Billy Corgan is the host of a new podcast called The Magnificent Others. As the Smashing Pumpkins frontman tells ABC Audio, he initially pitched the show as, “I want to talk to whoever I want to talk to, for whatever reasons I want to talk to them for.”
“But that ultimately was really about celebrating artists and people in the culture that I admire, and in my own version, oftentimes are overlooked,” Corgan says. “Maybe not overlooked in the way that people might think, but overlooked in ways that I think their contributions may be more significant or pointed in a different direction than the Wikipedia narrative would give you.”
As he’s been a professional musician for over 30 years, Corgan feels he brings a “unique perspective” as a host. That means he’s also been interviewed for over 30 years himself, which taught Corgan to avoid what he calls the “five questions” that every artist has to answer over and over again.
“I think if you can establish some credibility with [your guests], that you’re not gonna try to go into the same subjects the same way that everybody else does, they seem to kinda wake up,” Corgan says.
The first two guests on The Magnificent Others are KISS‘ Gene Simmons and Rage Against the Machine‘s Tom Morello. Corgan will reunite with Morello during the Black Sabbath reunion/farewell gig in July, but not alongside Tool drummer Danny Carey, as Sharon Osbourne was quoted. Instead, they’ll be joined by Tool guitarist Adam Jones, who, like Corgan and Morello, is from the Chicago area.
“We all grew up within about 20 or so miles from one another at about the same time, listening to the same radio,” Corgan says.
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