The Joe Rogan Experience - #1038 - Billy Corgan

Episode Date: November 10, 2017

Billy Corgan is a musician, songwriter, producer, poet, and entrepreneur. His new album "Ogilala" produced by Rick Rubin, is available now.

All right, we're live. What's up? All right. I know, weird, right? Yeah, here we go. Nice to meet you, man. Thank you. Yeah, I can't believe we've never met.

Yeah, well, I've been a fan of your music for a long time, so it's kind of cool to see you in person. I've worked out the rest of your shit. Conversely, so it's cool. So, I mean, I don't mean to just jump right into this, but it kind of freaked me out that you have involvement in pro wrestling. Do you own the NWA? Yeah, I bought the National Wrestling Alliance, the oldest brand in the world. I was working for TNA.

I was president for a hot second. Then I got fired. You were president of TNA? Yeah, yeah. That's a crazy story. I don't know how much you want to get into that. Get into it. Well, you know, Dixie Carter of TNA? Yeah, yeah, that's a crazy story. I don't know how much you want to get into that. Get into it. Well, you know, Dixie Carter owned TNA.

I knew her through the years. I used to go to shows and stuff like that. And at some point they approached me about investing. I said no. Then they offered me a job. I started working for the company. Then they started having money problems. I started putting money in.

And through the contrivance of all that, then I started getting more power in the company and Putting in more money. So then it became like well if I'm gonna put in all this money and I'm gonna have all this power I want to run the show They basically said that was cool. And then the minute I had the spot it was like Game of Thrones They all started to kill me off and and then you know wrestling is weird because you have this weird mix of off and and then you know wrestling's weird because you have this weird mix of reality and fantasy and it's hard sometimes to know where one thing and the fans get into both the behind the scenes and the fantasy so no one's quite sure sometimes where the blur is and uh yeah i got pretty crazy for a while there's a lawsuit um a real lawsuit yeah i sued i sued and this is a

quick funny thing um people continually write that I lost the lawsuit. I never lost the lawsuit. I lost one of the motions, which led to then me negotiating, and we settled out of court. But the judge, the contract that they signed that would have allowed me to take over the company under the motion that I had filed, I had filed, the judge basically dismissed my motion because the contract they had signed with me was illegal under Tennessee law, even though a Tennessee lawyer had negotiated on the company's behalf and signed it. Whoa. That sounds like some double cross wrestling type. Yeah. So it'd be like if you did a contract with me and then I sued you and then the judge says, well, even though Joe had a California lawyer signed, it's illegal under California law. So therefore the contract's meaningless.

It was bizarre. How does one go from smashing pumpkins to pro wrestling and then go so deep that you're like an owner? Yeah, I know. It's pretty wild. Unexpected for a lot of people, right? Yeah, yeah, no, I get that a lot. And I've actually learned over time it's just best to keep the world separate because the music fans don't want to hear anything about the wrestling thing.

I mean, they just don't want to hear. They get that I'm a bit goofy, but they just don't want to hear about the wrestling thing. They ask the worlds to be kept separate. Do they ever get mad at you? Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I could thing. They asked, they asked the worlds to be kept separate. Did they ever get mad at you? Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Cause I could imagine. You know, and you can appreciate that it kills the gimmick. Yeah. They want me to be this goth vampire guy or whatever. And then it's like, and then, and then there's pro wrestling.

It's just, it just totally kills the gimmick. It's really funny though. I think it's awesome. Yeah. I love it when people just get into what they like. Well, that's something I appreciate about you. You know what I mean?

Like I've watched where you guys go deep dives and MMA and other things It's like I think it's cool to have multiple interests. I it's the Renaissance man thing Yeah Well, I think for for some reason people shy away from that because they think folks are gonna be confused I don't care. Yeah good for you. That's awesome. Yeah. No, I've growing up in Chicago There was a really rich wrestling history in Chicago growing up. And my great-grandmother watched wrestling. I mean, it was like I grew up in the – at four years old, I'm watching Dick the Bruiser on television.

Right. And this is also the era of hockey fights and roller derby. Oh, roller derby. So we'd watch hockey, pro wrestling. You know, it was in the family. Yeah. And then later I found out that my other great-grandmother also watched wrestling. So both sides of the family, both great-grandmothers watched wrestling.

So it's just in the blood, I guess. We like the carny of it all. Well, I'm always amazed that roller derby never made a serious comeback. They tried. They kind of did the tattooed girls doing roller derby, hipstery type of thing. It had a moment there. Well, I had a friend who was into it and she you know was that type and i just i thought well that seems like something that would catch on today yeah they transitioned from like roller derby to suicide girls yeah right it was like you gotta get a little hotter yeah yeah exactly girl

you can be thick and be a roller derby girl. You could eat all the carbs you like. The roller derby back in the day was huge. Yeah. I mean, they were doing, like, packed arenas and stuff. That's crazy. Well, it's fun to watch. It's pretty wild. Yeah.

You see them go after each other and skating around. It's pretty aggressive. It's fun. It's like racing plus fighting and hip-checking each other. It's early days memory, but I remember thinking there's something sort of hot about the whole thing. Yes. I think, especially in Chicago, the women's roller derby was bigger than the men's. So that says something.

Yeah, I didn't even know there was men's roller derby. Thinking of men's roller derby, I'm completely drawn a blank. I always associate it with tough women. Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying. I think the women's thing actually had some sort of staying power where the men's, I think it didn't have the same allure maybe. Yeah. Yeah. I guess. Uh, you're, you're my age. You remember killer Kowalski? Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember watching that when I was a kid in Boston,

watching it on a, on regular TV, you know, that those guys were great. I mean, it's a golden age. It's like anything. You can go back and sort of romanticize it. And I think that's part of what we're trying to do is that's the cool thing about the NWA is we actually possess that history. And so our job is to sort of update it, you know, to bring that tough guy thing back into the modern world in a way that sort of doesn't insult the audience's intelligence.

So the NWA, is that older than the WWE? Yeah, 1948 is the NWA. Whoa. Yeah. And the cool thing about the NWA's history was you had all these rival promoters, including the McMahons in the Northeast, that eventually sort of formed a kind of ad hoc association to create a better business. In essence, get everybody on the same page.

And what they would do is they named one champ and the champ would rotate through the different territories, come in and take on whoever was the local guy. They'd build up the local guy and then a guy like Ric Flair would come in and beat the local guy. And it would always be like a bit of a scrum and then he'd come back for a second

and there would be a cage match. And then Ric Flair would move on to the next territory. And that's how those guys rotated around, and then everybody made more money. Wow. And then the government got involved at different points because there was collusion. There you go.

There's Ric Flair with our belt, actually. I follow him on Instagram. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Ric and Dusty Rhodes are probably the two most prominent champs that the NWA had. So just to be the owner of that history is so humbling for me as a fan. It's like, wow. That is so cool.

Yeah, that's pretty wild, actually. He's quite a character and still is, even on Instagram. The stories are legendary. The stories are absolutely legendary. The 30 for 30 just came out about him, and I'm hearing it's one of the best ones ever made. It just came out the other day, maybe two days ago. Oh, cool.

And I, and I, you know, I'm not trying to speak for Rick, but you know, there's a, there's an example of somebody where it's like the, the persona and the real life person sort of blurred. Right. And it's hard to figure out who was who at any given time. That, you know, that's the case with like Dice Clay. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. He used to be Andrew Silverstein and the Dice Man was a character that he used to do on stage. who at any given time that you know that's the case like dice clay oh yeah okay yeah yeah he

used to be andrew silverstein and the dice man was a character right to do on stage is he now is he now become 100 all my friends marilyn manson he's the same way it's like they become yeah they become the gimmick at some point and sometimes you're not sure who you're talking to but but at some point you also have to respect that that's so intrinsic to their world that maybe it's almost easier just to become the gimmick. Right. Instead of having her live. You don't have to turn it on and off. Yeah.

I'm the other way. I've gone out of my way to kill the gimmick. Which really, it actually hurts business and people get mad at me. Because they want the fantasy guy. But I can't live like that. Right. It's impossible for me. So they want you to be almost like a caricature like a moody sad grumbling you know whatever you know that's why a lot of the

stuff on me that's clickbait is based on the character that I both created and people want me to play wow that's like one of the biggest memes of last year or was about a year ago was like me at Disneyland I don't know if you've heard about that so it's classic i was on a ride and somebody took a picture of me on the ride and for whatever reason i just don't look happy at that particular moment and i had this great i had this great in fact the guy in the other room my tour manager jug was the guy sitting next to me in the photo and uh there you go look and it was like massive viral. That's perfect. And I had a great day. I met tons of fans.

I took pictures with everyone. I love Disneyland. I had this great day. And that became like this massive thing of like, see, he's miserable, even at Disneyland. That's hilarious. That's funny. What a perfect picture. Yeah, right?

And it even ended up on Family Guy. See, look. That's very funny, man. That's very funny. What a perfect picture. Yeah, right? And it even ended up on Family Guy. See, look? That's very funny, man. That's very funny. That's got to be exhausting, like having all these expectations that aren't necessarily, that don't totally align with who you really are. It used to be because I felt like, I don't know, as the keeper of my image or something, I felt this responsibility to sort of manage it.

And at some point, I just let it go. Yeah. Well, for me... Sorry to interrupt you, but it's like at some point I decided crazy was better for business. Like, I'm okay with people thinking I'm nuts. It's totally okay. Because I'm the exact opposite of nuts. You have to be.

You're certainly eccentric. Yeah, that's fine. I come from a long line of eccentrics. I mean, my father was a drug dealing, gun toting musician. Was he really? Mad man. Yeah. Drug dealing?

Oh, yeah. What kind of drugs? You name it. Really? Oh, yeah. Wow. I mean, it's like quick stories. When I was a kid, my father was a musician.

So I remember I used to like, I wasn't allowed to touch his guitars, but I was allowed to look at them. So I remember one day I was walking past the bedroom and I saw a guitar case under the bed. And I was like, oh, I wonder what that is. Did he get a new guitar? So I went, slipped the thing out and I flipped it open. It was a sawed off shotgun in a guitar case. Just laying there, you know, in the house. Or, you know, I'd go to open something.

It would be like 10 pounds of weed. You know, that was the world I grew up in. Where'd you grow up? Outside of Chicago. About an hour outside. Wow. But yeah, my dad got arrested a bunch of times. Massive busts and drugs. It's just crazy. And people knocking on the door in the middle of the night.

And getting shot at. My dad says he's been shot at nine times. Never hit? No. That's lucky. Stab stabbed two or three times jesus christ my favorite story my my one of my favorite stories my father was um he was doing a drug deal and or he was buying drugs and like so he stopped somewhere and the guy got in the car and then the guy pulled out a gun and stuck it in his ribs you know and did like give me all your money and my dad looked and him and said, kill me.

Basically because he was unhappy, so he figured, no, fuck it, he said, just kill me. And the guy flipped out and left the car. Jesus Christ. And he told you all this? Oh yeah, I got a lot of these stories post-haste, yeah. Is he still around? Oh yeah, he's still around, he's still kicking.

How is it for him, like, seeing you as a son? That's a weird thing because in the beginning, he was very dismissive. Of the music? Yeah, he was not supportive of me playing the guitar. And my father was a great musician. I mean that with great sincerity. My father was truly talented. And in the beginning, he was not supportive at all, didn't want me to play the

guitar, didn't want me involved in music. And even after I put on my first album, which went on to be at the time was like the most successful independent album ever released. So it wasn't like an insignificant moment in my life. My dad would just kind of shrugged his shoulders was like, it's okay. You know, it was like, what are you talking about? Like, wow, you know, and there's and if you know my early, it's like, you know and there's and if you know my early it's like you know it's guitar heavy there's cool stuff solos and he was just like it wasn't until my second album and the band blew up that he started to kind of change his tune then he became more supportive then he got really weirdly jealous and then he started doing weird things like he'd call me and be like um if you need me to write you any songs like i'm like

number one and he's like he's asking me to write songs. It was so weird. But he was also on a lot of drugs. And so there was that, you know, there's that interweave of like, and weird stuff like, you know, you know, one day he calls me and he's like, my dad always played this cool 1964 Purple Flying V that was like his guitar, you know, and, you know, my dad to me was like a star and he still is in my mind so um he told me one day you know when i die you know i'm gonna give you

my guitar and then fast forward four years later he calls me up he's like yeah i'm gonna put this guitar on ebay so did you do you want to buy it no yeah so i had to buy the guitar you're supposed to get when he dies yeah fuck yeah just weird stuff like that it's been a lot of So anybody who's grown up in that, those types of situations knows what I'm talking about. It's like wacky world. You're never quite sure what angle is going on because the need for money, depending on what situation is going on, you know? Yeah. But you reinforce, you reinforce this idea that I've always had that everyone that I

know that's interesting came from a fucked up childhood. I couldn't argue against it. It's hard. Do you have children? I have one son. Yeah, he's just going to be two. For me, it's a conflict because I take care of my kids and I'm around. And I give them a lot of love and they're not fucked up.

And I'm like, damn, my kid's going to be boring. Like all of my friends, all of them come from fucked up households. It's all chaos. And they created the pressure, created these diamonds. Yeah. There's something to be said for the adversity. And my dad would even say to me weird things like, it's good you had a fucked up childhood because it made you successful yeah i'm thinking like i would have preferred like disneyland with you you know what i mean maybe i wouldn't have been miserable at disneyland if it wasn't for you dad man i think your story's amazing though i mean i know it probably sucked growing up like that but damn to be able to tell everybody your dad was this guitar playing,

gun toting, drug dealing psycho. I mean, that's a badass story. Yeah. I think you appreciate this in the gangster tradition. So there was this thing that happened when I was probably about 10 or 12, where there was a local club and my dad played there all the time. And I came back to the house one day and the house was full of like smoky equipment. Like you could smell like smoke fire. And he said, oh, the club burned down. And so they had ran in the fire, retrieved the gear, some kind of story like that. And so that was the story for years was he was eating across the street pancakes at four in the morning and saw the club burn down.

Years later, I heard the real story. He was in a car with a chick doing whatever, and he saw some mob guy walk in the club with gasoline, light the club on fire. So he knew it was arson, but because he knew it was mob related, he couldn't say anything. And that's like, that's like every story is like, there's the real story and the story I got when i was a kid jesus so he ran into the fire just to get equipment yeah i think he ran in and got his guitar he was able to save his guitar and then and then and then of course the police and came to question him because they knew he had was there on the scene or something yeah and of course he said i didn't see anything because he didn't want to die. Because, you know, Chicago with the mob, I mean, forget about it. Especially back then in the 70s, it was like they ran the town.

They got Kennedy elected. Well, yeah. I mean, the stories about Chicago are legendary. You know what I mean? Like, people used to come to Chicago back in the day. It's a little bit different now. People come back, man, the city's so clean. It's so organized.

It's like, yeah, because it's run by, you know, capos all over the city. You know, every ward had its capo. Yeah, Chicago has this uniquely violent history. And even to this day, I mean, with what's going on the South side with all the gang violence. It's shocking to me as somebody who was born in Chicago, I still live in Chicago, that it's just like we've normalized this insane violence in this community. People don't even realize, I think most people have no idea how much gun violence goes on in Chicago. I heard the other day, I could be wrong and I'm sure he can find, but I think somebody said the other day, there's been 3,700 shootings in Chicago already this year. And I think we're already over 600 gun fatalities. And this is like every year now.

Wow. I mean, I just, and even Trump at some point floated out, like maybe they should bring the National Guard. I wish they would do something. It's just such a generational tragedy that just keeps going and nothing seems to happen. Yeah. And it seems to have a lot of momentum behind it like the murders they they've they make people have revenge murders and then it just piles on top of each other and it doesn't seem like there's any any stopping it in sight well here's the thing and you know this is the

classic tale now it was reported the other day that the carjackings in chicago have gone up like 200 and now those carjackings are filtering into the nice neighborhoods. So now you're going to start seeing some action because now it's blowing up past the sort of, you know, I mean, look at that. The shot clock. A person is shot every 2 minutes and 20 seconds. A person is murdered every 12 hours. Oh, 2 hours and 20 minutes. A person is murdered every 12 hours and 23 minutes.

That's a lot. Wow. I mean, it's my home, and I just, you know. I have a guy that I met when I was down there. He was a driver. He drove us around, and he was saying that he used to be a cop, and that what happened was they arrested some of the top level drug dealers. I've heard this exact same story.

And as soon as they did that, there became this power vacuum. Yeah, for years, I got a little inside information. For years, what I'd heard is that they had this sort of like, as long as you stay on this side of the street, we'll kind of, you know, we'll look the other way for this. But you got to keep your people in line over here. Right. And I know enough people in the PD that that was sort of the general understanding. Like even like, I remember one time, cause I knew somebody worked in the, in the, in like the gang task force.

I was like, how come there's always whores on the bridge on Friday night? Like, don't you guys see the 50 whores on the bridge? And they said, no, we, that's where we tell all the whores to go so we can protect them. We'd rather have them there so we can keep an eye on them. And we know it's going to happen anyway, so better we control it. So that was the way Chicago sort of operated. It was like, we'll tolerate crime up to this level, and twice a year we'll run everybody in just to kind of make it look good in the paper. And then apparently whatever they did that created this power vacuum.

That's just what I've heard. I don't know empirically. Well, this guy was a former cop, and the way he was describing it was pretty absolute. He's like, they made a mistake. This solution that you were saying of kind of like saying, hey, keep it over here or keep it under wraps and we'll arrest a certain amount of people, it sounds like maybe that's the only way to manage it. Well, the one thing I have heard from people that are in those communities is that literally the, and this maybe supports what you're saying, is that the power divisions are like block to block.

So it's almost like an insurgency where it's like two blocks versus two blocks versus one block versus three blocks. So literally, if you're walking on the wrong side of the street, it's not even like neighborhood to neighborhood. It's like block to block, which is crazy. And just growing up in that neighborhood, having that be your normal as a child, and then growing into adulthood around that, and having just used to people getting shot, used to shooting people. I mean, if there's that many people getting shot and that many gunshots going off everybody must be common I mean it must be common everyone yeah it's just crazy that's just heartbreaking it's such a

unique town too it's an amazing city it really is yeah I mean we we have this weird bare-knuckle history yeah and it's still there you know no no amount of yuppies moving and it's changed this sort of working class sort of ethos well you it's sort of symbolized by the food that giant thick pizza yeah we like to eat that pizza is insane that what you i used to deliver those pizzas by the way did you really yeah that was one of my gigs i bet it builds your arms up those things are fucking heavy. First time I ate a Chicago deep-ditch pizza, I was like, okay, is this really a pizza? Like, what do we call it? This is a casserole.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's like, it's hearty people, too. It's like, there's something about Chicago that seems to me to have, like, the momentum of the old days still deeply entrenched in it, whereas that doesn't seem the case in LA and a lot of other big cities. Yeah. It's just like kind of weird yuppie, yuppie thing.

I call it yuppies. I don't know what you want to call it, but it's like, like South Park did that episode where it's like, it's all like once the whole foods moves in, like everyone's supposed to live a certain way. Right. Did you see that episode?

No, no. But it's like this funny bit about like how the whole food sort of anchors down this new way of life some kind of like you know riff on that i bet it does i bet it does in some way you know it's this idea of sort of like uh you can drop this homogenous idea of what modern culture is like in any place and it will just sort of riff out. Like a spore. Yeah.

It's like we've got the Whole Foods and we've got the Starbucks, and now we're all going to be nice to each other or something. It's like a weird – you know what I mean? Like we're all just going to start behaving better because, you know, whatever. Yeah. I think you understand the joke. No, I do. amari yeah i think you understand the joke no i do you know i think uh but again saying your environment that you grew up in this chaos and then coming from chicago and coming from you know the stories you're telling about your dad that had to contribute to like the the deepness and

intensity of your music right i don't know i i certainly revolted against suburban life yeah i mean the suburban life of that world it's just i just i just couldn't take it yeah man i just couldn't take it the mall the mall the strip mall vibe whatever that was i just oh rot in a cage right yeah well well the great thing is then i i traded one imprisonment suburbia for you know rock and roll aesthetics and you know who's who gets to say who's integral and you know who's cool and not cool oh my god that would that drove me insane too who's selling out yeah i mean the the first line of um the first line of our second album is freak out and give in doesn't matter what you believe in you know it's like you know

it's like you gotta you gotta play by now you gotta play by these rules you gotta kiss this ring and yeah you know well music's always a weird thing too is that people really enjoy you when they're the only ones who know about you and then as you started getting bigger and bigger they start looking for holes yeah we blew that up early though yeah we blew that we blew it up really early we made a lot of enemies really early which is crazy because i mean the enemies i made in the early 90s i mean i still have them i mean they're still sort of lurking out there in various holes it's weird it's like those those those you know inner scene rivalries never end you know between bands or it's like i i've had weird experiences with like

people not with nirvana people but like people who were in the nirvana world they're still like this weird like because i'm from pumpkin world right like sometimes i'll have weird stuff happen and i'll dig down and find out it was like somebody who used to work in nirvana world trying to cut my ankles 27 years late. Like so weird, like so parochial. The whole Nirvana scene is a very strange scene. You know,

whenever the main guy commits suicide in this oddly conspiratorial way, did you watch that fucked up movie? A lot of people don't know, but I was like sort of around for a lot of that stuff so i know a lot of stuff that i've never sort of talked about so for me watching that stuff is like it's a it's replaying something i don't want to replay and b i know a lot of the stuff is not based on fact because i was around for a lot of it right and no one's ever talked to me about it so people try to pimp me out like in a Q&A with fans and ask me questions.

Like I'm suddenly going to talk about it. It's like, you know what I mean? Yeah, that documentary was so strange. It's like, how does someone get away with that? Like the recreations. Like if you weren't there, you don't know what the fuck they said. So if you don't know what the fuck they said and you're putting words in these actors' mouths and having them play it out. Like what?

You're just, this should be illegal. Like, cause you're kind of, you know what I'm saying? It's like you're, especially when you're talking about a murder mystery, you're, you're, you're saying that it wasn't a suicide. You're, you're, you're at least putting out the idea that it might be a murder. And the way you're doing it is by manufacturing words that you have no idea if they were ever said, it's just complete fiction. Yeah.

Yeah. that you have no idea if they were ever said. It's just complete fiction. Yeah. So like that's, I was around for the before, sort of during, and certainly a lot after. And I know a lot of stuff that, again, I know is not in the public domain.

And so I go with what I know. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah, but it's that whole Nirvana thing was, I mean, I remember the first time I heard Nirvana, I was a kid in Boston and this buddy of mine played it for us. And we had never heard anything like that. We were like, whoa. Yeah.

This is a new thing. Just fantastic. A new thing, right? Like a new. And here's a crazy little Boston statistic for you. We once played, it was Nirvana, Pumpkins, and Bullet La Volta. We played at that little club. It was like an alt club across from Fenway. I can't remember what it's called. Axis or-

Right, right. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. But we played there like, I don't know, 92. It wasn't even sold out. Oh, wow. That's amazing. It was like 700 people kind of thing. That's 700 people with an awesome story. Yeah, yeah, right? Wow.

So you're working with Rick Rubin now. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, Rick's fantastic. What is that like, though, for you being like a guy who's kind of like, you've kind of controlled everything before, right? Yeah, totally, yeah. So what is it like for you to have Rubin in the mix? Yeah, well, Rick's a friend.

So for me, it was like I was sort of at a low point and he kind of picked me up when I was down. So it was like I didn't mind sort of trusting him with like the head part of it all. Kind of like you deal with that part. I'm just going to sort of be the performer and the weird guy in the corner. Did it give you relief? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I felt like it allowed me to focus on the music and the performance and sort of just freed me to just, you know, let whatever.

Because sometimes you can psych yourself out. I don't know if that makes any sense. Like, you can have a really good song, you know it's a good song, and then you start second guessing yourself. And then you start thinking, well, maybe this song's not good enough. And then that'll infiltrate into your performance. As opposed to being free, like, hey, I've just got a good song, and if that one doesn't into your performance as opposed to being free like hey I've just got a good song and if that one doesn't work I've got another good song so letting Rick kind of do the picking and choosing and that's a good take and that's a good song it was just like okay I'm

just gonna kind of just go down this road it took me back to sort of a more innocent way of approaching the work and I'm very grateful to him for that. That's awesome. Yeah. It's gotta be quite a mind fuck to create something and then practice it and rehearse it over and over again and tweak it and mess with it and not know really like not, not almost not be able to be objective anymore. Yeah. Well, the weird thing is, is I hope people can appreciate how I mean it is like at one point when I, my ear was really to the ground I was able to do that I was both able to be objective and subjective be the writer and be the producer right and I hit a lot of home runs so then you get kind of like I know what I'm doing right so then when it stops working you have two choices you can blame yourself which is the natural thing you should do

or you can blame others and once you start blaming, now you're in this hall of mirrors. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Instead of raising your hand and saying, okay, I've had a good run. It's like getting a coach or something. Like maybe a guy goes on a losing streak and needs to bring in a new coach just to say, I think you need to work on your offense.

You know what I mean? Just somebody to tweak you. Yeah. But when you're flying 1,000 miles an hour and you're selling gazillions of records and making all this money and you're surrounded by a bunch of sycophants, they're not going to tell you, hey, man, you need the doctor to come in and kind of sort your head out. Yeah. So then you start going this way and then that's when it gets like hall of mirrors.

So that's where my own hubris sort of got in my own way. I couldn't accept that I got on a losing streak and then go to somebody like Rick and say, hey, I need some help. I need some objective help. Did you feel yourself, like when you were listening to the music that you were creating, did you feel like you were on a losing streak? No. No.

So it sounded... I couldn't intellectually understand why I was failing. It didn't make any sense to me. And sometimes it's just generational. It's the market changes, whatever. It's not personal. It feels incredibly personal, which is why it's easier to blame somebody else. Right, right.

You don't understand the depth of my work here. I'm so deep, and you're not following my meta path or something. You know what I mean? And look, most entertainment is popular, right? I mean, you're a comedian. I mean, it's like if you go up and tell a bunch of jokes and the audience doesn't laugh, whose fault is it? Well, the mindfuck of music to me has always been very fascinating because you guys create it in like a vacuum almost. Totally.

And then you bring it to the people. Like when you release an album, they get it and it's done. It's like, holy shit, here it is. And a big fan plays it for the first time and they're listening to it. They're like, oh. Whereas we have ideas and I need an audience to create. I need to be around them. I can only create so much on a laptop.

Most of it has to be fine-tuned and refined. So by the time I record something i already know yeah it's already been tested right so that's go back to my point if you get on a winning streak and you're you're creating things in a bubble and then they work well then you're you want to take all the credit for it yeah you forget all the thousand hours in the bedroom that you listen to jimi hendrix or yeah you know bowhaus or merciful fate or whatever you know like that gave you all these ideas you know you don't want to give them credit you want to be the author of your own success and when starts patting you on the back and yeah I'm sorry to interrupt you're very

introspective in that regard like you you have a very failure with failure would do that is that what but you say failure though but you still have massive amounts of fans you You're still deeply respected. Yeah, I'm weird in that I've always been willing to talk about the process, which, again, is anti-gimmick. But also, I've always approached it more like a performance artist in that I'm after the bigger message of how work intersects with fame, intersects with personal feeling, intersects with personality and how people perceive things. I like all that weird Andy Kaufman uncomfortability.

That's part of my attraction. So I've been willing to use myself as the battering ram, which is how I ended up becoming a meme. Because people latch onto these personalities I've created, which of course are ancillary to my real personality. But they don't necessarily want to give me credit that I'm a sort of controller of the forces at play. So if I say something dumb, people assume that I'm dumb.

It's hard for them to assume that I'm saying something dumb on purpose because I want a reaction. Right. Yeah. When you become a hugely successful musician and your life becomes touring, big arenas, doing radio shows, getting on the bus, getting on the plane, all this stuff, does it make it difficult to have the time or the actual experiences to continue to create. Yes. Because you get so deoxygenated in the bubble that you start writing songs about being on tour. Yeah. Like comedians will tell jokes about airline food.

Yeah. Exactly. You end up becoming sort of like you're trying to take people in the insularity of your experience, but it's not that interesting. Right. And at some point it becomes unrelatable well i always said that about like uh i mean there's there's a lot of bands but some of the great allman brothers or leonard skinner like they had a bunch of songs about leaving about getting away from women you know lord i was born

a rambling man rightly so yeah there was so many songs about just getting away from women yeah the other day i heard that crosby stills national song it's like just a song before i go it's all about he's going on tour and they go to the airport and it's uncomfortable it's like it's such a going on tour song yeah but it's like it's really not that relatable to most people no to a lot of people it's not yeah i mean skinnered had a shitload of those they really did have quite a few songs about like getting the fuck out of dodge but they were good oh such a great band giant fan i mean they're probably the greatest thing to ever come out of florida

it's arguable you know i'm trying to think who else came out of florida uh jim brewer i thought we were just talking about you I'm trying to think who else came out of Florida. Jim Brewer? Did Creed come out of Florida? I thought we were just talking about music. Yeah, I don't have anything else when it comes to music. Who else? Pitbull? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

So did you feel it while it was happening like when you're you're doing these mega tours and everything do you feel like the staleness and the creation um i did yeah i think what i tried to do is change personalities change musical directions to kind of re-infuse infuse things. And it worked up until a point until my mother died, like in 96. In a weird three month period, the drummer left the band, my mother died, and I got a divorce in like a six month period. And so I try to use that as fuel to sort of pivot where I wanted to go musically. But I wrote this very introspective dark record, which a lot of people really like now. But at the time it was like so antithetical to this big rock machine.

Yeah, I was like castigated for being an idiot. And I went from golden child to idiot, you know, in one fell swoop. Well, so many great artists are a prisoner of their early success. Yeah, and rightly so. You know what I mean? I have a much greater appreciation for the zeitgeist effect of the public. I don't know if that makes any sense. It's like, how many zeitgeists did Elvis have?

Three. U2's had two or three. Frank Sinatra had two or three or four. I mean, there's something about when it all seems to make sense, like the public's fascination, the artist's place in time, the work that's being created. There's a sense of like familiarity, but also something is happening and everybody wants to take part in it. And so I have a much greater appreciation for that moment. The ego of the artist wants to convince yourself that you're always in that moment. And that's just impossible.

That's just impossible. There's just no way. It's just the cyclical nature of creation. That's such an important thing to say for people listening, for people that struggle with this themselves. To hear someone like you say that. Yeah, it actually kind of makes sense. It's like it's like it's like a typical example it's like falling in love and expecting to feel that feeling forever

right it's just not going to happen you're not going to feel the same no i would argue if you are there's something wrong right you haven't matured into a deeper relationship so in the same thing an artist needs to mature into a deeper relationship with their work or their relationship with the public or their relationship with themselves and if you can do that and you look at great examples johnny cash neil young tom petty when they get there everybody comes back bob dylan because they think okay now you're giving me some new information yeah this isn't just a riff on the thing that you gave me before. And I think the public has shown over time the willingness and the ability to follow artists if they're willing, if they're able to go to that place where they mine out something new that actually is like a

cultural contribution and not just sort of more of what they already know. I think that's so important for you to talk about. I'm so glad you because for uh upcoming artists and in all sorts of genres just people who are involved in creating to hear someone as successful as yourself talk about the various struggles of the mind and and of momentum and the you know the different stages and various points of your career yeah so important yeah the music business plays this jedi mind trick on you where the whole thing's set up to be rapacious and take advantage of your weakness. How so? Well, it's like, I'll use the music business as an example, and I'm sure there's plenty of parallels across the entertainment spectrum.

You struggle to get the contract, and then the contract is sort of, you know, the indentured servitude type of thing. Our first contract was seven albums, essentially 14 years. So I signed that contract when I was 23. That's crazy. Okay, so I'm signing, at 23 years old, I'm signing a contract that's supposed to take me into 37. You're signing a contract for more than half your life. And if you look at the shelf life of most artists it's four to so they're basically anticipating your entire arc that's so crazy you don't have any leverage

you know other than that they want to sign you you sign the deal and then it becomes this weird dance of like can i sustain success yeah if you get success and you have leverage they'll get out of your way because you're making them a lot of money but the minute you're not making them as much money then they step in and they start playing these jedi mind tricks on you we know what to do you know the public's going to forget about you i mean i've heard all these things like you know this kind of weird like yeah you're in the room but you know we're the arbiter of whether you can stay in the room that's the weird

position that record companies had for a long time that they don't seem to have anymore i wouldn't i would argue against that because they still do well they've moved to a different set of circumstances and i'm not as conversant as i as i once was but one thing they do with certain younger artists but i think particularly more in the pop realm is they do these 360 deals where it's like right if you get a perfume deal if you like your whole world they own you we own a piece of your whole world and fame is such a great quotient in American life now that you can see where kids would trade fame and give and be willing to give away like the the profit part well they'll take a risk at the long-term ownership. Right.

So let me jump in there. So if you actually survive the cut, let's call it phase one. You're successful, you're a name, and now you're in a place to either renegotiate or your deal is up or whatever. I once had a conversation with a very powerful music executive, and I was friends with the guy. So I was like, give me the insider psychology here. Now that I know the game that you run, what do you tell people like me when they get here? And he says, oh, it's just there's always a price. So they know that even if you get through the matrix of the whole thing and get out the other side,

that there's just a dollar amount that will buy you back in. Whoa. They're not worried that you'll go independent. And in fact, if you look at a lot of the machinations of the music business over the last 20 years, especially with the rise of the internet, it's to keep people in the system. Yes. They don't want true independence. Right, but it seems like... Look no further than the deals that the record labels cut with the streaming services.

Look no further than the deals that the record labels cut with the streaming services. They got into ownership equity deals with the streaming services in an arrangement for them to have an equity position. They agreed to very low rates for the artist's music. So when you listen to Bob Dylan's song on Spotify, Bob Dylan's not getting a lot of money for that. But as Spotify and the other streaming services raise up in their equity position, the labels benefit. So the labels pimped out their own artist to take a greater equity position in a rising business. It's like, you see what I'm saying?

Yeah. They weaken the artist's position to take a better position at the table themselves. That is fascinating. And they weaken the monetary position of compensation in order to get equity in the company. Right, and now you see it where Metallica's management, for example, has come out, and especially U2's former manager, Paul McGinnis, has come out.

They're trying to take on YouTube now because YouTube's got this weird, funky position where they'll pay on licensed music but they won't pay for covers and you know what I mean like YouTube's like one of the big targets of the business because whatever deal they agreed to with YouTube 10 years ago was super weak and but again these are all machinations that go on above the artist's spot right and you quick spot. Right. And a quick thing into your world, when McGregor leapt out and did the fight with Mayweather, he creates

this whole different set of dynamics because he can run his own game. Yes. UFC can't pay him that kind of money. And last I heard, he's like, maybe he's going to do another fight. So I don't want to get totally into that, but my point is, you see where those dynamics where people step outside the system, it changes the game. Yeah. So I'm not, I don't want to get totally into that, but my point is, is you see where those dynamics where people step outside

the system, it changes the game. Yeah. So it's actually kind of, you could, now, and I don't want to, you know, I've never met Dana White, but if Dana White could go back in a time machine, maybe he'd pay McGregor more money to keep him in his world, because now that he's out... I don't

think Conor would have accepted that. Okay, but... Yeah, I think he recognized the unique opportunity that he's in, so he think connor would have accepted that okay but yeah i think he recognized the unique opportunity that he's in so he probably sure and i'm talking about stuff as a fan you're on the other side of the fence but my point is is when you see when somebody breaks out of the sort of the matrix of how it's the game is set up right it creates this weird thing yeah and there are a few today though that have kind of figured it out through YouTube and all these different online... I think Chance the Rapper, I don't know much about his business, but I know he's sort of worked out this other model for himself. Yeah, Jamie knows a lot about him.

I know he's getting money from way other places than just the traditional record contracts. God bless him. He's got big deals from major companies like Sprite and other... And he's still independent, right? Technically? That's the word they would use to market him, like he's an independent artist, but he's got a deals from major companies like Sprite and other. And he's still independent, right? Technically. That's the word they would use to market him, like he's an independent artist, but he's got a machine behind him. So I don't know if he's independent. Yeah, I'm good friends with Sturgill Simpson. And Sturgill's tried to educate me as to how the record business keeps people in the fold with owning your merchandise and your likeness forever and all these different things.

It seems crazy. We actually signed a clause. It said, and this contract pertains to this universe and any universe not yet discovered. What? We signed that clause. Who wrote that? The record company. Jesusesus fucking what are they scientology that is crazy like we literally had to sign a thing and it was like this contract pertains to this known universe and any universe not yet discovered that is fucking insane that is insane like if someone found a parallel universe somewhere and they

figured out they could sell music to them. It's a parallel music. They haven't heard the Smashing Pumpkins. Get over there quick. Shoot a rocket ship filled with cash over there. Well, you know why they put that in is because when they transitioned to CDs, the contracts didn't account for CDs. Oh. And what they did, it's a very classic thing, is so they had to go back and renegotiate

all the deals because of the CD technology. This would have been like, whatever, 80s. Uh-huh. So they went to every artist and they said, look, it's this new technology and we're not sure it's going to work. So you got to take a price cut. We're only going to pay you 75 cents on the dollar so we could advance the new technology. Oh, Jesus Christ.

They're dirty. They're dirty. The Spotify thing is dirty. That makes me uncomfortable hearing how they weaseled that, how they negotiated cheap prices for the performers, then they got an equity position in the company. So as the company grows, because they don't have to pay much and they get all this music, they get money from that.

That is sneaky, dark, fucking 3D chess shit. Game of Thrones, man. It is. Game of Thrones. But, I mean, obviously, it's an organism surviving in the face of Napster, right? Like, Napster comes in. File sharing comes in. And they're like, holy shit.

Okay, so the internet is just out there, wild and free. And you can just download the music. The music is now digital. We can't control it. The music is now digital. We can't control it and it's just going and it drives some people crazy. I had Paul Stanley in here and you can see the fucking anger in his face when he's talking about people stealing music. Yeah. I was one of the first people that came out for Napster because I thought the music business

should get in bed with Napster. In essence, they let the monster grow. Right. I thought they should have brought Napster in-house. And made it like a pay-per-thing. Whatever. Yeah. But, I mean, if you want to be technical, I mean, the thing I help support, I mean, it probably cost me

$30 million, $40 million. Napster did. Yeah. That whole world. Easy. Sure. Yeah. I would imagine. And I'm not here to bitch. It's like the world went on and I'm not the only person. It wasn't targeted at me. And I supported it, so I got nothing to say.

But, I mean, yeah, at some point when you can't pay your stupid mortgage on your fifth property, you know, sad at Disneyland, you know what I mean? It's like I wish I had that money. You know what I mean? It's like, I wish I had that money. But it's a weird dynamic of the internet, of the free access of information. And then when a song, it's your creation, can just be boiled down to information, it's not that much different than forwarding an email in terms of people's access to it. The reason I supported in the beginning was I thought that the free association with music would create a more holistic fans finding what they want and that we would do well in that ecosystem. That turned out not to be the case. And I think now that it is sort of set up in the streaming service world, now that's starting to be the case because people are finding us because it's sort of organized and there's sort of institutional culture.

But when it was free wielding, I don't think we played the game well enough to take advantage of it. And, you know, a lot of trains just passed us by. Yeah, there was a lot of argument that people would find new music because of that in a way that they would have never found if the record companies and the radio stations had a lockdown on what got distributed? Somebody did a study. It's my one piece of empirical evidence.

Like the British Association of something, when it first became a real issue, did a study about people's fidelity to artists, whether they got something for free or they paid for it. And they found the loyalty was literally nil if they got it for free. That the actual act of purchasing something created a relationship that then created a sort of a desire to want to prove that the relationship was profitable. In essence, I buy your comedy concert. I didn't get it for free. It makes me actually assess whether or not my thing was a good investment. And if you prove to me it is,

I become more loyal to you because now we're in a relationship. That makes sense. Yeah. Like you want to justify your purchase. It also makes sense. Like when I was coming up and we do comedy clubs and they would paper the room and have giveaway free tickets. Oh, God, right. Audiences were terrible. They were terrible. You would think the people would be thankful. They got a free show.

Nope. They were the worst, most unappreciative audiences because they didn't have anything invested in it. That's it. It totally makes sense. So you saw it coming. You saw Napster coming. You looked at it and you were like, this is something that is inevitable. We should probably figure out a way to be with them.

Yeah, there's a piece of video of me from like 99 where I say the future of music is streaming. Whoa! Yeah. Damn, you called that. They put me in some documentary. I haven't seen it, but I've heard about it. Yeah, I've always wondered. Like, we're not on Spotify or with this podcast, but they have podcasts on it.

But I'm like, well, where's the money? Like, where is it going? Like, you want me to be on, right? But where's it going? Well, that's the – using Amazon as an example, remember for years the rap on Amazon was they're not a profitable business? Yeah. And nobody could understand because it was this new model. Well, now you understand that that business model is about growing the brand value.

Yeah. You know, in essence, if you grow the brand value, your net worth as a brand, it far outpaces whether or not you're profitable. Does it make sense? Yes, it does. whether or not you're profitable. Does it make sense? Yes, it does. So that's part of my argument now with music is the brand, and I'll use my brand,

Smashing Pumpkins or the NWA is far more valuable than my sort of profit loss on paper in the world of the open market. And so as long as you appreciate that, you won't let people come along and gut out your brand value. That's a fascinating way of looking at it. I don't think very many musicians probably... No, because they're surrounded by people who are telling them it's a profit loss

business. Full well-knowing, I would argue, that they kind of know deep down it really isn't. Like, let's use a good positive example right now. GNR, you know, reformed, you know, Duff and Axl and Slash are out there. I just saw them at Madison Square Garden. I mean, that's proving to be a very durable brand. Right? Now, you could argue how many record, nobody cares anymore. That's a durable brand. The GNR brand or the Harley Davidson brand or the Joe Rogan brand,

those are durable brands that, that are worth far more than you could sort of prove on paper. The GNR ones is fascinating one to me because Axl just went off the rails and into the woods for so long shooting his face up with a bunch of shit. And it looks like he was just gone. It looks like we lost him. I mean, to me as a kid,

guns and roses, like, I mean, they were like, welcome to the jungles. Like one of my all-time favorite songs when I was like 18 or whatever old I was when it came out. I mean, it was amazing. And then to see them just have this incredible success and then Axl goes crazy. But I would argue, and I don't mean this in a disparaging way,

But I would argue, and I don't mean this in a disparaging way, I would argue that the freedom in Axl and the path that they took is added to the brand. I think so too, because people are so thankful they're back. I would argue it differently. I think that when you look, and I'm speaking as a fan now, when I look at Axl Rose, I see a free person. That means more to me than whether he did the right thing in 2000X. I'm more interested in that. That's a unique perspective. So you like the fact that he didn't give a fuck

and he just went crazy. I love that about Axl Rose. I love that about Axl Rose. I love that he doesn't give two fucks about anything. I think that's so fascinating. Because there are only a few American iconic artists that are truly free. Yeah. And the fact that, so it's like, was Hunter Thompson, S. Thompson free?

You know, it's like, we only have a few of those people. Yeah. Johnny Cash, right? Johnny Cash had some weird bad years. Yeah. You know, was every year of Johnny Cash Perfect was every year of Neil Young perfect. It's the sum total of what that person represents right that I think is the durability Say we as a fans we get into like well, I don't like the new song or I think that misses the mark

There's only one Guns N' Roses in the whole world. And I have fought mightily internally to protect what the Smashing Pumpkins means. I know it's not for everybody, but there's only one Smashing Pumpkins. I know that. I knew that as a kid, and then I got a little lost in it, and I've come out the other side, and I realized that protecting what that brand is worth is so much more valuable than whether somebody liked one song or one album or something I said in 1992. It's so inconsequential. That's such a unique perspective when you look at Axl Rose from the point of view of

being a fellow performer too. One of the things I really enjoy about Axl Rose is I love comebacks. I love when someone fucks their life up and then just brings it right back around. I mean- It's like a good fight, right? Well, it's like, success stories are awesome. Love them. But they're fairly commonplace.

But success, complete fuck up, success again. Those are the stories. Those are the ones I enjoy. It's very American, you know. We love the comeback. And there were some performances of Axl's when they were attempting to come back, or maybe he was touring on his own. I forget which one it was.

Well, he was like off. He wasn't quite there yet. And now you see him now live, and he's fucking killing it. It's like he turned it around. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You could sit there and talk about what somebody did in some year past, but if they put it back together, they put it back together not because they're trying to satisfy something. They're putting it together because the forces within them are not easily controlled.

But it's like a good fighter, right? When they put it all together. I've heard you talk on commentary. It's like a good fighter like manages their adrenaline manages their their focus you know what i mean you can't go completely hog wild and you can't be too conservative you're right on that line yeah and that's what performance really is like it's like a lot of people outside the bubble have a hard time understanding this like you know every night i step on stage i want to do a good show sometimes it's just not there to be had it could be the moon

or it could be what i eat for breakfast. I don't know. If I could be consistent about it, I don't think that makes me as fascinating as somebody who's like rolling the dice every time I'm up there. Yeah. I think that's much more interesting. Well, that's one of the things that makes live shows so unique, right? Is that you know that this guy is doing it right now. It's all happening. The words are coming out of his mouth.

He's managing this moment. Apparently, yeah. Yeah. I mean, when you're a successful performer like yourself and you see one hit wonders, one hit wonders have always freaked me the fuck out. And I don't know why because I'm not even a musician, but just the horror of being successful and hitting and then it all going away and then you're fucked. Yeah, I was terrified of that. God, it's got to be so scary.

Yeah. That's, to me, one of the more, one of the weirder opportunities or moments in pop culture is when that kind of stuff happens. Because with one song, you know, She's My Cherry Pie, you can just shoot to the top of the charts. Didn't they have two hits, though? I think they had a couple, you can just shoot to the top of the charts. Didn't they have two hits though? I think they had a couple, right? So they're two hit wonders.

Yeah. But you know, there's a gang of bands that had just one killer. Yeah, I don't want to say the band, but like somebody I know went to see one of those one hit wonder type bands

and they did their big famous song and the crowd went crazy and then, you know, they finished the show and then came back on for the encore and they did the song again. The same song? Yeah. And that's like, like for me as a performer that's just heartbreaking it's like it'd be like me playing today twice or something and here it is again

yeah that's oh two versions of stairway would be like the dice man coming out and doing oh the rhymes again yeah Yeah. Yeah. The thing about becoming a character, what you were talking about, that is a fascinating trap that I could imagine would be difficult. The expectations of your fans. You know, I just love the fact that you've managed that so comfortably. Well, not according to a lot of people, and I haven't, but I'm comfortable with it. That's all that matters. I would argue that.

That's true. Like, you know, I've been playing these acoustic shows, and, you know, at some point people start shouting out songs. And I just say to the audience, look, the great thing about turning 50 is I don't give a fuck what you want. I'm just going to do what I want to do. And at the end of the day, right, that sells better to most of the audience. And at the end of the day, right, that sells better to most of the audience. Because most of the audience, I would argue, appreciates me being independent, even if they don't always get what they want, than being a shill. Yes.

I don't think people get behind rebels because they want them to sell out. They get behind rebels because they want them to stay rebellious. Yes. Well, yeah, for every person who yells out, I want you to do your old stuff, there's many more people that just want you to be you. Yeah, I would hope, yeah. Yeah, I would think so. Yeah. You're doing really intimate places.

Like, you're doing that Hollywood Cemetery thing. Yeah, it's pretty wild playing the cemetery. And my friend Duncan used to do comedy shows out of there. Oh, really? Yeah. They do comedy there? They used to. Duncan's crazy, though. He just decided.

I don't think anybody else did it before him. He just decided he wanted to do it. It's a bit strange, you know? Yeah. It's just weird that they have a concert venue. Like, we couldn't sound check until a certain time because there were bereaved people coming in to make their funeral arrangements. Yeah. It's like a weird thing.

Like, yeah, we can't sound check until 530 because there's somebody in the anteroom making burial arrangements for their family. Yeah, legitimately. Yeah. Yeah, like it's a real cemetery that also has concerts. Yeah. How many is his seat? 250. Oh, wow.

It's really small. It's a cool vibe. It's beautiful. I mean, it's really cool. It's, I love the old Hollywood stuff. So, you know, it's, it works for me, but it is a bit weird. Yeah. I literally texted, you know, like an ex-girlfriend, like I'm literally playing a cemetery.

You know what I mean? It's like, it just sounds so like, what? Yeah. I literally texted, you know, like an ex-girlfriend, like, I'm literally playing a cemetery. You know what I mean? It's like, it just sounds so like, what? Yeah. Well, what chose you or what made you choose that venue? That's, you know, you got your agent sort of, you know, when you're playing, I'm playing acoustic. I played over two hours literally by myself. No help. So environment helps a lot with kind of creating the atmosphere to do that in

the more sterile the environment the less it feels kind of special right right and so i do find the environment certainly helps yeah that's a that's a small group of people to see you like what is that like to go from these big venues to doing these intimate settings i used to really find that i could play a different show, small versus big. And I found over the last 10 years, I blame the internet that almost every audience is now the same. Wow. That the expectations of the audience from 250 to 5,000 or up is almost identical. That may also have something to do with just having a long career and then people kind of say, I want to see these songs or something. Yeah. But I don't find as much willingness to take the journey as it used to be.

Because in the 90s, we would do shows in a club and we would play no hits and just play weird B-sides and people loved it because it was like, I'm seeing the band I wouldn't get to see at the Enormadome. Right, right. And then at some point that stopped and we would play a small club and play a bunch of weird stuff and people would be furious. Really? Yeah. You would look at Twitter afterwards like, fuck you. You ruined my night. You know?

Really? Furious. Wow. Furious. But how many of those people were, I mean, like if you're in front of 400 people, how many of those people were furious? Is it three? It would be a lot. That would be a lot.

No, it was a lot. Strange. Weird. Yeah. I just, I don a lot. No, it was a lot. Strange. Weird. Yeah. I just, I don't know. I think it's a cultural thing maybe, you know. A generational thing perhaps? Don't know.

Don't know. It surprised me because I grew up in this kind of anarchy time, you know, mosh pits and, you know, we used to play a 45 minute song. Really? Can you imagine playing a 45 minute song today? Yeah. I mean, a 45 minute song. That's-minute song today? Yeah. I mean, a 45-minute song. That's crazy.

You know, so. Do you enjoy being on top of people like that, like a 250 seat? It doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me at all. Does it feel different? Or do you just get into your music? In order to play acoustic, I go super within. I found that even because originally originally was going to stand,

and this I know seems kind of minor detail, but I decided to sit. And I actually found by sitting and being very still and just performing and doing my best job of performing the songs, the audience enjoyed the show better. Like I took out all the showbiz. You know, when you're standing, you're doing the, you know, whatever. Of course, yeah. Your moves. Right. all the showbiz you know when you're standing you're doing the yeah yeah yeah you know whatever your moves right i think creating a level of intimacy and drawing the audience forward is probably the only sort of difference maker that i've found because there's literally no there's no showbiz i mean what can i do you seem very concerned with like you you want the audience

to enjoy it yeah i didn't used to care. I used to view performing as an art project thing, which is I want to sort of create a provocative situation. And then I want to ride the wave of the provocative situation. And, and of course, I grew up in a generational thing that the audience was sort of interested in that sort of the explosive nature of the mosh pit. And, you know, this kind of weird sublimated violence that would kind of come out during the shows and we were part of the engine that would sort of bring out this emotional quality and then at some point you know things change again i don't know if it's a generational thing but i i found that um the only way i could play older music with a good heart and an open mind was to get into the others appreciating it because if you ask me it's not for me anymore because in essence as an artist and and and i'm

not trying to jump in your head but my as as an artist i want to be able to say how do i feel tonight and tonight i want to i've written like 400 songs so to me i would like to say okay of these 400 songs i just feel like playing these 15 songs tonight but I can't do that because I do have to go out and do the hickory dickory dock poem it's like yeah it's it's sort of it's sort of expected and if I don't I'm gonna get lit up right so I had to kind of create this weird truce in my mind where it's like what way can I do this material in a way that feels heartfelt and genuine? And I found by letting myself appreciate the audience's appreciation of that created like a joy that I didn't have before. It didn't feel like a defeat and a tapping out to the moment.

It felt like, oh, okay, we can create this exchange. Was this a gradual process? Yeah, it took me a while because I came from such complete anarchy that to sort of put myself in the straitjacket of being a, you know, growing up in the era I grew up in, it felt like putting on the gold lame jacket and going to Vegas. That's what it felt like to me. You know, it felt like I was really, you know, I'd become, you know, one of those guys, you know, doing the musty old routine. It was like, this is so antithetical to why I even became an artist.

But at some point, again, I had to appreciate that. And I talked about it once with Pete Townsend in private. It's like the idea that, you know, what is your responsibility to a generational memory? Like Pete was talking to me once

about how people were getting mad at him for using, and I saw him quoted publicly, so I don't feel like I'm giving anything away. people were getting mad at him for using, and I saw him quoted publicly, so I don't feel like I'm giving anything away. People were getting mad at him for using, like, won't get fooled again in a car commercial. And Pete's quote was something along the lines of like, I don't care if you lost your virginity to Mary Lou in the backseat to my song. It's my song. I can do with it what I want.

So it takes time to sort of appreciate that at some point if you've been lucky enough and it and i am lucky enough to have created a few kind of cultural milestones for a generation or multiple generations that they feel very possessive of those things and so if you're not willing to possess them with them it almost feels like to them you're rejecting their idea not your own oh wow see to my mind i'm like well i'm the author if i don't feel like playing that song i mean that's my that's my decision so you sold them on something and then if you're not buying anymore then they're it almost feels like you're rejecting their approval yes yeah and when you're surrounded by a bunch of sycophantic artists who are literally tripping

all over themselves to give the audience what they want to create this kind of idealized, isn't this amazing feeling. And we've all been to those shows. It's like, it's the greatest concert ever. And then you go to the next show and it's the exact same lines in between the songs and it's Vegas, right? I'm incapable of that. So my way of feeling it was, but my appreciation of that was was to try to get inside the head of why the audience needed that from me because it felt burdensome like why me like get it from the guy over there like there's plenty of people you can get this vibe from why me well that's the nickelback thing right like people demand sincerity and if they think that you're in like nickelback's not that bad but they're the fucking punchline of punchlines when

it comes to bad bad music and to me the guy's an incredible writer i mean um chad i mean he's an incredible songwriter i like their songs yeah i like some of their music i do i know it's some of it is like cliche subject matter, and I don't care. There's a lot of great songs that have cliche subject matter. Yeah, see, to me, I don't think there's anything, and I'm not trying to, I don't know enough about their world, but I don't think there's anything wrong if that's who you want to be. Yes. Pop, to me, is predicated on satisfying.

Pop, I've said it many times, pop is porn. It's porn. They want to get on satisfying. Pop, I've said it many times, pop is porn. It's porn. They want to get you off. Right, right. And it's just how they're going to get you off. That's a good way of looking at it. I'm not that concerned with getting you off. I'm just not.

I'm just not. It's just not in my DNA. I was never that guy. I was never that guy. So at some point, pick your age, 41. You got some guy tapping on your shoulder saying, hey, I need you to never that guy i was never that guy so so at some point you know pick your age 41 you got some guy tapping their shoulder saying hey i need you to be that guy you're like me have you looked at me lately i mean right i'm not that guy it's very strange so i had to get inside the head of why people needed that like what that did for them and sort of a very general

level it's sort of it's a it a, it's a community thing or something. Yes. And so there's a way to do it where it feels good, positive, loving, and, and, and proportional. Like it doesn't have to be slavish and it can be cool. Like, okay, this is the right moment for it. Or I can set this up and now I can do it. Like using the Dice Man as an example, I've seen him a couple of times. I laughed my ass off when I saw him.

And when I saw him, he did his whole routine. He showed up at the comedy store one night. I just happened to be there with a friend and he did like an unannounced appearance. He was fantastic. And at the end, he kind of made the face and then he went into it. But it felt like it was the only way he could top the moment right so right in that moment it felt like okay this is cool because it's like it feels like hey you've been good we ate the whole cake together here's the cherry yeah but when it feels like

i gotta do this because that's the game i don't know he went through that whole process himself like he abandoned the rhymes for a long time. Did he even kind of try to abandon the character a bit? I have a little bit of a memory of that. Yeah, he did a television show, like a regular sitcom. And he cried on some TV show, like Arsenio Hall or something like that, about people angry at him for being controversial. Yeah, I don't remember that. The early days of political correctness when mtv first came

around you know yeah it was uh i think it was a little bit of a trap that he felt like he was in and now i think in a similar fashion maybe similar and and using him as a sort of a as an example how many comedians have actually risen up to that zeitgeist level oh almost none i mean it's been like a. He was as hot as you could be. Ever. So, paralleling my own self in that way, it does create this weird,

because, because, the 20% who know every song, and whatever, and know every nuance, the other 80%, they just know the, the greatest hit thing.

It's not their fault. It feels weird, like, is that all I am? I've done all this, you know, didn't you see me when I waved this flag? No, they don't. All they know is you're the rat in the cage guy. And you can be hostile about it all you want. It's not going to change.

I mean, the amount of times I've been in a parking garage or a grocery store or whatever, and somebody who's very nice, very respectful will walk up to me, and that's what they know. And if you can be humble about it, I think it's pretty amazing that literally I can get off any exit in America, and pretty much anywhere I go, somebody has some reference to what I've done. That's pretty remarkable. So if you can get behind that, you can think, oh, that's pretty cool. I'm cool with that. It's not this oppositional thing like you should have paid more attention in 94.

Right. The revolution was happening. Where were you? You were listening to somebody else. Right, like there's requirements in order to be a fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's also part and parcel to when you take a fringe movement, which, you know, alternative music, grunge, whatever it was,

and it's thrown in the mainstream, those social codes and mores don't translate very well to mainstream code. Yeah. If you look at what pop people have done in the last 10 years, they just steal that stuff. They take this coat and they take this walk and they take this dance and they take this production style and they say, I'll take that. Yeah, they just combine it all together yeah because it's because that's their gig i've always wondered what it's like when you are uh when you're beginning as an artist

you know you're you're idealistic you have all these ideas about what the future could be who knows it's all wide open and then all of a sudden many years later you are a fucking massive superstar selling out arenas how difficult is it to find people who understand where your head is impossible do you do you like seek out other superstar musicians and talk i did and I got nowhere there either. Really? Yeah. I've had a hard time ever getting good data.

Let's put it that way. The freakiest thing was I saw how it changed my inner world, meaning friends and family. How so? My step-grandfather, who was a World War II vet, very closed down, classic Eisenhower, Republican type of guy, smart, you know what I mean, had literally zero interest in me as a kid. I mean, negative zero interest. And one day I'm sitting there at Christmas and now grandpa wants to talk to me about the economics of my success. Whoa. And it's like, like that got through to him because some guy at work or somebody at the church brought me up and it was like, oh, that's my grandson.

You know, nothing about childhood, you know, childhood tears did anything. But that, you know, I saw where it warped the gravity in my family. And then you get the friend like, you know, you're different like yeah i'm different of course i'm different you know what i mean i you know what i mean it's like i've got a million dollars in my pocket you know what i mean i could buy you know yeah i mean you know i one day walked into beverly hills and paid cash for a ferrari and it's just dumb stuff like that's kind of awesome though. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. People don't like the idea of that. No, I think it's funny, right? It's amazing.

You bought a Ferrari with money that you had on you. That's fucking crazy. And it was the classic story I walk in. You know, the guy didn't know who I was. Of course. He's like, so how are you going to pay for this? And I was like, cash. You have a brick with you.

He's like, wow. That's just an awesome thing to be able to do so stupid right it's like so i'm saying you go from like literally complete not abject power poor i had no money right you know and then one day i'm like throwing you know g's around for yeah dumb cars and well it's also you you reach such a high level that there's nothing above that like i have the i have the antidote my manager uh who uh was you know we were with the metallic guys at the time he called me on like a wednesday or something and he said i can't say for sure but more than likely based on the calls we're getting you're going to be number one this week meaning melancholy and I literally said is there a position

higher like I couldn't process that there wasn't like another step you couldn't keep going well that's what I always wondered like when you reach a certain level and you're selling out these giant arenas and you're one of the biggest bands literally ever you're like one of the top 100 biggest bands of all time, right?

Arguably. Yeah. We're in there, yeah. It's in there. Yeah. Where the fuck do you go? Like, it had to be this weird- Yeah, I would imagine that madness is the only option.

Madness sort of becomes attractive at that point. God, that's got to be so strange to be just crushing it, selling out these giant arenas, number one songs going, now what? What the fuck do we do? Do we fade away? No, we went crazy. We just lost our minds. What happened?

What was the process? Did you see it slipping away? Did you see the madness? Yeah. And it's like a bad relationship or bad relationships. It becomes a lot clearer when you're out. You know, at the time you sort of do your own rationalization, like, oh, he or she's going crazy, not me.

We all went crazy in four different directions. Wow. And the great shame of my band was musically, we were super tight and we never disagreed on music. It was like this weird phenomenon where musically we were like totally in sync. We could produce and write music very, very quickly. And it was always the other stuff around us. So that sort of ate at the core. And then when we lost our personal relationship, that's what diminished the musical relationship. But you don't know it at the time because you're sort of, I don't want to say arrogance, not the right word, but it's like you have a sort of a, you know, you got a little bit

of a thing in your walk and you think, you know, you got the world by the you know what and all good. You think you can power your way through anything because you have. Right. You don't understand that you do actually need the people standing next to you. I have such a greater appreciation for my man-mates now that I've seen what we actually did accomplish in, you know, surrounded by chaos, but then we created our own chaos, and then at some point it all blurs.

What were the things that fucked it up? Was it the money and the fame, and was it the tension? Was it the ego? I think we were like one of those bad behind the musics. It was a very early conversation. I remember we had these managers very early on and they were coming to town sort of courting us before we had a record deal.

And one day they came to town and they said, can we just go out to breakfast with you? Which was weird because it was always the whole band, like, you know, democracy. And they said, now, who writes the songs? And I said, well, I do. And they said, well, that's going to be a problem. I'm like, what do you mean that's going to be a problem?

They said, well, songwriters and bands make a lot more money. So our suggestion is you should share your songs with your bandmates to keep sort of a kind of a democratic stasis. And they used some examples of bands who did and i thought hell no i'm not i'm i'm not giving them my work i mean it's my songs and they were like you don't understand you're going to make a lot more money and i was like tough you know what i mean it's like live and learn kind of thing why do you think you were going to make more money because songwriters get if you quick lesson the songwriter gets paid separate statutorily by the government than the than the actual copyright of the recording so if I'm on Joe Rogan's label you pay the band for

the recording which of course in that case would be split four ways but you owe me a statutory rate as a songwriter for the sale, which I think these days is about 10 cents. So every record we sold where I was the sole songwriter, I was getting 10 cents that they weren't getting or eight cents or whatever it was at the time. So you can imagine over a gazillion records sold, it added up. Yeah. So I start pulling away financially.

You know what I mean? But when you're a kid and you're 23 and somebody's having this conversation with you and you literally don't even have an apartment. Right. And somebody's trying to tell you how you're going to make a lot more money. It's like, what does that mean? Fast forward four years later and it's like, I'm making a lot more money. So that sort of sows, it organically sows discontent. Yes.

You know, it's a, whether you call it jealousy or not. And then as I emerged as sort of the auteur and the big mouth in the band and maybe the person who was most willing to be controversy or whatever, we'd get in a room with journalists and they would just talk to me. And then we'd get out of the interviews and the band members would yell at me for them not being asked questions. me for them not being asked questions. So it's like this weird thing, like it was my responsibility to push them more as stars or... Yeah. So it's not just about the music. It's about being appreciated and successful and famous.

Now, in hindsight and in fairness to them, I didn't appreciate why it was important to them. Because in their minds, we're all equal. We're in the room together. Yeah, you write the songs that's cool but at least give me the social currency right of being recognized or yeah you know or somebody would offer me alone a magazine cover and if i was smart which i wasn't i should have said no only the band or nothing but i was like sure put me on the cover i'll take it you

know what i mean right you probably would have thought they would do the same thing if someone came to that absolutely and then of course it becomes tit for tat then like two of the band members went on their own and made a record deal without me they got somebody to give them a bunch of money to start a label

which they had every right to do you know what I mean so suddenly they're like making side deals and it starts getting all that weird business. And now again, it's like an erosion factor. You don't appreciate it from within. There's a lot of compression. There's a lot of money. There's a lot of stuff going on. And then one day it sort of hollows out and then it's too late. You know, you can't just sort of sit down and have a meeting and make it all okay. Cause the wounds are deep. And in our case, I mean i mean the wounds lasted for i didn't talk to darcy for 17 years whoa and i didn't talk to james for i think 16 wow so we that name in the heat was was real i mean we didn't there were lawsuits and all sorts of stuff it's such a common story that

i hope someone listens to this part of your conversation as well. They won't. It's just human nature, right? Is that what it is? Power corrupts, man. Yeah. And again, you know, no sympathy asking here. But wouldn't today, though? I mean, it wouldn't today. Like, I feel like if you were in a similar position today,

you'd have hindsight in your favor. Oh, yeah. No, no, I would. Yeah. I mean, and even talking about the band going back on a tour and the possibility of that, it's like, I approach it completely different.

Yeah. So that's what I'm saying, like power doesn't necessarily corrupt, it corrupts if you don't know what the fuck it's going to do to you. Sure, yeah, but again,

and I'm not, I'm not preaching for sympathy, but the, and I can't speak for the modern music business, but the business we were in, in the 90s, we were surrounded by people who were giving us wrong information. Now, were they giving us wrong information on purpose or because they weren't bright enough? I don't know, but we weren't getting the right information.

Very few people actually try to sit us down and say, look, this is going to be a problem. Trust me. You know, it's like you're in there with the hounds and there's just right and they probably don't have the time for psychological management anyway they're probably in the middle of just trying to figure out how to make money off you and my my understanding is they and i again going back to the conversation i had with the executive they just basically look and they say you've got four years if you're lucky if you're lucky so why are they gonna yeah why are they gonna spend a bunch of time trying to hold your hand knowing you're gonna lose anyway what a crazy relationship between

the record labels and the artists it's it's similar i guess probably like the pit boss if you're having a hot run at like roulette and the pit boss is just like enjoy it now yeah because we're gonna get back. That's what it feels like. What percentage of musicians or musical artists that get signed by a label and put something out ever wind up having an actually successful career? Probably less than 10%. Jesus Christ. I would say it's probably even smaller. What a meat grinder of a business. You would think like, hey, man, we're on fucking Warner Brothers, dude.

We made it. It's happening. They're going to promote us. They're going to push us. They signed us. And sorry to interrupt again, but the other weird thing is, again, the system I was in was even if you were successful, it was set up to make you feel like you weren't successful. Right. Because that was the work.

That was the manipulation. Yeah. I once said to somebody who is a very famous name in the business, it's like you guys find a needle in the haystack and then you spend the next 20 years telling them they're not a needle in the haystack. Right. Right. What I'm trying to say, and I'm not saying it well, is you would think you would be surrounded by people who are telling you, you're talented, you're special, we want to help you because the more you succeed, we'll succeed and we'll all succeed together. It was the exact opposite. It was like, no, you're dumb.

You're wrong. No, you're crazy. Don't do that. You're going to ruin it. And even if you'd say, I want to wear this even if you'd say i want to wear this hat okay i'm gonna wear this hat and when it wouldn't work they'd say see you should listen to us is that universal have you heard other musicians say the same i would guess it was universal because looking back it doesn't feel personal to me it felt like i i you know use your bad analogy pimp ho i don't know. It's a weird con job thing.

That was my experience. It was a lot of con jobs. That Courtney Love piece that she wrote about the music business, I'm sure you're aware of that. Was it recent? No, a bunch of years ago. I think it was actually probably before digital got really huge. And a lot of people thought she had a ghostwriter.

But it was really eye-opening to a lot of people that didn't know anything about the music business. Like where the money actually goes and how much money has to be spent and how little you actually make, even though if you sell a shit ton of records. You've never seen this? It's pretty famous. No, no. It's from 2000, actually. It was on Sal on salon.com it might have been one of the years we weren't talking oh there you go yeah well it's for people who haven't read it it's pretty eye

open i've i've nothing to do with the music business i've always been absolutely fascinated as a completely objective observer just looking at it going this whole thing seems so crazy because it's if you do not get signed and if you do not get promoted at least until recently you had no chance they they literally controlled the reins in the direction of your career almost like an actor like you can't make it as an actor unless you get an audition and someone chooses to put you in a film but like a a great Greek mythology type myth thing, the music business has made two critical mistakes over the last 30 or so years that led to its current sort of reduced status. One was they let MTV run amok on free content.

And when they tried to rein MTV in, MTV basically told them to take a hike and the music business backed down. So when MTV stopped playing music content, there was nothing the music business could do because they'd given away all their leverage to MTV. And then the second was when Napster showed up and they acted like Napster was a virus that they just needed to stamp out. Not realizing that Napster was just the beginning of a whole wave of new technologies and new sort of social interactions or something.

Those two critical errors led to the music business reduced position. And it's this music, I mean, music has been around forever, but the music business has been around, what, 100 or so years? Yeah, I think we're into 120 plus years of recordings. Yeah, it's just amazing how, what an iron fist they've managed to control the business with and to sort of wrangle the artists for the most part. Well, it's Wizard of Oz, you know. Don't look behind the curtain.

Have you ever thought about being on the other side? Yeah, I have, but I just don't have that much. Actually, that's why I'm more interested in wrestling. I think I like that. I like the, even though it's a sort of weird business, I sort of like that because it doesn't have anything to do with music. I have too much damage and too many, I don't think I could see clearly. Does it make sense?

It's like, it's still too weird for me. Yeah, no, it does. It does make sense. When you first, when I first came to LA in whatever, 90 and had the meetings and you'd be in that office and the people with the beards and everything. And they'd be like, so when we put the product out and every time they would say product, I would sort of wince. Product?

Like, how can you call my art product? You know what I mean? And that's, to them, it's just, it's cookies and toilet paper. It's just, it's just it's cookies and toilet paper it's just it's whatever and um and it's not to say they're not fans and they don't appreciate you know or they don't care but at the end of the day it's just some sort of weird business you know and like all institutional cultures that are sort of kind of corrupt at their core it just kind of runs on its own inertia it's just it just does when you see someone like Chance the Rapper break out of

that system, do you think that that's a model that can be followed or is he just like an outlier? No, it's certainly a model that can be followed, but it probably works because he's so talented. It's like a weird combination. I mean, use the McGregor example. It's like, how many McGregors are there in the world? And beyond being a skilled fighter, I mean, the guy's an A-level talker. Speaking from a professional wrestling standpoint,

the guy's probably the best promo in the world. Yeah. No, he's the best. Right? I mean... As far as MMA guys. And it's also,

he is in this very unique position where he has insane support from Ireland. I mean, insane. Like, you've never seen anything like it. I've been calling fights for a long time. I've been working for the UFC since 97. You've never seen anything like it. I've been calling fights for a long time.

I've been working for the UFC since 97. I've never seen anybody like him. I've never seen any support like the support the Irish people have for him. It's fucking crazy. Did you see the videos of when he fought Mayweather? Not even where they fought. They were in Mandalay Bay. Irish had flooded Mandalay Bay.

You know that walkway from Mandalay Bay as you walk towards the arena and towards where the shark exhibit is and shit? There was nothing but Irish people singing. And it's fucking crazy, man. It's like, who organized this? No one. Who told them

to start singing? They did it organically. As an Irish descendant you know we've been waiting for a long time for a connor mcgregor yeah man i guess i mean poets and mono you know what i mean we needed a fighter in there too yeah someone who's fun yeah but to see all those people cheer and scream and you know i was talking to daniel cormier about it this past weekend he's like there's no one like him he He goes, because he loses, he doesn't lose any support. It doesn't change anything. And people respect the fact that he took a chance and fought Mayweather.

Can I ask you a fanboy UFC question? So Cormier lost to Jon Jones, right? Yes. And he lost because Jones was on whatever, right? Yes. I mean, how lost because Jones was on whatever, right? Yes. I mean, how does a guy like that, I'm asking more of a psychological question because he's obviously,

Cormie's a great fighter. How do you sort of process that? Well, I mean, you have to really wonder, it hasn't been established what happened, right? So there's a lot of speculation. I don't know if you know

the most recent speculation that I talked about the other day. I don't. The most recent speculation is that John might have snorted cocaine that was cut with creatine that was contaminated with steroids. Because if you look at the timeline, I know, if you look at the timeline, and John loves some cocaine. But if you look at the timeline of when John tested negative and when John tested positive, it is preposterous to think that he thought that he could take it and not pass. But the fight coincides with 10 days out from his birthday party where he apparently got blitzkrieged. So it is entirely possible that, and this is just massive speculation, but we have

done some research online and found that there have been cases of creatine that was contaminated by cheap creatine from China, contaminated with steroids, specifically the type of steroid that he tested positive for. And creatine is often used to cut cocaine apparently so it is entirely possible that he did blow and that blow had steroids in it through the contaminated creatine okay but back to cormier so cormier lost the question is did he lose because john jones is a cheater or did he lose because John Jones is an amazing fighter so the the second one would be harder to deal with because if he lost because John Jones is an amazing fighter did coke ten days out before their title fight and

kicked his ass and now they give Daniel the title back it's very weird yeah that's why I was asking more as a fan like a yeah the psychological perspective we need a real fucking lie detector test that's what we need we do not we we value honesty so much and there's very little other than some rudimentary observations they can make with fmri um functional magnetic imaging uh resonance imaging which do you want to be lie detect yes strap me up man that'd be a good podcast i try to tell the truth have you done that podcast as much as humanly possible that'd be funny right i've never been have you ever like like have you ever thought about so and so in a particular way i jump at the opportunity to

expose things that i think are fucked up about me. But that one, I mean, when it comes to cheating in combat sports, it has such an intense significance to it that it's not an option or it's not a factor in other sports is that you can cause damage to your opponent, like physical damage that could affect them for the rest of their life. Right, right. That was the case with Vitor Belfort when he fought Michael Bisping.

He head kicked Bisping and knocked him out and Bisping suffered a really badly detached retina in his eye and went on to have, I think, several surgeries and now has oil in his eye. If you look at his eye, there's permanent oil to protect his retina that he has to leave in there until he decides to quit fighting and then he'll have another surgery on it. The question is, did Vitor land that because he's highly skilled or did he land it because he's highly skilled

and taking testosterone? You increase your ability to cause damage and that changes the game. It's not like hitting a baseball. If a guy's on steroids and he hits a baseball and his team won and your team lost, I get how the team would be upset that he's a cheater. But it's just not the same impact.

It doesn't have the same ramifications. Yeah, well, especially when you're talking about the angle of a punch and tenth of a second being the difference between a glancing blow and a knockout yeah that's what's so crazy it's like you get into this fractional idea of what is just there's so many factors there's speed there's the amount of energy that you have and then there's psychological factors like confidence there's no There's no metric to figure out what kind of an effect being a juiced up psychopath has. Like if you're someone who like Vitor Belfort, who's already highly skilled,

and then you pump him full of steroids and he comes out there like motherfucker, like he just like feels like he can't lose and then he has so much confidence and then all this skill on top of that. I hate to pick on him, but he's my favorite example because the difference between him on testosterone and him off testosterone is so radical. There's been these photos side to side of the two of them together and you're just like,

wow. One of them's a destroyer. The other one is a dad. He's a dad bod. It's weird. So if that's the case with Jon Jones, what do you want to pull it up? It's a related breaking story right now. Uh-oh.

Yeah, there's two breaking stories in the MMA world right now. I'll go with this one since you're talking about it. Anderson Silva fails out of UFC Shanghai main event. Makes sense. He's 40. What did he fail for? Did it say? It doesn't say the sample B test that failed from an October 26th collection.

Huh. So that was a couple weeks ago. That's interesting. From a sample B test. Sorry, I didn't say sample. It just says sample collected. Oh, okay. It didn't say the actual drug.

Because they don't test sample B unless sample A is. Well, I'm not surprised. This is the other thing going on right now. Conor McGregor jumps the cage at Bellator 187 conference referee Mark Goddard. Yeah, I heard about that. Definitely don't do that. Yeah, I don't know what that was about. I don't know why he did that.

Yeah, you like that though. Look, the wrestling. I'm already booking the main event. How do you have time for that wrestling stuff? I just make time. You just make time because you enjoy it. Yeah, I love it. Yeah.

For all those fucking crazy emo kids that are just massive Smashing Pumpkins fans, there's so many of them that must drive them nuts. Yeah. But that's part of it. That's wrestling. Tough shit, right? It is what it is. Yeah, yeah. So to answer your question, Daniel Cormier is an awesome guy. I mean, it really breaks my heart

when I see people get upset and boo him, people that don't like him. I just don't think they know him. And for whatever reason, he is, I mean, to be completely honest, he's always going to be in the shadow of the greatest light heavyweight champion of all time and that's john john's the greatest i mean he's he's so uniquely talented and special and just there's something about him all across

the board and part of his partying and all that shit is kind of connected to that because he's fucking wild and it's one of the reasons why. Look, when he fought Shogun for the title, he was 23 years old. He opens the fight with a flying knee. Who fights a legend like Mauricio Shogun, who was like one of the greatest ever in pride, former light heavyweight champion at the time. Jon Jones fights him. He's 23 years old, and his opening move is a flying knee that lands.

I mean, he's just uniquely improvisational, creative, wild, talented, physically incredibly dominant, very strong. Got a crazy body for the game, like really long limbs. Yeah, the long thing, yeah. And strong, though. He's not frail. Like, the difference between John is he's got long limbs, but he has that strong wrestling base. Yeah.

So even though he's like a thin guy, he's very physically strong. It's a strange comparison to make, but back in the day, I used to hang out a lot with Dennis Rodman when he was playing for the Bulls. And he had freakish strength. Kind of similar body, very long. You wouldn't look at him and think muscles. And Rodman could pick a 250-pound man up with one hand and lift him over a rope. I saw him do it at a club. The guy was acting up, and Dennis just reached over.

The guy picked him up like this. And then even people would remember NBA fans. Dennis used to guard, Dennis used to guard Shaq one-on-one. Yeah. And that was when Shaq was what, you know, 340 or something. Right, right.

Dennis would just, and that was when they had the whole thing, you couldn't use your hand, you had the elbow and all that stuff. He'd guard him one-on-one. Freakish strength. And you're like, you look at him,

you think, how is that possible? Yeah. Some guys just have that weird, whatever that is. It's a lot of times those long guys, too. Something about long limbs and leverage and it's like they have this, as long as they have a certain amount of muscle

with that long, those long limbs and long leverage. Freakish. And this is like the era I'm hanging out with Dennis. I mean, look at Dennis' size compared to Shaq. That's crazy. If you didn't know it was Dennis Rodman, it was just some NBA scrub, right? You would think there's no way that guy's going to guard him one-on-one.

Yeah. Especially Shaq in his prime there. There's no way. Yeah. Rodman's a crazy guy. It's interesting. Speaking of crazy. Can I tell you a funny story?

I got a good story so used to hang out a lot with Dennis and you know hadn't seen him for years was at a restaurant in Chicago not too long ago and somebody said oh you guys are friends with Dennis right? yeah yeah oh he's upstairs

oh really we go upstairs Dennis is crying oh my god I miss you guys me and my buddy we're hanging out with them, telling old stories, you know, seven or eight years haven't seen him. This is great. Like when you see a buddy you really love and it's really affectionate. And Dennis is one of those people at some point he just gets up and wanders away. I think he's going to take a piss. Okay. About 10 minutes goes by. I say to the waitress, did Dennis leave? Yeah, he left. Okay. I just figure he's gone. It's just the way he is. Right. He wouldn't even say goodbye. Just gone. I get up the next morning. I turn the television. Dennis Rodman's in North Korea. Okay. By the way, I spent an hour and a half with him. He didn't say

anything about going to North Korea. Right. So on the television it's like very controversial Dennis Rodman's in North Korea so I text my buddy and I say have you seen the news no what I say turn on the television and he said what channel and I said it doesn't matter and two minutes goes by holy fuck because he went through the same thing you know wow yeah what is his deal with that north korean dude he just goes over there and hangs out with him and dennis is really a genuine uh you know a naive hearted person so in my best understanding is he truly believes he can affect the world in a positive way so there's really feels like... There's not a bad bone in Dennis' body. Wow. Dennis has his issues, but he's not a bad-hearted guy.

So in his kind of crazy ideological frame, he actually thinks he's helping. So he thinks he can go over there and talk some sense into that guy. Or by playing basketball, you know, whatever he's... Yeah, that's just so strange. That's not a good shot. I mean, you know what I mean? It's not a good look. Yeah, know what I mean it's not a good look

but yeah I mean he's hanging around with a murderous dictator hoping for the best but that's what I mean about the naivete and I don't mean to cast shade on Dennis

I really love Dennis he's been nothing but a total sweetheart to me in my life but Dennis would in a very naive way believe that he's

actually helping it's a very gangster move to go over there, though. I mean, it seems very dangerous. But that's where the other side of Dennis makes a certain sense. It's like, I'll do it. Yeah. Remember when he was dressing up in drag?

Yeah. You know, it's like, I'll be that guy. Yeah. So somehow it sort of works in his, again, I'm not trying to speak for him. He was one of my favorite guys in celebrity rehab because he was like working out every day, drinking water. Dude, I used to go into the Bulls locker room after games and he would work out after games. Really?

We go in to go because we were going to go out clubbing or whatever. And you go in the locker room and he'd be working out. And we have to sit and wait for him to work out for another 40 minutes after the game. And he played. It wasn't like he had a knee injury. I mean, he played the whole game. Like what kind of workouts? Lifting weights or something?

Treadmill, you know, whatever he was doing. Wow. And it wasn't like light stretching. It was like energizing. And then we'd go out and stay out all night. Jesus. You want a quick story? So I'm hanging out with the Bullss it's the first time they're playing Utah

it's a series the Bulls probably should have lost but they didn't it's the famous series where Michael had the flu and scored 36 points it's like one of the most famous games Michael legit had crazy flu and scored 36, and they won the game, and they won the series.

So in between one of those games, Dennis knows some billionaire. There's a day off. We get on the billionaire's plane, and we fly to Vegas. We stay out all night gambling, and this is Dennis rubbing dice on people's bodies and throwing the dice so drunk they're bouncing out of the, you know, the craps pit. I mean, just total mess.

And you're thinking, how is this going to help us win a championship? Very much a fan mentality. I'm thinking, you know, naively, I'm going to kind of rein him in. So we stay out all night. We get up. We never go to bed. We fly on the private plane back to make the morning press shoot around back in Utah. So we've only been in Vegas for like eight hours. So 9 a.m., I'm sitting in the stands.

I haven't slept at all. They do the whatever, the shoot around. And Dennis walks up and says, let's go back. Go back where? The walks up and says let's go back go go back where the hotel no let's go back to vegas so after the morning shoot around drove to the airport to fly commercial because now the billionaire's not flying him back again and gets on a plane commercial and has given me shit because i don't want to go back to Vegas with him. Jesus Christ. On the off day. And this is during the NBA finals. So through some sort of weird, you know, how the world works, I end up somewhere.

I go to play miniature golf or something in Park City, Utah, where the Bulls were staying. And Phil Jackson and his family just happened to be there on like an off day. And Phil's given me the look of death because I'm the one responsible for Dennis going to Vegas. The rock star dragged him to the party and you ruined it. That's hilarious. And I'm thinking, you don't understand. I'm the one to tell him not to go. I want to win a championship. Did you tell him?

No. What are you going to say to Phil Jackson? Have you ever met Phil Jackson? No. Phil Jackson's an intimidating guy. He plays very zen on TV, but in person, he's very intimidating. 6'7", 6'8". And he was legitimately upset at you? Let's just say it wasn't a nice encounter. And I love Phil Jackson. I love those years. I love those teams. And I was lucky to be around them a lot. I used to say, I love those years.

I love those teams. And I was lucky to be around them a lot. I used to say, look, watching this team is like 1927 Yankees. I mean, you will look back very fondly on this time and to even be in that bubble at all. And it was awesome. But, yeah, I mean, catching shade from Phil Jackson at the height of the Bulls thing, it was just so funny. And I'm playing miniature golf, and, you know, it's so uncomfortable. That is hilarious. Do you still keep

in touch with dennis no dennis is sort of he kind of trotted out into the ether and i you know it's hard to follow it it under my thing it falls under what i call the celeb friendship i've at various times had to have i tried to have friendships legitimate friendships with very famous people and the way they run their worlds is i'm sure you've encountered it's like it's like you got to go through this guy to talk to this guy and then the message doesn't get through and i think oh fuck all that i'm not doing that yeah i don't if i can't just text you i can't be friends with you yeah it gets into the weird thing of like you tell larry the guy and then larry never tells the guy and then the guy's upset at larry but

larry's looking at you like, yeah, we had to go do this thing. And I just, I can't do any of that. Yeah. There's a few guys that are like that, right?

There's a few, it's weird. It's like, I feel like when someone reaches a certain level of success, especially fame, uh, they, they get people to sort of handle certain menial tasks.

And then that person sort of handle certain menial tasks, and then that person sort of becomes their babysitter. Yeah. I have very few friends that are famous, and it's one-on-one. Yeah. Or forget it. No, it's the only way to do it. Even if I'm a fan. I mean, there are people I could call them up kind of thing.

I mean, they're like my absolute idols. But if I can't have that rapport, it like forget it it's just it's almost too weird it's like because why then am i am i a fan guy hanging around hoping he's going to throw me a bone right and talk me about you know their second album you know and it's like it gets into that kind of uncomfortable space you're making the same mistake i don't want people to make right i don't want people around me like some of my friends in the room they talk to me like i'm the guy from glendale heights like there's no star trip with me like i want everyone to be straight up i don't want any of that i don't need it well it's like what you were talking about turning 50 you know like you're 50 you don't give a fuck anymore it's like that's one of the good

things i didn't give a fuck before 50 but now i get to declare it. But it's great that you're willing to be this guy and be yourself openly, because one of the things about music in particular, but I guess a lot of other areas of show business too, is that people really protect that image. They protect that brand. They protect that thing that they're projecting to their fans. They have this idea what their fans want, and they hold that really sacred but i think pulling the curtain back the way you do i think it's very brave but it's also very important i've certainly had moments in my life where i i wondered

if i had it to do all over again like sometimes i'll i'll riff with a like a journalist that i know enough to sort of riff with. Right. And I say, because sometimes they'll say, like, do you feel you're underappreciated as an artist or you didn't feel you didn't get the do you deserve? And I'm like, yeah, that's absolutely. And maybe everybody feels that way, but I certainly feel that way. And so my little funny Rorsacek blob question for them is,

if I'd never opened my mouth and all you had on me was my music would you have a different opinion they always say the same thing absolutely that's weird right yeah so did my mouth you know boot me down the ladder or you know i mean i don't know it's it's fun to play it's like a parlor game it's too late now i mean well i think it's a different opinion but it's not a lesser or greater opinion. I mean, my opinion of you is greater, seeing that you are this very open, honest, regular. But if I knew you,

like if I didn't know of your music, I would go, oh, he's a regular guy. Yeah, but a lot of people don't like that. They don't like regular guys. No. It's a fantasy world. Yeah, that's part of the music business, right? Yeah.

I got to ask you this one thing. Sure, sure. Because I read this and I was like, what? Here we go. You saw someone shapeshift? Oh, God. Is that real or were you fucking with people? No, it's true.

Really? Yeah, it's true. Because when you told me that you enjoy Kaufman-like moments, I was like, okay. No, no, it's true. I would tell you off-grid, but I won't say it publicly. Really? The only way I'd say it publicly is if I write it. I've been writing this book for years and it's in the book.

Really? So I'd tell you off-grid, but I can't. Look, I know Alex Jones sat in this seat. Right? I know you've sat in this seat. Right? I know you've been on InfoWars. Have you been on InfoWars too? Oh yeah, I think three or four times. What have you been on InfoWars for?

Mostly talking about free speech. I think that's one thing that is critical in alternative media is to fight. That's a frontline issue for me. Yeah. This demonetizing of people's videos and trying to censor messages. And even how the Twitter exec just recently admitted in front of Congress how they were suppressing negative Hillary hashtags and stuff. I mean, that's crazy to me. Yes.

I think so, too. That, like, you got somebody openly saying, yeah, we were, you know, if we're going to sit here and go on and on about Russian collusion, I mean, is that not an in-kind donation? Well, you're manipulating people's ability to feel like strange ideas.

So as an artist who's been in the public sphere almost 30 years, and I've seen people manipulate my image and turn me into a meme and all this stuff. I'm very sensitive to if somebody wants to deny me the right to either reply or get my message out. As long as we have that ability, I trust our democracy. We need people like you and me and anybody else. Great. I think our democracy is better for it. And that includes people who say things that I don't approve of or like.

I'd rather have them say it than not say it. I agree as well. And I think it's very important that if people do say those things that you don't approve of or like, that other people express why they don't approve of those things or like them. And the only way that happens is if you hear the initial thought. You have to hear the one thing that you don't like in order for someone to say something that resonates. You go, yes, that's why we disagree with that initial thought. Okay, so I'll use an example.

If we generally agree that an idea is so abhorrent or so racist or so bigoted, then what are we afraid of? Because the argument should be that the collective agrees that that is an inappropriate thing to do and express. And then socially, we can sort of correct course. And it gives the other person on the other side the opportunity to course correct too. Yes. In essence, if you're so sure of an idea being true, what are you afraid of?

Right. Why can that idea not withstand the dirtiest, most scurrilous thing that can be thrown at it? Yeah, it's one of the more uncomfortable things about people on the left today is this newly embraced idea that you should be able to suppress ideas you don't agree with. That's terrifying.

It is terrifying. That's terrifying. I agree. Let's wrap this up so I can hear your shapeshifter story. I want to hear that, man. Let's put it this way. It's pretty wild. I believe you. Thank you.

I appreciate the people. I will. I will. I will someday. You'll put it in a book. Yeah. So, uh, please tell people how they can see you, the, the name of your new album, where they can get it.

Uh, I have an album out solo acoustic OG Lala produced by Rick Rubin. Um, it just came out about a month ago. I'm just finishing up my tour dates in LA, so that's pretty much done. I'm going to go record another acoustic album, and then hopefully next year there'll be a Pumpkins tour. Awesome. That'd be beautiful. Our fingers are crossed.

Well, thank you, Billy. I really appreciate you coming on, man. Thank you. My pleasure. Alright, folks, That's it. See you. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace.