Billy Corgan

00:07all right we're live what's up 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 worked out conversely so it's cool so I mean I don't want me to just jump right into this but it kind of freaked me out that you're you have involvement in pro wrestling do you own the NWA yeah I've got the National Wrestling Alliance the oldest brand in the world I was working for TNA and I was president for a hot second then I got fired and you were president of TNA yeah yeah that's a crazy story I don't know how much you want to get into that well you know Dixie Carter owned a TNA I knew her through the years I used to go to show stuff like that and and at some point they approached me about investing I said no then they offered me a job I

01:00started working for the company then they would they her start having money problem to start 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 kill me 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 he I got pretty crazy for a while there's a lawsuit a real lawsuit right I sued I sued and this is a quick funny thing people continually write

01:45that I lost the law so I never lost the lawsuit I lost one of the motions which led to them me negotiating and we we said a lot of court but the judge the contract that they signed that would have allowed me to take over the company under the under the motion that 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 the company's behalf and signed it whoa that sounds like some double-cross wrestling type yeah 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 contracts meaningless it was bizarre how does one go from Smashing Pumpkins Pro Wrestling and then go so deep that you're like an owner ya

02:40know it's it's pretty wild unexpected for a lot of people right yeah I know I get that a lot and I've learned and I've actually 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 I mean they just don't they just they get they that I'm a bit goofy but they just don't want to hear about the wrestling thing yes they ask the world's to be kept separate did they ever get mad at you oh yeah yeah you know and you can appreciate that it kills the gimmick yes they want me to do this goth vampire guy or whatever and then it's like in it 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 when people just get into what they like well that's something I appreciate about you you know what I

03:26mean 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 that'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 now I growing up in Chicago there was a really rich wrestling history in Chicago growing up I might might my great-grandmother watch wrestling I mean it was like I grew up in the at four years old I'm watching dick the bruiser on television and this is also the era of hockey fights and roller derby Oh Road there B so we'd watch hockey Pro Wrestling and you know it was in the family yeah and then later I found out that my other great grandmother also watch rustling so both sides of the family both great grandmothers watching wrestling so it's

04:11just in the blood I guess we like that we like the carny of it all well I'm always amazed at roller derby never made like a serious comeback they tried they kind of did the you know the tattooed girls in roller derby hipstery type of thing it had a moment there well I know I had a who was into it and she you know was that type 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 a little hotter yeah girl you could be thick and be a roller derby girl you could you could eat all the carbs you like then 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 fun it's like racing plus fighting and yeah hip

05:00checking each other like you know it's early days memory but I remember thinking you know some 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 like thinking of men's roller derby I'm completely drawing a blank just I always associate it with like 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 you're my age you remember killer Kowalski course yeah yeah I remember watching that when I was a kid in Boston watching it on 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

05:48think that's part of what we're trying to do is that's the cool thing about the NWO is we actually possess that history mm-hmm and and so our job is to sort of update it you know to bring it 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 1948 is the NWA well yeah and the cool thing about the NWA 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 the 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

06:38always be like a bit of a scrum and then he'd come back for second there would be a cage match and then Ric Flair would move on to the next territory and that's how those guys rotate around 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 this Rick's Rick and dusty flit Dusty Rhodes our you know the probably the two most prominent chance that the NWA had so just to be the owner of that history is like so humbling for me as a fan it's like wow that is so cool yeah that's pretty wild actually he's uh he's quite a character and still is like even on Instagram the stories are the stories are legendary the stories are absolutely under 30 for 30 just came out about them and I'm hearing it's like the one of the

07:23best ones ever made just like the other day maybe two days ago oh cool 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 like Dice Clay mmm 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 the instances that my friend and Friends Marilyn Manson he's the same way it's like they become they become the gimmick at some point and it's 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 to hurtle live you have to turn it on and

08:11off yeah I'm the other way I've gone out of my way to kill the gimmick which really it actually hurts business and and people get mad at me because they want to know they want the fantasy I but I can't live like that right it's impossible for me so they want you to be almost like a caricature like Moody SADS grumbling you know whatever you know that's why a lot of this 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 a bit a year ago was like me at Disneyland I know if you 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 that's great I had this great - in fact the guy in the other room my tormentor jug was the guy sitting next to me in

08:57the photo and there we go look and it was like massive viral like 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 so and it even ended up on Family Guy that's very funny man that's very funny that's got to be exhausting like having all these expectations that aren't necessarily they don't totally aligned with who you really are ah it used to be because I felt like I don't know is the keeper of my image or something I felt this responsibility to sort of manage it and that's when I just let it go yeah well 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

09:54exact opposite of nuts you have to be you're certainly eccentric yeah that's fine you know I come from a long line of eccentrics I mean my father was a drug-dealing gun-toting musician was really mad man yeah yeah drug dealing oh yeah what kind of drugs you name it really oh yeah Wow I mean it is it's a like quick stories like 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 a lot 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 open it was it was a sawed-off shotgun in a guitar case well just lay in there you know in the house or you know I'd go to open something it would be like ten pounds of weed you know that was the

10:44that was the world I grew up in would you grow up outside of Chicago about an hour outside Wow but yeah my dad my dad got arrested a bunch of times and massive busts and drug it's just crazy and gotten people knocking on the door in the middle of the night and getting shot at and my dad says he's been shot at nine times never hit no that's not justice two or three times Jesus my favorite story of my life one of my favorite stories my father was he was doing a drug deal and he was buying drugs and they say stop somewhere in the guy got in the car and then the guy pulled out a gun is stuck in in his ribs you know I did like give me all your money and my dad looked and said kill me base because he was unhappy so he figured in I just he said just kill me and the guy the guy flipped out and left the car and he told you all this oh yeah I got a lot of these stories posthaste

11:38yeah is he still around oh yeah he's still around he's still kicking what how was it for him like seeing you as a son as 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 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 just kind of shrugged his shoulders was like it's okay you know is like what are you talking about like Wow and I know and the if you know my early it's like you know star heavy there's cool stuff solos and he was just like

12:28yeah it wasn't until my second album in the band blew up that he started kind of changed his tune then he became more supportive then he got really weirdly jealous and then he started doing weird things like he called 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 to my dad to me was like a star and he still is in my mind so 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 man put this guitar and eBay so should you do you want to

13:16buy it no I buy the guitar you're supposed to get what he done yeah yeah just weird stuff like that it's been a lot of that 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 was going on because the need for money depending on what situation is going on you know yeah but you weren't reinforced you you reinforced this idea that I've always had that everyone that I know that's interesting came from a up childhood I couldn't argue against it it's hard because do you have children I have it too I have one son yeah he's he's just gonna be too it's for me it's it's so it's a conflict because I take care of my kids and I'm around em and I give them a lot of love and they're not up like my kids gonna be boring all of my friends all of them come from up household chaos and they

14:14created 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 youth 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 got Itoh drug deal and psycho I mean that's a badass story yeah there's this I think you'll appreciate this in the 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 you know and my dad played there all the time and I came back to the house one day and the house

15:06was full of like smoky equipment like you could smell like smoke fire and and he said oh the club burned down and so they had ran in the fire retrieve 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 4:00 in the morning and saw the club burn down years later heard the real story he was in a car with the 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 it's like every story is like there's the real story and the story I got when I was a kid 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 I knew he had was there on

16:01the scene or something yeah and of course he said I didn't see anything because he didn't want to die because Chicago with the mob I mean forget about especially back then in the 70s it was like they ran into town they got Kennedy elected well yeah I mean that I mean the stories about Chicago are legendary you know and 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 Capo's all over the city you know every Ward had its capo and yes sir cago has this uniquely violent history and even to this day you mean with with what's going on the Southside with all the gang violence it's it's 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

16:47yeah in arc in this community you know I don't even realize I think most people have no idea how much gun violence goes I heard the other day I could 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 it like every year now wow I mean I just an even Trump at some point floated out like maybe they should bring the National Guard I wish they would do something I just such a this 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'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 inside well here's the thing and you know this is the classic tale

17:37now 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 gonna start seeing some action because now it's now it's blowing up past the sort of you know I mean look at that the shot clock a person is shot every two minutes and 20 seconds a person is murdered every 12 hours Oh two hours and twenty minutes a person is murdered every 12 hours and 23 minutes that's a lot Wow I miss my home and I just you know I have a guy that I met when I was down there he's 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 I got a little inside information for

18:33years what I'd heard is that they had this sort of like as long as you stay on this side of the street will kind of you know will 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'm ever one time because I knew somebody worked in the in the in like the gang task force I was like how come there's always Horrors on the bridge on Friday night like don't you guys see the 50 on the bridge and they said no we deaths where we tell all the to go so we can protect them we'd rather have them there so we can keep an eye on them and we know what's gonna happen anyway so better we control it right so that was the way Chicago sorta operated was like we're tolerate crime up to this level and twice a year we'll run everybody and just kind of make the make

19:19it 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 but I was a former cop and the way he was describing was pretty absolute he's like they made a mistake they you know this solution that you were saying of like kind of like saying hey keep it over here give me raps and we'll arrest a certain amount of people it sounds like maybe that's the only way to manage it well yeah the one thing I have heard from people that are in those communities is that literally the and this may be supports what you're saying is that the the power divisions are like block to blah 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 the neighborhood it's like

20:07block to block yeah which is crazy I'm just growing up in that neighborhood having that be your normal as a child and then you know growing into adulthood around that and having just used to people getting shot used to shooting people you 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 I don't know it's crazy it's just heartbreaking it's such a unique town - it's 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 has changed this sort of working-class sort of ethos while you it's sort of symbolized by the food that giant yeah we like to eat deaf pizzas insane that what you guys deliver those pizzas well did you really yeah that was one of my gigs I bet it builds your arms up heavy

21:04what first time I ate a Chicago deep-dish piece I was like okay is this really a pizza like what are we cut this is a casserole yeah yeah but it's like it's Hardy people - it's like there's something about Chicago that seems to me to have like the momentum of the old day 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 ya know what you want to call it but it's like like the 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 but it's like this funny bit about like how the whole food sort of anchors down this new way of life something some kind of like you know riff on that so it does I bet it does in some way yeah it's this

21:58idea of sort of like you can drop this homogenous idea of what modern culture is like in any place and it'll just sort of riff out like a Spore yeah it's like we've got Whole Foods and we've got the you know a Starbucks and and now we're all gonna be nice to each other or something it's like a weird you don't I mean like we're all just gonna start behaving better because you know whatever I yeah I think you understand the joke no I do you know I think 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 certainly revolted against suburban life yeah I mean the suburban life of that world I just I I just I just couldn't take it yeah this couldn't take it the mall the strip mall vibe

22:53whatever that was I just Oh rat in a cage right yeah well the great thing is then 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 to who's selling out yeah I mean the the first line of the first line of our second album is freaked out and given doesn't matter what you believe in you know it's like you know it's like you got it you got to play by it now you got to play by these rules you got to kiss this ring and yeah you know well musics always a weird thing to is that people really enjoy you when they're the only ones to know about you and then as you started getting bigger and bigger they start looking for holes yeah we blew that up earlier though yeah we blew that we blew it up really early we made

23:46a 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 and 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've had weird experiences with like people not with Nirvana people but like people who were in the Nirvana world there's still like this weird like because I'm from pumpkin world right like Pete 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 the main guy commits suicide in this oddly conspiratorial way would you watch that up movie that's no because I see

24:41a lot of people don't know 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 be 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 tried to pimp me out like in a Q&A with fans and asked me questions like I'm suddenly gonna talk about it you know what I mean yeah that 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 they said so if you don't know what the they said and you're putting words these actors mouths you haven't them play it out like what you just this should be illegal because you're kind of it's like

25:27you're creating especially when you're talking about a murder mystery yeah you're you're saying that it wasn't a suicide you're you're at least putting out the idea that it might be a murder the way you're doing it is by manufacturing words that you have no idea if they were ever say it's just complete fiction yeah yeah so like that's I I I was around for the before sort of during and 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 I go with what I know right Union I mean yeah but it said 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 were we had never heard anything like that we were like whoa yeah this is it this great thing just fantastic a new thing right new there's a crazy little Boston statistic for you

26:20we 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 it's called axis right we played there like I don't know - wasn't even sold out oh wow it's like some a 700 people kind of thing that's 700 people with an awesome story yeah right Wow so you're you're working with Rick Rubin now yeah that's awesome Eric's fantastic what does that like though for you being like a guy who's kind of like you kind of controlled everything before right yeah totally so what is it like for you to have Rubin in the mix and 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 mm-hmm kind of like you deal with that part now I'm just

27:15gonna sort of be up the performer and the the weird guy in the corner and 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 that makes any sense like yeah you can have a really good song you know it's a good song and then you start second-guessing yourself mmm and then you start thinking well maybe this song's not good enough or anything and then that'll that'll infiltrate into your performance as opposed to being free like have 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

27:58innocent way of approaching the work and I'm very grateful to him for that that's awesome yeah it's got to be quite a mindfuck 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 bailable objective and subjective me 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 others now you're in this Hall of Mirrors yeah yeah you know instead of eh raising your

28:51hand saying okay I've had a good run now I need lates like getting a coach or something like maybe a guy goes on a losing streak he 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 a thousand 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 you need you know you need the doctor to come in and kind of search 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 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 you know go to somebody like Rick and say I need some help I need some objective help Bob did you feel yourself

29:30like when you were listening to the music that you were creating did you feel like you were on a losing streak No so it's sudden I couldn't 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 right it feels incredibly personal which is why it's easier to blame somebody else right right you don't understand the depth of my yeah and I work here I'm so deep and you know you're not following my I met a path or say I mean and look it's most most entertainment is popular right I mean you're a comedian I mean it's like him you got him tell a bunch of jokes and the audience doesn't laugh whose fault is it well the the mindfuck of music to me has always been very fascinating because you guys create it in like a vacuum totally and then you bring it to

30:17the people like when you release an album they get it it's done it's like holy here it is and you know a big fan who plays it for the first time and they're listening to it they like it like it's so whereas we have ideas and I need an audience to create like I need to be around them yeah I can't I can only create so much on a laptop most of it has to be like fine-tuned and refined so by the time I record something I already know 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 or you forget all the thousand hours in the bedroom that you listen to Jimi Hendrix sir yeah you know Bowser merciful fate or whatever you know like that gave you all these ideas you you know you don't want to give them credit you want to be the

31:09author of your own success Hatton you on the back and yeah I'm sorry very introspective in that regard like you you have a very failure really failure would do that too is that it but you say failure though but you still have massive amounts of fans you're still deeply expected yeah I'm weird in that I've always been willing to talk about the process which again is anti gimmick but at all so I 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 and and help people perceive things like I like all that weird Andy Kaufman uncomfortability hmm that's part of my attraction so I've been willing to use myself as the battering ram which is how I end up becoming a meme because the people people latch on to these personalities I've created which of

32:04course are ancillary to my real personality right but they don't 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 and 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 also does it make it difficult to have like the time or the 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're becoming sort of like you're trying to take people in the insularity of your experience but it's not that interesting

33:04right and at some point it becomes unrelatable well I always said that about like I mean there's there's a lot of bands but some of the great Allman Brothers are Leonard Skynyrd like they had a bunch of songs about leaving about getting away from women you know lord I was born a whistling man rightly so yeah there was so many songs about just getting away from women yeah the other day I heard that Crosby Stills Nash and song it's like just a song before I go it's all about he's going on to her and the airport 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 Skynyrd had a shitload of those they really did have quite a few songs about like getting the out of Dodge they were good such a great band giant fan I mean they're probably the greatest

33:55thing to ever come out of Florida it's arguable you know I'm trying to think who else came out of Florida Jim Breuer they were just talking about music yeah I don't have anything else when it comes to music who out pitbull yeah yeah yeah it's the so do you 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 reinforce and I'd like in 96 in in 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

35:13oisin yeah I was like castigated for being an idiot and I went from golden child to idiot you know in one fell swoop yeah well so many great artists are a prisoner of their early success and rightly so you know I mean I 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 it's like how many he's like guy stood Elvis out 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 artists 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

36:08that'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 like struggle with this themselves and here's some like you say that yeah it's it's 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 gonna happen you're not gonna 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 the relationship with themselves and if you can do that and you and you look at great examples Johnny Cash Neil Young Tom Petty when they get there everybody comes back Bob Dylan because they think

36:58okay now you're giving me some new information yeah this isn't just a riff on the thing that you gave me before and and I think the public has shown over time the the willingness and the ability to follow artists if they're willing if they're 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 do because for upcoming artists and in all sorts of genres just pee people who are involved in creating here someone as successful 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 business plays this Jedi mind trick on you where the whole thing set up to be rapacious and take

37:46advantage of your weakness how so well it's like III can you I'll use the music business as an example and I'm sure there's plenty of parallels across the entertainment spectrum um you you you you struggle to get the contract and then the contract is sort of you know the in dirt indentured servitude type of thing we our first contract was seven albums essentially fourteen 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 signing a contract for more than half your life and and if you look at the shelf life of most artists it's for two so they're basically anticipating your entire arc that's okay so you don't have any leverage you know other than that they want to sign you you signed the deal and then it becomes this weird dance of like can I sustain success yeah if you get

38:42success and you have leverage they'll get out of your way cuz 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 gonna 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 were 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'll do well they've moved to a different set of circumstances and I'm not as conversing 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

39:25perfume deal if you like your whole world oh yeah 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 survived the cut let's say let's call 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 the very powerful music executive and I said 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

40:18thing 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 imaginations of the music business over the last twenty years especially with the rise of the internet its to keep people in the system yeah they don't want true independence right but look look I'll give you 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 in an arrangement for them to have an equity position they agreed to very low rates for the artists music so when you 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

41:12artists to take a greater equity position in a rising business it's like you see I'm saying yeah they wig in the artist position to take a better position at the table themselves that is fascinating and they they weaken the monetary position of compensation in order to get equity in the company right and now usually and now you see it where Metallica's management for example has come out and and especially a u2's former manager Paul McGinnis come out there 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 mean yeah YouTube's like one of the big targets of the business because whatever deal they agreed to with YouTube ten years ago was super weak and but again these are all mashed nations that go on above the artists spot right and eat quick thing into your into your

42:03world Ewan McGregor left out and did the fight with Mayweather he creates this whole different set of dynamics because he can he can run his own game yes UFC can't pay him that kind of money and last I heard is like maybes gonna do another fight so I'm not gonna want to get totally into that but my point is as you see where those dynamics where people step outside the system it changes the game yeah so it's actually kind of you could you know know 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 Mayweather McGregor more money to keep him in his world because now that he's out I don't think Connor would have accepted that okay yeah I think he recognized the unique opportunity that he's in so he probably should anyway I'm talking about stuff as a fan yeah you you're on the other side offense but my point is is

42:53when 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 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 Jamie knows a lot about him he I know he's getting money from away other places than just the traditional record contract less you know big deals from major companies like sprite another and he's still independent right tech technically word they would use tomorrow I'm like he's an independent artist but he's got a machine behind him so enough he's independent you know yeah I'm good friends with Sturgill Simpson and Sturgill 'he's tried to educate me as to how the the record business use people

43:38in in the fold with the owning your merchandise and your likeness forever and all these different things it seems it seems crazy like me actually site we actually signed a clause it said it said in this contract pertains to this universe in any universe not yet discovered what we sign that Clause who wrote that the record company Jesus what are they Scientology that is crazy like we literally had a sign of thing and it was like this contract pertains to this known universe and any universe not yet discovered that is insane that is insane like if someone found a parallel universe somewhere and they figured out they could sell the music to them it's Pumpkins get over there quick shoot a rocket ship filled with cash well that you know why they put that in is because the when when they transition to CDs the contracts didn't account for CDs and what they did it was very a very classic

44:45thing is so they had to go back and renegotiate all the deals because of the CD technology this would have been like whatever 80s oh so they went to every artists and they said look it's this new technology we're not sure it's gonna work so you got to take a price cut we're only gonna 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 pay 3d chess shape Game of Thrones man it is Game of Thrones but I mean obviously it's it's it's an organism surviving in the face of Napster right like Napster comes in

45:36file-sharing comes in and they're like holy okay so the internet is just out there where other than free and you can just download the music the music is now digital we can't control it and it's just going and and it drives some people crazy and Lee in here and you see the anger in his face what he's talking about people stealing music yeah I 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 given me per 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 dollars Napster did yeah that whole world yeah he's sure yeah yeah I would imagine I'm not I'm not here to it's like the world went on and every

46:26I'm not the only person United's alright targeted at me I mean and I supported it so I got nothing to say but I mean yeah at some point when you can't pay your you know your stupid mortgage on your fifth property you know yeah you know sad at Disneyland you know what I mean it's like I wish I had that money but it's a weird dynamic of the Internet I of the free access of information and then when a song that's your creation can just be boiled down to information it's not that much different than forwarding an email in terms of like people's access yeah 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

47:22starting to be the case because people are finding us because it's sort of organized and there's sort of institutional culture but and when it was free wielding I don't think we played the game well enough to take advantage of it and and you know a lot of trains just passed us by 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 lock down on what got distributed somebody did a study its my one piece of empirical evidence like the British 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 know if they got it for free that the actual act of purchasing something created a

48:14relationship that then created a sort of undesired to want to prove that the relationship was profitable in essence I buy your your comedy concert I didn't get it for free it makes me actually assess whether or not i 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 you know have give away free tickets oh god right audiences were terrible they were terrible you would think that people would be thankful they got a free show no they were the worst most unappreciative audiences because they didn't have anything invested that's it it totally makes sense so you saw it coming you saw Napster coming you looked at it and you

49:03were like this this is something that is inevitable we should probably figure out a way to to yeah there's some piece of them there's a piece of video me from like 99 where I say the future of music is streaming yeah damn you called 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 they have podcasts on it but I'm like well where's the money like where is it going like you you want me to be on right but where's where is it going well that's that and I usually using Amazon as example remember for years the the rap on Amazon was there not a profitable business yeah 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 it essence if you grow the brand value your your net

49:57worth as a as a brand it far outpaces whether or not you're profitable mmm does it make sense yes it does so that's part of my argument now with music is the brand I use my brand the Smashing Pumpkins or the NWA is far more valuable than my sort of profit loss on paper hmm 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 know 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 mmm like let's use a good positive example right now GNR you know reformed you know Duff and an excellent /r out there I just saw them at Madison Square Garden I mean that's proven to be a very durable brand

50:53mm-hmm right yeah now you could argue how many record nobody cares anymore that's a durable brand right 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 G and R ones is fascinating one to me because axel just went off the rails and into the woods for so long shooting his face up with a bunch of and looks like he was just gone 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 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 I would argue that that the freedom in Axl and and the path that

51:50they took is added to the brand mmm I think so too because beautiful they're back I would argue differently I think that when you look and I'm speaking as a fan now when when I look at acts rose I have to see a free person mmm that means more to me than whether he did the right thing in 2000 X I'm more interested in that that's a unique perspective so you like the fact that he didn't give a 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 about anything I think that's so fascinating because there are true there are only a few American iconic artists that are truly free yeah and the fact that so it's like was Hunter Thompson as Thompson free or you know it's like we only have a few of those people yeah Johnny Cash right Johnny Cash had some weird bad years and yeah you know was every year of Johnny Cash perfect was

52:46every 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 fan 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 like mightily internally to 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 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 perform or two but one of the things I really enjoy about Axl Rose's I

53:37love comebacks I love when someone their life up and then just brings it right back around I mean it's like a good fight right well it's like it's every success stories are awesome love them but they're fairly commonplace mmm but success complete success again those are the stories those the ones I enjoy and it's very it's very American you know we love the comeback and there was some performances of Axl's when they were attempting to comeback 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 killing it yeah it's like he turned it around yeah that's what I'm saying is yeah you could sit there and talk about what somebody did in some year past but if they if they put it back together they put it back together not because they're trying to sue to satisfy something they're

54:31putting it together because the forces within them are not easily controlled but when they're it's like a good fighter right when they when they put it all together you know 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 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 onstage 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 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

55:11interesting well that's one of the things that makes live shows so unique right is that you know that this guy's 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 out and I don't know why cuz 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 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 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 chart and they have two hits think they had a couple right so they're two hit wonders yeah but yeah there's a

56:10gang of bands that have yeah I don't want to see the band but like somebody I know went to see one of those one-hit wonder type bands and they 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 that corn they did the song again the same saw yeah and that's like for me as a performer this is heartbreaking it's like it'd be like me playing today twice or yeah and here it is again two versions of staring like the dice man coming out and doing all the rhymes again yeah yeah the thing about becoming a character what you were talking about that is 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 so comfortably with like well not corny a lot of people not haven't but I'm a comfortable with it that's all

57:04I would argue that that's true like you know the play I playing these acoustic shows and you know at some point people start shouting out songs and I and I just say tada and look the great thing about turning 50 is I don't give a what you want I was gonna do what I want to do and at the end of the day right that sells better to most of the audience was most of the audience I would argue appreciates me being independent even if they don't always get what they want then 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 him to stay rep 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 semak's

57:54pretty well 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's just I don't think anybody else did it before yeah he just decided it's a bit strange you know yeah just weird that they have a concert like we couldn't soundcheck until a certain time because there were people in a bereaved people coming in to make their funeral arrangements yeah this is like a weird thing like yeah we can't soundcheck till 5:30 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 a seat 250 oh 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 works for me but it is a bit weird yeah I

58:40literally texted you know like an ex-girlfriend like I'm literally playing a cemetery it's like it just sounds so like what yeah well what what chose you or what 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 tile 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 mmm-hmm 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 does 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 ten years I blame the internet that almost every audience is now the same

59:32Wow that the expectation is the audience from 250 to 5000 are up is almost identical that maybe have 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 it used to be because we were you know 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 normal dome 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 after it was like you you ruined my night you know oh really furious wow you're honest but how many of those people were I mean like if you're in front of 400 people how many

60:18of those people were furious is it three it would be a lot no we'd be lying 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 yeah time you know mosh pits and right you know we used to play a 45-minute song we played a 45-minute song today yeah I mean a 45-minute song that's crazy you know so what do you enjoy being on top of people like that like 250 see it doesn't bother me it doesn't matter um you know does it feel different you just get into your music in order to play acoustic I go super within I I found that even because I originally I was gonna stand this I know seems kind of minor DJ but I decided to sit and and I actually found by sitting and being very still and just performing and doing my best job of

61:16performing the songs the audience enjoyed the show better like I took out all the showbiz you know when you're standing you're doing them yeah yeah you know whatever their 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 which is I want to sort of create a 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

62:05and 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 the only way I could play older music with a good heart and an open mind was to get into the others appreciating it hmm because if you ask me it's not for me anymore because in essence is an artist and and I'm not trying to jump in your head but my 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 yes 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

62:59where 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 and uh tapping out to the to the moment it felt like okay we can create this exchange this is a gradual process yeah it took me it took me a while because I came from such complete anarchy yeah that to sort of put myself in the straitjacket of being a you know growing up in the air I grew up and it felt like putting on the gold leather jacket 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 yeah 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

63:52about 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 can try giving anything away people are 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

64:38them it almost feels like to them you're rejecting their idea not your own oh wow see it's in my mind I'm like well I'm the author if I don't feel like playing that's all I mean that's right that's my decision so you sold them on something and then if you're not buying any more than they're at 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 is in this amazing feeling and we've all been to those shows 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 yeah it's Vegas right yeah I'm incapable of that so my way of feeling it IQ but my appreciation of that was was to try to get inside the head of why

65:27the 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 it's not that bad but they're the punch line of punchlines when it comes to bad bad music and to me the guy's an incredible writer I mean Chad I mean he's an incredible songwriter I like their songs yeah I like some of their music I do I know it some of it is like cliche subject matter and I don't care if there's a lot of great songs that have cliche subject subject man yes yet to me it I don't 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

66:21unsatisfying pop I've said it many times pop is porn it's porn I want to get you off right right and it's how it's just you know how they're gonna get you off that's a good way of looking at okay I'm not that concerned with getting you off I'm just not I'm just not well it's just not in my DNA I was never that guy I was never that guy so - so at some point you know pick your age 41 you got some guy tapping the shoulder saying hey I need you to be that guy you're like me have you looked at me lately I mean I'm not that guy is it 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's a come 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 Slava SH and

67:16it 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 God using the dice man as example I've seen him a couple 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 where they'd be there with a friend and he did it like an unannounced appearance he was fantastic and at the end he kind of he kind of made the face and like and then he went into it but it felt like there was only way he could top the moment right so right in that moment it felt like okay this is cool yes 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 got to do this cuz that's the guy I don't know I went through that whole process himself like he abandoned the rhymes for a long time didn't even kind of try to

68:05abandon 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 and about people angry at him for being controversial and and the early days of political correctness when TV first came around yeah 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 using him as a sort of a as an example how many comedians have actually risen up to that zeitgeist level own almost none I mean he's been like a handful 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 percent who know every song and whatever and know every nuance the other 80% they just know the greatest hit thing it's not their fault

69:06right it feels weird like is that all I am I've done all this you know didn't you see me when I wave this flag and now they don't write all they know is you're the rat and the cage guy right and you can be hostile about it all you want it's not gonna change yeah 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 but 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 pretty remarkable so if you can get behind that you can think oh that's pretty cool I'm cool with that it's it's not this oppositional thing like you should have paid more attention in 94 you know the Revolution was happening where were you you were

69:56listening to somebody else like there's requirements and is also part and parcel too when you take a a fringe movement which you no alternative music grunge whatever 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 ten 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 they say I'll take that yeah just combine it all together yeah because it's cuz that's their gig I've always wondered what it's like when you are when you're beginning as an artist you know your your 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 massive superstar selling out arenas how difficult is it to find

70:53people who understand where your head is impossible do you like seek out other superstar musicians and talk I did and I got nowhere it there either really yeah I had a I've had a hard time ever getting like good data let's put it that way mmm if the freakiest thing was I saw how it changed my inner world meaning friends and family who saw my step grandfather who was a world war two that very closed down classic Eisenhower Republican type of guy smart you know I mean had literally zero interest in me as a kid I mean negative zero interest and 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

71:59that you know I saw where it warped the gravity in my family and then you get the friend like you know you're different just like yeah I'm different of course I'm different you know I mean you know I mean it's like you got a million dollars in my pocket you know yeah I could buy you know yeah I mean you know I one day walked into Beverly Hills and paid cash for a Ferrari and let's just dumb stuff like that's kind of Awesome yeah people don't like the idea of that I think it's funny right it's amazing you bought a Ferrari with money that you had on you crazy and it was it was the classic story I walk in that you know the guy didn't know who I was course it's like so how are you gonna pay for this and I was like cash you have a brick with you oh wow that that's just an awesome thing to be able to do yeah so I'm saying you go from like literally complete not

72:51abject pop poor I had no right you know and then one day I'm like throwing you know geez around for ya dumb cars and well it's also you you've reached such a high level that there's nothing above that like I have the I have the antidote my manager who was you know we were with the Metallica 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 were getting you're gonna 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 couldn't keep going yeah yeah well that's what I always wondered like when you reach a certain level and you're sound out these giant arenas and you one of the biggest bands literally ever look at one of the top 100 biggest bands of all time right arguably yeah

73:51it's were in there yeah it's in there yeah where the do you go like it had to be this is the only madness be 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 do we do do we fade away no we went crazy you know we just lost our minds like what happened what was the process did you see it slipping away we see the madness yeah and if you can't you know it's like it's like a bad relationship or bad relationships you 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 there's and and the great shame of my band was musically we were super tight and we never disagreed on music it was like this weird

74:48phenomenon 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 sort of I don't 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 now that I've seen what we actually did accomplished in in you know is surrounded by chaos but then we created our own cast and then at some

75:34point it all blurs what were the things that it up was it the money in the fame and was it the tension was it the ego I think we were we were like one of those bad behind the music's the very early conversation I remember we had these managers very early on and 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 got to breakfast with you which was weird because it was always the whole band like you know democracy and they said they said no who writes the songs and I said well I do and they said well that's gonna be a problem like what do you mean that's gonna 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 use some examples of bands who did and I thought

76:27hell 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 gonna make a lot more money and I was like stop you know what I mean it's like live and learn kind of thing why they think you're gonna make more money because the songwriters get if you quick lesson the songwriter gets paid separate statutorily by the government than the actual copyright of the recording so if you 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 social writer 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

77:21financially you know I mean mm-hmm but when you're a kid and you're 23 and somebody's having this conversation with you you literally don't even have an apartment right and somebody's trying to tell you how you're gonna 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 mmm so that sort of shows that it organically so is 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 and 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 get out of the interviews and that the band members would yell at me for them not being asked questions this is like this weird thing like it was my responsibility to push them more as stars or yeah so it's

78:11not just about the music it's about being appreciated in successful analysis 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 Rob 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 saw thought they would do the same thing someone came absolutely yeah 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

79:01every right to do you know what I mean so suddenly they're like making side deals and you starts getting all that weird business and right you know 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 have a meeting and make it all okay because the wounds are deep and in our case 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've met name in the heat was was real I mean we didn't never lawsuits and all sorts of stuff it's such a common story that I hope someone listens to this part of your organization as well and they won't it's just human nature right is that what it is power corrupts man yeah and again you

79:51know no sympathy asked 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 in the possibility that's like I approach a 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 it's gonna do to you sure yeah but again and I'm not a 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 mm no 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 gonna be a problem

80:40trust 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 unders my understanding is they and I again go back to the conversation I have at the executive they just basically looking to say you've got four years if you're lucky if you're lucky so why they're gonna yeah why they're 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 happy if you're having a hot run it like roulette and the imposters just like enjoy it now yeah because we're gonna get it back that's what it feels like what percentage of musicians or musical

81:28artists 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 probably even smaller what a meat grinder of a business you would think like hey man we're on Warner Brothers dude we made it it's happening they're gonna promote us they're gonna push us they signed us and and sorry to interrupt again but the other weird thing is the Atlee 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 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 it's it what I'm trying to say and I'm not saying it well is you would think

82:26you would be surrounded by people 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 gonna ruin it and then and 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 she'll listen to us is that universal have you heard that other other musician say the same I would guess it was universal because looking back it doesn't feel personal to me it felt like I you know use your bad analogy pimp oh I don't know right it's a weird con job thing that was my experience there's a lot of con jobs that Courtney Love piece that she wrote about the music business I'm sure you're aware that was she experienced in her know a bunch of years

83:17ago where she it was I think it was actually probably before digital got really huge and it was a lot of people thought she had a ghostwriter but it was really eye-opening to a lot of people who didn't know anything about the music business like where the money actually goes and how how much money has to be spent and how little you actually make even though if you sell a ton of records you've never seen this ya know some 2000 actually is on salon.com one of the years we weren't talking yeah well it's for people who haven't read it it's pretty eye-opening I've I've nothing to do with the music business I've always been absolutely fascinating as a completely objective observer just looking at it this whole thing seems so crazy because it's if you do not get signed and if you do not get from at least until recently you had no chance they they literally controlled the reins

84:14in 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 like a great Greek mythology type myth thing the 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 and MTV basically told him to take a hike and the music business back 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 the 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 really realizing that Napster was just the beginning of a whole wave of new technologies and new sort of social

85:05interactions or something those two critical errors led to the music business reduced position and it's this music music has been around forever but the music business has been around what a hundred or so years I think we're into a hundred and twenty plus years of recordings yeah it's just amazing how what a Ironfist they've managed to control the the business with and and to sort of wrangle all their artists for the most part well it's weird of Wizard of Oz you know you know don't don't 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 I'm 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

85:54don't think I could see clearly does it make sense it's a it's still too weird for me ya know it does it doesn't make sense when you first when I first came to LA and whatever 90 and had the meetings and you be in that that you know hit the office and the people with the beards and everything and they be like so when we put the product out and every time they would say product I would sort of wince not act like how can you call my art product you know I mean and that's to them it's just it's cookies and toilet paper it's just it's whatever and 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 senator runs on its own inertia it's just it just does when you see someone like

86:43chance the rapper break out of that system do you 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 could be followed but you know it probably works because he's so talented it's like a weird combination right I mean use the McGregor example it's like how many McGregor's are there in the world right and and beyond being a skilled fighter I mean the guy's in a level talker speaking from a professional wrestling standpoint the guy's probably the best promo in the world ya know as far as MMA guys and it's also he has is in this very unique position where he has insane support from Ireland I mean insane that 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

87:32the Irish people have for him it's crazy and you see the videos of when he fought Mayweather not not even where they fought they were in Mandalay Bay Irish had flooded Mandalay Bay the into you know that walkway from Mandalay Bay as you walk towards the arena and towards the exhibit there was nothing but Irish people singing and it's crazy man it's like who organized this no one who told them to start saying as organic as an Irish descendent we know we've been waiting for a long time for Connor but record yeah and yes I mean poets and Bono you know 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 goes because he loses he doesn't lose any support and like not it doesn't change anything and

88:30people respect the fact that he took a chance and fought Mayweather like an can I ask you a fanboy UFC question so like Cormier lost to John Jones right yes okay any loss cuz 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 Army'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 recent most recent speculation that I talked about the other day but in item 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 time line I know you look at the time John loves some cocaine but if you look at the time line of when John tested negative and when John tested positive

89:27it 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 blitzkrieg so it is entirely possible right 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 we buy 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 gave it 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 his John

90:30Jones 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 what I was asking more as a fan like yeah the psychological person we need a real lie-detector test that's what we need we do not green we value honesty so much and there's very little other than some rudimentary observations they can make with fMRI functional magnetic imaging resonance imaging which do you want to be like detect yes strap me up man very good podcast I try to tell the truth have you done that podcast as much as humanly possible no never been have you ever like like yeah have you ever thought about so-and-so in a particular way the opportunity to expose things that I think are up about me but that one I mean when it comes to like cheating in combat sports it has such an intense significance to it that's not

91:35it's not a an option or it's not a sort of 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 like that was the case with Vitor Belfort when he fought Michael Bisping he had 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 like if you look at his eye there's there's like permanent oil to protect his retina that he has to leave in there until he decides to quit fighting and then I'll have another surgery on it and the question is like did Vitor land that because he's highly skilled or did he landed because high skilled and taking testosterone it's your - you're you increase your ability to cause damage and that changes the game it's not like

92:25hitting a baseball if a guy's on steroids and he hits a baseball and his team one of 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 like the angle of a punch and tenth of a second being the difference between a glancing blow and a knockout yeah and it's what's so crazy it's like you get in this fractional idea of what is just mm-hmm there's so many factors of 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 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 to like like he's just like it

93:18feels like he can't lose and then he's has so much confidence right and all the skill on top of that this seat he's 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 like there's been these photos side to side of the two of them together and you just like wow like it's like one of them is a destroyer the other one is a dad like he's a dad bod you know it's it's weird so if that's the case with John Jones what you want to pull it up related breaking story right now Wow oh there's two two breaking stories in the MMA world right now this one since you're talking about it Anderson Silva fails out of us UFC Shanghai main event makes sense he's 40 what did he fail for this day at a sample of a sample B test that failed from on October 26th collection huh so I was a couple weeks ago that's

94:15interesting from a sample B test all right a sample is just a sample collected oh I didn't say the actual drug because they don't test sample B in less sample a is well I'm not surprised this is the other thing going all right Conor McGregor jumps the cage at Bellator 187 confronts 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 I just already I'm already booking them the main how do you have time for that wrestling stuff just I just make time you just make time cuz you enjoy it yeah I love it yeah for all this crazy emo kids that are just massive Smashing Pumpkins fascist there's so many of them that that must drive them nuts yeah but that's part of it that's wrestling tough right yeah that's what it is yeah yeah yeah so to answer your question

95:10Daniel Cormier is an awesome guy I mean it really breaks my heart when I see people get upset and boo him people 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 gonna 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 is kind of connected to that because he's 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 who was like one of the greatest ever and pride former you know right he was light heavyweight champion at the time John Jones fights him he's 23 years

96:06old his opening move is a flying knee that lands I mean he's just is uniquely improvisational creative wild talented physically incredibly dominant very strong I've got a crazy body for the game like really long yet a long long thing out 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 physical it's a strange comparison to make but back in the day used to hang out a lot with Dennis Rodman when he was only in for the Bulls and he had freakish strength kind of similar body look very long yeah like you wouldn't look at him and think muscles right 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 acting up in Genesis were rich over the guy picked him up like this and then even people would remember NBA fans

97:04Denis used to guard her there Denis used to guard shack one-on-one yeah and that was when Shaq was what you know three forty years I think Denis was just and that was when they had the whole thing you couldn't use your hand you had at the elbow and all that stuff he 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 mm-hmm whatever that is it's a lot of times it's those long guys to something is about long limbs and leverage and it's like dentists if they have long as they have a certain amount of muscle with that long those long limbs and longer average look at the set look okay freakish look and this you know this is like the air I'm hanging out with Dennis I mean look at Dennis's size compared to Shaq if you didn't know it was Dennis Rodman it was just some you know NBA

97:51scrub right you would think there's no way that guy's gonna guard him one-on-one especially Shaq in his prime there there's no way yeah it's rotten is a crazy guy interesting speaking crazy funny story please got a good story yeah so used to hang out a lot with Dennis and you know hadn't seen him for years was at a restaurant Chicago not too long ago and 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 any wanders away I think he's going to take a piss okay about ten minutes goes by I say to the waitress

98:44- Dennis leave yeah he left okay I just figured he's gone it's just the way he is right they wouldn't even say goodbye just gone I get up the next morning I turned 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 as I turn 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'd I say turn on the television and he said what channel I said it doesn't matter and two minutes goes by holy 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 Holman my dad this is really a genuine you know a naive hearted person so in my best understanding as he truly believes he can affect the world in a positive way

99:41so there's like Dennis there's not a bad bone in Dennis's 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 open you know whatever he's yeah I mean it's not good that's not a good shot I mean you 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 it's been nothing but a total sweetheart to my it to me in my life but I Jenna 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's just it's and that's where the other side of Dennis it makes a certain sense is like

100:30I'll do it yeah remember when he was dressing up and drag and yeah you know it's like I'll be that guy yeah so it's somehow it sort of works in his again I'm not trying to speak for him but he was one of my favorite guys in Celebrity Rehab because he was like working out every day drinking water I used to go into the Bulls locker room after games and he would workout after games really we go in to go because we were gonna go out clubbing or whatever and you go in the locker room and he'd be working out 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 was had a knee injury I mean he played the whole game like what kind of workouts he like lifting weights or something treadmill you know whatever whatever he was doing why and he wasn't it wasn't like light stretching it was like the Energizer but

101:18and then we go out and stay out all night Jesus state quick you want a quick story so I'm hanging out with the Bulls it's the first time they're playing Utah they and it's a very it's the series the Bulls probably should have lost but they didn't it's the famous game where the famous series where Michael had the flu and scored 36 points and if you know that game it's like one of the most famous games Michael lidget 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 billionaires plane and we fly to Vegas we stay out all night gambling and this is Dennis like you know rubbing dice on people's bodies and throwing the dice so drunk they're balancing out of the you know the craps pit and I mean just total mess and you're thinking how is this

102:11gonna help us win a championship very much a fan mentality I'm thinking you know naively I'm gonna kind of rein him in so so we stay out all night we get up then we would never go to bed we get we fly on the private plane back to make the morning press shoot around back in Utah so we've only been we've only been in Vegas for like eight hours so 9:00 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 hotel no let's go back to Vegas so after the morning shoot around drove to the airport to fly commercial because now the billionaires not swining back again and gets on a plane commercial and has given me because I don't want to go back to Vegas with him Jesus crummy off day and this is during the NBA NBA Finals so through some sort of weird you know how the world works I end up

103:13somewhere I don't play I go to play miniature golf or something in his Park City Utah where the Bulls were staying and Phil Jackson and his families had just happened to be there unlike 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 stars yeah you don't understand to tell him not to go I want to win the championship or at least have one now what are you gonna say to Phil Jackson have you ever met Phil Jackson no Phil Jackson is an intimidating guy he plays very zen on TV but in person he's very intimidating six seven six eight and he was legitimately upset at you let's just say it wasn't a nice encounter and I love Phil Jackson I mean I loved those years I loved those teams and I was lucky to be around them a lot I used to say look watching this teams like 1927 Yankees I mean you will look back very

104:09fondly 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 this is 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 under my thing it falls under what I call the celeb friendship hmm 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 been counting 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 I'll 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

104:57gets 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 it's a few it's weird it's I I feel like when someone reaches a certain level of success especially Fame they get people to sort of handle certain menial tasks and then that person sort of becomes their babies hitter yeah I have very few friends that are famous and and and it's one on one yeah or forget it no selling wood even if I'm a fan I mean there are people I've you know I could call them up kind of thing that I mean they're like my absolute idols but if I can't have that rapport it's like forget it it's just it's almost too weird it's like because why and then I might by a fan guy hanging around hoping he's

105:51gonna throw me a bone right and talk to me about you know their second album you know it's like it's in 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 anymore it's like that's one of the good things I did give a before 50 but now I get to declare it yeah but it's great that you are 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

106:38brand they protect that that thing that they're projecting to their fans they have this idea what their fans want and they 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 riff with 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 to 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 Rorschach a blob question for them as if I'd never open my mouth and all you had on me was my music would you have a different opinion mean they they always say the same thing

107:29absolutely 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 what's fun to play it's like a part of the game it's too late now 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 thank you very open honest right but if I knew you like if I didn't know of your music I'll go oh it's a regular guy you've been a lot of people don't like that they don't like regular guys no it's a fantasy world yeah that's party business right yeah I got to ask you this one thing for sure really is cuz I read this and I was like what um here we go you saw someone shape-shift Oh God is that really where you with people that's true really that's true cuz I when you told me that you enjoyed Kaufman like moments I was like okay I know it's true I would tell you off

108:30great but I won't say it publicly really the only way I'd say it publicly is if I write it in 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 get look I know Alex Jones sat in the seat right I know you've been on in fours I bet you know there's a three or four times for mostly talking about free speech mm-hmm I think that's I think that's one thing that that is is critical and alternative media is to fight that that's a frontline issue for me yeah this de monetizing of people's videos and trying to censor messages and even how in a the Twitter exec just recently admitted in front of Congress how they were suppressing a negative Hillary hashtags and stuff yes I mean that's crazy to me yes I think so too that like you've got some of you openly saying yeah we were you know if we're gonna sit here and go on and on about

109:31rush inclusion I mean is that not an in-kind donation well you you're manipulating people's ability 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 reply or get my message out right as long as we have that ability I trust our democracy we need people like you and me and anybody else like great I think our democracy is better for it and that includes the people who say things that I don't approve of or like I'd rather have them say it then not say I agree as well I think it's very important that if people do say those things that you don't approve of like that other people express why they don't approve of those things like them and the only way that happens is if you hear the initial thought you have to

110:23hear the one thing that you don't like in order for someone to say saying something that resonates you go yes that's why we disagree with that initial okay so I go use any personnel if we if we generally agree then an idea is so abhorrent or so racist or so bigoted then what are we afraid of because the 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 - yes in essence if you're not 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

111:15ideas you don't agree with that's terrifying it is terrified it's terrifying I agree I mean let's wrap this up so I could hear your shapeshifter story I want to hear that man it's let's put it this way it's pretty wild I believe you people well I will I will someday you'll put it in a book yeah so please tell people how they can see you the the name of your new album where they get it I have an album out solo acoustic OG lalala produced by Rick Rubin I'm 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 gonna go record another acoustic album and hopefully next year they'll be a pumpkin store awesome our fingers are crossed well thank you Billy oh man thank you thank you my pleasure