SPIN-Interview 2017: "William Patrick Corgan Is Living the Dream"

[Corgan's Bluff]

Interview of WPC with Ian Cohen, SPIN-Magazine October 12, 2017

https://www.spin.com/featured/willia...ala-interview/


Skilled Person
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What do you mean by “scarlet letter”?
You know, “there he is making a funny face at Disneyland.” All that stuff. I do a synthesizer show at my tea house, which is free by the way, for thirty people, and it gets these write-ups about how I’ve lost my mind. It’s all a bit silly, but you’re obviously valuable to a particular group for a particular set of reasons. Is it generational? Is it a need to have pariahs so they can lift their heroes higher? I mean, whatever. But the conversation exists because of the proportionality that I listed, which is: I’m a skilled person. If I wasn’t a skilled person, there wouldn’t be anything to talk about. I’m not sitting here, “nah nah nah,” like a little kid’s “nah nah nah” phase. It’s not like that. It obviously hasn’t changed my path. I mean, I’ve done stupid things in reaction to it. But that’s human. I reserve the right to be dumb.
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Promises for a still unknown Smashing Pumpkins-reunion
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As far as not wanting to live in the past, how does that weigh on your mind when James Iha is involved with this record and there seems to be more talk than ever about a Smashing Pumpkins reunion?
It doesn’t. It’s like, the door is open, and hopefully there will be some energy by which we, in some combination, can coalesce. But I’ve learned not to repeat my mistakes, which is, “It has to be this way, in this time frame.” I’m applying no pressure. I’ve opened the door to it because of personal relationships and the peace that’s been demonstrated within, and hopefully there will be an opportunity there. If there is, great, if there isn’t, I’m happy to have the friendships. I don’t feel any burning need to prove a point.
But I will say to the world, be careful what you wish for, because if we do come back in any format, we’re going to punch people’s heads in. It won’t be the shy, retiree “roll around with our walkers” spree. We’ll go right back to being the band that we are—not even were, the band that we are. People, rightly so, will often attach a lot of the whole group’s polemic mission to me. Fine, I was out front, I was writing the songs. But trust me, the other three were just as big of bastards. We enjoy taking on the New York snobs. We love punching people right in the guts where the hypocrisy grows.

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