Olympics, the difference between the guy who wins the Olympic 100 metres, and the guy who s like eighth place, is .12 seconds or something. It s a flick of a instant. And in music oftentimes it is that flick of a instant that is the difference between a band being pretty good and a band being great. And with us, we never thought we were imbued with the greatest natural gifts as a unit. You know, I don t look like a rock star, I don t sing like a rock star. We never acted like rock stars. And then when we started acting like rock stars everyone didn t understand it. So I really felt that the band only truly succeeded at the highest levels when the band was at its absolute best; anything less than that s never really worked for us.
Did you always know before you made Machines Of God that this was going to be your last album?
Oh yeah.
Without telling anybody? Cause you didn t tell them till afterwards.
No, the band knew.
Yeah?
The band knew, the inner circle of people knew. The idea was literally simple: it was let s re-convene and let s finish as a unit. Let s end in solidarity . And unfortunately that didn t work either.
Yeah, Darcy s leaving was quite sudden, to say the least. That wasn t supposed to happen?
Uh, no. That wasn t part of my, ah, master plan to re-take over the world. (laughs)
So, all told, is it a weight off your shoulders?
I suppose it s a weight off my shoulders. There s various reasons for that. But I also know that there s things that I don t completely comprehend that I m going to miss. You know when I look back, there s been such tremendous support for my aggressive musical agenda. There s never been any question from the band about where we were going musically, and I really respect them for being so supportive on that end, because there s been a lot of times where it s really been difficult for everybody to keep pushing on. I dunno, I think personally, in a simple sense, I m tired of being a Smashing Pumpkin in the public end of the world, you know? I don t want to have to answer questions about seven years ago anymore, I don t want to be that guy anymore, I just don t. I m not that guy anymore, I don t think.
There s all sorts of talk about what you might do next.
I do know that me, Mike and Jimmy have discussed doing like a Mahavishnu-style prog rock instrumental band, but that s like strictly a side project kinda thing, you know? That s not going to be a primary move.
But why go that way?
The Pumpkins have always had sort of a prog-rock edge but we ve never completely gone there because of the obvious implications of it. So this would be a thing where we would completely indulge in like, you know, crazy music, and Jimmy could really stretch out as a musician. That s the idea, just to have some fun. I mean that to us is having fun I m sure to other people it sounds like torture (laughs).
Speaking of prog-rock, was the last album a concept album, except that a lot of people didn t get the concept?
Well, here s the great mystery on that: it was a concept album, but they weren t supposed to get the concept. The concept was purposely spun as a very deep mystery, which would set into a motion a lot of things which have been set into motion. And the concept will be explained in about three weeks: we ve just run a contest on our web site for people to guess the story.
I mean, this is sort of tangential, but I m offended by the notion that everything must be digested, explained, ripped apart in the immediate sense of the word. We made a conscious decision on Machina to not include the story and the story line with the album. For two reasons. One, we wanted people to figure out their own sort of end of it, which they have, which has been fantastic. And two, we wanted to trick those who are really not true Pumpkins fans into basically perpetrating an image which is obviously false. So when there s lines on the album like If I was dead would my records sell? , that s in character. All the reviewers and the fans who aren t really fans seem to believe that that s me sitting there singing these kind of lines. So, basically, we spoke in code, and the people who are really down with us got the code and the people who weren t got caught up in the image, which is a false image.
So the band has played both ends: the band has played to the internal aspect and kept them spun and intrigued, and the band has played to the false image, in order to continue to perpetrate an image which is not true. And both worked very effectively. We ve gotten much more artistically, energy wise, out of not revealing the story than if we had.
Given your view of the industry, I take it you supported Napster.
Well, generally on an aesthetic end, yes, but now that Napster s basically sold out, we re talking about the difference between Gore and Bush, it s the same.
You see what Napster has done recently as selling out?
Oh yeah.
Completely and utterly?
Oh yeah, there s no two doubts about it. I know Shawn Fanning, I think he s a wonderful person and I think the idealism of where he began is fantastic. And hopefully some of the idealism he has for Napster will be continued in the business model that they re creating. But the original spirit of Napster is not gonna be a part of the future of Napster. Napster s trying to build itself into a real viable business, with a bottom line. So this has nothing to do with idealism at the end of the day.
Will you continue to live in the US?
No, I m seriously considering getting out as far as full-time residence is concerned. I d have to still keep some sort of residence there, but my family is European, and in some sense of the word, I was raised with European values. And America just seems to be going further and further away from what it means to be a human being. To play a part of it is to agree with it, I just don t agree with it.
Aside from prog rock projects, have you any clear sense of where you re headed musically?
I have to decide if I still wanna invest all my energy into music. I really wanna write books. I don t wanna do it as a part time person. I certainly don t wanna do it as a celebrity. If I m gonna be a writer I wanna write with as much integrity as I hope I had as a pop musician. The difficult question is, I ve been in the Smashing Pumpkins so long, that I don t know what it s like to not be a Smashing Pumpkin. I may feel exactly the same without James, Darcy and Jimmy, and still want the same things, I may still wanna be the same person in public, I may still wanna tackle the same sorts of issues.
I have a sneaking feeling that it s going to be very different without the Pumpkins. I ve always tried to say that the character combination of the four Pumpkins had a lot to do with the contentious nature and the aggressive nature of the Pumpkins.
Even though I ve always been the mouth on that, there s a lot that goes on behind closed doors that no-one sees that plays into that thing. You know?
Well then, have you, for the moment, or in very recent times, lost interest in writing what I might call rock songs?
Um I don t know. It s really difficult to explain. I think every artist reaches a point where they work, and work and work on a craft and then that craft sort of plateaus off, and then they need to go off to the garden and sort of go at it a completely different way to find some new energy. In the last two albums, I ve really gotten into the idea of what it means to write a pop song.
I haven t done a great job at it, but I really explored the medium and the architecture and I feel that, now that I ve completely done that, I want to go back, taking what I ve learned in the pop world, back into a sort of avant-garde approach and see where that comes out. It s sort of like I have to stop writing songs so I can write songs again in a totally different head space. So, I think I need to be out of the band to do that.
Do you find it strange, as you re closing the book on Smashing Pumpkins, to see bands like U2 and REM so many albums further on down the road? Should they have called it quits ten years ago?
That s a difficult question because I m a very big fan of those bands. I think U2 made some of their best albums recently. One that the public didn t necessarily get is Zooropa; it is probably one of the most brilliant things they ve ever done, and I know most people don t count that in, but that blew my mind.
But, hold on, just there: Zooropa was the second album of Part 2 of U2, Achtung Baby being the first. Could there ever have been a Part 2 of Smashing Pumpkins? Like a totally new direction, a totally new way of looking at things, a totally new everything?
I think that we had an opportunity, and that opportunity was roughly between 1997 and 1998, and we blew it.
You didn t blow it: you brought out Adore!
No, but I m talking strictly in the context of whether we could ve had a second life. Internally, that s the difference.
With the four of you?
Yeah. But I don t mean just the four of us, I m talking about the resolve to keep moving forward. It s like, if someone came up to you on the street and said: hey, heard you on the radio today, and And you d say what? and he d say: well, that s it . Like, they wouldn t complete the sentence and you d think what an odd thing .
That s what it feels like to me. We had to complete the sentence, but we didn t have the internal sort of fortitude, strength, consistency, whatever else you need to have vision, to complete what Adore began. So when that because obvious to us, Machina was our way of saying we re bowing out gracefully You know? It s not that Adore was the wrong direction, it s just that we couldn t finish the sentence, it s sort of like an abbreviated comma. (laughs)
If Adore had sold twelve or fourteen million albums would you be giving me the same answer now. Like, would you have found the resolve within yourself at the fifteen million albums mark?
I can give you the most honest answer I can give you. The band would ve continued, but it wouldn t have been for the right reasons. Internally, the thing was crumbling, so if what had gone on internally would ve been made void by success, it wouldn t have been for the right reasons.
But it could ve been good glue, it could ve been good cement. You don t know.
Certainly, certainly. Success has a way of ironing out certain problems, so one can only wonder. But honestly I have to say I believe pretty strongly that it would ve been for the wrong reasons. Believe me, there s so many things that went on, that have nothing to do music but had much to do with the sort of wounds and scars within the band that have yet to be healed and probably will never be healed.
So the five page retrospective on the band can still be written in six years time and somebody might just get it all a bit better.
I can tell you that what people know is twenty percent of the whole story. The whole story is a lot deeper, a lot more emotional, more poetic and actually, I will say this on the upside if people knew the full extent of what had gone on in the band, people would view us coming together as a unit, even although briefly, in an even better light. Because they would seen how much we actually overcame to pull that together. So, I feel very good about that.
Finally, Billy, we come to a pivotal question: why did they put hair on you in The Simpsons?
(laughs) That was my request.
Yeah, that s what I mean. Why did you do that?
They asked me, they gave me a choice actually. They said do you want hair? We weren t sure because we saw the earlier pictures from the album where you had hair and now your head is shaved but which do you want? I said I want hair because I don t want to look like Homer.
Cause when I was in the scene with Homer I didn t want there to be any confusion. So, they were gracious in honouring my request!

Smashing Pumpkins have made their final album, Machina II available for download on the Internet.