Billy Corgan Quotes

When Talking Heads started, we called ourselves Thinking Man's Dance Music.

Indie rock is just as susceptible - if not more susceptible - to all the gross things about people becoming total ass clowns in music, and only worrying about money and image. I'm not interested in being a part of that.

Even the indie rock world - which is supposed to be about truth and independence from corporate mindfulness or something - is totally subject to the paraphernalia of celebrity.

I'm jamming 'Black Sabbath Vol. 4' all the time. Zappa's 'Cruising With Ruben & The Jets.' A lot of Gong lately. Some Hawkwind. The Residents' 'Duck Stab' is amazing. Some Fugs. Lots of stuff, man. I'm pretty schizophrenic with records.

If someone says 'grunge' or 'punk,' you know what the sound is, but if you say 'No Wave,' it's kind of mysterious. That was the most interesting part and should have been the most inspirational thing about it... here's this collective sonic insanity, and none of it sounds anything alike.

We grew up listening to alternative music from the '90s, and there was no shame in being on a major label and still making the music you wanted to make. I feel like rap rock came around and drew a line in the sand, and everybody that was like me ran away from that and started making indie-rock.

I was real into Devo, Pavement, Captain Beefheart, and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

I always thought of indie-rock as being rock music by bands that were on independent labels, and that's a great thing.

I'm into heavy duty, psychedelic, foreign music. That's what I like listening to.

I don't think there's any such thing as rock n' roll anymore - it's an amalgamation of business interests.

In the old days, maybe we'd come across Captain Beefheart, buy a record, go, 'This is great!' and notice how his music is evolving, changing, and becoming more complex, more radical. And we would follow that progression and see it reflected in the alternative culture it came from.

I guess you could call my music progressive, pop, rock.

There's a lot of artists out there who are pretty big but don't write their songs, they just have a lifestyle brand. These are all things that I think are a great enemy to music.

Rock and roll has become entertainment that just says what the consumer wants to hear. There's no more edge or rebellion that sets it apart from the norm.

I've put out records over the years, whether it's with Blackfield or No-Man or Bass Communion or Porcupine Tree, that are pop records, ambient records, metal records, singer-songwriter records.

When I was growing up, I was always looking for the most willfully uncommercial music: Whether it was Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa or King Crimson, that's what attracted me.

I'm into indie music. I think indie is going to bring back the spirit in music. There was a time when it was all about accommodating the music business, the music was getting tasteless, but the spirit is back.

I think what's happenin' is that, with the overflow of music, it's been diluted. There was a time when people would go search out underground records. Now, underground means free, and people don't really care for it. So now artists tend to go more pop and look for the radio.

It was '86. We were a big enough name and we had enough cache that MTV wanted to play us, so, along with Michael Jackson and Madonna, they played our upside-down, black-and-white, backward, single unedited footage of a rock quarry with orange letters over the top of it and called it art.

London is a dead duck, as far as innovative new music is concerned, unless you want to have your head blown off with some outrageous, rubbish, pounding dance music.

Brian Eno and Robert Fripp's foray into some artful excursions into some ethereal electric experiments. There was a lot curious activities emerging in London, Amsterdam, and Berlin back then developing some fiercely fuzzy of synth-like effects way outside the norm which really blew the lid off things.

Nada Surf and Harvey Danger are good bands. I think they've just stayed true to why they play music in the first place, it's just because they love doing it and they love each other and that's the impetus for doing it, not trying to keep singles on the radio and on MTV.

I wanted to be in Rolling Stone number two with a tomorrow feel to it, like an experimental Rolling Stones with Jagger singing.

I didn't grow up with indie rock - I mean, I listened to bands that are considered indie rock, but I think that term is dead and uninteresting.

If it's just politics that's running music, f - k that. I'm out of here! I can't think of anything more boring.