Love Is Suicide
Thanks to Soma473@aol.com for typing the transcript
i=interviewer
b=billy
j=james
various letters=name of questioner
I- tonights band formed nearly 8 years agoin their native chicago where they are tonite at q101. they debuted in 1990 with gish which sold nearly a million copies. it was followed by siamese dream in 1993, then it was on to headline lollapalooza 1994. now following that was 10 monrhs in the studio, coming out with an album with 28 songs on it, and over 2 hrs of music which became "mellon collie and the infinate sadness". please welcome in our studios in chicago billy; hi billy
B- bon sui [i dont take french, but he pronounces it like bon swa]
I- and james
J- chow, bella!
I- the smashing pumpkins. hi guys
B- hi
I- thanks very much for coming in tonight and doing the show, i guess billy, you know the obvious think that people have been writing about with this album is " oh my god it's a double album!" " wow, its a double album". its obvious its an incredible feat to put something like this together. was it intended to be a double album at first, or was ther just so much material that started coming out that you felt you had enough stuff to put this out?
B- um, we always intended it to be a double album from the very beginning. we
set out to do it, and boy, we did it.
J- did it good
I- you did. but let me ask you this though. after saying " this is gonna be a
double album" was there ever a point where you were self doubting where you
were like " can i actually pull this off, or did you feel confident, or did
it actually give you the inspiration to get it done; the internal pressure?
B- um, no, i think we took to the challenge of it, i mean when we started,
we've been a band about 6 years, and we've been thru lots of different
changes and permeatations, and i think we needed something to kinda get our
blood going. i doubted it a couple times, but i think its kinda a crazy idea
to begin with, and i think you almost have to go through some of those doubts
to come out the other side, and really kinda go with it. you know, cos its
abviousely not a good quote-unquote "career move", a lot of people didnt
think it was such a good thing to do, and ther was a lot of resistance
hereand there to the pricing and different things like that, so, whatever. it
exists, and its not going to go away, so we're happy about that.
I - so james, billy comes up to you and says "we're gonna do a double album".
what was you're reaction?
J- uh...
B- thats pretty much what it was. I - we were shocked J- no, i think we had a general sorta meeting about it, and before we started
the album and uh..i dunno. everyone was...we started out kinda casually
practicing, and i think the more and more songs we started going through,
andit it started like coming together, i think everyone..it was sort of a
momentum were it wasnt..i dunno, we never really talked about it being a
doulbe album, i mean, we just kept going through more and more songs, it
wasnt like " oh, here we are today, we are going to do a double album, so
lets keep that in mind". i twas never like a self-consious thing, like..uhh
I- you ready you guys for the phone calls?
B- here we go
I- here we go < he laughs, james is making some noise in the backround> our
first stop is st louis missouri, were gonna talk to mike on 105.7 the point.
hi mike.
M- hey. how did you guys get the name of the song "bullet with butterfly
wings"?
B- um..thats a very good question. um, these you know, messages from
outerspace came to me and i just write them down, and then i assign to
specific motal progressions which we commonly refer to as songs.
J- well, that was the green quadrent, and what happened was B- butterfly
I- so do you guys..billy how dou you get these transmissions usually?
B- um, you know, you have to be karmically tuned to the right, you know,
frequency'
J- good vibes
I- no special vitamins or anything?
B- a lota zinc
I- a lotta zinc. ok good..
J- melatonin
I- chris is calling us from broken arrow oklahoma and he listens to modern
rock live at 4.5 the edge. hi chris.
C- hi. i was wondering, how y'all got your name, the smashing pumpkins?
J- oh come on!! i thought you were supposed to be screening these calls!
I- aw, always one gets through, you never know. B- aw.. you know.. B- be nice to the kid from broken arrow, you know..
J- yeah, i know i'm sorry. this kinda..
I- he's been dialing all week
J- guitar player...its just that we've been asked that question a BILLION
times. um, but um, so anyways..didnt bob english come up with it? like he
said smsahing pumpkins and you go " hey thats a great idea"..
B-no...no
J- thats not what you told me! B- no, you know it was another one of those transmissions
J-oh
I- ok sorry. cool. K- hi, um my question was..
B- hi kim
K- you want my question? B+J+I- yes
K- yeah, my question was, excluding music, do you guys partake in...
J- aw, but thats all we do though..
K- yeah, yeah, but do you guys listen um..or participate in any other
artistically oriented performance?
J- hmm...
B-we are mimes.
J- we can't show you...
I- yeah, mime is money, mime is money , J- hey we have anothe commediam over there in new york city...
I- i'm sorry, i'm sorry
J- right out of the bush[?] belt
B- you know, to be honest kim, smashing pumpkins takes up so much of our time
i dont think we do anything else. we dont even have friends.
Q-[different questioner; not introduced] i would like to ask billy how flood
was like as a producer instead of butch vig this time.
B- um, floods a much more experimental producer, and hes kinda not a very
normal kind of guy, so we would do a lot...
J- abnormal
B- we would do a lot of kinda like, we would say " how do you want to record
this song?" and he would say "aw, just go in there and play it like...disco"
and so we'd go in and play it like disco, and then he'd take the tape and
slow it down, and htats how we worked. we just kinda worked like that till
the album was done.
I- wow cool. jeff in grand ledge mitchigan, on "92.1 the edge"...jeff hi.
JF- um hi. i was wondering like, out of all the songs you perform, whats your
favorite?
I- james we''ll start with you < at same time>
B- perform live you mean?
JF- yeah
I- james, you wanna go 1st?
J- ahh...well zero,its a rocker live, lets see, from the last album i would
think uhhh... hummer's always great live; show stopper. barn-burners we call
them. and from the first album, i think snails a really good song live.
I- how about you billy?
B- i like that song " mr. jones"
J- mr...jones?! is that..thats when you're in counting crows silly! aww
sorry, he's just pulling you leg there.
I- sammy from georgetown texas
J- wazup g'?
S- whats the song zero about?
J- zero.. B- you know how like in math they tell you like, when you multiply be zero,
what do you get? you get zero. thats what its about
I- our next stop is grizzly flats california, we're talking to michael who
listenes to modern rock live on ..
J- thats a wierd town name.
I- yeah isnt that great?
M- hey.
J- hi michael
M- i was wondering how sucess had changed your life, and i was wondering you
think i would be all that it has for you guys?
B- well, suddenly theres a bunch of hippies hanging out near my house. thats
kinda wierd.
J- thats cool though...you know...they just wanna feel part of you.
I- well do feel maybe billy, that with jerry's death they're gravitationg
towards you?
J- no, we're not going to delve into the...
B- no, no
J- that realm
B- no, no, no, no, no
J- we respect the dead
B- there is no..rock hath no vengence like a deadhead's vengence
J- yeah thats right
B- no, i dont think sucess has changed us at all. i think when we were
younger we thought if we were sucessful we would pretty much be the way that
we are, and its proved to be true. i mean, i think its got a lot to do with
growing up in the midwest.its a kinda more working class " vibe" and to seems
to have influenced us in a lot of ways. more so than we probably care to
admit to.
I- kim in merriden conneticuit listens to modern rock live on "radio 4". hi
kim.
K- hi, i'd like to know if you liked doing saturday night and i'd also like
to compliment you on the great job you did.
B- oh, thanks.
I- how was saturday nite live?
J- saturday night live...
B- its really cool
J-it's kinda a stressful situation to play, just 1 song, and youre off, and
skits, and then 1 song, but um it was actually, the sounds pretty good there.
it was fun, i had a really good time. i had a funny read suit on. I- the cool thing about the cd apackage is the fact that theres a booklet of
all the lyrics in there, and that seems to be, i hate to say an art form, but
something that seems to be missing from a lot of packages nowadays. was this
important to put this together, and have the lyrics in there this time?
B- yeah, because people have been complaining for years that we never put
lyricy on our albums and they cant understand what i'm mumbling about. so, i
thoughti it was good, espicallly with so many songs to finally put some
lyrics on one of our albums, so people could understand what the whole album
was about, so if you read thru the lyrics you can get some sort of sence
about what i'm going on about.
I- cool. hey, are phones are going nuts tonite, and we want to get to as
many phone calls was can tonite on modren rock live, including one from chirs
who's calling us from prior, oklahoma on "Z104.5 the edge"
C- hi i was wondering what your kind of music influences were when you were
growing up?
I- billy, you want to go first?
B- yeah, um, i think james and i have..well james has some different
influences. i always had some kinda more of the heavy metal action going on,
a little bit of priest, a little bit of black sabbath, zepplin, jimmi
hendrix, deep purple, cheap trick, a lotta stuff like that. james listened to
that foo foo english music.
I- what kind of music was it?! james, what did you like?
J- i actually. like, when i was in jr. high, i was down with classic rock cos
of my brother, like your zepplin, and then when i hit high school, i totally
went new wave, and i was totally down with the cure, and the smiths, U2,
r.e.m.....
I- hazy fantasia?
J- no, not hazy fantasia.
B- he even knows them though J- although i do think i own a "dead or alive" single. well, i dunno, we
listen to all kinds of different things, its not like we really listen to any
one thing anymore.
I- right in your backyard, rochelle is calling uson Q101 richt there in
chicago. hi rochelle.
R- hi. ok, i wanted to know...what it was like...what you felt like when you
first head your music on the radio and i want to telly you i love you billy.
B- i love you too. um, i'll tell you, listening to, hearing your own songs on
the radio is still, even now for me like an amazing experiance, it's kinda
hard to describe. theres just somthing abou thearing your song on the radio,
its just, its a pretty amazing thing. but i cant, i dont know if i can really
put it into words, but its pretty cool.
I- what was the first song you ever heard on the radio?
B- um, i think the first song i ever really heard of ours was, that was a
good song, was this song tristessa that was a sub pop single that we later
re-did for our first album. the sub pop version of it.
I- where were you?
B- i was in the red van.
I- down by the river...
B- that was the touring van...yeah down by the river I- from chicago to portland oregon, we talk to kristen on 101.7, ok kristen.
K- i was wondering if you guys think that music videos are important for the
success of a certain song or band?
B+J- yes
B- unfortunately so at this point i think
I- how long does it take for you do do a video, particularly with the process
of your band, getting everybody together, and they're pretty intricate,
they're not just performance videos, there are things to it.
B- right
J- ahh...about 6 hours
B- um ususally we just try to come up with some kind of wack concept, usually
that doesnt have anything specifically to do with the song, and you know.
these days they seem to be taking more than 3 days. we used to do them in a
day. but i dont know...
I- who kept the ice cream truck?
B- that was another one of those space transmissions i get.
I- who got to keep the truck?
J- ah...no one. i think they sold it.
I- oh did they?
B- yeah. i believe that the guy that had to drive the truck back to LA was
attacked by a roving band of wolves and the truck was never seen again.
I- oh thats to sad J- hi, i was wondering, whats the meaning between the song 1979?
B- um, well, thats a good question too. i cant really say specifically, i
just kinda had this feeling..i used to get this feeling.. i had this bad
camero car that my parents gave me, and you know, i used to drive it around,
and there i was, stuck in the suburbs of chicago. and i used to get this
feeling when i was driving around, it was like i wsnt free, but i felt kind
of free cos i was driving around, and i was trying to get that feeling, that
feeling where you're not really sure you know where you're going, but you're
gonna get there soon, somehow kinda thing. adn so, thats kinda what its
about, i mean the specifics as to they they pertain to my life are not
extremely important, but i think everyone can relate.
Q- hi, um this question is for billy. whats behind that zero shirt tht he's
always wearing?
B- hmmm
J- its much like that UFC hat you have on now... B- well you know, you know...seeing as i was playing the hero i figured i
needed a super hero costume. so i got me one now.
J- he's the hero of alienation and angst.
B- hero, zero
J- zero hero. ...i like that. they can use that with the album promotion.
I- theres another song. mike in vancuver, washington on 94.7 NRK, mike.
M- hello, i was wondering how you guys have matured musically since your
first album?
I- James?
J- a little bit more of an R&B influence
B- littly bit more R&B james?
J- yeah, a little bit more R&B i think that this album compared to the other
album, its more, everythings more extreme..well, i dont know B- no, not at all
J- sure it is
B- i think we're probably a little more songy. we used to be more kinda
musical, kinda wanting to kick-your-ass type of music. i think we're a little
more about songs now. you know, you get old, you get boring. you dont want to
rock as much.
J- the rock songs are still more extreme there
B- we're stll kickin' ya
J- thats what i'm talking about g'.
I- from portland oregon all the way down to houston texas, we talk to joe on
107.5, the buzz. hi joey.
JO-hey, ah, wht are some of the other up-and-coming bands from chicago to
look out for?
B- that would be james' department.
I-james, what are ya hearing?
J- ah idunno.
B- how hot are the streets james?
I- hey man whats going on? whats the buzz man?
J- whats the buzz...well i dunno. you know, i'm sure you know all the big
chicago bands by now, veruca salt, liz phair, but ah well, theres a really
good band that we;re friends of, red red meat, and they're on sub pop, and
they have a new record out, "bunny gets paid". so they're a really rocking
band. and to plug the record label that me and d'arcy I- we wont charge you for that commercial...whats the name of the label by
the way?
J- scratchie records. we're just getting our stuff together now.
I- jennifer, in tuscon arrizona on KKND AM
J- billy, what inspired you to write muzzle, and james how is your dog bugg
doing?
I- james, you wanna answer the dog question?
J- bugg, is fine. he was a little overweight, i took him to the vet and he
said "he's a little overweight, james"
B- the bands kind of alarmed, because we dont get to see bugg as much as we
used to , and HE IS fat.
J- and so he came in, everyone was a little shocked, uhh...
B- and the dog is embarrassed
J- I...he feels bad about it. so what we did, we sent him up to d'arcy's fat
farm to loose a little weight, and then he got into a few scraps with some
other dogs, he's lost little weight.
I- what about muzzle?
B- yeah, muzzle, uh..hm...well, you know, i thought it would be kind of funny
considering , you know, how everyones always trying to tell me to shut my
mouth, you know, to saw all those things...
I- who says that?
B- thers people.
Q- hey guys, great to hear you on the show tonight.i wanted to ask you about
something i read in an article recently. um, you said that you wanted this
album to bel like pink floyds "the wall", like "the wall" of the 90's, adn i
was wondering what you menat by that?
B- well, actually i said that before we really wrote the album. i kinda
started out wanting to write a conceptual album, but as we wrote the album we
realized it wasnt going to be that, so, in a way that statements kind of ill
proxized and pointless, so, its a good question, um you know. i think the
best thing i could say is that in the experiance of writing this double
album, and everything that the band went through to record it and everything,
you know, it can only be what it can be, which is, you know, what comes from
you, but if you ever try to something like somebody else did it, its not
really a good idea. if that made any sence
I- charles in santa rosa california,he listens to modrn rock live on live105.
hi charles.
C- hi. my question is, when will you be starting your tour, and who will it
be with?
J- B- yeah, we're actually going to be in san fransisco. is it close to san
fransisco where you're calling from?
C- yeah.
B- we're going to be in san fransisco probably in late january, early
febuary. we're doing a small tour on the east and west coast of america in
january and febuary, but we probably wont hit all the normal cities till the
late spring, early summer.
I- did you decide who you were going to be touring with yet?
B- no thats something that has to come later because of everybodies schedules
ans stuff like that.
J- although we're talking-we're not really talking to;we're miming to other
mime troops to find out where they are right now.
I- i'd be there, i'd be there. and about touring, although the rule is you
cant doit twice, did you like lollapolooza and would you do it again or
something in that kind if venue?
B- um, yeah, i mean lollapolloza was a prety good experiance, the highs were
pretty high, and the lows were pretty low, i dont know if we would do
lollapolooza in and of itself again, but,...
J- a package tour is kind of fun, the outdoors thing.
B- we may do our own thing here coming up yet. we would like to do something
with 4 or 5 bands together and do something like a good evening out, summer
kind of show.
I- that's be cool. jonathann is calling us from aloha oregon, who listens to
modern rock live on 94.7, jonathan
JN- hey, i was wondering what compelled you guys to experiment with the new
instruments like the steel guitat and the harp and the chimes on disarm?
J- um.. boredom, really
B- the guitar, as for anyone who knows and plays the guitar, it gets pretty
old pretty fast, and on top of that, the guitar is so used in rock music that
its kinda hard to find anything new on it, so i think we just stated to
gravitate to " oh, this makes a cool noise" and "nobodys ever used this" kind
of thing. so, thats kind of where our heads were, that kind of stuff.
I- and billy, you actually just started playing piano recently right?
B- its actually going on 2 years now. i can play like, you know basic
play-along-with-me piano, you know, nothing special.
I- james, how do you stay challenged as a guitarist as well?
J- um, well, i guess we just try all sorts of different approaches, to the
guitar,and i like playing things like slide guitar a lot, we use a lot of
e-bow on the album, which is this crazy thing...
B- he owns stock in e-bow. here he goes again
J- i dont know how to describe it. its an e- bow thing, and i dont know, we
just try to make it fit eack song and i dabbled a little around with
keyboreds and stuff on this album, so, i dunno. playing the guitar is getting
pretty boring.
I- Johnny's calling us from bellview nebraska. he listens to 93 KROQ, johnny.
JY- what bands were you guys in before the smashing pumpkins, and how long
were you in those bands?
B- i was in a band called the marked, the marked the marked. m.a.r.k.e.d. it
was the only other band i was in. that band only lasted a year, andi have
only met one person in my life who actually saw the band, so that ws
interesting.
J- i was in a band in high school, it was the fed, and then we turned into
snaketrain. weplayed out in chicago a little bi. that was the only other band
i was in.
I- by the way, join the captain for the christmas carol show here in new york
later on. are you a big star trek fan?
J- < still in the star trek voice> that is right i am playing the tempest. it
is a challenging role. i find it intruguing, viceral...
B- obviosely the pumpkins doesnt provide him with his full creative outlet.
I- smashing pumpkins AND captain are with us, we're talking to jeff in
bristol, oklahoma on Z104.5 the edge. jeff?
JF-yeah, i just wanted to know what was next for the smashing pumpkins?
I- startrek conventions?
B- hmmm...death i think. I- are you guys, well you gotta tour first and everything else, when do you
think you'll ever get back in the studio?
J- well we gotta tour first...
B- one day at a time
I- lynne in hondo texas, on 99.5 KISS FM, lynne
L- yeah, i was wondering, out of all your albums, which one describes y'all?
B- well gish is kinda sassy J- well i dont know about that. siamese dream is pretty sensational..ah,
well, i dont know. they're all timepieces.
B- well, they certainly have their time. on gish we were bratty young kids,
on siamese dream we were LSD taking startrippers...
J- ...and now we're just jaded alterna-rock stars.
B- cool. theres your descriptions.
I- there ya go. steve in bristol tennesse on X104, hi steve.
S- hey, hows it going. i was wondering if y'all's family was into music, and
if.....[i have NO idea what he's trying to say] important to y'all playing
rock and roll?
B- yeah, my father is a guitar player, and he had a lot of influence on
actually, um., on how the band kind of started, and the...
J- ..the make-up
B- the make-up of the band, so. i was just talking to my grandma, and she
said that a lot of my family on my father's side played music and stuff like
that, and i didnt know that, so, i guess it does kind of run in the family
for me. but as my mother likes to say, she gave me the brains. as my mother
claims to have intelligence.
I- has your family come to see you play live?
B- oh yeah, all our families have been pretty supportive abput the band's
career.
I- we go bck to our phones to talk to dave in council bluffs, iowa, he
listens to 93KROQ, dave, youre on with smashin pumpkins.
D- why did you guys put out the ripppin' album "pieces iscariot" and do play
the covers at live shows?
B- uhhh...what'd you ask about pisces iscariot? i'm sorry i didnt hear that
part.
D- yeah, why'd you put it out, what was the whole idea behind it?
B- oh um, we put out a lot of different b-sides and stuff in foreign
countries, amd alot of american fans had expressed intrest in having those
being made available to people. so rather than pay 10.00 for an import
single, for 2 b-sides, it just made sence to put the better b-sides on an
album, on one compilation, and have it be for roughly the same price as you
would pay for just one single. and as far as the covers go, we dont usually
play too many covers live, just because there are so many original smashing
pumpkins songs and people get constantly dissapointed if we dont play their
favorite one. so we try to get in as many as we can. we've never been a
really big cover band, i think we recorded some good covers, but live i dont
think we've ever really pulled any off. there you go.
I- good question dave, thanks. sabrina's calling us from coneiac[??] ohio. hi
sabrina.
S- hi. do you have a fan club, and how can i get it?
B- um , we dont really have a fan club, on siamese dream, somebody at the
record company mistakenly put that we have a fan club, we have a mailing
adress, i dont think we put it on the new album. we still get mail through
the adress thats on siamese dream. we've tried to do newsletters and things
like that, but our schedules are just so crazy that we cant do anything about
it, so we do get all the mail, and we do see all the mail, and we appreciate
it. the mail is amazingly supportive. we get a really good sence of how we're
reaching people through the mail, and through the people we get to meet and
talk to . if you want to communicate with us, we do see it and read it, so it
actually does have some meaning, a lot of letters start of with " i know
you'll never read this" but you'd be suprised how many of those letters i've
actually read and have helped me through some hard times.
I- ok great. and again, if you want the adress, its on siamese dream, right?
B- uh-huh.
I- ok great. hi ryan.
R- hi i was wondering how you would categorize your music and how is it
changing?
J- somewhere between the spin doctors and dirt and the devils B- we've never known what to call out music because we've always embraced so
many different types of music, i mean its some form of rock, but who knows
what it is?
J- i think we're now in the cyber rock thing
B- yeah, we call our stuff now cyber rock and is our sound changing? yes,
we're all changing. even you are changing right now tom.
I- there you go. yes i am actually. i really am . i feel like a better person
after this show. chris, in london ohio...
B- i feel dirty, i think i have to go home and take a shower
J- very dirty, like you'vr been in a coal mine the whole day!
I- you know what i'm saying. chris from london ohio...
J- london?!
I- london ohio.
J- I- ok chris...
J- i'm sorry; i'm english bashing
C- i'm american, dont worry. first of all. billy i love you, james you rock.
just wanted you to know. and billy, why did you shave all your hair off?
B- i go through these weird changes.
J- remember how stand out ballet started...they were new romantics, and then
they got into the military, sheik, and well, we're just doing that with his
hair! alright?
I- oh thats a great analogy, you'r absoutely right.
B- i'm not sure why you even know that reference, james. you're a few years
too late.
J- well, darnit i am a child of the 80's. what do you want me to say?
I- most of us knew what you meant james, dont worry. i appreciate you doing
the show, for 2 reasons, obviousely 1, because i'd be talking to no one
tonight, and secondly, is the fact that we got a chance to see a different
side of the band that sometimes the press doesnt really highlight, and thats
you're sence of homor, and everything, which i appreciate you...
J-...oh, well thats the reason why they hide it because it's so bad.
I- well i liked it, i thought it was cool. but thank you.
B- thanks for having us
I- oh, no, please come back anytime, and you're always welcome to come back
to the show
B- well, we'll be on next week.
I- ok cool. J- you can bump that band...
B- the chili peppers
I- yeah the chilli pepper guys
J- we'll be playing the catskills sometime soon with a new comedy routine.