Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Billy Corgan Was a Shred Guitarist?! (Lost 1985 Solo) [Highlight From Episode 369]

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Billy Corgan Was a Shred Guitarist?! (Lost 1985 Solo) [Highlight From Episode 369] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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  Speaker 1: Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of rock history.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Here's a snippet from a recent episode of Booked on Rock.
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  Speaker 1: Greg Preto returns your brand new book is titled I
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  Speaker 1: Am One. The Smashing Pumpkins Story nineteen eighty eight to
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four. Before the Pumpkins formed, he went through
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  Speaker 1: several earlier bands like Hexan, Coat of Eyes, and the Marked.
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  Speaker 1: Some of Marked material of surface on YouTube. I haven't
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  Speaker 1: listened to it, but you note that he still had
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  Speaker 1: a ways to go with writing memorable songs around that period.
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  Speaker 1: He was in Florida at that time. During that same period,
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  Speaker 1: Billy saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing a tiny
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  Speaker 1: club and also caught a performance by Bad Brains. Talk
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  Speaker 1: about the impact that those shows had on his mindset
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  Speaker 1: as a musician, and.
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  Speaker 2: Also, I just want to I just want to ask you.
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  Speaker 2: Did you ever see video footage of his high school
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  Speaker 2: band called Hexan.
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  Speaker 3: Did you see that?
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  Speaker 1: No?
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  Speaker 2: I highly recommend you and all the viewers check it
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  Speaker 2: out on YouTube.
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  Speaker 3: There is a guitar solo that he does.
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  Speaker 2: He's down one of the members' basements, I guess is
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  Speaker 2: where they used to rehearse, and he.
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  Speaker 3: Does I talk about that in the book.
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  Speaker 2: He does a guitar solo that's like beyond Ingveay Malmstein.
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  Speaker 2: He's gonna be a very big fan of it, especially
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  Speaker 2: you like listening to like, you know, Van Halen and
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  Speaker 2: also Vey and Randy Rose and all that stuff that
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  Speaker 2: was popular at the time.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Because we find out years later he is a
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  Speaker 1: fan of those bands and those guitars. He ends up
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  Speaker 1: interviewing Eddie. Yes, it was a guitar world.
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  Speaker 2: It was a guitar world in nineteen ninety six, right,
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  Speaker 2: but the I remember buying the issue on my way
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  Speaker 2: to work back in nineteen ninety six.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's a huge Van Halen fan. And he
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  Speaker 1: just had on his own show he had Stephen Pearcy
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  Speaker 1: from Rat.
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  Speaker 3: Yes he did. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, That's one thing that Billy Corgan has always been
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  Speaker 2: very vocal about. You know, in the nineties, it wasn't
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  Speaker 2: so cool to say that he liked eighties metal, but
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  Speaker 2: I remember in like interviews as early as ninety four
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  Speaker 2: ninety five he was named checking Judas Priest and also
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  Speaker 2: you know album and bands by them, so especially the
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  Speaker 2: British Steel album.
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  Speaker 1: I remember he mentioned, Yes, but the Chili Peppers and
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  Speaker 1: Bad Brains really formed his sound.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, like the mid eighties.
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  Speaker 2: Of course, that were still a few years before Nirvana
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  Speaker 2: never Mind changed everything, and alternative is still pretty much
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  Speaker 2: totally underground. There were Chili Peppers only have like one
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  Speaker 2: or two albums. The Bad Brains have a few albums,
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  Speaker 2: but they sadly never get really a major label shot
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  Speaker 2: until the nineties, and it's not nearly as good as
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  Speaker 2: what they were doing in the eighties.
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  Speaker 3: But he is lucky to see those two bands at
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  Speaker 3: their peak.
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  Speaker 2: I believe that would have been the Chili Peppers when
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  Speaker 2: hill El Slovak was still in the band and that's
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  Speaker 2: considered their best lineup, and the Bad Brains that's their
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  Speaker 2: peak too. That's around the time of Eye against Eye,
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  Speaker 2: which is my favorite Bad Brains album ever.
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  Speaker 3: That's say a great, great album. But yeah, I think
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  Speaker 3: by seeing those.
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  Speaker 2: Two bands that shows him that there's more than just
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  Speaker 2: He seems like in high school went from metal to
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  Speaker 2: being into like alternative than goth. It seems like he
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  Speaker 2: goes from listening to metal, then he goes to like
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  Speaker 2: Jesus in the Mary Chain and depeche Mode, and then
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  Speaker 2: also like r Em. I know he was in two
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  Speaker 2: in the eighties as well, So it seems like maybe
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  Speaker 2: through the Bad Brains because the Bad Brains Eye against
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  Speaker 2: Eye album, that's definitely a melding of a bunch of
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  Speaker 2: different styles of music, like.
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  Speaker 3: Reggae, heavy metal.
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  Speaker 2: It's probably their first like hard rock, heavy metali ish
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  Speaker 2: type album. There's a little bit of funk, not that much,
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  Speaker 2: but on like later albums add some more funkier stuff.
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  Speaker 2: But maybe seeing the Bad Brains and also the Chili
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  Speaker 2: Pepper has maybe expanded his his horizons and also showed
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  Speaker 2: that there was maybe something on the horizon that was
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  Speaker 2: going to be coming, you know soon, that was going
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  Speaker 2: to give us some much needed alternative to all the
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  Speaker 2: bad hair metal that was popular at the time. I
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  Speaker 2: was thinking around the time I was doing this book,
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  Speaker 2: going back and listening to all the solos Billy Corgan,
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  Speaker 2: I would think is my favorite guitarist that came out
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  Speaker 2: of the nineteen nineties. To be honest with you, I
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  Speaker 2: think his solo is His solos are great. The thing
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  Speaker 2: I talk about also in the book, the why I
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  Speaker 2: loved Smashing Pumpkins so much, especially at the time in
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  Speaker 2: like nineteen ninety one, I at that point, I am
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  Speaker 2: just transitioning away from strictly listening to heavy metal and
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  Speaker 2: listening to like alternative and funk and all other styles
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  Speaker 2: of music. And the Smashing Pumpkins were definitely a bridge
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  Speaker 2: type band like them, Soundguard and Faith No More. That
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  Speaker 2: for people that were in a heavy metal it showed
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  Speaker 2: you that they're that, Yeah, you could still do like
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  Speaker 2: heavy music, but you could also inject alternative and also
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  Speaker 2: other different styles. It's you're not just stayed just one lane.
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  Speaker 2: And that's absolutely what Billy Corgan did. And yeah, his
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  Speaker 2: soloing on this, especially the first two Smashing Pumpkins albums
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  Speaker 2: have some of my favorite solos, like the solo to
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  Speaker 2: Schera Brock is great, the solo and Siva. I love
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  Speaker 2: the solo in Geek USA. There's a great, great B
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  Speaker 2: side called Starla, which is like a ten minute long
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  Speaker 2: song and the solo is like a good four or
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  Speaker 2: five minutes. It's just him just shredding, but not shredding,
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  Speaker 2: doing mindless like that, you know that that type of stuff,
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  Speaker 2: but it's like, you know, very you know, it's like
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  Speaker 2: notes placed properly. He can play fast, but just I
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  Speaker 2: love his phrasing and it's you know, melodic playing so
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  Speaker 2: yes So Billy Corgan is absolutely one of my favorite guitarists.
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