Billy Corgan — Frontman of the alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins and owner of the NWA wrestling promotion. He also hosts the interview podcast Magnificent Others.
The gist
Corgan opens by explaining the meme-fueled rumor that he and comedian Bill Burr are secret half-brothers, tracing it to his father's admission of fathering up to 12 children. The conversation ranges widely across comedy legends (Chappelle, Pryor, Kinison, Dice Clay), Corgan's chaotic childhood with a drug-and-gun-running mob-connected musician father, and the science of cannabis and bipolarity in musicians. A long second half digs into the craft of singing, the mythology of rock stars, the post-truth culture, and Corgan's hard-won philosophy of refusing to compromise his art for the music business. He closes arguing the music industry actively works against its most authentic talents and that the future belongs to independent, peer-to-peer artists.
Big reveals
- Corgan's stepmother told him his father may have fathered up to 12 children all over the country.
- His father promised to write down the names of his illegitimate children before he died, but no list was ever found.
- Corgan reveals his father ran drugs and guns for the Chicago mob and was shot at nine times and stabbed three times.
- As a child of about 8, Corgan witnessed cocaine and rolled-up bills on a Black Sabbath mirror at his father's parties.
- Corgan says his own success destroyed his talented father again, who couldn't understand how his 'schlubby kid' made it.
- Corgan admits he had to be talked into making 'Bullet with Butterfly Wings' (the 'rat in the cage' song) the lead single.
- Top music executives sat Corgan down one-on-one and told him to 'just give them what they want' for an easier, richer life.
- Corgan argues The Monkees, long mocked as fake, are actually the more accurate template for today's manufactured culture than The Beatles.
Things worth remembering
- Corgan and Dave Chappelle once sold out the Tacoma Dome to 25,000 people performing in the round.
- Chappelle walked away from a $50 million deal and didn't do standup for roughly 10 years, occasionally doing free sets in Seattle parks.
- Beyonce reportedly performed at a wedding tied to over $100 million in spending.
- Corgan's father hid weed in a whiskey-filled engine compartment to fool drug dogs.
- Carl Sagan was a regular cannabis user who wrote about the states of consciousness it unlocked.
- Corgan's father once watched an unknown Jimi Hendrix in a Wisconsin club in 1966-67 and felt he couldn't play guitar the next night.
- Corgan's theory: musicians overdevelop one brain hemisphere and many are bipolar, which is why cocaine made them 'feel normal.'
- A vocal coach told Corgan the human throat has 11 folds of tissue rock singers must warm up to avoid damage.
- Aerosmith is cited as the best-selling American hard rock band, having sold over 150 million records worldwide.
- A young fan told Corgan's social-media manager they liked him 'because other people told me not to like him.'