this is long... but definitely worth reading!!!!

from "smashing pumpkins" by jim stapleton

"my view of the world is always tempered by the fact that there are people
who are less fortunate than i am... like, i have a little brother who isn't
retarded, but he has a very strange chromosomal disorder, so at some level
i'm aware of the fact that i'm very fortunate.  y'know, no matter what kind
of personal demons i have, i still run it through some kind of equation that
i'm lucky."  (billy corgan)

"obviously we were aware of what was going on in the rest of the world
because we're music fans, but if you admire something and try and bring that
into your band, unless that's in you or a part of you, you would go down
different roads and fail.  it's just a matter of finding your own identity."
 (billy corgan)

"if there was a simple ethic for the band it was that we want to be able to
do whatever we want to do and not be confined or limited by being a rock
band, and therefore only able to play rock.  we wanted to be able to show
this multi-color-type band and then be able to use that as a vehicle to do
whatever we wanted to do..."  (billy corgan)

(the sacred heart is billy's favorite image and is on the back of the album
sleeve on gish)...  "to me, the sacred heart is a symbol that is fraught with
contradiction... that symbol is very symbolic to me, because you cannot just
love jesus without pain, and you cannot just feel love without suffering.
 the sacred heart is this intense, contradictory symbol -- it can't just be
jesus's heart, it has to have thorns in it and it has to be bleeding..."
 (billy corgan)

"i don't know if god would agree with me, but believing in god is kind of
unimportant when compared to believing in yourself.  because if you go with
the idea that god gave you a mind and an ability to judge things, then he
would want you to believe in yourself and not worry about believing in him.
 by believing in yourself you will come to the conclusion that will point to
something..."  (billy corgan)

"i don't feel there are many bands who are trying to be great -- not that i'm
a spokesman for great rock bands or something, but i don't think there are
many bands who are ascending to be something.  i mean, if you take three or
four elements that would make a great band -- like being a great studio band
and being a great live band and also having something else, too -- then i
don't think many bands are trying to be that.  i think a lot of bands are
trying to be one of those and maybe a little bit of the other, but not
everything.  and maybe it's naive of me to think that we can be all of those
things, but i do."  (billy corgan)

"i don't really like the effect that mtv has had on our audience... when we
play on our own, we're used to an audience that goes to shows and takes the
music that they listen to seriously.  now the audience is much younger and
not as loyal and i think that's kind of scary..."  (d'arcy wretzky)

"i don't want to achieve the distance of a rock band that's too cool for you
to deal with or too whacked out for you to relate to -- but the exact
opposite... i want our music to come across like someone whispering into your
ear and going right inside your brain.  instead of letting the sound go from
our mouths and our hands through a thousand rock pretences and spinal
tap-isms, i want it to be like we're right in front of you.  that's the kind
of intimacy and trust i'd like the band to achieve."  (billy corgan)

"we have a problem with any labels that people try to hang on us, because all
it does is drag you down."  (d'arcy wretzky)

"the 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 and ultimately align ourselves with who we really are.
 life, experiences, traumas -- whatever -- they all add up to make you some
altered version of what you are.  so there's this battle that goes on between
what you are and what you become, and it's been very important for me to
unravel what i was taught to be or what i became. and to draw a direct
parallel to music -- the closer i get back to being who i really am, the
stronger the music gets, because i think what talent i do have is connected
to that person, it's not a manipulative process, it's intuitive.  you can
learn about chords and guitars, but there's a piece of you that makes it
individual, and it's been a slow process for me to become whatever it is that
i'm supposed to be."  (billy corgan)

"i've always believed that we could reach past genre, past whatever's popular
at the moment.  we've never been about a movement, we didn't ride the grunge
coat-tails, we've always been on our terms and i always felt that we could be
like the sort of bands that helped to change my sensibilities about the
world."  (billy corgan)

"...everybody's trying to out-manipulate everyone and we're trying to be who
we really are.  the world is not set up for a band like the smashing pumpkins
-- it's set up for bands who can play the angle better."  (billy corgan)

"when you're nobody and have nothing to show for anything that you've ever
done you never question where people are coming from beyond the simplest of
motivations.  but these days i really question why people talk to me, and
it's sad.  i don't think people are malicious, i think they're just attracted
to celebrity in general.  you have people coming up just because they want to
be able to tell someone that they met someone, and i don't think they realize
that it takes away from your own life."  (billy corgan)

"so success has changed my life in that way, but it's also changed the way
that i think.  i feel more free to do whatever i want to do musically,
because i've always thought that you should take a success as a reinforcement
for what you're doing and, rather than get more concerned, you should go the
other way and get more bold."  (billy corgan)

"i no longer feel the need to torch my soul in public, because i don't think
it's really worth it... you have to decide what's worth it publicly and
what's not worth it personally.  that's the battle, artistically, at the
moment.  i could take the doubters and nay-sayers and make them believers,
but there's such a personal toll that goes with it.  i have to ask myself:
 is it worth killing myself or reaching deep inside myself to prove our worth
to somebody who's just as likely to buy a mariah carey record?  (billy
corgan)

"if you take any band that's ascended to stadium rock and look at their live
show it becomes a series of everybody-put-your-hands-in-the-air singalongs.
 why is that?  because they're dealing with the lowest common denominator of
the musical audience -- the least amount of sophistication and the least
amount of emotional connection with the band... and sometimes when we play, i
feel that people are only there to hear 'disarm' or 'today' and they don't
give a fuck about the rest of the show or who we are as people, yet they want
some emotion from us..."  (billy corgan)

"there's always going to be the bands that change where the river flows...
and there's always going to be people who get in their boats to ride down the
river, who'll go as far as they can until someone changes its course again.
it's upsetting to see people not having the guts to be their own band and
riding someone else's little trip, but it's just the way that it is and it
will always be that way.  it will never change because it's about money and
it's about power."  (billy corgan)

"i just want to be able to look back and think that as long as i was doing
this, i did it the best i could."  (billy corgan)

"the thing that makes it all worth it is when someone comes up and says, 'i
had a really hard time in my life and your album really helped me.'  as long
as that happens, all the idiots in the world and all the stupid press can say
what they want to, it just doesn't matter."  (billy corgan)

there you go... just another little glimpse of the infinite number of reasons
i love to be a pumpkinhead....

krista