Kat Says: “Everything I Know About Life, I Learned From The Smashing Pumpkins”

I saw the Gen X legends perform with Interpol last weekend, and I’ve got new music for ya.

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Hey Friends!

“The world is a vampire.”

If you’re anywhere between the ages of 64 and 30, those words aren’t simply read in your mind. They’re sung—nay. They’re sneered and sent seething through a mouth curled into a devilish half-smile.

If you’re younger than 30, you might not know these are the powerful opening lyrics of The Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 anthem “Bullet With Butterfly Wings.” They’re sung a capella and immediately followed by the darkest kick drum and boiling guitar riff you’ve ever heard in your life. Then, when the song hits the chorus, it explodes.

Released as the lead single to the band’s magnum opus Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” stands out as one of the band’s biggest and most recognizable hits. It’s a banger that stands the test of time; a moody and maniacal piss-take that captures all the desperate anger and miserable acquiescence Billy Corgan feels for the music industry. 

It also has the distinction of being my first real memory of The Smashing Pumpkins.

Imagine you’re 7, and your dad is raising you on horror movies. Vampires are like, the coolest thing on the planet, and you’ve recently decided that guitar music is pretty cool, too. You’ve got this cassette tape of the Beatles Greatest Hits, and other than that, it’s been a lot of The Little Mermaid soundtrack. 

Then you’re taking a sip of water from the fountain in your after-school care cafeteria, and this comes on the radio.

I wasn’t really old enough to be angsty, but I understood good drama when I felt it. That rolling bass? Those chugging kick drums? That whining scream? It was perfection.

As a second grader, I didn’t understand what it meant. I just knew it sounded cool. Now as an adult, I can relate to the concept in new ways. I’m no rock star signed to an exploitative record deal, but I know what it’s like to live off my vulnerability; how it feels to turn your pain into art and then ask someone to please pay you for it.

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*Yep, that’s how it’s done.*

Obviously, I’ve always liked The Smashing Pumpkins, but I only recently accepted the fact that The Smashing Pumpkins are one of my all-time favorite bands. I don’t think I understood that, or rather, I just never really thought about it until I was older because they quite literally have always been around. They’ve been on the radio since I can remember, and something about that omnipresence just made me take their music for granted.

Once I got into middle school, I solidified my affection by purchasing Rotten Apples: The Smashing Pumpkins – Greatest Hits on CD. It was basically a collection of their singles from 1991 to 2001, and I listened to it from front to back incessantly. 

You want to know something really embarrassing? 

So, Rotten Apples came out in November of 2001, which means I was in eighth grade, and it most definitely became the soundtrack to my harrowing teenage angst—so much so that when we all got our eighth-grade yearbooks and people asked me to sign theirs, I actually signed them all with the “Zero” lyric:

“Emptiness is loneliness / and loneliness is cleanliness / and cleanliness is godliness / and god is empty, just like me.”

I AM SO CRINGE, WTF LOLOLOL. Idk man, I was DEPRESSED in eighth grade, and I thought that was SO COOL. Omfg hahahahahahahaha. ANYWAY.

Do not let this weirdo sign your yearbook.

I know it’s also not “cool” to recommend someone listen to a Greatest Hits CD. My friend Zach actually chided me for it when our Gen Z friend Katherine admitted she’d never really listened to the Smashing Pumpkins before.

“Noooooo,” he said. “You have to listen to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,” although he also admitted he’s never listened to the double album in its entirety either.

But I think in this one case, Rotten Apples is an incredible place to start. 

The Smashing Pumpkins are not like other bands. They came out of the ‘90s grunge zeitgeist, but they’re from Chicago—not the Pacific Northwest—and they didn’t really make grunge music. 

One of the best things about them is their range. They make alt-rock and shoegaze and goth and industrial. They make these opulent wall-of-sound rock operas with a full-on, 30-piece string section as performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and then they make dirty sex music with drum machines, and it just rocks and it makes sense.

The “Tonight, Tonight” music video is by all accounts a classic. It’s a riff on Georges Méliès's 1902 silent sci-fi film A Trip to the Moon, and it stars Tom Kenny and Jill Talley, who—fun fact—are literally the voices of SpongeBob and Karen Plankton.

I definitely remember watching “Tonight, Tonight” on MTV when I spent most of the early 2000s mainlining music videos. It’s certainly the “first thing that comes to mind when you say Smashing Pumpkins” music video, and it may be one of the most ambitiously conceptual music videos ever made—but if you were to ask me, the “Ava Adore” music video is my favorite.

I downloaded this video off Kazaa in 2003 or something because I was obsessed with the song on Rotten Apples, and by 2003, the peer-to-peer network and home computing power had advanced to a place where it only took 24 hours for a full music video to download. 

Keep in mind, I was deep into my goth teenager era, and when I saw this music video, I just about fell in love with everything about it. I mean, I was 16, and I’m pretty sure I based my entire sexual personality off of this video. Also, Billy Corgan is so so so hot in this video, I want to scream.

Okay, I’ve talked about Billy a lot. He is the central powerline of The Smashing Pumpkins, aka the main composer and lyricist and all that (he actually wrote all those string arrangements for the Chicago Symphonic Orchestra. Wow, many talent, much impressed), but The Smashing Pumpkins are—definitively and at their best—a band. 

The original foursome was bassist D'arcy Wretzky, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. It was very cool to see a diverse band lineup like that as a kid. Like, the bassist is a certifiable bad bitch, and the guitarist is a second-generation Japanese-American (and a member of A Perfect Circle. Neat!). You just didn’t see that every day in 1990-whatever!

By many accounts, working with Billy was kind of terrible? I can feel that I’m about to go on a serious deep-dive of ‘90s and 2000s interviews with the band after writing this, but a lot of people when you talk about Billy Corgan will be like “Oh, he’s an asshole, right?”

I don’t know the whole story, but I do know that by the time I was really sinking into my Smashing Pumpkins vibe, the band had broken up. The turn of the millennium was not kind to the group, and they’d disbanded by the time Rotten Apples was a thing. 

Billy and Jimmy formed the shortlived band Zwan, which I remember people talking about a lot although I never dug into it much. 

Zwan broke up a couple of years later, and then Billy released a strange, darkwave synth-pop solo album called The Future Embrace which I did listen to but don’t remember well—although I definitely remember this cover of The Bee Gee’s “ToLoveSomebody” that features backing vocals on the chorus from ROBERT FUCKING SMITH!!!!!! YES!!!!

In 2005, The Smashing Pumpkins did get back together, but by then, I had discovered electroclash and was going to raves, and I missed the memo. Also, it was kind of a half reunion because James wasn’t in, and neither was former Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur who had joined the band when D’arcy left in 1999 (lol, the press did not even bother asking if D’arcy was coming back).

Jimmy left again in 2009, and Billy was left as the sole original member of The Smashing Pumpkins for seven years. Is that…even The Smashing Pumpkins?

It was at the end of that stint in 2015 when I first saw “The Smashing Pumpkins” live. It was an accident. My dad bought tickets for me and my Uncle Frankie because Marilyn Manson was opening, and Manson was my dad’s absolute favorite in the ‘90s. He saw Manson like four or five times back then, and he’d tell me all about the show and the protestors outside, and how Manson would rip the Bible up and throw the pages into the crowd from a Nazi-esque pulpit. 

I’d never seen Manson in concert, and in 2015, he was doing pretty much the same show as the ‘90s, albeit a lot less scary because, y’know, he wasn’t the subject of rib removal rumors or being blamed for school shootings in 2015 (although, there have been even more unsavory rumors about him since 2015, in regard to women and the complete dehumanization of them and all that).

When Billy and the so-called Smashing Pumpkins came out, my dad and my Uncle basically fucked off to go get drunk on expensive beer, but I got all excited, and then the band started playing, and then I felt my whole life flash before my eyes.

Every. Single. Fucking. Song had carved a niche into my brain, and I hadn’t really thought about it in years. My dad had bought good seats, so I could see every facial expression, every moody movement. “Ava Adore” was the fourth song they played, and then something inside me exploded, and I yelled, “I LOVE YOU, BILLY,” in the silence between guitar tunings, and HE DEFINITELY HEARD ME.

That concert changed me, but I was still fighting full-on obsession until I heard The Smashing Pumpkins were coming back on tour this summer. I was like, “Oh, West Palm Amphitheater. I’ll try to get press tickets for that and write about it for the newsletter.” Then, I just went about my life—

—Until I binge-watched Beef on Netflix in a single weekend and got a lil drunk while I did it. The last song in the last scene of the INCREDIBLE MUST-WATCH program was “Mayonaise” from The Smashing Pumpkins’ 1993 sophomore LP Siamese Dream. 

I was brought to tears by the heart-wrenching show and slapped in the face by the song’s distorted guitars. I screamed “WHAT THE FUCK AM I WAITING FOR? I CAN’T MISS THE SMASHING PUMPKINS ON TOUR” and drunkenly bought two tickets LOL.

Once I had the tickets, I allowed myself to just freefall into Smashing Pumpkins madness. 

Idk if you follow me on Instagram, but I got this wild hair up my ass and bought a guitar in June. I used to play a bit in high school and after college, but I have never felt this need to play like I do right now. 

The second day I had it, I learned to play “Disarm.” I can sing it and play it now, and so I’ve been paying closer attention to the lyrics. I’ve heard “Disarm” a million times, most of those plays while I was actually a self-harming teenager learning to cover-up life’s anxieties with charm and wit. Now I’m an adult unpacking my bullshit, and Billy’s lyrics hit a million times harder.

I, too, used to be a little girl, so old in my shoes. What I choose is my voice! What’s a girl supposed to do?! The years! They burn! They burn, indeed!

I’ve kept unpacking the catalog, and by the time the concert came around last Saturday, I was fucking LIT. I brought my Gen Z friend Katherine. She was coming to see Interpol, a Xennial (between Gen-X and Millennial) band she grew up loving but never seeing. I 100 percent declared Interpol as one of my favorite bands when their debut Turn On The Bright Lights came out in 2002, and I was excited to give Katherine the chance to see them, but I was busy boiling over with 30 years of Smashing Pumpkins delayed return. 

We were and are indeed two souls separated across a generation experiencing the same longed-for experience that only a good old-fashioned rock’n’fuckin’roll show offer.

Interpol was great. Duh. Katherine and I were scream-singing all the lyrics to each other. It was wholesome af, and it was funny because the Gen X crowd around us clearly did not really fuck with Interpol like we did. 

Between sets, we re-upped on White Claws, and Katherine bought an Interpol t-shirt. We didn’t understand why there were pro wrestlers going at it in a pop-up ring by the merch table, but I’ve since learned that Billy is really into wrestling and has been part of a wrestling federation for like a decade-plus. Wild!

It started to rain just before The Smashing Pumpkins took the stage, and it rained on and off throughout their set, but every drop of water only added to the drama. 

The opening chords of “The Everlasting Gaze” ripped through the drizzling night, and Billy walked on stage in a black, full-length trenchcoat. Black, full-length trenchcoat Billy is my FAVORITE Billy, and I absolutely lost my shit. 

I noticed that the guitarist on stage was none other than—gasp—James Iha! The drummer, too, was Jimmy Chamberlain, and they were joined by guitarist Jeffrey Schroeder (yeah, that’s three guitarists on one stage), and a woman whose identity I just can’t confirm by press time but who looked very cool and was very talented on bass and backup vocals!

Katherine, who basically knew nothing about them, was stoked to see a fellow Asian and hot woman on stage, declaring approvingly that The Smashing Pumpkins were “a very bisexual band.” 

Then they played the most INSANE cover of “Once In A Lifetime” by The Talking Heads that anyone has ever heard or performed in the history of music, and both of us lost our minds!

The entire set was magical, and as I worked my way through my second White Claw tall boy, screaming along to every lyric while drenched in light Florida rain, I celebrated my love of The Smashing Pumpkins wholly and unabashedly. 

Katherine kept taking videos of me singing the songs, and the ladies behind us were like “y’all’s friendship is so cute.” We also made friends with the dude behind us who didn’t seem to speak a lot of English but kept expressing his love for The Smashing Pumpkins and singing “the world is a vampire” between songs.

This being my second time seeing Billy play these songs live but my first time really seeing The Smashing Pumpkins, I can say with great assurance that Billy is much happier with James and Jimmy at his side. I was impressed with the sheer talent on stage, awe-struck by the major light setup and rock’n’roll gravitas. 

Billy strutted across the stage, striking rock star poses, but then he’d make a funny face and tell a joke between songs. He and James had all this cute banter, and that fun energy permeated the entire show. 

With my rediscovered love of guitar, I can appreciate how massively The Smashing Pumpkins can fuckin’ shred. Like, this is some face-melting shit, and they are clearly a very serious band, but they never once took themselves too seriously. They even brought their kids up on stage to dance, and it was adorable, and we all went “awe.”

“I grew up in a world where I needed to know bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure existed, it meant there was a place for people like me to hang out and belong,” Corgan was quoted in the official tour press release. “That’s what The World Is A Vampire [Tour] is about; bringing back that sense of community. If you don’t fit in, you belong here. It’s about having a shared experience and respecting others, but ultimately having fun. A true alternative festival, where all the self-proclaimed weirdos and outsiders of the world can get together and have a party.”

Yes, the world is a vampire, and in 2023, it is absolutely sent to drain, but despite all his rage, Billy and The Smashing Pumpkins brought the fucking house down, and I’m so fucking glad I was a part of it.

“Thank you for 36 years of The Smashing Pumpkins,” he said before leaving the stage.

No, Billy. Thank you.

Alright, Zeros. Hope you enjoyed this week’s essay. If you’re interested in catching The Smashing Pumpkins somewhere on tour, you still can for a couple more weeks. They’ve got dates in New York, Virginia, Canada and some other northeast cities. Check out the official tour dates online.

Coming Up

Yo! I’ve got all kinds of cool shit in the works, but first things first: I’m going to Burning Man!

I only started planning this trip three weeks ago. Essentially, a wormhole of good vibes opened in the Universe, and it’s pulling me to the Playa. I’ve never been before, but I’m camping with some really stellar humans right on the main street of the event.

Next time you hear from me, I’ll have TONS of things to say about this insane trip to the desert. Wish me luck!

Absolutely Necessary

(This is the part where I share songs that are so good, they’re absolutely necessary to listen to. That’s it. That’s the bar.)

I made two Spotify playlists for this section that you can follow: one weekly playlist updated with just the new stuff every week, and one cumulative playlist that will host every song I pick ever (until Spotify tells me it's full). Check them out! I made them for you—and me, but mostly you.

Alright, the playlists are updated, but I’m highlighting five remarkable tracks below.

G Jones - “Liminality”

This song sounds like G Jones broke into my Super Nintendo and did his best impression of Aphex Twin twerking. It also marks the third single on his forthcoming album PATHS, which is sure to be a shitshow of psychedelic proportions. He’s going on a live tour in support of the LP, and he’s actually coming to Fort Lauderdale and there is NO WAY I’m missing that shit!

Audrey Nuna - “Locket”

I’ve got to give it up to Audrey Nuna for one of the best uses of a sample I’ve heard maybe in my life. It’s so seamless. I actually screamed the first time I heard this. If you were alive and partying in 2007, Huey’s “Pop Lock and Drop It” was an absolute moment. Nuna turned this beat out and makes it her own, luring you in with her lowkey flow. I’m really stoked to hear more from the upcoming album that “Locket” is set for.

Huron John - “Just Me And Friends”

‘Tis the season for late-summer pop perfection, and there’s something about the layers of sound on this hazy-day hook that feels so right. This Chicago-born, Nashville-based artist makes complicated sound simple. Grab your best buds and hit the road on one last adventure while the days are long.

sir Was - “Get Up”

More poolside vibes for your ear holes. Swedish musician sir Was reminds us to keep on going with a funky lil electro-pop groove laced with the perfect amount of melancholy. Add this to your end-of-summer playlist, too.

Juuku - “Still”

Honestly, I’m just impressed with everything Juuku does. His sound is so versatile, and this latest brings cute shiny sounds to the forefront, backed by some hard-hitting beats. Future bass isn’t dead!

Alright. That’s all, folks! See you on the other side of the Playa!

Thanks for tuning into my newsletter. Listen to the playlists on Spotify. One is updated weekly with all the songs from each edition. The other is cumulative with all the updates ever!

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