WILLIAM
PATRICK
CORGAN
Head Down,
Keep Walking
By Tom Lanham
W
hen the Jedi Master speaks, the
humble light saber student must
sit quietly at his feet and listen.
And Smashing Pumpkins anchor Billy
Corgan – who has recently re-dubbed him-
self with the more mature moniker of
William Patrick Corgan, under which he
just released the skeletal, Rick Rubin-pro-
duced solo set Oglilala, one of his best
albums in ages – still remembers like it was
yesterday his own Yoda-revealing summit
meeting that occurred 14 years ago at a
bustling Japanese train station. Standing
casually, waiting for the next express, the
singer was stunned to look across the plat-
form and see one of his musical heroes,
Neil Young, waiting there, too. And – look-
ing for common commiseration ground –
he found himself complaining to the CSNY
legend about certain record labels with
which they’d both had experiences. “I
don’t know what the fuck I was thinking,
and it was probably a very boring conver-
sation for him,” Corgan sighs in slightly
embarrassed retrospect.
Young listened patiently, thoughtfully,
though. “And then he just cut to the chase,
as only Neil Young can,” Corgan recalls.
When one encounters opposition or diffi-
culties in show business, the man said, one
should merely put one’s head down and
keep walking, oblivious to such distrac-
tions. “And I knew exactly what he meant,
and he told me what I really needed to
hear,” he adds. “That it doesn’t matter
what some guy in an office thinks of you –
what matters is what you do. And he’s a
sage – let’s face it. So I took that advice to
heart. And there have been some really
tough days where that’s the only advice I
could rely on. I didn’t get advice from my
father. So I took it from surrogate fathers
like Neil Young and Johnny Cash. And – as
an artist in kind of a wacky world – you
need to find your surrogate fathers to help
you get through this, because I haven’t got-
ten a lot of pats on the back from this cul-
ture.” He chortles, with palpable defiance.
”And yet I’m still here.”
Corgan has been powering through
many changes in his personal life. He just
turned 50. Nearly two years ago, he
became a father himself to son Augustus,
with his significant other Chloe Mendel
(both are prominently featured on the
Oglilala album cover photograph). He has
taken on other mature new responsibili-
ties, as well, as the president and owner of
the National Wrestling Alliance, a continu-
ation of his involvement with the sport
that began with Resistance Pro (which he
left in 201