Billy Corgan

What no snob from the village voice could ever understand was I had no concern with what they thought about my playing.

My shadow was my father.

Yeah.

Who was a failed musician, drug dealer, you know, very, very bitter, who basically said, if you're going to do this, because he resisted it for years.

Yeah.

If you're going to do this, you must play at this level or you're not.

What I'm saying is people don't understand that's a working class shadow.

My dad wasn't teaching at Berkeley and said, son, if you want to be good, you've got to be.

But I'm saying is it's not like my dad said, you know, you've got to be as good as Django or you don't belong on stage.

Django?

My dad was like, if you can't play as good as Albert King or you can't play as good as Stevie Ray Vaughan or Jimi Hendrix, get the off the stage.

And he would illustrate what he meant, not from a place of erudite, you know, snobbery from a place of when this guy hits this note this way, it sends lightning bolts through my brain.

My dad talked about seeing Albert King.

Do you know anything about Albert King?

Not really, no.

Okay.

Because I know you love music stuff.

Albert King played a flying V upside down with the strings upside down.

Whoa.

Okay.