Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan spoke in an interview with Steve Baltin from Forbes, and talked about how his mother’s death affected him.
Interviewer asked:
“How much did being on the tour and seeing how much people really love the Smashing Pumpkins allow you to be comfortable with letting the Pumpkins be the Pumpkins?”
Billy responded:
Well, the construct was simple: we’re gonna give people the best show that we’ve ever done and not pull any punches as far as trying to make that happen. So what was gratifying was seeing that the response was universal across the board. Night in, night out the response was very much the same.
It was like love, appreciation and gratitude that we pulled it together and got up there to play and did so with a smile. There was no weirdness. That was nice. It was earned. There were a lot of years in the trenches doing crazy s**t and pushing for crazy things that maybe even today I’m not sure I know what was I was trying to get at.
Half the time I wonder myself, “What was I really after?” I had a weird epiphany cause I’ve been working on the Machina reissue, which is our album from 2000.
I’m trying to put the whole thing back together. It was sort of an unfinished concept album. I’m trying to finish the narrative, so it’s kind of weird. But I had this weird epiphany that it’s much more about my mother than I would have ever imagined.
My mother had died in ’96 and the album was made in ’99. Not once in 20 years had I ever thought it had anything to do with my mother. So I did a lot of things those years where I did it on impulse and instinct and I didn’t stop to ask myself, “Why am I doing this?” I just did it.”
Click here to entire interview.
