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.
Billy CorganBeing overly identified with [a certain period of time] becomes a noose around your neck, and people don't want you to grow up, they don't want you to change, they don't want you to evolve.
Billy CorganMy 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.
Billy CorganAbout six months ago, I listened to Siamese Dream. That was the first time I'd ever really heard my own album, because I had separated from the experience of making the record. And it really moved me. It made me cry, it's so beautiful.
Billy CorganI've been too productive for too long, and despite what anybody wants to strip away from me, I am influential. I am.
Billy CorganYou can only be this high-powered mojo rock band for so long, then you just can't look people in the eye. So, we've projected our own demise.
Billy CorganLike 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.
Billy CorganI have a hard time thinking of men trying to sing my songs, because I think my perspective is definitely feminine.
Billy CorganI was playing heavy metal when I was 18. I had to evolve out of that into an alternative consciousness about what it meant to change the way I played guitar, and the kind of songs, and the subject matter, and singing about child abuse, and all this stuff. I had to come from somewhere, and I had to take chances to do that.
Billy CorganI 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.
Billy CorganEven if you don't believe in God, exploring fully the idea of a God or Gods should pose no threat to you.
Billy CorganRadiohead and Our Lady Peace are doing the seven layers of guitar, and I kind of jumped on that before anyone else did.
Billy CorganThere's a lot of UFO sightings in New Orleans, which isn't really too surprising. There's a lotta crazy people there. The people there lack the intelligence to know what they are seeing, so that's why the UFO's go there.
Billy CorganIt'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.
Billy CorganThe ideology of the Smashing Pumpkins was ultimately more valuable than the music of the Smashing Pumpkins. That's what critics can't put their finger on.
Billy CorganWe were just a little immature in the past. I think we actually wanted to create difficult situations for ourselves just to be able to use that emotion for stimulation.
Billy CorganIn 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.
Billy CorganMy step-mom would tell me that she would get complaints from adults that I stared too much at them.
Billy CorganThe 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.
Billy CorganWhen 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.
Billy CorganThat'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.
Billy CorganMy earliest memory is of feeling different. My parents told me that I wasn't like other children.
Billy CorganJames, 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.
Billy CorganIn a weird kind of way, music has afforded me an idealism and perfectionism that I could never attain as me.
Billy CorganThe 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.
Billy CorganI 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.
Billy CorganWe need to get back to a level of social responsibility that we haven't seen for a long time.
Billy CorganWell, I'm known as a guitar-rock guy, you know? You're not supposed to play with synthesizers. This is not in the rulebook.
Billy CorganI 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.
Billy CorganThe simplest way that I can understand therapy is that we're born a certain way, we're taught to be something different, and we spend our whole lives trying to unravel it.
Billy CorganI didn't grow up with my mother, and so losing her for real was like, some sort of latent childhood, some sort of unresolved issue. When she left for real, it was sort of like, I was done.
Billy Corgan