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After midlife crisis, Billy Corgan revs up for more fun
BENEATH the floppy brim of his Cubs fisherman's cap, the driver's eyes glitter. He grabs the gear shift, lets the machine rumble in neutral for a couple of minutes, then puts the pedal to the metal and roars off through the quaint Chicago suburb where he resides. Children hear him coming, and hastily pull their Schwinns to the curb — the automobile is that loud.
Billy Corgan squeals to a halt at his first red light and purrs with pride.
"Soooo ... what do you think?" he asks rhetorically about the vintage'68 Mustang, all souped up and tricked out and ready to burn some mean Illinois rubber.
It's all his. That's right, grins the ex-Smashing-Pumpkin/Zwan leader.
Billy Corgan squeals to a halt at his first red light and purrs with pride.
"Soooo ... what do you think?" he asks rhetorically about the vintage'68 Mustang, all souped up and tricked out and ready to burn some mean Illinois rubber.
It's all his. That's right, grins the ex-Smashing-Pumpkin/Zwan leader.
BENEATH the floppy brim of his Cubs fisherman's cap, the driver's eyes glitter. He grabs the gear shift, lets the machine rumble in neutral for a couple of minutes, then puts the pedal to the metal and roars off through the quaint Chicago suburb where he resides. Children hear him coming, and hastily pull their Schwinns to the curb — the automobile is that loud.
Billy Corgan squeals to a halt at his first red light and purrs with pride.
"Soooo ... what do you think?" he asks rhetorically about the vintage'68 Mustang, all souped up and tricked out and ready to burn some mean Illinois rubber.
It's all his. That's right, grins the ex-Smashing-Pumpkin/Zwan leader.
"I'm having a midlife crisis! I've come out of a long-term relationship, a lot of dark-day stuff, Zwan and all that. So now I'm trying to have a little bit more fun, and my life over the past year has been kind of ... happy. I feel happy, I'm excited, I want to rock. I've always wanted cool cars, and now I get in this thing and I feel like a little kid."
For more serious talk, however, the shaven-headed alt-rock icon chooses a local deli, where, virtually unrecognized by the elderly clientele, he grabs a window table and chows down on a chicken dish.
He's got a lot to discuss: "Blinking With Fists," last year's book of poetry from Faber & Faber annotating his breakup with longtime galpal Yelena Yemchuk (who, ironically, contributed surreal animal paintings for its dust jacket); an autobiography that's appearing, chapter by chapter, on his Web site, and a recent open letter to Chicagoans published simultaneously in the city's two major dailies, wherein he hinted at a possible Pumpkins reunion.
And, oh yes, a full-length solo album for Reprise, "TheFutureEmbrace," which boasts cameos from former Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and, on a spooky cover of the Bee-Gees' "To Love Somebody," the Cure's Robert Smith on backing vocals.
Musically, Corgan casts a long, imposing shadow. From its first'91 album "Gish," the Smashing Pumpkins came to define the'90s alternative-radio sound. Characterized by Corgan's Pikachu-pitched wheeze and the swirling guitarwork of James Iha, the band blended disparate elements such as pop, Goth, punk and coliseum metal into a prickly pastiche all its own.
A decade later, the reign was over, and the Pumpkins said goodbye via a farewell world tour and (thanks to a record-label refusal) the Internet-only release of their final 25-track album, "Machina 2: The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music."
Corgan made a few forays into Hollywood soundtrack work, but wasn't happy with the compromises involved. He did little press for Zwan, an ensuing side project, and its single set on Reprise felt like a career footnote, a preamble to his finally flying solo with "Embrace."
Composing scores for such flicks as "Stigmata," Corgan explains, taught him a valuable lesson. "I started to realize that, in my own way, I was trying to avoid what I didn't want to face, which was that I was not totally emotionally engaged with my band. So doing soundtrack work was my way of treading water, the equivalent of sleeping with some girl on the side before going back to your relationship thinking, 'I can deal with this a little longer now.' You kind of let the pressure out, but it doesn't really solve the problem."
And now?
"I've solved the problem," he says. "Because I umderstand that the core of my work is my personal work. Now I just want to do my own thing, and I want to do it no matter what. I feel really clear-visioned about what I want to do, how I want to do it, and I've gotten all the hangers-on and all these other people out of my life."
The key to decoding the heavily textured synth/guitar interplay of "Embrace" (and compelling cuts such as "All Things Change," "Walking Shade" and "Pretty, Pretty Star") lies in Corgan's not-so-distant past, when he toured the States with legendary New Order as side axeman.
Sublimating his bandleader ego, he hid in the shadows, beneath that same floppy Cubs cap, and happily strummed what he was told to — even historical tracks from the group's earlier incarnation as Joy Division.
Recalling a gig high point, when vocalist Bernard Sumner prodded his protege to sing lead on Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," Corgan suddenly rolls up his sleeve, points to his arms, and marvels, "See? here they come — goosebumps! I get goosebumps just thinking about it. As a musician, that sound, that heaviness, when those three (New Order) guys play together? It's like Picasso territory."
Scholarly Corgan, now 38, suddenly found himself the student.
What did he learn from New Order? Two things, he says. "One is that true power is rhythmic, it's not volume. And the rhythmic relationship is internal — that's something that all the early blues guys like Robert Johnson understood. And secondarily, where I'd always figured New Order were really pretentious and drew their whole sound out as some Bauhaus concept, no — they are energy whores. You show them where the energy goes, they will follow it. When I played with'em, they hadn't played Joy Division songs in 22 years, and I said, 'Why did you choose to play these songs again?' And they said, 'We just felt like it.' They didn't intellectualize the decision; they were just chasing down the rabbit hole."
Consequently, Corgan set several conscious parameters for the "Embrace" sessions. He used only one guitar per song, and swore off all live drums (even Chamberlin was forced to used synthesized skins).
But New Order had left its mark. "Every time I came to a decision where it was intellect versus energy," he recalls, "I chose energy, even if my intellect disagreed with it. Which was very hard for me, because I can intellectually override any concept. If we'd put one track up and say, 'I really like the way that sounds,' then we'd hear the other track and say, 'But that feels better,' we always went with the 'feels better.' Even though I'd really wanted the other one to work."
Corgan — whose solo jaunt hits San Francisco's Fillmore tonight and tomorrow — still believes that art taps you on the shoulder at a young age, and you have no choice but to heed the call.
"And I got tapped on my shoulder when I was 14, by learning how to play the guitar. The minute I picked up that thing, I went from being gangly loser to future raconteur. It gave me a power that I did not have. Some switch was thrown."
Now, looking back on his 15-year career in showbiz, he's come to a few life-affirming conclusions.
His longevity, Corgan concludes, can be attributed to faith.
When it comes to rock and roll, "I'm a true believer, and true believers get into this for life. It's a lifer thing. And this is it, here's the future embrace: If you're willing to believe that life is really this 'Matrix'-like fantasy, where we're all playing a role, then you have nothing to lose. That's basically what the mystics tell us. So if there's nothing to lose, you may as well go for it and play the game to the best of your ability.
"But the rules of the game, if there are any, are that you have to leave more than you take. So you have to figure out how to give more than you take off this planet. That's why Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha all embody the same spiritual principle, that it's better to give than to receive. So it's really very simple."
With'68 Mustangs, of course, excluded from this equation.
Billy Corgan squeals to a halt at his first red light and purrs with pride.
"Soooo ... what do you think?" he asks rhetorically about the vintage'68 Mustang, all souped up and tricked out and ready to burn some mean Illinois rubber.
It's all his. That's right, grins the ex-Smashing-Pumpkin/Zwan leader.
"I'm having a midlife crisis! I've come out of a long-term relationship, a lot of dark-day stuff, Zwan and all that. So now I'm trying to have a little bit more fun, and my life over the past year has been kind of ... happy. I feel happy, I'm excited, I want to rock. I've always wanted cool cars, and now I get in this thing and I feel like a little kid."
For more serious talk, however, the shaven-headed alt-rock icon chooses a local deli, where, virtually unrecognized by the elderly clientele, he grabs a window table and chows down on a chicken dish.
He's got a lot to discuss: "Blinking With Fists," last year's book of poetry from Faber & Faber annotating his breakup with longtime galpal Yelena Yemchuk (who, ironically, contributed surreal animal paintings for its dust jacket); an autobiography that's appearing, chapter by chapter, on his Web site, and a recent open letter to Chicagoans published simultaneously in the city's two major dailies, wherein he hinted at a possible Pumpkins reunion.
And, oh yes, a full-length solo album for Reprise, "TheFutureEmbrace," which boasts cameos from former Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and, on a spooky cover of the Bee-Gees' "To Love Somebody," the Cure's Robert Smith on backing vocals.
Musically, Corgan casts a long, imposing shadow. From its first'91 album "Gish," the Smashing Pumpkins came to define the'90s alternative-radio sound. Characterized by Corgan's Pikachu-pitched wheeze and the swirling guitarwork of James Iha, the band blended disparate elements such as pop, Goth, punk and coliseum metal into a prickly pastiche all its own.
A decade later, the reign was over, and the Pumpkins said goodbye via a farewell world tour and (thanks to a record-label refusal) the Internet-only release of their final 25-track album, "Machina 2: The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music."
Corgan made a few forays into Hollywood soundtrack work, but wasn't happy with the compromises involved. He did little press for Zwan, an ensuing side project, and its single set on Reprise felt like a career footnote, a preamble to his finally flying solo with "Embrace."
Composing scores for such flicks as "Stigmata," Corgan explains, taught him a valuable lesson. "I started to realize that, in my own way, I was trying to avoid what I didn't want to face, which was that I was not totally emotionally engaged with my band. So doing soundtrack work was my way of treading water, the equivalent of sleeping with some girl on the side before going back to your relationship thinking, 'I can deal with this a little longer now.' You kind of let the pressure out, but it doesn't really solve the problem."
And now?
"I've solved the problem," he says. "Because I umderstand that the core of my work is my personal work. Now I just want to do my own thing, and I want to do it no matter what. I feel really clear-visioned about what I want to do, how I want to do it, and I've gotten all the hangers-on and all these other people out of my life."
The key to decoding the heavily textured synth/guitar interplay of "Embrace" (and compelling cuts such as "All Things Change," "Walking Shade" and "Pretty, Pretty Star") lies in Corgan's not-so-distant past, when he toured the States with legendary New Order as side axeman.
Sublimating his bandleader ego, he hid in the shadows, beneath that same floppy Cubs cap, and happily strummed what he was told to — even historical tracks from the group's earlier incarnation as Joy Division.
Recalling a gig high point, when vocalist Bernard Sumner prodded his protege to sing lead on Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," Corgan suddenly rolls up his sleeve, points to his arms, and marvels, "See? here they come — goosebumps! I get goosebumps just thinking about it. As a musician, that sound, that heaviness, when those three (New Order) guys play together? It's like Picasso territory."
Scholarly Corgan, now 38, suddenly found himself the student.
What did he learn from New Order? Two things, he says. "One is that true power is rhythmic, it's not volume. And the rhythmic relationship is internal — that's something that all the early blues guys like Robert Johnson understood. And secondarily, where I'd always figured New Order were really pretentious and drew their whole sound out as some Bauhaus concept, no — they are energy whores. You show them where the energy goes, they will follow it. When I played with'em, they hadn't played Joy Division songs in 22 years, and I said, 'Why did you choose to play these songs again?' And they said, 'We just felt like it.' They didn't intellectualize the decision; they were just chasing down the rabbit hole."
Consequently, Corgan set several conscious parameters for the "Embrace" sessions. He used only one guitar per song, and swore off all live drums (even Chamberlin was forced to used synthesized skins).
But New Order had left its mark. "Every time I came to a decision where it was intellect versus energy," he recalls, "I chose energy, even if my intellect disagreed with it. Which was very hard for me, because I can intellectually override any concept. If we'd put one track up and say, 'I really like the way that sounds,' then we'd hear the other track and say, 'But that feels better,' we always went with the 'feels better.' Even though I'd really wanted the other one to work."
Corgan — whose solo jaunt hits San Francisco's Fillmore tonight and tomorrow — still believes that art taps you on the shoulder at a young age, and you have no choice but to heed the call.
"And I got tapped on my shoulder when I was 14, by learning how to play the guitar. The minute I picked up that thing, I went from being gangly loser to future raconteur. It gave me a power that I did not have. Some switch was thrown."
Now, looking back on his 15-year career in showbiz, he's come to a few life-affirming conclusions.
His longevity, Corgan concludes, can be attributed to faith.
When it comes to rock and roll, "I'm a true believer, and true believers get into this for life. It's a lifer thing. And this is it, here's the future embrace: If you're willing to believe that life is really this 'Matrix'-like fantasy, where we're all playing a role, then you have nothing to lose. That's basically what the mystics tell us. So if there's nothing to lose, you may as well go for it and play the game to the best of your ability.
"But the rules of the game, if there are any, are that you have to leave more than you take. So you have to figure out how to give more than you take off this planet. That's why Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha all embody the same spiritual principle, that it's better to give than to receive. So it's really very simple."
With'68 Mustangs, of course, excluded from this equation.
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Summary by NewOrderOnline. Full article remains with the original publisher.
