Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
Speaker 1: story about change. It's about a band that changed the
Speaker 1: sound of alternative rock by refusing to sound like alternative rock,
Speaker 1: a band that turned isolation into connection, revenge into melody,
Speaker 1: and violence into beauty. It's a story about a Chicago
Speaker 1: record store clerk who changed into a rock star, and
Speaker 1: a rock star who was hated as much as he
Speaker 1: was loved, a rock star who witnessed his band fall
Speaker 1: into the trap of self destruction, and who also witnessed
Speaker 1: a shape shifting transformation that he could not explain. It's
Speaker 1: a story about the Smashing Pumpkins. It's a story about
Speaker 1: great music. Unlike that clip I played for you at
Speaker 1: the top of the show that wasn't great music. That
Speaker 1: was a preset loop from my mellotron called Blink one
Speaker 1: eighty few MK one. I played you that loop because
Speaker 1: I can't afford the rights to Fantasy by Mariah Carey.
Speaker 1: And why would I play you that specific slice of
Speaker 1: Tom Tom Club sampling cheese? Could I afford it? Because
Speaker 1: that was the number one song in America on October
Speaker 1: twenty third, nineteen ninety five, and that was the day
Speaker 1: that The Smashing Pumpkins released their double album Melancholy and
Speaker 1: the Infinite Sadness, an album that silenced their many detractors
Speaker 1: when it made them the biggest rock band in the
Speaker 1: world right before an overdose and an arrest changed everything forever.
Speaker 1: On this episode violence, Beauty, Isolation, self destruction, Change and
Speaker 1: the Smashing Pumpkins. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgrace. Lad. So.
Speaker 1: I don't know what your life is like with your
Speaker 1: wife or your spouse, your husband and your girlfriend, your boyfriend, whatever.
Speaker 1: But my wife and I send each other reels on
Speaker 1: Instagram back and forth all the time. Maybe you do
Speaker 1: the same. I don't know. There's this one reel that
Speaker 1: my wife sent me a while back that I can't
Speaker 1: stop thinking about. Maybe you've seen it. It's a clip
Speaker 1: of Billy Corgan from The Smashing Pumpkins talking with Howard
Speaker 1: stern Stern Show. And in this clip, Billy Corgan is
Speaker 1: relating this story about a strange encounter that he once had.
Speaker 1: Actually it's two strange encounters that he had with the
Speaker 1: same person, but not just a quote unquote person. As
Speaker 1: Billy tells it, this person is a shape shifter. Let's
Speaker 1: just say I was with somebody and I saw a
Speaker 1: transformation that I can't explain. That's what Billy says to
Speaker 1: Howard Stern. He doesn't identify the shape shifter by name,
Speaker 1: he won't even say if this person was male or female,
Speaker 1: but he does say that the shape shifter was naked
Speaker 1: when these encounters took place, and after agreeing to tell
Speaker 1: Howard more details in private, Billy reveals that the story
Speaker 1: is even more fantastical than you think. Now, I've heard
Speaker 1: of shape shifters before, and I'm sure you have to.
Speaker 1: And I've learned about the skinwalkers of the indigenous American Southwest,
Speaker 1: the Selkies of Celtic folklore, and there are of course
Speaker 1: the trickster gods of Greek and Norris mythology. But Billy
Speaker 1: Corgan isn't talking about folklore or mythology. He's talking about
Speaker 1: a real experience in the real world, in the here
Speaker 1: and now. So watching this clip, my jaw on the
Speaker 1: floor and my response was that this guy is full
Speaker 1: of shit. Maybe it's because Billy Corgan has said a
Speaker 1: lot of crazy things over the years, like how he
Speaker 1: and Kirk Kobaine are the greatest songwriters of their generation
Speaker 1: and everyone else is a quote distant third. But I
Speaker 1: think it's more what Billy's contemporaries have said about him
Speaker 1: and the Smashing Pumpkins that gives me pause when it
Speaker 1: comes to the whole shape shifter thing. Kim Dial the
Speaker 1: Pixies once called Billy a self important asshole. Another Kim
Speaker 1: Kim Gordon, a sonic youth, writing in her memoir Girl
Speaker 1: in a Band, referred to Billy Corgan as a cry baby,
Speaker 1: saying his band took themselves too seriously and were in
Speaker 1: no way punk rock. Linda Perry, one of the four
Speaker 1: non blondes the greatest pop songwriters of all time, once
Speaker 1: told Billy that he had bad energy as she kicked
Speaker 1: him out of her studio. Legendary indie producer Steve Albini
Speaker 1: described the Smashing Pumpkins as careerists, which, to a caustic
Speaker 1: DIY dude like Steve Albini, was just about the worst
Speaker 1: thing he could say about somebody. And then there's the
Speaker 1: Pavement song range Life, which takes dead aim at Billy's
Speaker 1: band Smashing Pumpkins, after calling out the Pumpkins by name
Speaker 1: in one of the verses, Stephen Malcolmus sings, I don't
Speaker 1: understand what they mean, and I could really give a fuck.
Speaker 1: Even when the Smashing Pumpkins became one of the biggest
Speaker 1: bands on the planet, back when rock and roll could
Speaker 1: still move the needle of popular culture, the Pumpkins' success
Speaker 1: was acknowledged with slight digs from the rock cogniscenting. For example,
Speaker 1: the Pumpkins were crowned Artist of the Year in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four by Spin magazine, and in the accompanying feature article,
Speaker 1: Michael Asiurad wrote that the Pumpkins untrendy videos over the time,
Speaker 1: production values, fraught, interviews, do beous, fashion sense, and most
Speaker 1: of all, Corgan's soul bearing lyrics all completely bypassed any
Speaker 1: semblance of cool. This is how they were described by
Speaker 1: the publication bestowing the year's highest honor onto them. Now,
Speaker 1: depending on what you think of the Smashing Pumpkins, Michael
Speaker 1: Azarai was either right, wrong, or some mix of the two,
Speaker 1: but he did get something undeniably correct about the Smashing Pumpkins.
Speaker 1: He said that Billy Corgan was a quote hero and
Speaker 1: surrogate of a vast audience of kids who were either
Speaker 1: alienated from the indie network or just came to the
Speaker 1: party too late, unquote. It was nineteen ninety four and
Speaker 1: music was changing fast. In fact, a lot of the
Speaker 1: change had happened already. How else do you describe the
Speaker 1: atmosphere of the so called alternative nation in the immediate
Speaker 1: wake of Kurk Comaine's death. But Billy Corgan and Smashing Pumpkins,
Speaker 1: they weren't changing for anyone, not yet. At least. The
Speaker 1: Smashing Pumpkins were a huge band existing within a big
Speaker 1: culture full of figureheads who hated their bigness. And they
Speaker 1: generated big energy and get Spin Magazine Artist of the
Speaker 1: Year big in return, which is exactly what they had
Speaker 1: aspired to since the beginning. In nineteen eighty eight, Billy
Speaker 1: Corgan was working at a record store in Chicago, making
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars a year. He was brash and opinionated,
Speaker 1: Like I said, the guy was a record store clerk.
Speaker 1: And the first time he met Darcy Retzki was on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk outside of a club at night, and Billy
Speaker 1: was in a typically combative mood, and he picked a
Speaker 1: fight with Darcy, a woman he did not know, arguing
Speaker 1: that the band playing inside were some record label manufactured crap.
Speaker 1: When he found out that Darcy played bass, he asked
Speaker 1: her to join the band that he was for me,
Speaker 1: and this offer contained no guarantee that he would not
Speaker 1: argue with her again. In fact, the tensions between Billy
Speaker 1: and his fellow bandmates would become a defining factor of
Speaker 1: their volatile chemistry. But once Billy, Darcy and guitarist James
Speaker 1: Yahu found jazz drummer Jimmy Chamberlain, the Smashing Pumpkins became
Speaker 1: official that year in nineteen eighty eight. The people they
Speaker 1: were then definitely the person Billy Corgan was then gave
Speaker 1: zero shits about what a writer at Spin magazine would
Speaker 1: say about them six years later. They just wanted to
Speaker 1: be huge, stadium huge. With Billy as their lead songwriter,
Speaker 1: they plotted out intricately arranged and meticulously produced music to
Speaker 1: befit their overblown vision of themselves. But where their contemporaries
Speaker 1: looked to the rawness of say The Replacements or Huskerdo
Speaker 1: or Bad Brains for inspiration, the Pumpkins chased a wide
Speaker 1: screened polish sound that you could eat off of. Think
Speaker 1: Boston's Smoking Queen's Death on Two Legs or led Zeppelin
Speaker 1: at their most arena sized. If you were fronting an
Speaker 1: alternative rock band in the nineteen nineties, you did not
Speaker 1: utter those kinds of musical references. Maybe Zeppelin, but Boston
Speaker 1: Queen The Pumpkins, Butch vig produced debut album, Gish, released
Speaker 1: three years after they formed on Caroline Records, may have
Speaker 1: had more in common with the heavy riffage of The
Speaker 1: Stooges or Sabbath, But that heavy riffage was buffed. It
Speaker 1: was waxed, it was polished. It was rooted in the
Speaker 1: guitar heroics of classic rock radio, and it quickly became
Speaker 1: the biggest selling indie rock record in history. At that
Speaker 1: time the Smashing Pumpkins, Gish was hard rock. It was
Speaker 1: psychedelic rock, it was dream rock. Gish was the sound
Speaker 1: of change, and that change came four months before Billy
Speaker 1: Corgan's self described songwriting equal, Kirk Cobaine and his band
Speaker 1: Nirvana released never Mind Now. I Don't want to blow
Speaker 1: too much smoke up Billy Corgan's ass. But Billy Corgan
Speaker 1: was a major reason why Gish did as well as
Speaker 1: it did. Billy Corgan was not only brash and opinionated,
Speaker 1: he had ambition. He was driven by this need to
Speaker 1: be a part of something bigger than himself, the need
Speaker 1: to be connected. And that's because his childhood had been
Speaker 1: marked by isolation and trauma. He was made to feel
Speaker 1: unwanted and unloved, and the abuse he suffered at the
Speaker 1: hands of family members was both physical and psychological. Often
Speaker 1: he was merely invisible, sitting off to one side watching
Speaker 1: his own father, a guitar player himself, run drugs and
Speaker 1: guns for Chicago organized crime. A bad childhood did a
Speaker 1: lot more than just make Billy Corgan ambitious. Isolation and
Speaker 1: trauma can radicalize a person. You can become something ugly,
Speaker 1: something you don't recognize. You claw back at your abusers,
Speaker 1: you act out at your oppressors, and at some point
Speaker 1: you come to the realization that the only reasonable response
Speaker 1: to violence is more violence. Billy Corgan would get his revenge,
Speaker 1: though we did not have to shed any blood to
Speaker 1: do it. He just had to spill some ink out
Speaker 1: onto the page. And later he would reveal that the
Speaker 1: Smashing Pumpkin's ballad Disarm from their second album, Siame's Dream,
Speaker 1: was written because he didn't have the guts to murder
Speaker 1: his parents. Those are his words he said, I didn't
Speaker 1: have the guts to kill my parents, so I thought
Speaker 1: I'd get back at them through song. And rather than
Speaker 1: have an angry, angry, angry, violent song, I thought I'd
Speaker 1: write something beautiful and make them realize what tender feelings
Speaker 1: I have in my heart. It make them feel really
Speaker 1: bad for treating me like shit. Disarm is the song
Speaker 1: with the acoustic guitar and the string section and those
Speaker 1: huge bells tolling in the background, you know, the one
Speaker 1: with the killer of me is the killer in you line.
Speaker 1: Like pretty much all of Billy Corgan's songs, the lyrics
Speaker 1: in this one are a raw nerve and the personal
Speaker 1: nature of smashing pumpkin songs. Second, perhaps only, the Billy's
Speaker 1: distinct Naisily Wine is one of the band's constants. You
Speaker 1: can point to Jimmy Chamberlain's hyper aggressive drumming style or
Speaker 1: Darcy Retzky's disaffected cool standing there on the but it's
Speaker 1: Billy Corgan's band. He is there, Svengali, He's also their asshole.
Speaker 1: He argued with them re recording their parts in the
Speaker 1: studio after they failed to meet his expectations. As he
Speaker 1: did Darcy's bass parts and James Zhaw's guitar parts for
Speaker 1: their breakthrough album Siamese Dream And if you could play
Speaker 1: the drums, I'm sure he would have re recorded Jimmy
Speaker 1: Timberlain's parts too. But in nineteen ninety four, when Spin
Speaker 1: magazine was crowning the Pumpkins Artist of the Year, Billy
Speaker 1: Corgan was reminding himself why he was leading a band
Speaker 1: in the first place, To not be so isolated, to
Speaker 1: be part of something bigger than himself. He was going
Speaker 1: to therapy, and he was being nicer to his fellow bandmates,
Speaker 1: and Billy Corgan was trying to change. Perhaps the oddest
Speaker 1: thing about it was that there was no sound, no
Speaker 1: elaborate theatrics to announce such an unprecedented transformation. In the movies,
Speaker 1: you'd hear tendons pop and bones expand. Hair would sprout
Speaker 1: so quickly that it would make noise. As it did.
Speaker 1: The person going through the sudden physical change would howl
Speaker 1: in the twisted combination of pain, fear and disbelief, like
Speaker 1: an American werewolf in London, The Fly or the Thing.
Speaker 1: But this wasn't a movie, and it wasn't a book either,
Speaker 1: But it all went down like that Cough a book,
Speaker 1: the one about the guy who turns into a buck.
Speaker 1: It just happened. One moment this person was themselves, and
Speaker 1: the next they were someone else, entirely something else. Billy
Speaker 1: Corgan could only imagine what it transpired in the few
Speaker 1: seconds that his back was turned, the head swelling in size,
Speaker 1: the mouth contorting into a devilish grin, the eyes going black.
Speaker 1: Now he was facing it, the thing that just moments
Speaker 1: ago was a different person, the thing he could find
Speaker 1: no words to explain, the same thing that now refused
Speaker 1: to tell them how or why it had suddenly changed
Speaker 1: into its present form, the share shifter. The success of
Speaker 1: the Smashing Pumpkins debut album Gish created an atmosphere of
Speaker 1: great anticipation for record number two, so when Sime's Dream
Speaker 1: was released by Caroline Records as parent company Virgin Records
Speaker 1: in July of nineteen ninety three, it debuted at number
Speaker 1: ten on the Billboard Album Chart. Siamese Dream immediately put
Speaker 1: the Smashing pump in the conversation, or perhaps in the
Speaker 1: argument is a better way to put it, seeing as
Speaker 1: how much the sound of the album flew in the
Speaker 1: face of grunge, less discerning listeners may have lumped the
Speaker 1: Pumpkins in with Nirvana and Alison Chains and Soundgarden and
Speaker 1: all those Seattle bands, but Siame's Dream boosted a much
Speaker 1: more produced sound than was in fashion at the time,
Speaker 1: and this was immediately a point of contention with the
Speaker 1: band's peers, which was the whole point as far as
Speaker 1: Billy Corgan was concerned, because in his eyes, music was competitive.
Speaker 1: This wasn't the nineteen sixties. This wasn't Brian Wilson fan
Speaker 1: boying over Rubber Soul and being inspired to make Pet
Speaker 1: Sounds and then Paul McCartney falling in love with Pet
Speaker 1: Sounds and being inspired to make Sergeant Pepper's. This was
Speaker 1: the nineties. This was the age of the East Coast
Speaker 1: West Coast hip hop beef. This was Blur and Oasis
Speaker 1: going for the jugular in the press and on the charts,
Speaker 1: and this is us versus them, me versus you. And
Speaker 1: if the less discerning listeners and critics wanted to compare
Speaker 1: the Smashing Pumpkins to Nirvana, let them. Kurt Cobaine was
Speaker 1: a worthy adversary for Billy to square off against. Kurt
Speaker 1: instilled in Billy that fighting spirit that is until Kurt
Speaker 1: took his own life in a room above his garage,
Speaker 1: and then everything changed again. Billy Corgan slipped on the
Speaker 1: plaid lumberjacket. Its muted color palette was a change from
Speaker 1: the candy colored Paisley shirts in his wardrobe. It was
Speaker 1: less psychedelic and more down to earth than decidedly northwestern.
Speaker 1: Courtney Love had told him that jacket was hers when
Speaker 1: she gave it to him. This was back when the
Speaker 1: Smashing Pumpkins played Seattle. But Billy and the Pumpkins weren't
Speaker 1: in Seattle anymore. Tonight. They were on stage at Radio
Speaker 1: City Music Hall in New York City, running through soundcheck
Speaker 1: for the MTV Video Music Awards. It was September eighth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four. The Smashing Pumpkins were slated to perform
Speaker 1: that evening alongside such fellow ninety four Luminaries, Boys to Men,
Speaker 1: Green Day, Salt and Peppa and the Beastie Boys. But
Speaker 1: it was the writer in the room, working on a
Speaker 1: piece for Spin magazine who clocked the jacket. The jacket
Speaker 1: wasn't Courtney's, it belonged to her deceased husband, and the
Speaker 1: writer was Michael Azarat. It was Aziad's job to remember
Speaker 1: all the little details details like that jacket. The biography
Speaker 1: he'd been working on for years about Kirk Kobain and
Speaker 1: Nirvana was set to publish the following month. Speaking of months,
Speaker 1: here are some other months. Five that's how many months
Speaker 1: Kirk Cobain had been dead for. So what's with the jacket, Billy?
Speaker 1: This is some hopeful transference of artistic greatness by osmosis
Speaker 1: or a ghoulish seizing of the greater cultural moment? Did
Speaker 1: he really buy that it was Courtney's jacket? Well, it
Speaker 1: was complicated. Before Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love became the
Speaker 1: most argued about rock and roll couples into John and Yoko,
Speaker 1: Courtney's affair with Billy Corgan was the worst kept secret
Speaker 1: in alternative rock. In October of ninety one, Courtney hopped
Speaker 1: on a plane to Chicago. She found Billy in his apartment.
Speaker 1: He was not alone, and the betrayals stumped Courtney stormed out.
Speaker 1: She used the last ten bucks to her name to
Speaker 1: take a cab to the Metro Club Nirvana just so
Speaker 1: happened to be playing. This was weeks after the release
Speaker 1: of never Mind. The show is sold out. Five hundred
Speaker 1: people give her take. It's since gone down in legend.
Speaker 1: But Courtney had no ticket, so she talked her way in,
Speaker 1: still reeling from Billy's infidelity, and she made her move
Speaker 1: that night on Kurt Cobaine. Let's roll that back real quick.
Speaker 1: Courtney Love went to Chicago that day for the express
Speaker 1: purpose to see Billy Corgan, not to see Nirvana. That
Speaker 1: part was happenstance, But he got a wonder. If Billy
Speaker 1: Corgan hadn't been with another woman, then Courtney wouldn't have
Speaker 1: gone to the Metro, and then well, the rest, as
Speaker 1: they say, wouldn't be history. History is what was on
Speaker 1: Kurt's mind two and a half years later when he
Speaker 1: was writing a suicide note on Excelsior Hotel letterhead in Rome,
Speaker 1: before he swallowed sixty roofin all pills, Kurt laid his
Speaker 1: feelings bare on little pieces of paper. He suspected that
Speaker 1: Courtney was sleeping with someone else, the same someone else
Speaker 1: who was now wearing Kurt's plaid lumberjacket while warming up
Speaker 1: for the VMEs. Billy has since caught on to the
Speaker 1: jacket's true origins. He had the writer to thank for that,
Speaker 1: and the decision was made to not wear it at
Speaker 1: the actual show that night, because to appear before millions
Speaker 1: of Americans watching at home wearing that to do so
Speaker 1: would be ghoulish, especially on a night that featured a
Speaker 1: heartfelt tribute to Kurt from his ten foot tall bandmate
Speaker 1: christ novaselk But before he took the jacket off, however,
Speaker 1: Billy Corgan couldn't help but feel the weight of it
Speaker 1: on his shoulders. It smelled as stale cigarette smoke. Its
Speaker 1: texture was somewhere between fuzzy and prickly. It was the
Speaker 1: jacket of a dead man, the jacket of an addict.
Speaker 1: An addiction had already threatened to rip apart the Smashing
Speaker 1: Pumpkins to make Siamese Dream. The band had decamped to Marietta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: just outside Atlanta. This is a tried and sometimes true
Speaker 1: strategy for bands with junkies and users. Get out of town,
Speaker 1: go somewhere unfamiliar. You can't score in an unfamiliar place. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: if you believe that, then you underestimate the determination of
Speaker 1: a drug addict. The Smashing Pumpkins heroin abusing drummer Jimmy
Speaker 1: Chamberlain was not particularly tripped up by this geographic relocation.
Speaker 1: He found a source, and he found a fix, and
Speaker 1: strange people began to haunt the studio, and then they
Speaker 1: were gone, and then Jimmy was gone too. One day
Speaker 1: turned into more than one day, turned into three, four
Speaker 1: or five days. And someone said they saw Jimmy chim
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, so spirits were once again high. Someone else
Speaker 1: said he was in a crowd at the forty Watt
Speaker 1: in Athens watching Rim perform. After a week of miss
Speaker 1: studio sessions, Billy Corgan's phone rang and it was his drummer,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Chamberlain, and Jimmy said he'd done so much cocaine
Speaker 1: that he'd actually gone blind. It was like that fucking
Speaker 1: Sabbath song Snowblind. Reeling, Jimmy Chamberlain promised to get help.
Speaker 1: He entered rehab for heroin and alcohol and returned to
Speaker 1: Marietta to finish tracking his drums. But Billy Corgan was
Speaker 1: keen to punish Jimmy Chamberlain for his sins for making
Speaker 1: a very stressful process that much more stressful. Album number
Speaker 1: two is no fucking joke. They were all failing him,
Speaker 1: not just Jimmy, but James and Darcy too. Billy had
Speaker 1: gone back and raised a bunch of James's guitar parts
Speaker 1: and Darcy's bass tracks and re recorded them himself. Like
Speaker 1: I said, he wasn't competent enough a drummer to do
Speaker 1: that with Jimmy's parts. So when Jimmy Chamberlain returned from
Speaker 1: his last weekend from the Boondoggle from his Snowblind ram show,
Speaker 1: Billy Corgan had Jimmy Chamberlain do take after take after
Speaker 1: take again, Jimmy again, Jimmy again. Jimmy Chamberlain kept playing
Speaker 1: until he was worn out, until every last illicit substance
Speaker 1: dripped from his pores, until his fingers literally bled all
Speaker 1: over the drum kit. The killer in Me is the
Speaker 1: Killer in You. Sime's dream was a violent undertaking, as
Speaker 1: violent as the Smashing Pumpkins's performance was at the VMAs
Speaker 1: on September eighth, nineteen ninety four. The version of Disarm
Speaker 1: that they played that night was no longer the tender
Speaker 1: aching ballad with strings like it was on the record.
Speaker 1: Tonight the song was different tonight. It was attacked. Tonight.
Speaker 1: It bled like Jimmy Chamberlain's fingers bled back in Marietta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: Tonight it changed. The Smashing Pumpkins tech Nick Lee did
Speaker 1: not win anything at the VMAs in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 1: The award for Best Alternative Video went not to Disarm,
Speaker 1: but to Heart Shaped Box by Nirvana. Still, something was happening.
Speaker 1: Billy had wrapped himself in the jacket of his songwriting
Speaker 1: equal his creative adversary, like a heavyweight wraps himself from
Speaker 1: the belt to the opponent. He's vanquished. And while I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to insinuate that Billy Corgan felt he had
Speaker 1: defeated Kirk kobein you get the sense that, in this moment,
Speaker 1: Billy Corgan understood he suddenly had the world's attention in
Speaker 1: a way that he'd never had before. But the world
Speaker 1: is a vampire sent to Draine. And when the Smashing
Speaker 1: Pumpkins chose this moment to double down on their bigness
Speaker 1: and deliver their most ambitious album to date, that's from
Speaker 1: the vampires and the shape shifters and the hard to
Speaker 1: Kill Habits all came crawling from the shadows. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back after this. We're We're we're looking back. The
Speaker 1: music of the nineteen nineties was incredibly rich, and the
Speaker 1: year nineteen ninety five was no exception. That was the
Speaker 1: year of radioheads, The Bens and What's the Story Morning
Speaker 1: Glory by Oasis. It was the year Alanis Morissett released
Speaker 1: her massive record Jagged Little Pill, and also the year
Speaker 1: that Billy Corgan's tormentors Pavement dropped their weird and polarizing
Speaker 1: Wowie Zowie. But perhaps the boldest and biggest statement that
Speaker 1: year came from Smashing Pumpkins. Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness
Speaker 1: had no less than twenty eight songs spread across two CDs.
Speaker 1: It clocked in at one hundred and twenty minutes, and
Speaker 1: it debuted at number one on the Billboard two hundred
Speaker 1: and sold close to a quarter million copies in its
Speaker 1: first week alone. Melancholy was absolutely meant to be this monumental,
Speaker 1: next level statement. We know because Billy Corgan said so.
Speaker 1: He wanted it to be quote the Wall for generation
Speaker 1: X unquote the wall as in Pink Floyd's legendary double
Speaker 1: album from sixteen years prior now, when the Beatles made
Speaker 1: The Beatles aka the White Album, or when the Rolling
Speaker 1: Stones made Exile on Main Street. Two of the greatest
Speaker 1: double albums of all time. Those bands didn't do so
Speaker 1: with the same kind of intention. They weren't name checking
Speaker 1: other ambitious albums from the recent past, not that there
Speaker 1: were any. They were just laying down songs in the studio.
Speaker 1: Great songs, but too many songs for one album. So
Speaker 1: at some point someone Ringo or Mick Taylor or whoever,
Speaker 1: was like, yo, this may need to be a double album.
Speaker 1: Billy Corgan's intention here is key, because it was all
Speaker 1: about taking what the Pumpkins were and amplifying it, making
Speaker 1: it bolder, underlining it, supersizing it, changing it. So when
Speaker 1: the band went out to tour Melancholy nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: they were no longer a quartet. They were now supported
Speaker 1: by a fifth member, the keyboardist Jonathan melvoy Now Melvoyn
Speaker 1: was the brother of Wendy Melvoyin, who you may know
Speaker 1: as a member of The Revolution, the band that made
Speaker 1: Purple Rain with Prince, and he was also a member
Speaker 1: of the Family, a band that Prince assembled in which
Speaker 1: featured Jonathan's other sister in Wendy's twins, Susannah, And Though
Speaker 1: Jonathan's musical pedigree was well known to Billy and too others.
Speaker 1: His predilection for hard drugs was not but a few
Speaker 1: months on the road changes everything. By the evening of
Speaker 1: July eleventh, nineteen ninety six, six months into the tour,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Melvoy and Jimmy Chamberlain had both o deed at
Speaker 1: least one time. When confronted by Billy, the two offered
Speaker 1: up the standard junkie bullshit that they'd gone too far,
Speaker 1: they'd seen the era of their ways, and it wouldn't
Speaker 1: happen again. But on July eleventh, it happened again. At
Speaker 1: eleven pm that night, in a room at the Regency
Speaker 1: Hotel on Park Avenue in New York City, Jimmy and
Speaker 1: Jonathan were shooting heroin. Everything went black. When Jimmy came
Speaker 1: to around three thirty am the following morning, July twelfth,
Speaker 1: he was shocked to see that Jonathan was still unconscious.
Speaker 1: Jimmy tried to shake him awake, but Jonathan was out cold.
Speaker 1: A phone call was placed to the Pumpkins security manager,
Speaker 1: and minutes later the security manager was in the hotel room,
Speaker 1: dragging Jonathan's body into the shower, where cold water rained down.
Speaker 1: No response. At four roh two am, a call was
Speaker 1: placed in nine one one. At four point fifteen am,
Speaker 1: paramedics arrived at the hotel room, and around the time
Speaker 1: Jonathan Melvoyn was declared dead, Jimmy Chamberlain was taken into
Speaker 1: police custody and placed under arrest. The death of touring
Speaker 1: keyboardist Jonathan Melvoyn happened at a time when being a
Speaker 1: rock star was synonymous with being into hard drugs. Just
Speaker 1: weeks earlier, Bradley Knowle was BlimE had died from a
Speaker 1: heroin overdose, and Depeche Modes Dave Gone had been dramatically
Speaker 1: brought back to life after a speedball nearly killed him.
Speaker 1: Shannon Hune of Blind Melon was dead. Kristen Path of
Speaker 1: Hole She was also dead. Stone Temple pilot Scott WiLAN
Speaker 1: was back in rehab. But the Smashing Pumpkins were eager
Speaker 1: to distance themselves from what the media was making out
Speaker 1: to be an epidemic. So the first thing Billy, Darcy
Speaker 1: and James did after they were hauled down to the
Speaker 1: nineteenth Precinct in Question on the morning of their drummer's
Speaker 1: arrest was to fire their drummer, Jimmy Chamberlain. It was
Speaker 1: a time of transition, a time in which their founding
Speaker 1: member now their former drummer, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct
Speaker 1: and began as court ordered drug treatment. The time in
Speaker 1: which the melancholy Tour at last resumed after a month
Speaker 1: of canceled dates with filters. Matt Walker behind the Kit
Speaker 1: and the Frogs is Dennis Flemian on Keys. Time in
Speaker 1: which Billy Corgan shaved off his thinning hair. His shiny
Speaker 1: bald head signaled the start of something new, and the
Speaker 1: esthetic was minimal and the emotions were stark. The contrast
Speaker 1: was high pale white skin, black eyeliner, black fingernail polish,
Speaker 1: clothing also black. In just two years time, the Smashing
Speaker 1: Pumpkins would rebrand themselves as the ultimate alternative outsiders, as
Speaker 1: goths who had emerged from under a cloak of paisley shirts,
Speaker 1: plaid lumberjackets, and big, polished Boston sized rifts. The transformation
Speaker 1: would be complete. Ever since he revealed his strange experience
Speaker 1: with the shape Shifter to the public, he wondered if
Speaker 1: perhaps he had hallucinated the whole thing, but he'd been
Speaker 1: sober at the time. Did people hallucinate while they were sober?
Speaker 1: Surely it was possible. That was the whole point of
Speaker 1: the shape shifter, though, wasn't it that anything was possible?
Speaker 1: Hallucination or not, it didn't change what he saw. This
Speaker 1: was his reality, not someone else's, and they weren't there.
Speaker 1: They didn't bear witness. Perhaps one had to be open
Speaker 1: to the experience in order to have it. But there
Speaker 1: had to be a reason that he had been shown
Speaker 1: this profound and inexplicable thing, just like there had to
Speaker 1: be a reason why the United States government had invited
Speaker 1: him to a closed door, off the record meeting. Wait, what,
Speaker 1: that's right? The United States government had invited Billy Corgan
Speaker 1: to a closed door, off the record meeting, something about
Speaker 1: cultural influence disclosure. He didn't know why he'd been singled out,
Speaker 1: But then the abductee has no clue why the aliens
Speaker 1: picked them to poke and prod do that. Billy wasn't
Speaker 1: expecting to see it a second time, but he should have.
Speaker 1: These things are bound to recur. Once your eyes have
Speaker 1: been opened, it's tough to close them. And they were
Speaker 1: alone again, the naked body, just as he'd remembered it
Speaker 1: before the turn. He took in the contours of the flesh,
Speaker 1: the slope of the hips and the art to the back.
Speaker 1: It was hypnotizing the spell had been cast, and so
Speaker 1: the change began. The lights became darker and the darks
Speaker 1: became light, and the form was now fluid, the body
Speaker 1: rearranging itself as every other point of focus in the
Speaker 1: room faded away. In time ground to a halt. He
Speaker 1: realized that his heart was pounding, his head was spinning,
Speaker 1: and unless his eyes were deceiving him, he was the
Speaker 1: subject of the gaze of the shape shifter. Yet again,
Speaker 1: change is inevitable. People change and bands change, and after
Speaker 1: three records of anthemic cathartic guitar rock, the Smashing Pumpkins
Speaker 1: changed dramatically for the first time. Isolation, the thing that
Speaker 1: had motivated Billy Corgan to start a band in the
Speaker 1: first place, was bearing down hard. Billy's mother was dying
Speaker 1: and his marriage was coming to an end. Jimmy Chamberlain
Speaker 1: was still persona non grata, and so drum machines were
Speaker 1: becoming more commonplace. Billy, for one, wasn't sure what the
Speaker 1: new record was going to be, but he knew he
Speaker 1: wanted to make it together with James and Darcy, with
Speaker 1: the people that kept him from being isolated like he
Speaker 1: did as a child. So we rented a house in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. They could all live there and record there,
Speaker 1: just like the Red Hot Chili Peppers did with Blood Sugar,
Speaker 1: Sex Magic. But James needed space. James went to his
Speaker 1: own house every night after the sessions, and so here
Speaker 1: comes isolation and here comes change. The Smashing Pumpkins' fourth album, Adore,
Speaker 1: was released in June of night ninety eight. It was
Speaker 1: quieter and gloomier than the band's previous albums, and it
Speaker 1: locked onto the electronica zeitgeist by incorporating more loops and
Speaker 1: machines than the band had ever done before, and the
Speaker 1: critics dug it in the public not so much. After
Speaker 1: performing well upon its release, Adoor quickly fell off the
Speaker 1: charts for the first time in his career. Billy Corgan
Speaker 1: was not leveling up, and thus he felt more isolated
Speaker 1: than he had in years. Maybe the change was too much,
Speaker 1: too fast. In the video for the album's first single,
Speaker 1: Ava Adore, Billy James and Darcy have gone full goth.
Speaker 1: Billy's head and face are so white and his long
Speaker 1: gown is so black that he looks like mos Faratu.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a shock actually, but perhaps not as
Speaker 1: shocking is what went down just one and a half
Speaker 1: years later, January twenty fifth, two thousand, the South side
Speaker 1: of Chicago. Late Darcy Retzki exited the building on West
Speaker 1: Grand Avenue and made a beeline to the car parked
Speaker 1: alongside the curb. She slipped into the passenger seat while
Speaker 1: the driver, Tony Young, settled in behind the wheel. The
Speaker 1: three bags of cracked cocaine Darcy had just purchased were
Speaker 1: safely hidden inside Tony's pocket. Darcy was unaware that she
Speaker 1: was being watched across the street. Undercover cops sat in
Speaker 1: an unmarked vehicle. They had seen Darcy and Tony walk
Speaker 1: in and out of the building, and while they didn't
Speaker 1: witness the deal go down on the inside, they knew
Speaker 1: it had gone down all the same. Now they just
Speaker 1: needed to wait for a reason to pull the car over,
Speaker 1: any reason to nail the prodigal daughter. Darcy wasn't even
Speaker 1: supposed to be here. Four months earlier, in September of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, she quit the Smashing Pumpkins and left
Speaker 1: Chicago for Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. The
Speaker 1: decision was shocking at the time, especially because Jimmy Chamberlain
Speaker 1: had finally rejoined the band. That spring, which should have
Speaker 1: been this triumphant, redemptive moment, was suddenly soured, and the
Speaker 1: Pumpkins had only been whole for less than a year
Speaker 1: before they splin their depart again. Darcy gave no public comment.
Speaker 1: She went deep into civilian life, and then in January
Speaker 1: she quietly returned to Chicago. Much had changed since the
Speaker 1: last time she'd been here, Back in ninety six, when
Speaker 1: Jimmy was fired. Darcy had gone on MTV with Billy
Speaker 1: and James. They all told Tabithasaurn about how they didn't
Speaker 1: tolerate hard drugs in the band, that they were breaking
Speaker 1: with the stereotype of the live, fast, dye rock and roller,
Speaker 1: and they weren't the ones that would burn out. Instead,
Speaker 1: they would fade away. And now in Chicago in the
Speaker 1: year two thousand, the Darcy of ninety six was fading
Speaker 1: away fast as she became the thing she once spoken about.
Speaker 1: Tony turned the key of the ignition and put the
Speaker 1: car and drive. He pulled the way into the darkness
Speaker 1: without the car's headlights on a fence. Number one, He
Speaker 1: made an illegal U turn and then another the fence
Speaker 1: numbers two and three. The flash of blue lights in
Speaker 1: the wall of the Siren came next, and Tony Young
Speaker 1: pulled the car over. Cops flanked either side. Tony and
Speaker 1: Darcy were searched, and the cops found the crack easy.
Speaker 1: Tony said it wasn't his. He said Darcy gave it
Speaker 1: to him to hold. And Darcy may have been a hypocrite,
Speaker 1: but she wasn't a liar. She confirmed Tony's story, and
Speaker 1: she was arrested and charged with possession. And while Darcy
Speaker 1: began an arduous legal process, her former band with a
Speaker 1: clean Jimmy Chamberlain put the finishing Touches on their newest record.
Speaker 1: Darcy had played on The pumpkins fifth album, Makina on
Speaker 1: the Machines of God, but it was Melissa off DeMar,
Speaker 1: formerly of Hole, Who's going out on tours her replacement.
Speaker 1: Whether it's the Pixies, or the Police, or the Smiths
Speaker 1: or even the Beatles, the stories of clashing egos and
Speaker 1: controlling task masters are often the driving force behind a
Speaker 1: band breakup. In the case of Darcy's breakup with the
Speaker 1: Smashing Pumpkins, it was years before anyone said anything about
Speaker 1: what had happened. Darcy's arrest for crack cocaine suddenly put
Speaker 1: her in a different light, and so when Billy Corgan
Speaker 1: later said that Darcy didn't quit, but that she was
Speaker 1: fired for being a mean spirited drug addict who refused
Speaker 1: to get help, you had to admit that that kind
Speaker 1: of tract. Darcy, on the other hand, offered up her
Speaker 1: own point of view, and it too seemed to be legit.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, nearly two decades since she'd spoken to
Speaker 1: the press, she gave an interview to Alternative Nation. She
Speaker 1: referred to her past relationship with Billy as incredibly abusive,
Speaker 1: saying that he'd loved to humiliate people and shame people
Speaker 1: in front of other people. She described the fights and
Speaker 1: arguments as constant, and left because she didn't have the
Speaker 1: energy to fight anymore. She even included a dig at
Speaker 1: Billy's unbelievable shape shifter story, adding, I honestly think he
Speaker 1: may have a brain tumor. And so we've come full
Speaker 1: circle back to the shape shifter thing. Did that actually happen?
Speaker 1: Do I think Billy Corgan saw someone transform in front
Speaker 1: of him, not once, but twice. Do I think Darcy
Speaker 1: was fired because she broke the cardinal rule of the
Speaker 1: band by using hard drugs? Or do I think she
Speaker 1: quit because, as Kim Deal and Kim Gordon and Pavement
Speaker 1: have previously stated, Billy Corgan is an asshole. What I
Speaker 1: believe and what you believe is all subject to change.
Speaker 1: Perspectives are always changing, just like the music and just
Speaker 1: like the Smashing Pumpkins, because people are always changing. The
Speaker 1: goal is to steer clear of any change that turns
Speaker 1: you from someone who makes great music into a total disgrace.
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan and this is disgrace slaved. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: thanks for checking out this episode of Disgraceland. Question of
Speaker 1: the Week and obvious one. Do you think Billy Corgan
Speaker 1: actually saw somebody turn into? I don't know whatever the
Speaker 1: hell he says he saw them turn into? Do you
Speaker 1: think he saw a shape shifter? Not once or twice?
Speaker 1: And if the answer is no, I want to know why,
Speaker 1: same with the answer is yes six one seven nine
Speaker 1: oh six six six three eight voicemail and text call
Speaker 1: me with your answer and you might hear yourself on
Speaker 1: the next bonus episode or Disgraceland the after party coming
Speaker 1: up right after this all right, here comes some credits.
Speaker 1: Disgracelaand was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis, The Exactly Right Network, and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
Speaker 1: notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as
Speaker 1: a Disgracelan All Access member, thank you for supporting the show.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it, and if not, you can become
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