Billy Corgan Quotes

• "After Zwan, there was no question I was going to be a solo artist. The Pumpkins exist in my mind as a living entity that is a huge part of my life. As far as I'm concerned, the band's not broken up. The world got the body, but to me, the band lives on."
• "As a citizen of the great city of Chicago, I find it impossible to root against the White Sox. The White Sox organization has been much more consistent, in my lifetime at least, at putting a winning ballclub on the field."
• "For someone who's had the level of success I've had, there's been very little critical review of my work, which is pretty fascinating."
• "How about playing songs by Chicago artists! Every city I go to plays ongs by their local artists. The theme song for the Boston Red Xox is Dirty Water, a song by the '60's group The Standells about the River Charles."
• "I believe that if the Tribune company ever tries to close down Wrigley Field that you will have a protest from every corner of the globe."
• "I could not take the brunt of standing in the light of my own work. There was a Faustian bargain I could not make. I could have you mock me for wearing funny clothes, that I could deal with. But I couldn't deal with actually standing in the light of my own musical power."
• "I didn't find Jesus. He's been there the whole time."
• "I 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."
• "I don't have to play by these rules or do these things... I can actually have my own kind of version."
• "I feel like I'm always fighting not to repeat myself."
• "I find the Sox haters lame, and once it goes beyond good-natured fun, have no use for it. Cubs fans that hate on the Sox strike me as insecure... now, hating on the Cardinals, that is an entirely different business!"
• "I lay a lot of blame at the feet of Dusty Baker for not being more strict about fundamentals, which I think would give the team a stronger day-to-day identity."
• "I met with a lot of resistance when I wanted our newest album to be a double CD. Many people thought I was going to ruin the band by doing it."
• "I never wanted to leave the Smashing Pumpkins. That was never the plan."
• "I think two great albums are Women and Children First and Fair Warning. Fair Warning is a really mean, dark album."
• "I walked away from going to church when I was 8. I didn't set foot in another church until I was 28."
• "I was brought up Roman Catholic. I'm not even baptized."
• "I was raised a Christian, but I wouldn't call myself a Christian now. I think when I was younger it was easier to focus on the negative, nihilist vision... this is sort of picking up on the other half of the body, which is God and white light."
• "I'll come in with a string of riffs and direct the musical ideas. But you still need a band and their input to make the ideas come alive. You can't underestimate band chemistry."
• "I'm definitely responsible for coming in with some basic chord changes, or ideas. Everybody in the band looks to me to come up with the basic seed, so it's not very productive to come in with nothing."
• "I'm not going to die glamorously. I'll probably be eating a Twinkie, take a bite, and fall over."
• "I'm sort of like a lame, single guy in a red sports car."
• "I'm viewed as this weird, crippled character. But you got to take your lumps."
• "I've always been spiritual but I've never had a proper context, and it took me awhile to find the proper context. It's hard to realize you can have any kind of relationship with God you want... and so I now have a punk rock relationship with God."
• "If I have resistance to something, it means there's something wrong. The resistance to me is a sign of fear."
• "In my Saturn Return period, my mom died and I got a divorce. Mine occurred at the absolute peak of my career. Smashing Pumpkins were running around playing 200 concerts a year-making money, lotta babes-and there was the irony of the high with the low."
• "In 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."
• "It just doesn't work without the others."
• "James, 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."
• "My pat line about the Cubs and payroll is that the amount of merchandise the Cubs would sell off a world series championship would more than cover for a big payroll."
• "My 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."
• "Saturn Return is just the return of your planets to their original position."
• "The core of a band should be built on the relationship between the guitarist and the drummer. It's the simpatico relationship between me and our drummer, Jimmy Chamberlain, that provides the foundation for the Pumpkins. Drums can do so much more than just hold down the groove."
• "The deeper I get into my life as a musician, I'm discovering that it becomes less and less about other people, and more about what I want to do. And that's a good place to be."
• "The only transformative difference between the first and the second album was that after the first album, I became completely suicidal. It was an eight-month depression, give or take a month, and I was pretty suicidal for about two or three months."
• "There's a difference between being a poseur and being someone who's so emotionally challenged they're kind of just doing their best to show you what they've got."
• "You will never see the four original Pumpkins on stage ever again, unless it's a Hall of Fame thing. But you would never see a tour. There's so much damage, there's no way."
• "Your basic person wants to talk about material culture, internet culture. I think about God, cats, nature."
• "You can't be greater than Elvis, change things as much as the Beatles, or be as original as Led Zeppelin. All you can do is rip them off."