Billy Corgan Just Wants To Talk

Sean Parker did an interview maybe seven years ago where he talked about, when they founded Facebook, they were aware that by feeding people information based on their bias, that they were going to create a difficult political atmosphere. In essence, what people would call a silo mentality, or this bifurcated red team blue team, or something, right? And so I would just say, glibly, that I think we’ve lost a certain amount of the population because they’re just going to keep consuming and believing what they want to believe, while the rest of us out here in analog reality have to deal with fires and hydrants that don’t work. There is a tangible reality that must go on. There are stop signs and red lights.

As for your other probing on how it relates to the conversational thing, I remember having a conversation with a friend who was belaboring that one segment of the society was, in their estimation, irredeemable…and they needed to, in essence, be excluded from society. And I said, “Well, what are you going to do, put them on a boat and send them to an island? They’re not going anywhere.” It’s a bad analogy, but it’s like, if everybody just puts their cards on the table, we’ll figure out a way to achieve some sort of balance. If you know your neighbor is somebody that you don’t want to hang out with, that’s fine. But if you have to come to some sort of agreement at the local city council about tax law, then that relationship becomes valuable, right? So by excluding people, you’re basically saying, “I don’t need you, I don’t need your vote. I don’t need your participation.”

And by the way, I’ve pre-judged that the opinions that you hold cannot be swayed under any circumstance. And I’m not a believer in that. As a Machiavellian, solipsistic [laughs] megalomaniac on stage, I believe I can move the crowd. I mean, I’ve seen it.

Your podcast describes itself as you having “profound conversations with extraordinary individuals who have reached the pinnacle of success in their respective fields…diving into the stories and insights of high achievers, exploring the multifaceted journey that leads to greatness.” Do you spend a lot of time thinking about greatness, and does that drive you as a person?

It does, and somewhat ashamedly so. It’s nothing I would want to admit. But since you asked the question, I’ll tell you the honest truth: Yeah, I do think about greatness a lot. Because I think it’s an existential question that everybody has to go through, which is: “Am I using my time here on this planet wisely?” When I’d achieved incredible, crazy worldwide fame by the age of 27 or 28, I felt a lot of people patting me on the back, saying, “you’ve done it.” And I kept thinking, “but we could be so much better.” I would use my heroes to, like, almost like mentally berate me. I’d see Bob Dylan or John Lennon standing in front of me thinking, “you’re not there yet, kid.”