This interview has been published on Radio Metal the 12/12/2014.

I’ve hardly ever been as nervous as just before interviewing Billy Corgan. To many, more than a musician, Corgan is the embodiment of alt-rock, of an aesthetic, of a decade—some kind of hero. As he puts it, through the years, The Smashing Pumpkins became more than a rock band: an institution. Not that he’s making a fuss out of it: he’s lucid, high-spirited, and way more preoccupied with the future than the past.

On the occasion of the release of Monuments To An Elegy, the second album of the Teargarden By Kaleidyscope cycle, we talked about the present of The Smashing Pumpkins, its past, Corgan’s other endeavors, and the current state of rock music. Resting on the band’s laurels isn’t an option. Billy Corgan is too busy trying to prove that rock’n’roll isn’t dead, and that there are still boundaries to be pushed—that after all these years, he still would rather be an anti-hero than part of the status quo.

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