Billy Quotes - '94, '95
Billy : "I wanted Siamese Dream to be loud and quiet and abusive and beautiful.."
Starline Magazine, '94
Billy : "Smashing Pumpkins has never been a band about hit songs," he stresses, "but suddenly in the wake of all these alternatives acts selling millions of records, all of the sudden it was expected we would become that. And so it was a really strange position to be in."
Starline Magazine, '94
Billy : "You don't choose to write a song about pain. It just happens,"
'Big O' Interview, '94
Billy : "Songwriting for me is literally like having five people living in the same body. One day I'm an insuler, childlike artist just going by emotion, the next day I'm a crass technician. The person who writes the riffs argues with the person doing the vocals. But the different personalities can work together: Sometimes my heart says, "This song needs to move," and the tactical part suggests, "Try a key change." It goes back and forth until some kind of graceful compromise is reached. But it takes me a long time to move a song through these different perceptions because I keep finding things to improve. There are songs that are born of their day, that just come to you, but I can count them on one hand. They tend to be my better-known songs because they're so immediately catchy - "Today" and "Disarm," for example."
Guitar Player, Sep '94
LR : "Do you get bothered by bad reviews?"
Billy : "I only get bent out of shape when I feel it's malicious. I think there's a difference between constructive criticism, and a person's opinion based on what they understand and know."
Interview w/ Lisa Robinson, Fall '95
Billy : "I own dance records and I never play them. It's a complete waste of time, to the point where I realize their okay to shake your ass to but they're no good when your making toast.."
Smash Hits, Late '95
Q : "What will be on your epitaph? 'I came, I rocked I fell down and died'."
Billy : "No I think my headstone will read, 'I was never satisfied'."
Smash Hits, Late '95
What not to ask in an interview :
Billy : "Anything to do with Courtney Love," he grins. "And yeah--don't ask them if the band members hate each other or they still don't get along. I mean, what kind of band would have stayed together and made this record if they hated each other?"
Chart Magazine, Nov '95
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