1. TGS with Tracy Jordan (“30 Rock”)

For those who can remember back to the pilot of “30 Rock,” Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) was originally in charge of a not-terribly-great sketch comedy series called “The Girlie Show,” but when GE’s new Head of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming, Jack Donaghy made an executive decision to add the completely unpredictable Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) to the show, the comedian’s ego necessitated a change in the show’s title to feature his name more prominently. 136 episodes later, we’ve scarcely seen a single “TGS” sketch in its entirety, and what bits we have seen have rarely been funny (at least not intentionally), but the shenanigans surrounding the series have been consistently hysterical.

2. The Alan Brady Show (“The Dick Van Dyke Show”)

Dick Van Dyke has discussed on many occasions how many TV writers have come up to him over the years and told him that the biggest reasons they decided to break into the business in the first place was because Rob Petrie and his cronies on Alan Brady’s variety show made it look like one of the most entertaining occupations in the world. Strangely, he hasn’t spoken nearly as much about how many of those writers finished their comments by yelling, “Thanks for nothing, you big liar!” I’m betting it’s about 50/50.

By the way, although “The Alan Brady Show” wasn’t real, the folks at MeTV talked Carl Reiner into doing a promo for the addition of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” to their line-up where he reprised the character. Funny stuff.

3. Invitation to Love (“Twin Peaks”)

If you’re not a David Lynch obsessive, you may not remember this soap opera, but those with keen eyes will recall that it turned up at least once in each of the first seven episodes of “Twin Peaks.” It’s also worth noting that “Invitation to Love” pointedly features identical-twin characters played by the same actress, which – in no way coincidentally – was more or less what Sheryl Lee did as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson.

4. The Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy (“Spongebob Squarepants”)

The best bit about this cartoon-with-a-cartoon was the fact that the “Spongebob” show runners reunited former “McHale’s Navy” co-stars Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway to prove the characters’ respective voices. It doesn’t get much cooler than that.

5. The Terrence and Phillip Show (“South Park”)

Disproving a longstanding theory that Canadians can’t be funny while cementing the not-really-in-question suspicion that farts are always funny, it need only be said that Terrence and Phillip are a stone-cold gas. Sadly, this clip is from their movie, “Asses of Fire,” rather than their series, but it’s basically the same thing. Y’know, except filthier. Much, much filthier.

Bullz-Eye: First of all, in case you haven’t heard, I should let you know that we put you into our Director’s Hall of Fame last year.

John Landis: Oh, thank you very much!

BE: Our pleasure. After all, we’re a guy-centric site, and it would be fair to say that you’ve made a few movies that have been appreciated by many a man over the years…including, of course, “¡Three Amigos!”

JL: [Laughs.] So did you get a chance to watch the Blu-ray, then?

BE: I did. It looks fantastic.

JL: Yeah, I was able to restore it to the way it’s supposed to be seen. I’m very pleased with the way it looks.

BE: I was actually going to ask you about that process. I presume there’s at least a little bit of difference when it comes to restoring a comedy for Blu-ray versus, say, a full-on special effects extravaganza.

JL: Actually, no. [Laughs.] That would be an untrue presumption. I mean, every picture’s individual, and it depends on the look you were going for with that particular movie. When they made the Blu-ray for “Animal House,” I was upset. I thought they made it much too bright and clean. “Animal House” is supposed to look dirty and funky. [Laughs.] I remember the technician, when I had to check it, he kept writing on his chart, “Image degraded per director.” But every movie you make, you try – or at least I do, anyway – for a different kind of look. On “¡Three Amigos!” I was really trying to go for those beautiful westerns that Hollywood used to make in the ‘50s. The Technicolor pictures. We wanted the colors to be incredibly vibrant. You know, the old DVD wasn’t even the correct aspect ratio. So I’m happy that I got the chance to restore it.

BE: Well, as I say, it looks fantastic. And sounds great, too.

JL: Yeah, it’s a great score. It’s a unique situation where Elmer Bernstein, I asked him…I said, “Listen, I want you to satirize yourself.” And that’s what he did. [Laughs.] He’s doing his wacky version of “The Magnificent Seven,” and I was just so pleased with that. And the songs by Randy Newman…I mean, the movie’s got incredible music.

BE: And the Singing Bush. I mean, come on…

JL: The Singing Bush is Randy Newman! [Laughs.]

BE: Absolutely. Did you have to prod him at all to play that part?

JL: Yes. [Laughs.] But he did a great job. The role he was born to play!

BE: You and your stars – Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short – reunited for an Empire Magazine article not so long ago.

JL: Right, that was recently. It was only about four months ago, I think.

BE: It was a great article, although as I read it, I couldn’t help but think, “Gee, I’m sure he loved being reminded that ‘¡Three Amigos!’ made less money at the box office than ‘Police Academy 3.’”

JL: Yeah, but ‘Police Academy 3’ was a gigantic hit!

BE: Well, sure. But when you look back on classic films of the ‘80s, ‘¡Three Amigos!’ would seem to rank higher than ‘Police Academy 3.’

JL: Maybe, but…I make a movie that I want to see. When you make a film…Peter Bogdanovich famously said, “The only true test of a movie is time,” and there are movies that were originally failures, like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which was such a failure that it bankrupted the company, but it’s considered a great American film…because it is! [Laughs.]

BE: You’ve been at the helm of quite a few films that continue to be reflected upon both on and between their key anniversaries. Is “¡Three Amigos!” one that surprises you with its endurance?

JL: No. Because it’s very funny. [Laughs.] And I think that the Amigos themselves are very sweet. And…there are not that many movies you can watch with the whole family, other than Disney or Pixar films, where the parents enjoy it as much as the kids.

BE: I discovered this morning that if I go to Google and type in the words “would you say,” it instantly attempts to finish the phrase with “I have a plethora of piñatas”?

JL: [Bursts out laughing.] Is that true?

BE: That is absolutely true.

JL: That’s…odd. [Laughs.]

BE: But it’s also, I think, a testament to the enduring fan base for that film.

JL: Well, that’s also the wonderful Alfonso Arau and Tony Plana. They’re so great.

BE: Are there any lines that stand out for you personally as favorites?

JL: Oh, many. I think my favorite, the one that I quote the most, is when Dusty Bottoms comes to the Mexican village and the peasants feed them and give them lunch, and Chevy says, “Do you have anything besides Mexican food?” [Laughs.] My wife and I were three months in India, and I found myself saying “do you have anything besides…Mexican food?” all the time.

BE: One of the things I noticed in re-watching the film – something I can’t say as I paid attention to before – was that, in the scene where the Amigos meet with the head of their movie studio, you’ve got three guys working together who would go on to be three of the most popular guest voices on The Simpsons: Phil Hartman (Troy McClure), Jon Lovitz (Artie Ziff), and Joe Mantegna (Fat Tony).

JL: Oh, you know, I never thought of that! [Laughs.] That was Joe Mantegna’s first movie. And Jon Loviz and Phil Hartman, they’re in it because I really wanted Lorne (Michaels) to see them, to put them on “Saturday Night Live,” and…he had a prejudice against L.A. at that time, and because they were from a comedy group in L.A. called The Groundlings, he didn’t want to know. So I gave them parts in the movie so he could see how brilliant they were.

BE: If you listen to Joe Mantegna in the scene, he’s essentially doing his Fat Tony voice.

JL: That’s so funny. That never occurred to me. I didn’t even make that connection. Did you watch the cut scenes on the Blu-ray?

BE: I did, yes.

JL: Okay, so you know there was originally a lot more of them in the film.

BE: Yep. It wasn’t until recently, though, that I learned that Sam Kinison had originally been in the film…not that there’s any trace of his work left, unfortunately.

JL: Yeah, he was this cannibal mountain man. I wish we knew where that footage was. It’s only about four minutes worth, but it’s very funny.

BE: A number of surprising films from the ‘80s have emerged as cult hits. Is there one of your past films – not necessarily limiting yourself to the ‘80s – that you feel is ripe for reevaluation?

JL: Well, I’ve been really lucky, in that most of my films – not all, but most – have had a tremendous life. They’re still showing “Animal House” and “The Blues Brothers” and “An American Werewolf in London” and “Trading Places” and “Coming to America.” They’re all sort of still out there. And, of course, my work with Michael Jackson. All of that stuff is still very relevant.

BE: Speaking of Michael Jackson, I wrote in your entry for our Director’s Hall of Fame, “Kids, ask your parents if they ever made a point of tuning in to MTV at the top of the hour in order to catch an airing of ‘Thriller.’ If they tell you they didn’t, then ask them what it was like to grow up in a cultural vacuum.”

JL: [Laughs.] There was a time where it was, like, all “Thriller,” all the time!

BE: What were your thoughts on tackling that project? I mean, Michael Jackson is obviously someone high-profile enough to find him worth working with, but did you have any trepidation about doing a music video?

JL: Well, I didn’t want to do a music video! [Laughs.] When Michael first called me…he’d seen “An American Werewolf in London” and was very taken with Rick Baker’s work, and he just really wanted to turn into a monster. That’s what he wanted: “I want to turn into a monster onscreen.” And I said, “Instead of doing a video, which is just a three-minute commercial for a record, why don’t we do a short?” And it was meant to be…well, it was, actually, a theatrical short. Disney actually distributed it with “Fantasia” before it was on TV. And that’s why it’s 14 minutes: because it’s the length of a theatrical short. So it ended up being like a little movie, and I had no problem doing it. It was great fun.

BE: Having read your bio, I know you worked at least to some extent on “Once Upon a Time in the West.”

JL: I was on that movie for over a month!

BE: Did you learn any life lessons from Sergio Leone?

JL: No. But he was very sweet and very funny. He had this ridiculous Italian accent – he didn’t speak English very well then – and I enjoyed watching him direct Henry Fonda, who he called Hank, and say, “Hank-a, I want-a you to…” [Starts laughing.] It was really funny. But the guy was brilliant. I love that movie.

BE: Do you have any Robert Shaw stories from working on “A Town Called Hell”?

JL: Just that, boy, that guy could drink unbelievably. [Laughs.] He could consume amounts of alcohol that could kill most people.

BE: I don’t know if you’re familiar with the website Splitsider.com, but they recently did a piece called “The Lost Roles of ‘Animal House.’”

JL: [Laughs.] No, I’m not.

BE: They ran through a list of people who’d either been seriously considered or at least thought about for various roles in the film. I hadn’t known that Meat Loaf was more or less in contention for Bluto.

JL: He was on the list, yeah. If we couldn’t get (John) Belushi. I remember it was Josh Mostel, Meat Loaf, and…there were like five or six guys. But John was the only one we actually offered it to, and he took it.

BE: And I can’t help but smile at the thought of Jack Webb playing Dean Wormer.

JL: Well, now, he was my first choice. I went to Jack Webb, and he thought I was nuts. [Laughs.] I mean, I had long hair, and…he did everything but call me a Jew commie faggot. But he sat there, drinking Scotch, and he listened to me. But he had no interest. The casting that I was always disappointed in was when I made “The Blues Brothers.” For Bob – of Bob’s Country Bunker – I had lunch with Roy Rogers. And Roy was a very nice guy, by the way, but he just couldn’t be in an R-rated film.

BE: Were there any musicians you wanted in “The Blues Brothers” that you couldn’t wrangle?

JL: Little Richard. At the moment, Little Richard…you know, he finds and loses Jesus all the time. Just my luck, he found him at that moment. [Laughs.]

BE: In the case of a film like “The Blues Brothers,” where you had to deliver a shorter cut at the studio’s request, is that something always gnaws at you for the long haul, or have there been occasions when you were, like, “God help me, but it might just be better this way”?

JL: Well, I mean, for “The Blues Brothers,” we trimmed it tremendously and made it a lot shorter, but most of the time came out of various musical numbers and stuff. For the most part, the answer is “no.” The only time I’ve ever had a studio really fuck with me was on the sequel, on “Blues Brothers 2000,” where they really just kind of destroyed that movie. But I’m still proud of the music in the movie, which is incredible, and the people who are in it are extraordinary. I’m happy that we were able to document those artists and put them on film. But that’s the only time I ever had a studio really fuck me. [Laughs.]

BE: Did you have fun working with Paul Mazursky on “Into the Night” both as a director and as an actor?

JL: I did! He’s one of those guys that I don’t think people remember what a big filmmaker he was. He made some very interesting movies.

BE: I’d expect it was a kick to be able to threaten him onscreen as you did.

JL: Did I threaten him? Oh, yeah, I had a gun! [Laughs.] Paul’s actually a very good actor.

BE: You’re obviously best known for your comedies, but do you ever have an interest in venturing more into drama?

JL: Oh, sure. I mean, you know, there’s this interesting thing, and it’s true not just to critics but in the industry, too, and I’ve never really understood it, but…if you’re a filmmaker and you can tell a story through the juxtaposition of images, which is how movies are made, then genre doesn’t matter. If you can direct a film, you can direct any genre. But directors get typed just like actors, and if you have great success in comedy, then that’s what they want you to do. And it’s frustrating. [Laughs.]

BE: I was talking to Carl Gottlieb recently, and he said the same of screenwriters, suggesting that there was a time when you wouldn’t think twice about having the guy who wrote “The King’s Speech” write “Transformers 3,” or what have you.

JL: That’s absolutely true. But that’s gone. Now, you know, the executives…they’re like Winnie the Pooh: a bear of very little brain. [Laughs.]

BE: I was curious about the experience of working with Bob Hope on “Spies Like Us.”

JL: Well, Bob was literally on his way to the airport. [Laughs.] He was in London, and I called him up and…he was doing a Command Performance, and I asked him if he would be in the film, since the film is clearly my attempt at doing a kind of “Road” picture, a Hope & Crosby kind of picture. He said, “Sure! Give $35,000 to the Boys Club of America, and I’ll do it!” And I said, “Deal!” And he just literally stopped by. I had it lit and ready, and…I’ll tell you, it was an interesting thing. I don’t know if you remember, but in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Bob Hope started making these bad movies, and he became…well, he was not the Bob Hope of the ‘30s and ‘40s, let’s put it that way. And he came in, and he said, “What do you want me to do?” And I told him, and he said, “No, no, show me.” Which, you know, most actors don’t want you to do that kind of thing. But I found myself doing an imitation of Bob Hope from the ‘30s. [Laughs.] I did that, and then Bob…well, basically, he was doing an imitation of me doing an imitation of him from the ‘30s. But being Bob Hope, he was great at it! He just came in and did it. One take. He did it, and he left. And I was honored to have him in the picture.

BE: I just wanted to jump back to the comment I made earlier about unlikely films from the ’80 developing cult followings. I recently wrote a review of the “Clue” miniseries that was done for The Hub, where I made an offhanded comment about how the movie version of “Clue” – which you co-wrote – had a fantastic cast but maybe wasn’t necessarily what you’d call a great movie…though, in fairness, I haven’t seen it in 20 years. But there was a downright vehement reaction from the readership, the general premise of the replies being, “To hell with you! It goddamned well is a great movie!”

JL: [Laughs.] Excellent! Good for those guys! Well, on “Clue,” I wrote the outline, and then I couldn’t solve it. I created this situation I couldn’t solve. I knew the butler goes, “And then this is who did it,” but I couldn’t figure it out! And then Tom Stoppard worked on it for awhile, and then he gave up. And then I was in London, and there was this wonderful TV series called “Yes, Minister” that was written by Tony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. And I met Jonathan and I asked him to write it, and he wrote it. And then…I’ve forgotten what happened, but I was doing another movie, and I said, “Listen, Jon, I’ll try to get you for this, if you’d like to direct it.” And he did!

BE: Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

JL: Oh, gee, that’s interesting. I don’t know. You know, you make movies, and they sort of have a life of their own. They go out into the world… [Laughs.] …and depending on where I am and who I’m with is the movie they want to talk about. But…yes, I can think of one. My only children’s film was called “The Stupids,” and I’m quite proud of that movie, but it was unfortunate: I made it for a company called Savoy, and they went bankrupt while I was in post-production, so my film, along with a number of movies, went on a shelf. And Mike Eisner and Disney tried to buy it, and that would’ve been great, because it was PG. Maybe it was even G-rated. Captain Kangaroo’s in it, for God’s sake! [Laughs.] It has puppets! It’s a children’s film!

But it sat there for about three years because Victor Kaufman wouldn’t sell it without the other movies. You had to buy the whole slate of Savoy movies. It would’ve been great if Disney had bought it, because it would’ve said, “Walt Disney presents ‘The Stupids.” But it was eventually bought by New Line, and that’s when they were doing the “Freddy’s Nightmare” movie. I’ll never forget it: I went to a screening and…they had never seen the movie. They bought it for a lot of money, but they’d never seen it! [Laughs.] These schmucks, they thought it was a teenage tits-and-ass movie because a girl named Jenny McCarthy, who was a model in Toronto, she had a small part, but in the years that it sat on the shelf, she became Playmate of the Year and a celebrity. So they thought, “Tom Arnold? Jenny McCarthy?!?” They thought it was gonna be a tits-on-the-beach movie! So when they saw it, they went, “This is a children’s film!” I went, “Yeah…?” And they were really upset about it and kind of dumped it. And it always bothered me, because if you show that to the people who it’s aimed for, which is ages 7 to 10, it plays great. [Laughs.] I’m very happy with that picture. So that’s the one I wish had gotten more love.

BE: Lastly, given how many times you’ve turned up in front of the camera, do you have a favorite of your appearances as an actor? And just to clarify, it doesn’t need to have been a role where you actually had to speak.

JL: Um, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m not really an actor. [Laughs.] Do you remember those commercials that Robert Young used to do, where he said, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV”? I always feel like I should be saying, “I’m not an actor, but I play one in the movies.” Because I’ve been in a shitload of movies. I’ve been in over a hundred films. But…I don’t know, I like my little moment with John Belushi in “1941.” But the film’s not great. [Laughs.] And…I don’t know, I also enjoyed “Into the Night,” because it was kind of slapstick. I enjoyed doing that. I didn’t intend to be in the movie, but I had hired these Persian actors, these Iranian guys, and they were very serious actors and they got the scary, but they couldn’t do the physical comedy. I was trying to do this deadly Keystone Kops slapstick, but they just had trouble with the physical stuff, so I ended up just going, “Fuck it, I look Persian, I’ll do it.” So I’m in there, and, really, the only reason I’m in there – and it worked quite well – was just to get them to be able to do the falling-down stuff like I wanted it. But you’ll notice I don’t speak in that movie. Sorry, I don’t speak Farsi. [Laughs.]

Billy Corgan: Hi, Will!

Bullz-Eye: Hey, Billy, good to talk to you!

BC: Thank you!

BE: Well, I know you guys are on tour at the moment, but I actually wanted to kick off by asking you about something from the studio. How did the release of the Teargarden by Kaleidyscope Vol. 1 EP go for you? Was the reaction better or worse than you expected?

BC: It was…probably in the range of expectation, which I have to admit wasn’t real high. (Laughs) Because I knew that I was doing something kind of different, and I thought it would take awhile to put across the different ideas. Not just musical, but, y’know, “Why free? Why have a limited edition?” All of these types of things. I think that part’s gone okay. Musically, I’ve been more focused on trying to figure out a sort of musical way to connect and how that’s going to work over the long range in keeping myself and fans interested. I’ve been sort of more focused on that.

BE: Of the songs I’ve heard thus far, I think my favorite song is “A Stitch in Time.”

BC: Oh, thank you! That’s funny, I was just talking about that: some of the hardcore Smashing Pumpkins fans don’t think very much of that song, and I don’t understand why. I think it’s a very strong song.

BE: I mean this in the best possible way, but…it’s very much a pop song.

BC: (Hesitates) Yeah, but I also think it fits well with some of my other acoustic material, like “Disarm” and things like that. It’s very hard to write an acoustic song that has a narrative just within the acoustic form, if that makes sense, where the song can just hold up as an acoustic song and not just be, like, a nice song that you’re playing acoustically. I sort of look at them differently. And I see it in that way. Maybe people don’t like the production on it, I don’t know. But, yeah, I really like it. It’s one my favorite songs.

BE: So will these songs be collected in the future, a la The Aeroplane Flies High?

BC: Yeah, the plan is to ultimately create a full box that would include all the released material, hopefully some unreleased material, and then maybe, like, a DVD or a documentary. Some kind of reason to get the whole thing all at once.

BE: So what continues to drive you to make music under the name “Smashing Pumpkins”? What makes this band feel like “Smashing Pumpkins” as opposed to “Billy Corgan”?

BC: Smashing Pumpkins has always been for me a conceptual thing. Like, if Second City, the Chicago comedy thing, is supposed to be edgy comedy, well, to me, Smashing Pumpkins is always about trying to find a synthesis of an alternative idealism combined with classic rock musical values, and then somehow take those things into the mainstream in a subversive way. That’s sort of at the foundation of the Smashing Pumpkins ideology, and that’s related, obviously, in the releases. To me, when I’ve been in Smashing Pumpkins and I’m focused on making Smashing Pumpkins music, I think very differently about how to make music. It comes more from a conceptual place. It’s, like, “This is the place where you push boundaries.” Personally, I’m much more attracted to acoustic music. But I also realize that acoustic music is something that not everybody feels very strongly about, nor do they understand the force behind it like I feel I do. My voice really, honestly, is better suited for acoustic music. Smashing Pumpkins is, for me, very much like being in a certain kind of uniform and going after a certain sort of objective. If I’m going to follow those objectives, then Smashing Pumpkins is the best way for me to do it. That’s just the way I look at it. The whole question about everybody else in the band and who’s in it and all that, that to me has always been more of a moment-to-moment issue.

BE: Did you expect the controversy, such as it is, when you decided to continue with Smashing Pumpkins?

BC: I honestly…I don’t read press, but I don’t think it’s as much of a controversy as maybe the media tries to make it out to be. We’re selling out all our shows. The shows have been…I don’t know if you’ve seen, but they’ve been very highly reviewed. At the end of the day…you know, people try to be gracious when they say, “Oh, Smashing Pumpkins is you,” but I’ve never felt that. Smashing Pumpkins is about playing music a certain way with a certain sort of spirit, and I don’t think it’s any different from a comedy troupe, where it’s, like, “As long as everybody believes in the idea, it works.” In Smashing Pumpkins, when we had the original members and there were members in the band that didn’t believe in the idea, that didn’t work, either. (Laughs) It’s not always about the individual as it is about the collective idea. So to me, those are arguments that are…I really believe they’re media-based arguments that have more to do with sticking a pin in my side because they can’t really say much else. I’ve been a quality-level musician now for over 20 years, there aren’t a lot of my contemporaries that you can say that about. I’m not a casualty. I’ve been drug-free for 10 years.

BE: Congratulations.

BC: Thank you! Although I never had an issue. I just stopped. But I obviously talk about other things in the world…politics, God. I’m not a casuality. I’ve survived. I’m a survivor of a very difficult childhood, which many people of my generation understand. The things about me that should be celebrated sort of get ignored, and I’ve definitely helped foster the environment of that. (Laughs) I take responsibility for that, but many of those were borne out of artistic ideas. Like, “Being provocative is a good thing.” But it doesn’t always play well. But to somehow undermine my musical vision and my musical accomplishments because of who I’m playing with or not playing with, I think that really…I mean, it’s ultimately a really minor issue. Really, the issue should be, “Am I fulfilling the musical objectives that I’m setting out?” I think those are much more qualitative arguments to take on. Getting down to whether or not somebody…I mean, people talk about the original band, but my ex-bandmate D’arcy hasn’t played on stage or been in a band for 11 years. That is a really long time to be still making those arguments. It just becomes kind of a press coin to throw in there. But I don’t see that coming up off the street.

BE: I’m curious, though: do you yourself ever just think, “It would be nice to play with those guys from the original band again”?

BC: Only from the perspective of if it was a peaceful, positive collective idea of what it would mean. And that’s just not going to happen. It’s like someone asking, “Do you believe in world peace?” Absolutely. I absolutely believe in world peace. “Do you see a scenario by which world peace is possible in the near future?” No. The world does not want that. I’m not the only person who bears responsibility for such a decision. There are three other adult beings who have made completely different choices outside of being in Smashing Pumpkins. Again, it’s beautiful, wishful, idealized thinking, but it doesn’t bear into reality. And, listen, it’s simple: if you could go back in time and you could sit in that room while I’m recording Siamese Dream, you’d see me in there 12 hours a day, usually by myself. So here we are 17 years later, I’m still in that room primarily by myself. So for me, it’s not a fundamentally different experience. Now, in this case, the people I’m playing with now are going to be in that room with me. I have a different relationship with them than I had with the old band, so I’m looking forward to that.

BE: You mentioned politics a minute ago, and I was curious: given how many audiences you’ve played before, did you still find yourself a little intimidated before you testified before Congress.

BC: Oh, yeah. (Laughs) Yeah, absolutely. That’s a level of stage that’s unprecedented in my life.

BE: How did you find yourself there in the first place?

BC: I was asked. I got a formal invitation from…well, I mean, obviously, it’s arranged through whoever the backstage people are, but I received a formal invitation from John Conyers to testify on behalf of what would be a sort of a musical position on this matter, and it was a great honor. It’s a complicated issue. It’s not a black and white, good-guy-bad-guy issue, and I was careful in my testimony to not paint radio as the bad guy. In fact, the bad guy to me is the major label system.

BE: Setting aside the new material, what would you say is the most underrated Smashing Pumpkins album?

BC: Oh, I don’t even know. (Laughs) I mean, I don’t know. To be honest, the past, to me, is something that…it’s almost like if you have a picture on your wall at home and stare at it long enough, you can’t even see it anymore. I’m at that point in my life. The last original-era band album was from 2000, so now you’re going on 10 years since that. All of those things are close to me because of those moments in my life, and there are certainly a lot of memories, but it just starts to look like…you almost become more influenced by others’ thoughts than your own, because it’s so far in your rear view mirror. I’ve had so much life since then that it’s sort of like…I guess I look at it more from a standpoint of appreciation. Like, I appreciate that I did those things, and I appreciate that people still find something and come back and return to them, but… (Sighs) I guess I’ve kind of given up the ghost of trying to fight the fight of the old band. I’m so focused on fighting the fight of the band I’m in right now. And whether or not people understand why it’s called Smashing Pumpkins or if it should be called something else, that to me is such a minor argument, because even if it was the original line-up, if the band wasn’t qualitative, nobody would give a shit. So my number one issue is, “Can I create quality music at 43 years old that not only is current in terms of the world that we live in but can stand side by side not only against my past accomplishments but also people’s memories?” Because as you know, memories are often better than the real thing. (Laughs) People remember their proms better than their proms actually were, and you run into that. If some guy lost his virginity to your music, then it’s never going to get any better for him than that, no matter how good a song you make. So for me, that’s the problem. There are ghosts and impressions and mirrors that you don’t have any control of, so all you can control is if you’re engaged, if you’re excited, if you’re motivated. And If you look at any of the reviews that are coming out…I mean, they’re so positive because the energy is there. You can’t fake that. And if it’s taken me the path that I’ve taken to get to where I am now, it was totally worth it. There were many, many painful steps along the way, but I’m happy, I really like the people I’m playing with, and I’m enjoying playing my music, whether it’s from 17 years ago or 7 days ago. And to be at that point in my life at this point and not be a casualty, not be fried, and have a promising future….? That’s so amazing.

BE: Okay, I feel like we’re getting too heavy here, so let me lighten things up by asking you this: do you think it’s time for the Cubs to just go ahead and dismantle the whole organization and start from scratch? (Laughs)

BC: All right, well, look, here’s the real problem we’re dealing with: every single year, no matter what, the same question always gets asked. “What do you think of the curse? Do you think this is going to be the year?” And it creates a layer of pressure that just has nothing to do with whether or not they can win…but the moment they don’t win, that’s the story. To take it back to myself for a second, if I didn’t have a quality band and wasn’t playing quality shows, can you imagine the press I’d be getting right now? You have to know what exists, and you have to either overcome it by going straight at it, or you have to say, “It’s irrelevant.” The Chicago fan fanbase, particularly of the Chicago Cubs, is so focused on the curse that they won’t let the players get off it, and the players are sitting there saying, “I don’t have anything to do with what happened in 1945!” But they keep making it about them, so at some point, it’s got to just…there’s got to be an issue there. I mean, I was there at the Bartman game, and let me tell you, it was one of the most unique moments of my life. I saw the play…I wasn’t that far away…and within 10 seconds, this murmur went up in the ballpark: “We’re fucked.” It wasn’t, like, “Oh, my God, he blew the play.” It was, “Uh-oh, here it comes.” Now, I believe in energy and power and the power of intention…and there 35, 40 thousand people there thinking, “Something bad’s going to happen.” And it did.

BE: They created their own destiny, in other words.

BC: Right! Okay, back to myself again. (Laughs) You create your own destiny. You’re not supposed to continue with your band, you’re not supposed to be the only person, you’re not supposed to do any of that. So either you run away from it and you go, “Oh, no, it’s got nothing to do with me,” or you say, “Yeah, I understand, but it doesn’t resonate with me anymore.” I’ve conquered the fear of what it means and somehow come out the other side thinking, “Wow, I like being in this band!” That’s the most important thing to me: that I like being in this band. There were years when I was with those people and I didn’t like being in the band. It was awful. Awful. And it reflected in our ability to make high quality music. I’m a sensitive person. I mean, you know, the world expects me to somehow be a robot when I’m in public, but I’m a sensitive person. That’s why I’m an artist. I’m supposed to ignore all of this crap I hear…? And I’ve got to hear it from fans! “How come you didn’t release the seventh B-side of such-and-such?” I’ve got to hear that kind of crap all day.

BE: (Laughs) That’s funny, because someone wanted me to ask you if you’d ever consider doing a B-sides tour?

BC: Exactly! Think about that. Who’s going to go to that? Again, it’s the past. And the thing that offends me about that…and you haven’t asked me any questions that have offended me, so I just wanted to say that…but the thing that offends me about the past is that, at the end of the day, it says, “I don’t believe that you’re going to do better. You’re done.” That’s the underline: “You’re done.” And I’m sorry, but I’m not done. The next 10 or 20 years of my life might be tremendously better than the previous 20. So when the assumption is that I’m incapable of doing better, that really undermines my ability. That’s offensive to me. I understand I’ve been a pain in the ass, but musically I think I’ve earned my stripes.

BE: Okay, well, since I’ve made it this far without offending you, I’m going to risk this one, but to cover my ass, I’ll offer the caveat that it’s inspired by something one of my friends asked, so it’s not really my question.

BC: (Laughs) Sure.

BE: What would you say to people who would accuse your more recent music of being self-indulgent?

BC: (Bursts into long, loud laughter) It’s always been self-indulgent! When was it not self-indulgent? Now, see, okay, let’s look at that question. What does that question means? It means, “I don’t like your current self-indulgence.”

BE: I believe that was the implication, yes.

BC: Right. Okay, you know what I say to that person? I say, “Fuck off.”

BE: Fair enough.

BC: Look, it’s all easy in hindsight. I was talking about this with a friend of mine today. I’m 19 years old. I’m living with my father, who has totally serious drug issues. I got no money. I’m playing the guitar in the bedroom every day. He goes, “You better get a job. You better cut your hair, and you better get a job.” Some little voice in me said, “No, I’m going to do this. Even if my own father doesn’t think I can do it.” And my father was like a god to me. He was a great musician. So Billy Corgan, 19, decides he’s going to do this. I find some people, we start practicing, yadda yadda yadda. We release our first album, and…when we released our first album, we had been written about in Chicago one time. One time. As a local band, we were drawing 800 – 1000 people to our shows…and we were written up one time. That’s our own hometown. We put out our album, and it goes on to be the largest selling independent album ever made at that time. I think we sold, like, 400,000 copies, which was huge. The New York press were, like, “Who the fuck are you? We don’t know who you are.” We’re, like, “We’ve been riding around in a van for two years!” “Well, we don’t know you. You’re not friends with Sonic Youth. Fuck off.” That album comes out, it’s doing very well, and here along comes Nirvana, Pearl Jam…they’re massive. They’re all over MTV. Suddenly, the record company’s, like, “Okay, what are you going to do?” (Laughs) We go and make an album that’s very different from our first album, which has songs which are unlike any songs I’d ever written in my entire life. I didn’t even know I had that in me. In fact, my father called me after the album was made and said, “Who are you? Who is this person?” The album goes on and becomes very, very successful. What do we do? We make a double album with a totally different producer and a totally different style…and it’s even bigger than that. So when you’ve had that in your life, when you’ve gone from nobody giving a fuck about you to people arguing about what you should or shouldn’t do, when somebody comes along and accuses you of, in essence, not knowing what you’re doing, your attitude is, “Fuck off.” Because that same chance-taking had everything to do with what you achieved, so you can’t just tell an artist later, “Hey, that thing that you trusted when nobody cared about you…? Don’t trust it now. Do what I think you should do.”

You could go on a Smashing Pumpkins fan site, and you could identify yourself as a journalist and said, “I’m writing an article, if it was up to you, what would you have Billy do next?” Why? Because of that self-indulgence. It’s through the self-indulgence that some people have a favorite electronic song, some a favorite acoustic song, some a favorite 14-minute jam that some say is boring but that others say is the best song they’ve ever heard. That’s the whole point. But it’s an emotional indulgence and then, by extension, musical indulgence. I’m not talking about quality, because that’s a tough argument to make, but I would put my record of boundary pushing, culture pushing, experimentation, genre-bending, influence, and musical accomplishment up against anybody from the last 30 years. Saying that you don’t like my self-indulgence is like saying that you don’t like the way I talk between songs. If that’s the case, then don’t come to the show, y’know? At the end of the day…and I’ve said this to many fans…if you don’t believe in what I’m doing musically, then of course I’m going to be a pain in the ass. I don’t do what I’m supposed to do, I don’t say what I’m supposed to say, I don’t act how I’m supposed to act. But if you believe in what I’m doing, then I think you’ll go on an interesting journey. It’s frustrating for me, believe me. Some songs I’ve said, “I don’t know if I want to put that out,” but some of those songs have become the famous songs that everybody wants to hear, so, basically, what the fuck do I know? The point is…okay, look, before Smashing Pumpkins put out their first album, rock ‘n’ roll had been around for, what, 35 years? Look at everyone who came before me: Hendrix, the Beatles, Sabbath, Zeppelin. Where do you go from there? There’s nowhere to go. The only thing to do is to mash these things together, but in a way that doesn’t feel so precious. That’s what I learned from the Velvet Underground and Neil Young. Don’t be so precious and don’t be so safe. And, look, I’ve had an incredible life and I’ve been on an amazing journey.

BE: Hey, man, you were on “The Simpsons.”

BC: I mean, hello…? (Laughs) That’s exactly what I’m saying! I was on “The Simpsons”! They said, “Do you want hair or no hair?” I said, “Hair, please!” (Laughs) God bless everybody, man. If people are still arguing about you after 20 years, you’re doing something right, and that appeals to the artist in me. The marketing guy in me sometimes feels differently… (Laughs) …but as an artist, that’s what you’re supposed to do: to make people wonder what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. But right now, I’ve got a positive atmosphere, people I genuinely enjoy making music with, and don’t ask me why, but it’s working.

Smashing Pumpkins tour dates:

July 15 – Norfolk, VA, The Norva
July 16 – Charlotte, NC, Fillmore
July 17 – Charleston, SC, Music Farm
July 19 – Orlando, FL, House of Blues
July 20 – Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Revolution
July 21 – Tampa, FL, Ritz
July 23 – Knoxville, TN, Valarium
July 24 – Pittsburgh, PA, Mr. Smalls Theatre
July 26 – New York, NY, Terminal 5
Aug 5 – Singapore, Singfest
Aug 7 – Tokyo, Japan, Marine Stadium / Messe
Aug 8 – Osaka, Japan, Maishima / Summer Sonic
Aug 10 – Tokyo, Japan, Studio Coast
Aug 11 – Tokyo, Japan, Studio Coast
Aug 14 – Seoul, Korea, Chamsil Gymnasium
Aug 28 – Hollywood, CA, Sunset Strip Music Festival