2 days ago
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A couple weeks ago, Stereogum's VJ Winter was on the red carpet of the Songwriters Hall Of Fame Induction at New York's Marriott Marquis Hotel. She talked with legends like Brandi Carlile, Kenny Loggins, and even Billy Corgan, who gave her an update on Zwan, his long-dormant supergroup with Jimmy Chamberlin, Matt Sweeney, David Pajo, and Paz Lenchantin. It turns out, the long-promised reissue is finally on the way, along with a lot more.
"All the Zwan songs are gonna be remixed and remastered that were on the original album, Mary Star Of The Sea," Corgan explained of the 2003 release, the band's only record. "And they'll be like, maybe two more LPs of unreleased tracks because there's so much Zwan stuff I'm gonna kind of put it out in different sets. Otherwise the boxset would be like 20 records long and it's just too much to ask fans to take on. 60+ unreleased Zwan songs that have never been released, not just versions, like other songs. There was a lot of writing in that band."
Corgan also had a lot of stories to share. Here's what he said about Stevie Nicks and the Smashing Pumpkins' "Landslide" cover:
Stevie asked me to produce an album once and it didn't work out. I love Stevie. Stevie's unbelievable. So to even know Stevie, I've been inside of Stevie's house playing the piano with Stevie, talk about songs with Stevie, so I feel I got the best of that deal. And I was so glad to find a song that's an incredible song that had never really been a hit before. I don't think it was ever a single. And after that it's been a hit like four or five times over. It's a classic. I hear it in the airport. And every time I hear it it makes me smile because I think about Stevie calling me and saying, "Thank you." Just Stevie to me. I always hold that in my heart. Stevie for me, especially alt generation, Stevie's one of our Mount Rushmore. She's incredible.
And here's what he said about My Bloody Valentine after confirming that, contrary to popular belief, shoegaze is real:
I saw My Bloody Valentine play at the Metro in Chicago on Isn't Anything. There was only a hundred people in the crowd and let me tell you one little story that I think you'll enjoy. In the middle of the show — so, again, there's a hundred people in a club that holds a thousand people, and I'd heard them but I'm watching Kevin do Kevin, right? And in the middle of the show, Colm, the drummer, breaks his bass drum head and they don't have another one with them. So they have to run outside to get it. And Kevin stood there and played for 15 minutes while they changed the bass drum head and just went [shoegaze guitar noises] for 15 minutes straight. And then finally Colm went like [thumbs up] and they kicked back into whatever the song was. Like, they never stopped. It was incredible.
During the event, he covered KISS' "Shout It Out Loud" with John Rzeznik. Watch the clips below.
English (US) · 