Vernon Reid | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Vernon Reid | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Podcast: The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan
Episode: Vernon Reid
Release Date: December 3, 2025

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Overview

In this rich, wide-ranging conversation, host Billy Corgan sits down with legendary guitarist, bandleader, and genre-crosser Vernon Reid. They explore Reid’s personal story from early musical influences through artistic struggles and triumphs—from free jazz exploration to global stardom with Living Colour. Together, they discuss creativity, commercial and racial obstacles, artistic evolution, the cost of truth-telling in art, and the state of music’s role in culture, including thoughts about AI and the calling of the musician.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Early Musical Influences and Formative Experiences

• Introduction to Professional Music

  • Reid credits drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson as a pivotal figure in his musical awakening, describing the moment he was introduced to the world of avant-garde jazz by friend Melvin Gibbs.

    “When your compatriots are willing to listen, you have a brief window. And while they're willing to listen, make hay. Make hay while you may.” — Vernon Reid (00:14)

• Eclectic Upbringing

  • Reid’s parents made “no other judgment” except about volume, supporting his omnivorous taste in music (Mahavishnu Orchestra, Motown, Hendrix, R&B).

    “They only cared about whether it was loud or not...They never turned that noise. They just said, turn it down.” — Vernon Reid (04:15)

• Coltrane as Revelation

  • Both Corgan and Reid recall being electrified upon hearing John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things,” with Reid marveling at the deep sincerity and innovation in Coltrane’s approach.

    “He put all of that in the horn, and I felt that. And you probably felt that at the same time.” — Vernon Reid (06:59)

The New York Scene: Confrontation and Fusion

• Navigating the Avant-Garde

  • Reid describes the New York art and music scene of the late 70s and early 80s as “confrontational,” particularly spanning the spaces between jazz, punk, and hip-hop.
  • Discusses friction around new forms like hip-hop, often dismissed by older funk and jazz musicians as “novelty,” which he saw as profoundly innovative.

    “This disruptive interruption in the flow of the everyday...like thunder...sudden disruption that appealed to me.” — Vernon Reid (13:03)

• Art and Taste: The Falafel and Bauhaus Analogy

  • Both speakers riff on learning to love new, challenging work, using Bauhaus and falafel as metaphors for developing deeper taste.

    “First time I heard Joseph Spence, I was like, this dude is buggin’. He’s bugging...And then I go, this is the greatest guitarist I’ve ever heard in my life.” — Vernon Reid (16:04)

Founding the Black Rock Coalition (BRC) and the Problem of Categories

• Origins and Motivation

  • Reaction to racial and cultural segregation in music venues and on the radio in early 80s New York; BRC emerged as both an artistic and political pushback against these boundaries.

    “The idea that, you know, that rock music is now white music. Black people don’t play it. And I never accepted the premise.” — Vernon Reid (23:15)

  • Describes nostalgia for more adventurous radio and the increasing corporate “narrow-casting” that calcified genre boundaries (21:42-23:15).

• Injustice and Recognition

  • Frustration with black guitarists like Ernie Isley being ignored by white-dominated guitar press, despite enormous impact and hit records.

    “Ernie Isley deserved to be featured...he literally saved the Isley Brothers.” — Vernon Reid (24:00)

The Journey to Living Colour and Navigating Commercial Success

• Founding and Early Days

  • Living Colour’s fusion of genres reflected Reid’s wide palette; the importance of finding a true vocalist in Corey Glover to express the band’s vision.

    “I was the vocalist...I consider myself an early pioneer of shoe gazing. Because I was so nervous.” — Vernon Reid (30:52)

  • CBGB’s as a laboratory for the band’s sound, fusing influences with punk and experimental approaches.

• Writing “Cult of Personality”

  • Reid recalls the song’s “assembled itself” in a flash of inspiration, with the group responding instantly to the riff.

    “It’s one of the greatest...because from the moment I stumbled on the riff and I yelled at Wilson, yo man, put a beat to this...the song assembled itself using us.” — Vernon Reid (38:30)

• Dealing With Breakout Success

  • Describes commercial breakthrough as surreal and presents the challenge of meeting new expectations.

    “When you’re used to struggling...and suddenly you’re not, it was weird. It’s been weird the whole time.” — Vernon Reid (42:16)

Industry Pressure, Categorization, and Race

• Media & Label Pressure

  • Struggles with how labels and media forced Living Colour into boxes that didn’t fit.

    “They have to fit you in the box. And that in and of itself, is every band. But what’s unfair to you guys is...they never even found a box that was close to the box.” — Billy Corgan (57:34)

  • Notes lack of industry response to BRC’s breakthrough, and how unlike grunge acts, black rock musicians weren’t afforded similar chances or investment (60:00-61:01).

    “We did something...completely unexpected. But what happened when Nirvana broke out...anything from Seattle was getting a look. That didn’t really happen [for us.]” — Vernon Reid (59:19)

• Artistic Pressure Post-Success

  • Band wrestled with the demand for another hit; Reid felt the urge to explore, not repeat.

    “I definitely did. But I also felt like, it felt like to make that...there’s kind of feeling that doing that again would be weird. Would be false.” — Vernon Reid (53:28)

The Cost and Calling of Truth in Art

• Art’s Personal and Social Toll

  • Both discuss the deep, often hidden price artists pay for creating meaningful work.

    "Magic costs. If you're going to work with magic, it's going to cost you." — Vernon Reid (78:09) "So many people have been destroyed. So many people." — Billy Corgan (67:20)

• Conditional Love in the Industry

  • The love of fans and industry is “completely with conditions”—age, fashion, commercial relevance.

    “If you don’t fulfill the conditions, it can be withdrawn. It will be withdrawn.” — Vernon Reid (80:36)

Reflections on Creativity, Influence, and the Future

• Guitar as Lifelong Companion

  • On continuing to grow, learn, and be humbled as a musician.

    “I want to find out who the hell I am. I’m still searching. I’m still searching.” — Vernon Reid (69:52)

  • Awe for new generations, but maintains respect for soulful simplicity (Pop Staples with Mavis, for example).

    “A better guitar player’s not messing with that.” — Vernon Reid (93:08)

• AI & Music’s Spiritual Calling

  • Concern and fascination with AI’s rise; how humanity’s search for external “superintelligence” is both an extension and threat to art and spirituality.

    “We’ve created an entity...that will answer you, that could quote any of the great sage books...and give you your blessing. Customized for you.” — Vernon Reid (86:20)

• The Expansiveness of Music

  • Corgan sees artists as “the priest class,” able to “shift energies”—but laments the reductionism of industry, media, and even the attention economy.

    “...at the end of the day, it never seems to encapsulate the expansiveness that is really at the heart of great music.” — Billy Corgan (100:38)

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Memorable Quotes

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-------------|---------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:14 | Reid | "When your compatriots are willing to listen, you have a brief window...make hay while you may." | | 06:59 | Reid | "[Coltrane] put all of that in the horn, and I felt that." | | 24:00 | Reid | "Ernie Isley deserved to be featured...he literally saved the Isley Brothers." | | 38:30 | Reid | "...from the moment I stumbled on the riff and I yelled at Wilson, yo man, put a beat to this...the song assembled itself..." | | 57:34 | Corgan | "They have to fit you in the box. And that in and of itself, is every band...never even found a box that was close to the box."| | 78:09 | Reid | "Magic costs. If you're going to work with magic, it's going to cost you." | | 80:36 | Reid | "If you don't fulfill the conditions, [the love] can be withdrawn. It will be withdrawn." |

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Notable Moments & Timestamps

• On Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” – [06:27–07:21]
  Billy and Vernon connect over their transformative first listen.
• Black Rock Coalition’s Philosophical Mission – [21:16–23:23]
  Explaining its roots in live experience and radio narrowcasting.
• Creating “Cult of Personality” – [38:20–41:09]
  Description of the song’s spontaneous creation and debut on SNL.
• Surreal Nature of Success – [42:16–43:36]
  Reid discusses sudden fame and the personal cost.
• Industry Pressure and Media Frustration – [50:49–55:41]
  On dealing with label requests and misunderstandings by journalists.
• On Artistic Purpose and Sacrifice – [78:09–80:36]
  Honest discussion of price paid by truth-telling artists.
• AI and the Next Spiritual Revolution – [82:41–86:20]
  A philosophical tangent on the future intersection of technology and spirituality.
• Reflections on Legacy and New Work (Hoodoo Telemetry) – [86:25–91:00]
  The journey to Reid’s new record as a culmination of lifelong exploration.

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Closing Reflections

Billy and Vernon end with warmth and respect, sharing gratitude for shared experiences—including the honor of playing Black Sabbath’s last concert with Ozzy—and mourning the recent loss of musical innovators. Reid celebrates the ongoing power, breadth, and burden of the artist’s calling, offering inspiration and sobering perspective for listeners, musicians, and fans alike.

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[Ad sections, generic intros, extended outros, and non-content filler omitted for clarity.]

Transcript

[Vernon Reid]

From the moment I stumbled on the riff and I yelled at Wilson. Yo, man, put a beat to this. You have a brief window, bro. You have a brief window. When your compatriots are willing to listen, you have a brief window. And while they're willing to listen, make hay. Make hay while you may.

[Billy Corgan]

Right. I remember thinking two things, like, wow, this is really good. You guys sounded great. And then I was like, why is he wearing, like, a yellow Cory? Okay, why is he wearing, like, the yellow banana?

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, you mean the. The body glove. Yeah, the body glove thing. That was, you know, it was his thing, but it's his fate.

[Billy Corgan]

What has riding your horse for 50 years taught you? Vernon Reed, thank you for being on my show. I'm so pleased to see you today.

[Vernon Reid]

Thank you, Billy Corgan, for having me. It's fantastic.

[Billy Corgan]

I want to start with Ronald Shannon Jackson.

[Vernon Reid]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

A name I did not know until I started doing my research on. Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Ronald Shannon Jackson was the beginning of my professional career. It's one of these really counterintuitive stories I was in. I was on the R and B track. I was working. It was in a band called Stepping Stone with songwriter, keyboard player, singer named Kashif. He had written some hits for Evelyn Champagne King. We used to bump heads all the time because I was into rock music. And we had back and forth about.

[Billy Corgan]

And you're how old at this point?

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, God, I'm 19.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, Tom. Bumping heads with him. And I moved away from my parents. I was living in Park Slope with the drummer of the band, and we both got fired over an answering machine. And I got a phone call from a bass player, a dear friend of mine, Melvin Gibbs. And he. Oh, yeah, right. I got a phone call and he says, you gotta hear this drummer I'm playing with. So I go to this kind of loft jazz thing, and there's this large ensemble of musicians, and there's this drummer who's incredibly energetic, and the music. Perry, avant garde, but very captivating because he had this blues thing that he threw in, like, these kind of shuffles and things. It was very captivating. And I was like, man. So I then. After seeing him, I'm intrigued. And then I go to the Public Theater. They used to have the thing, Joe Papp Jazz at the Public.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay.

[Vernon Reid]

And he was playing with James Blood Ulmer.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay.

[Vernon Reid]

I know that Amina Lee and David Murray. It was James Blood Omer's band. And he was on fire. He was, like, completely, you know, incredibly aggressive. And I spoke to him and I Was like a fawning kid, you know, it's like Mr. Jackson was correct. He said. He looked at me, so who are you? I said, oh, I'm Melvin's friend, you know. Then Melvin calls me and he says, hey, he wants to hear you play guitar. And I kind of showed up trying to play my busted. You know, my busted up Al Dimmiola licks or whatever. My Bill Connors, you know, whatever. And we talk.

[Billy Corgan]

What's the. What's the famous Aldi Miola thing?

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, my God.

[Billy Corgan]

The famous race with the devil.

[Vernon Reid]

Is that him? Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was like the second guitar returned to forever. The first one, Bill Connors is like my absolute.

[Billy Corgan]

But that was a total Shrek.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

I saw some clip of him recently. It was.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, his whole thing was muting.

[Billy Corgan]

He would.

[Vernon Reid]

He had this whole thing about muting. And he would play really fast, but with the strings muted. That was his thing, you know? Like, all the guitar players that had to have, like, one thing that they did that made them stand out, you know. Anyway, he said, be here next Tuesday. And from there, then I started playing with him. And it's the first time I flew on an airplane and all that kind of stuff.

[Billy Corgan]

How steeped in jazz or jazz history were you at that point?

[Vernon Reid]

I've been exposed, but I was mainly into funk, R and B. I mean, the one thing that was great about my parents is that they didn't care about what music I was listening to. They only cared about whether it was loud or not. So it could be Mahavishnu, it could be a band of gypsies, it could be cool in the gang. He said, vernon, turn it down. That was it. They made no other judgment. They never turned that noise. They just said, turn it down. So that was a thing. And I was a sponge for all. I loved music, all Motown, rock and roll, everything that I just heard, you know?

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, so. So his. His group was Decoding Society. The Decoding Society made some records with him.

[Vernon Reid]

Yep. I made this record, Eye on youn. And then we made Man Dance, and we made Barbecue Dog, you know, and we made Nasty. We made these. Decode yourself because the.

[Billy Corgan]

The guys and girls, but at least the guys that I know that are in that free jazz tradition. And he was connected, you know, Mingus, Coleman, Albert Eiler. Like, I listen to all those people, so I like that stuff.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

But, you know, the hit or miss ratio in free jazz is kind of interesting.

[Vernon Reid]

Absolutely.

[Billy Corgan]

Because it's so free that when it works, it's amazing. And when it doesn't, it's like, what am I listening to?

[Vernon Reid]

When they like. It's like anything. When it works. It does. Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

But I mean, I guess what I'm after is you're a talented young musician. You know, most talented young musicians are not stumbling into free jazz territory.

[Vernon Reid]

Right. You know what it was? I'll tell you what. I went to Brooklyn Technical High School. It was not a music school at all. It was a technical high school, but it had after school programs. And there was a jazz workshop, and There was a Dr. Gene Gies, a saxophonist, and he used to do this thing where he would play records. Right. So he. He put on the original James Brown version of Cold Sweat. Then he would put on the Mungo Santa Maria version of Cold Sweat, and he put on the Julie Andrews version of My Favorite Things. Now, I remember my favorite things because I went on a Catholic school trip to Radio City to see the Sound of Music.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay.

[Vernon Reid]

So I was very familiar with the tune.

[Billy Corgan]

So you knew the melody.

[Vernon Reid]

And then he put on the John Coltrane version of My Favorite Things, which is. First time. The first time I ever heard John Coltrane. And it was like a bolt from the blue.

[Billy Corgan]

I had the same experience with Coltrane. It's funny, we connected for the Coltrane the exact same way. Cause I was like, I know this melody. And then he took me on this journey.

[Vernon Reid]

And you knew that he was. You knew that he loved the tune. You knew that he was playing.

[Billy Corgan]

It wasn't ironic.

[Vernon Reid]

Right. It wasn't a vehicle to blow over. Like, you could hear when the dog barks when the bee stings When I'm feeling sad I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad he put all of that in the horn, and I felt that. And you probably felt that at the same time.

[Billy Corgan]

Sorry. Just. What a beautiful musician.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

What a beautiful. I mean, wow.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Still. I'm still kind of in awe of him.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, he kind of gave his life for us. I mean, on a level, he was one of these people that just really was very. It was not about his ego. He was. He threw himself.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. There's that documentary where when he really turns to more avant garde jazz and the audience completely abandons him.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. All right. But he had to go because he's a nerd. You ever hear any interviews with John Coltrane? It's amazing. There's a BBC interview with John Coltrane.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay, I'm look this up.

[Vernon Reid]

That's amazing. It's audio, right. So when you See pictures of John Coltrane. You see, it's very serious, you know, and, you know, and you project the whole thing about. And he was talking to this BBC reporter about reads. He was just talking about, you know, and he was just going, well, you know, I had this one read, and I was kind of. His voice was kind of like, I had this one read, and I don't know, I didn't like it. So I tried this other read, and the report is like, yes, Mr. Coltrane, I'm sure that your reads are fascinating. He was completely frustrated, but he was like, hocus. So it was a whole. His. You know, there's a picture of John Coltrane when he was in the Navy, when he's like, maybe 18 years old. And it's incredible. All his humanity is there. And you could tell he's a scared kid. And when you see the picture, you're gonna go. You don't know, but you are gonna turn the world of music upside down.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. What a incredible, beautiful cat, man. Wow. So I remember this period of music. If you let me set this up, that won't make any sense, what I'm saying until I get to the end, but I remember this period of music because I was interested in guitar and I was interested in music. And because New York is always a media epicenter, what goes on in New York tends to get preference for what goes on in Chicago, which is where I'm from. So I kept hearing about the New York art scene and Zorn and. And what's his name? Laswell.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

You know, and I'd even occasionally get those records.

[Vernon Reid]

Right.

[Billy Corgan]

And I. I didn't really know what the. I was hearing. It's not that it was bad. I just didn't understand it Right. But you were actually in that world at that time. So can you kind of show. Tell me at least what it felt like to you as a musician, being in it?

[Vernon Reid]

Well, it was very confrontational in the sense of. I mean, I came up loving pop music. I love popular music forms.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Funk, R and B, rock and roll. That has never.

[Billy Corgan]

That's not to life.

[Vernon Reid]

That's never right. That's never. But this other thing, these other modalities came in, and for some, maybe the gateway was my favorite things, and I could see how they related. And then I slowly was introduced to Miles Davis and all of that. And then Hendrix, what Hendrix did with feedback, the way he was able to negotiate noise and melody and kind of move seamlessly. So there's a. So hearing Coltrane scream and Hearing Hendrix's guitar scream, there was something that was relatable, even though they weren't the same things. And then hearing Eric Dolphy, which completely blew my mind. So there was a place where it all worked. And then, you know, talking about Chicago, I mean, thinking about Pete Cosy, who played with Miles, you know, when Miles was in the super psychedelic period, or when he did electric. He's a guitarist on Electric Mud, you.

[Billy Corgan]

Know, when Miles was playing through the Y.

[Vernon Reid]

Exactly. And then, you know, and thinking of the art ensemble of Chicago, which is one of the most important.

[Billy Corgan]

But I'm just saying as a kid. I'm not trying to interrupt you, but I'm saying as a kid, Chicago was. It was. Was about the blues, which at that point in the 80s was very tourist blues. Some of those guys were still around. But it was the tourist blues.

[Vernon Reid]

Right.

[Billy Corgan]

We had the blues festival, but it was the tourist blues festival.

[Vernon Reid]

Right.

[Billy Corgan]

You know, so even my exposure to blues was kind of funky.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

And then where I was growing up, I didn't have any exposure to any whatever avant garde was going on in Chicago. I wasn't hearing about. But I kept hearing about New York because of. New York's always New York. It's always New York first and everybody else second. Second city. Right. So I'm just saying. But when you say it was confrontational.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, confront. Well, I mean, confrontational in the terms. In the sense of aesthetics were confronting one of the commercial.

[Billy Corgan]

The fact that you love that stuff was.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, it was like, I love. You know, I. My process was additive, not subtractive. I didn't Suddenly didn't dig James Brown.

[Billy Corgan]

So when you met one of these guys who was like, it's gotta be like this. No.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, you know, actually, interestingly enough, you know, I met John Zorn, used to. Was a. Was a record clerk at the soho Music Gallery, you know, and he got all the imports of all these different things. I mean, when I met him, I didn't even know he played saxophone. And later on I got to know that he was a great saxophonist. But, you know, there was a thing about who, you know, like what was hip, what was not hip. Okay. And really, there was some very interesting collisions at that time. Like, we were talking about the early 80s, late 70s, you know, when hip hop was coming in. You know, a lot of the people who I thought of who were in the. So free jazz. Well, there were moments where they were shockingly narrow about hip hop. People were. Hip hop was funny hip hop.

[Billy Corgan]

You would have thought they Would embrace that.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, well, the R and B people didn't dig it. The funk people didn't dig it. And a lot of the jazz, because it was like. It was these hood kids, it was considered novelty music, right? And the idea of the turntable, an appliance, becoming an instrument was completely like. For a lot of people, it was hairball, right? They couldn't get around it. But from the first time I heard scratching, I was related it to the noise coming out of guitars, coming out of saxophone. This disruptive. The skrunk, the scrunk, this disruptive interruption in the flow of the everyday. And there's something about that sudden disruption, like thunder, right, that appealed to me. There was something about it. I can't explain it other than.

[Billy Corgan]

I get it, I get it.

[Vernon Reid]

You know what I mean? It's kind of. I always say, I related to my experience with food. Like, first time I had a falafel, it was in Mammon's, right, very famous falafel joint they start in Connecticut. They had one they have on McDougal street, right? The first time I had a falafel, I almost spat it out. I was like, this is the worst. This is the most appalling. I mean, what is. I mean. I mean, absolutely no, right? And then I found myself on McDougal street and I went to Mamoon's and I ordered a falafel and I took my second falafel and I loved it. And this is one of the great mysteries to me. I had a horrible. My first bite of falafel. Absolutely not.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

So what was it between, in the.

[Billy Corgan]

Interval, Falafel one and two, but between.

[Vernon Reid]

Falafel one and two. And then it became one of my favorite food items ever.

[Billy Corgan]

I had the same experience with the band Bauhaus. Do you know Bauhaus? I was dating this girl and she put on Bauhaus. And the first time I heard it, I thought, it's all out of tune. What am I listening to? And I remember saying, how can you listen to this? And then three days later, I was like, I wanted to hear it again.

[Vernon Reid]

Exactly.

[Billy Corgan]

Like, what is that? Right?

[Vernon Reid]

What is that?

[Billy Corgan]

Something shifts.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, that shift. And that's the. When people see.

[Billy Corgan]

Bad Brains did that to me, too. I saw Bad Brains Live 86ybor City and HR was going crazy. And your first reaction is, what is this?

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

And then by the end of the concert, I said, that's the greatest band I've ever seen in my life.

[Vernon Reid]

It's like Joseph Spence. First time I heard Joseph Spence, out on the rolling sea Right, Okay. Out of the Bahamian. Bahamian kind of gospel, folk guitarist. So the first time I heard Joseph Spence, I was like, this dude is buggin'. He's bugging. He's simply buggin'. And then I go, this is the greatest guitarist I've ever heard in my life. I went from this cat, and I went way to this cat. I just went completely to polar thing. And that's the beautiful. That's the beauty of art and music. The beauty of it is that it can assault you. The first time I saw Jackson Pollock, I saw Jackson Pollock, one of his black and white drip paintings at the Pompidou in Paris. I was traveling with the Decoding Society. I had a day off, and I decided to go to the Modern Art Museum. And they had a Nam June Pak exhibit. And the entire floor was nothing but TV sets. And they were playing in patterns. It was fascinating. And I was walking up the stairs, and I walked into a gallery, and there was this black and white painting. And it sucked the air out of my lungs. I was literally. It was breathless. Maybe it was me climbing the stairs, I don't know. But it just. It struck me. His rage, I see, was still in the canvas. And it got me. And in that instant, all the criticisms of abstract expressionism, My kid could do it. Anybody could. You know, all of that. I heard that right, those criticisms of modern art. But my direct experience of this one painting completely changed.

[Billy Corgan]

I see it changed. Okay, so set that aside, because that's one tangent. But I also want to talk about the Black Rock Coalition.

[Vernon Reid]

Sure.

[Billy Corgan]

Because this is 84. 85.

[Vernon Reid]

85, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

We said.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

So. Well, I mean, because I never heard of this before, but so, Walker, great viewers here, like, give me the context of why.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, okay, so the context is kind of like New York in the early 80s was an amazing place. There was a huge number of clubs around, places to play. Part of this was because of the financial crash in the 70s. Suddenly the real estate market kind of crashed. The commercial real estate market crashed. And people, entrepreneurs could do things that they couldn't do before. So people were putting up restaurants, clothing stores and clubs. Right. And there were all of these clubs. And that's the milieu against which, you know, Decoding Society defunct. Jump up a bunch of these different bands that were combining punk and jazz and what have you, you know, as was curlew and material. And all of that was kind of happening in this time period. And you Know, it was a very. The nightlife thing. This was the time of the velvet rope. Right. So one day. One day you're going into the club. Like, Dance Interior, you know, Dance Interior was like.

[Billy Corgan]

We actually played Dance Interior once.

[Vernon Reid]

Dance Interior is phenomenal club. It was like. It's like a.

[Billy Corgan]

It was a little weird to play as a gig, though.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, well, I can imagine. But it was. It was great. And then one day you're in the club, and it's great, and then the next day, you can't get into the club because Dorman's like, no. And then so this stuff like that was starting to happen. And then I was seeing stuff with. It was hard for my friends to get gigs. And it was really this one particular gig again, Melvin Gibbs shows up. He had a band called I and I, and he had a dj, Logic. It's the first band, the first rock band that I know of that had a DJ as a regular member of the band. Right.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay.

[Vernon Reid]

I saw Skig. It was incredible. And there were, like, two people in the audience, you know, with me and another dude. Right. And I was. I said, what the hell? And I just started one day, it was a Friday. I just started calling friends of mine. I started calling people, and I was like, yo, man, you know what? I want to. What are you doing on Friday? Could we get together? And we got together at the Just above Midtown. It was an art gallery. Just above Midtown Gallery. It was African American, female. Linda Good Bryant is the curator, the owner of it. And we met, and we just like. It was myself and Greg Tate and the writer. Greg Tate, he figures big in all of this because he was the first journalist to write about myself and another guitarist named Ronnie Drayton. We were on the COVID of Musician magazine. The best guitar she never heard of, blah, blah, blah. And I would say, man, is what's going on? You know, I started saying, well, do you see weird? What's. Is it me and the people I was talking to? Nah, man, this is weird. You know, there was a woman named Conda Mason, who was the manager of an old female rock band, said, nah, it's weird, you know? So that's kind of where it started.

[Billy Corgan]

But philosophically, what was it?

[Vernon Reid]

Philosophically, it was about the idea, because.

[Billy Corgan]

I read this whole kind of long manifesto.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, that was Greg's writing, right? Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

But I want to know your.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, my perspective was, like, it had a combination to do with what was happening in the clubs, but it was also what was happening in radio and what have you, like, it used to be that the different. You know, we had, like, say, WNEW was the rock station.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And we had wbls, which is the R and B station. Well, you could listen to WBLS and then hear the Rolling Stones Miss you. Right.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Or you could hear. I mean, the first time I heard Tommy Boland was on WBLS on a Saturday. They played like, you know, like, really? And then you could hear Papa Don't Take no Mess on wnew. Right. You could hear. There was. I mean, they were. The stations were doing. The rock station was doing its thing, the rb. But they had. They played plenty of music that crossed those boundaries. Because the DJs were like auteurs. They weren't. They played what they liked.

[Billy Corgan]

Sure.

[Vernon Reid]

Right. Like, that's the way it was. That's how rappers delight. That's how Prince. I mean, I Wanna Be youe Lover, Frankie Crocker. Frankie Crocker literally broke Prince in the New York market.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Right. So there was a freedom. And then all of a sudden it shifted. Like, radical. Suddenly you weren't hearing James Brown on the rock station.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, why do you attribute it? I attribute that to anything.

[Vernon Reid]

I attribute that to radio consultancy.

[Billy Corgan]

You know, there was always the corporate class.

[Vernon Reid]

The corporate. The corporate. Yeah. And the. The idea of narrow casting. The markets. Narrow casting, like focusing.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay, now this makes sense, Right? Because. Because when I read his long manifesto, I was thinking, well, there's truth in here, but it's not holistic in the sense that I understand it. Because that wasn't my experience. Right, right. So I was trying to understand why there was a need to sort of create at least a kind of a vision.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. Well, it's kind of like the idea that, you know, that rock music is now white music. Black people don't play it.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And I never accepted the premise.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

The premise for myself. I mean, it's also about what was. What was what was considered to be rock and roll music. What was not. Like, my first concert I ever went to, my first record I ever bought with my own money was Funkadelic Cosmic Slop. And that was the first concert I ever went to, was War Rare Earth and Funkadelic at the Garden. And that's my, you know, my way of thinking about rock and roll music is it includes the Isley Brothers. You see, it's the Isley Brothers as.

[Billy Corgan]

Well as Ernie's playing.

[Vernon Reid]

Ernie and Ernie. Yeah. And Ernie was completely shut out in the 70s. I mean, and he kept the Hendrix voice alive on hit records, not rock critic records.

[Billy Corgan]

Sure.

[Vernon Reid]

But commercial hit records, that's true. And he was completely shut out. He was completely ignored by the guitar press of that time period.

[Billy Corgan]

That's really true that you say that. I never looked at it that way, but it's true. He doesn't really get his due.

[Vernon Reid]

He never. Especially in his prime, when he was young and on fire, he was summarily ignored. And I remember that pissed me off.

[Billy Corgan]

So was there a sense of, like. I'm trying to find the right way to put it. Was there a sense not of injustice.

[Vernon Reid]

But, like, injustice would work.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay, okay. I don't want to put words in your mouth.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, yeah. Because the thing about it is, it's not that I didn't love Rory Gallagher. I love him. He's an incredible. It's not that I didn't appreciate yon Aukerman. Jan Aukerman is an influence on me, but Ernie Isley deserved to be featured on. To have his own cover and his own story about how he. He literally saved the Isley Brothers. He actually dragged them from the 50s and 60s into their later career.

[Billy Corgan]

Because I like that period of their music, too. It's really cool stuff.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, that lady is a re record because that was originally a song of theirs that was part of the bossa nova craze in the 60s. And it was Ernie Isley that insisted that they re record it as the funk rock masterpiece that it.

[Billy Corgan]

I love their version of Summer Breeze.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, incredible.

[Billy Corgan]

His.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, it's. It's. And it's. It's. It's incredible. And it's very. Not say it feels organic. It's like an organic. The COVID feels.

[Billy Corgan]

It made me love the Isleys even more extraordinary, you know, and then, because I thought, okay. Their embrace of this greater musical language, it was like, wow, this is so cool, you know?

[Vernon Reid]

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Their version of Ohio, you know, is.

[Billy Corgan]

I mean, I don't know that I have to look that up. Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

So the reason I ask that is because, you know, I mean, it jumps ahead in the story and I'm not quite ready to do it. But overall, in the overall picture, you know, your emergence into the world of guitar thing was at times treated like a curiosity and invariably is tied to your skin color. You know, guitar players, I think, don't think of you like that. You know what I mean? You know how guitar players think. Can he play?

[Vernon Reid]

Right.

[Billy Corgan]

And so anybody I was ever around was like, oh, Vernon could play. Or have you seen Vernon live? It was always about your chops and your accomplishment as A musician. But, you know, mainstream American media has a way of saying, you're in this box, you're in this box, you're in this. So I was curious about the BlackRock coalition, you know what I mean? Because it sort of sets up in a weird kind of way. It sets up the. Not the fight, but the thing that's coming down the road for you is the music. Right, Right. Did you. Because you're sort of floating in this, you know, you haven't made the. Turn into a commercial artist yet. You know what I mean? Where you have all those pressures, Right. Did you have a musical vision for your life where you're just like, I'm chasing whatever I'm interested in here?

[Vernon Reid]

Well, I was very dedicated to Shannon, to Shannon's vision and his music. And, you know, I loved it. And. But at a certain point, you know, when you're part of a band and then there's a. There's a time when you gotta go, you know, you're in it.

[Billy Corgan]

You mean like every day?

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. There's a time you gotta go. Well, we were in. Oh, my gosh. We were in Indonesia. We were traveling, you know, because they used to have these United States, you know, usis, US Information Service, which is probably a branch of the CIA or whatever, but they had these artistic exchanges.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay.

[Vernon Reid]

So that's why you get like, you know, musicians who would come. The Gamlam musicians would come over and there was a whole.

[Billy Corgan]

I didn't know you were in that whole world. Yeah, yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, that's a very specific. It's kind of like, you gotta know somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody.

[Billy Corgan]

But still, it's a gig.

[Vernon Reid]

But it's a gig, right? And that's how I got to. I went to Morocco. I did two USIS tours, one with Ronald Shannon Jackson, and I did another one with the vibraphone, Jay Hogart.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay.

[Vernon Reid]

And that's how I went to Morocco. That's how I went to Egypt. That's how I went to Malaysia. That's how I experienced.

[Billy Corgan]

I didn't know any of that.

[Vernon Reid]

Incredible. It was incredible, incredible thing. But we. We had a knock. We had a. We had a Thriller. We had one of those, you know, and we were screaming at each other. And it was about a lobby call. It was about a lobby call that I was on time for. And. And the. And the fact that I was on time for the lobby call and he's yelling at me and I'm like, lobby calls at 10 o'? Clock? I mean, it's 10 o', clock, I'm here.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

He said, where the hell. You know, and later I realized I, like, went to McDonald's or something. And I timed it so that I would get. You know, I got back exactly at 10, but, you know, the other guys have been. Were just sitting around and I was, where is he? You know.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, I see.

[Vernon Reid]

But I literally walked in at 10 on the dot. But I think he was. I think, because we were in. We were out in a. I think he was more concerned about, well, what if anything happened? How am I gonna tell your moms that you're like, oh, okay. I think that was behind. But I didn't think of that at the time. We just literally scream at each other and the words were exchanged and those kind of words that you can't take back. And then I realized, okay. I said, yeah. And that was the beginning. And that was the beginning of what eventually became Living Color with us.

[Billy Corgan]

That was literally the next thing on my thing. Because the early version of Living Color was sort of like really your life's work, which was this greater form of integration of musical styles.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. It started out as just a trio. I was the vocalist and I was. I consider myself an early pioneer of shoe gazing. Because I was so nervous, you know, I was, you know, so. And at a certain point I said, like, I'm too self conscious to do this and sing. And just freaked me out.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And I real. And I remember that I met a guy at a. My sister dragged me to this birthday party and I met a guy. It was the only birthday party where nobody else sang Happy Birthday, but one dude sang Happy Birthday, and that was Corey Glover and I called him. And that was the beginning because I realized I needed somebody that could holler.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

You know, And I could carry a tune, but I'm not a holler. I can't holler. Right.

[Billy Corgan]

He's got a big voice, too. Corey.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, my God. Yeah. So that was the beginning, you know, and that was a real turn because we, you know, at that point, you know, Hilly Crystal used to book my band. We started to have a bit of a.

[Billy Corgan]

You know, that's a name I haven't heard for a while.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I'm proud to have been part of the CBGB's fraternity.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, we played there a few times. It was interesting.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. Yeah. And. Yeah. And played over at Irving Plaza. There were a few places where I was opened for people. In fact, I opened for Fishbone, their very first show in New York. They were young and completely Insane. I'd never seen.

[Billy Corgan]

One of the greatest shows I've ever seen was Fishbone.

[Vernon Reid]

Chris Dowd used to. Because he used the keyboards and Trombonist. Right. So they would run around. Now everything is happening. Everyone's running around. And Chris Dowd used to. He would play trombone part. He would take the trombone and throw it over his head backwards, not looking. And Rhodey would catch it and he would go play a keyboard part. And then the roadie would throw the trombone and he would. And the trombone is sailing. And he would go and catch the trombone and go right into his part. It was.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

I used to hate doing shows with them.

[Billy Corgan]

So just in a simple way, you know, you're coming from this very amorphous musical sort of landscape. You know, you're playing whatever you want and why wouldn't you?

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

And then somewhere along the way. And I know I'm jumping, but because it's not immediate, you know, you end up in a band that is ultimately a commercial band. I'm not saying it was meant to be commercial, but it becomes commercial.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

How did you get there? Because that's a leap that I don't make intellectually. Very easily.

[Vernon Reid]

I don't think any. I think it's weird. I think that. No, think about it like we were. I mean, that first record, Vivid, is all over the place. And part of the reason it's all over the place is because of the Beatles. Not that anything sounds like the Beatles, but the thing about the Beatles, when I was a kid, I was a little kid, I saw them on the Ed Sullivan Show. So they start out with I want to hold your hand.

[Billy Corgan]

Right.

[Vernon Reid]

And they wind up with Revolution number nine. Like that change. Like the fact that the Beatles, over.

[Billy Corgan]

The time period and not that long.

[Vernon Reid]

A time period, and they changed radically. They changed radically. And that was. This is before I'm a musician. Right.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

It just struck me, like, thinking about the first time I heard Lucy in the sky with Diamonds on AM radio. I remember thinking, that's the same band that did I want to hold your hand. And I didn't have a grand design at that, but it really. It was weird to me. It was weird that those same people are doing that. That didn't happen. And the one thing that. The greatest legacy of the Beatles is that they gave artists the permission to change.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, I agree with that completely.

[Vernon Reid]

Aside from their harmonies, all the wonderful things in their music. But they gave musicians that permission.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, they broke this very codified system that you were good at this one Thing you did the one thing until the wheels fell off. And then when the wheels fell off, you looked around and saw what everybody else was doing. Then you got in behind that. And that's the way the music business went. And a lot of talent people, unless you were a savant, like a James Brown or an Elvis, you couldn't survive it.

[Vernon Reid]

Right.

[Billy Corgan]

And that's why the music business just chewed these people up and spit them out. Or they become like parodies of themselves. Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

You know, it's a real thing. And you know, like magical. Even more than sergeant Magical Mystery Tour. It's like. It's experimental. It's an experimental rock record that has singles. I mean, that's basically what it is.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay.

[Vernon Reid]

So anyway, all of that. All of that to say, when it came to making our first record, I didn't think about. Well, we play a style, and that style determines what everything is. It was like we have songs and the songs kind of determined, like Broken Hearts. I had this notion of. I wanted to mix kind of a hip hop thing with a country and western thing.

[Billy Corgan]

Sure.

[Vernon Reid]

And that, you know, I wanted to cover the Talking Heads because I fell in love with the Talking Head from Fear of Music.

[Billy Corgan]

Was everybody in the band sort of on board with this idea of this. Yeah, they were kind of a lot approach.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. Cause I was kind of like going, yeah, man, let's try. Because at that point they were willing to listen to me. So you have a brief window, bro. You have a brief window. When your compatriots are willing to listen, you have a brief window. And while they're willing to listen, man, make hay. Make hay while you may. Right? So it was kind of like we went with it and like the Talking Heads thing, you know, I knew that they had history with CBGBs, and I fell in. I loved the David Byrne thing and the, you know, and Adrian Ballou, the Remaining Light and all that stuff. But before that, they had this record, Fear of Music. And I was listening to Memories Can't Wait. And I said, I think I could do something. I think this could work. You know, it was based around the kind of baseline. I said, we can make this happen. And I brought it into rehearsal and I said, hey, play this, play that. And we did it. And CBGB's was our laboratory. So we would, you know, we were right there on 1102 Broadway in Brooklyn, you know, in Bushwick. And, you know, we straight shot over the Williamsburg Bridge, you know, turn, you know, go right, you know, on Bowery. And you're Right there, you know, so, like, even with Colt, Colt was written in one rehearsal. And for me, that's one of the greatest. Not because that it was a hit, but because from the moment I stumbled on the riff and I yelled at Wilson, yo, man, put a beat to this. And then suddenly the song assembled itself, using us to do it. It's the best way I could describe it. We didn't get in the way. We didn't. Nobody went on a trip. We went where the song took us, and we had it at the other end. And really, I give our producer, Ed Stasium, a huge amount of credit because, you know, when we first did. Was kind of like the bridge was. I had this whole intro with the bridge, and then we did this bridge thing and then we played the sample and then we played the riff, right? So it was kind of proggy, right?

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And then he said, yo, man, this is taking too long to get to the riff. You know, let's get to the. And, you know, at first, the first iteration of it, it was Martin Luther King. Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we're free at last. We couldn't clear it with the King Foundation. And I was in Harlem, I was walking around and I heard the speech, you know, and, you know, there was like a. You know, cats were selling all kind of stuff, and they had like. Guy had a boombox and he was, let's write, you know, in the few months we have left, let's talk right down to earth in the language everybody here can easily understand. I was like, I want that cassette. I went and I swapped it. And it turned out that my. My first wife was very close with one of Malcolm's daughters, Malak. Malak Shabazz. And this is why we were dating before, and she used to come out to see us. So, you know, so I swapped this thing. She thought, man, that's great. That's my dad. Da, da, da. And then, you know, and we were allowed to do it and then. And the rest is history. We played a Saturday Night Live, which.

[Billy Corgan]

Was funny, by the way. You're see, April 1st, 1989. There it is.

[Vernon Reid]

Right when we were there. I didn't know that they had found tape of Malcolm.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, they did that thing.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, they found. They.

[Billy Corgan]

They found. Oh, I saw that.

[Vernon Reid]

They found.

[Billy Corgan]

I thought you guys did that.

[Vernon Reid]

No. Oh, it's like they did that. And I was so shocked because we do. You do a run through and.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, you do a live.

[Vernon Reid]

You do a live.

[Billy Corgan]

With the crowd.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, with the Crowd, but they didn't show. And then when we were with live tv, and then.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, they did it when. They only did it when it was live. Live.

[Vernon Reid]

They did it when it was like. And then suddenly Malcolm X is on the screen. I was like, holy sh. You know, I was.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

I was like.

[Billy Corgan]

And, oh, by the way, you're about to go live. You know, I mean, 20 million people.

[Vernon Reid]

I was like, you know, And I remembered, oh, yeah, we're doing this. And I went into it and then was, okay, you know, but that was.

[Billy Corgan]

So I was watching that night, and I. And I remember. I think I'd heard the song before I saw you guys play it live. But I remember thinking two things. Like, wow, this is really good. You guys sounded great. And then I was like, why is he wearing, like, a yellow Corey. Oh, Corey, why is he wearing, like, the yellow banana?

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, you mean the body glove. Yeah, the body glove thing. That was. You know, it was. It was his thing, bro. It's his thing. It was his thing.

[Billy Corgan]

So, you know, and I know there's that moment where the bomb goes off. It's like, boom. Suddenly now you got new friends.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

The cousin that hasn't talked to you in seven years is on the phone.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

I'm not asking you to talk about that necessarily. I'm more interested in how it affected your musical vision. Are you thinking, great, like, now this other world's open to me and I get to bring all these great ideas into it. Did you.

[Vernon Reid]

It felt surreal, you know, because when you're used to struggling, you know, you're walking uphill in both directions. Right. You really, like.

[Billy Corgan]

Will you ever do that where you're arguing with somebody and they agree with you and you keep arguing?

[Vernon Reid]

Exactly. Exactly. And suddenly. And it was. It was. It was a challenge. I felt we met that challenge in our second record Time's Up. But it was. It was. It was very weird. It was. It was. It was weird. It was like. It was weird. It's been weird the whole time. On a level.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, that's why I was asking you, because. And I'm saying this with humility to you, because I know you now a bit as a person, too, and we'd never really hung out before recent times, but I used to hang out with Corey here, so I got to know Corey a bit back in the day, and I certainly appreciated the band. But I think I always viewed you through the prism of kind of an outside cat playing rock and roll, similar to Reeves playing with Bowie.

[Vernon Reid]

Right.

[Billy Corgan]

Like, you're Kind of. I get you're from this other world, but it doesn't always fit. Yeah, let me finish.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, please.

[Billy Corgan]

So. But because there's a point behind it. But until I really did the deep dive on you to talk to you today, once I understood where you came from and where you've kind of ended up on your musical journey. Yeah, I was like, oh, his choices and the way he plays and who he is as a man, I totally get it. I never got you. Totally.

[Vernon Reid]

Right.

[Billy Corgan]

I have the respect.

[Vernon Reid]

Right.

[Billy Corgan]

But I couldn't quite. Where does Vernon fit in? You know what I mean? It always felt a bit. And you don't strike me as a person. And now they know you a bit. You don't strike me as somebody trying to be that guy. You know, sometimes people are trying to be edgy or different or. I'm the weird guy. Yeah, you're not that guy.

[Vernon Reid]

No, no.

[Billy Corgan]

So once I understood your musical journey, I was like, oh, it makes total sense. And in a weird way, and I hope you understand the context. Living Color is like almost the upside down world of everything else. So that's why when you say it was a surreal experience, I kind of get what you mean by that. Because it's not necessarily what you were chasing. No, we were chasing that. So we were whores. You know what I mean? We were. We were chasing that. And most of the people in our generation, our shared generation were whores, you know, they were chasing whatever. We were all chasing MTV or Rolling Stone or Girls.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, girls.

[Billy Corgan]

Your thing was a deeper kind of musical with.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

So. Well, is that my same.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, ambition is a part of it. You want to do well. But the funny thing is I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I'm a very willful person.

[Billy Corgan]

I noticed that.

[Vernon Reid]

Right. I don't want to do what I wanted to do.

[Billy Corgan]

Right. By the way. As you should. As you should. No, but I mean that. I mean, if all musicians thought that way, we'd have better music and we'd have less compromise. Exactly. But they get in there with money and.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

All sorts of things to kind of get you off that game.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, absolutely. So what are you. You know, and part of the thing is. Okay, what are we talking about? And the thing that I'm. I mean, it's weird to me, but I'm also. A lot of things we said in those early records, we're still grappling with them.

[Billy Corgan]

Crazy, right? 30. 30 years later.

[Vernon Reid]

It's crazy.

[Billy Corgan]

You could argue we're grappling with Them more now than we were then.

[Vernon Reid]

And, you know, it's funny, man. I was listening to Bullet with Butterfly Wings, and it's one of my favorite pieces of yours, and. It so encapsulates a certain. It's so connected and it's so real. Like, despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in the cage. And when you have this intelligence, when you know what it is, it's different than if you're just. I'm mad and I don't know why. Right.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. Okay. I get it. Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. I'm just. You're just given into. You know, but you're. But it's different when you see the game and you.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, well, then you're in it, too.

[Vernon Reid]

And you're. And you're. And it's like. And. And it's kind of. It's one of those things that, you know, talking about meta. Right. Like, you have a song about a thing, and people dig it and whatever the song is, Right? Yeah. And that song could be a construction. Right. But the songs that really get to us are about something, whether it's crafted by a great songwriter or just a person.

[Billy Corgan]

That's true.

[Vernon Reid]

Those songs that mean something. Right. There's a reason why Wichita Alignment does what it does.

[Billy Corgan]

One of the great songs of all time.

[Vernon Reid]

It's a movie. I am Alignment for the County. As you're in the truck with that dude. As soon as that first line, you're in.

[Billy Corgan]

What's that line? He sings in there? And I know that I want you and I want you for all time.

[Vernon Reid]

And I want you and I want you for all time and the wichita lineman is still on the line. It's one of the greatest songs about work. It's one of the greatest songs about work ever.

[Billy Corgan]

Cause he's on a telephone pole, right?

[Vernon Reid]

It's one of the greatest songs about loneliness, about desire and all those things, right? So for the most part, you come over, you have your hook, whatever. Da, da, da. But what you want to. There's a aspect of doing this.

[Billy Corgan]

That.

[Vernon Reid]

You want the notion to come to your mind or the thing to come to you. That really is it, that really says.

[Billy Corgan]

I see the thing.

[Vernon Reid]

And if you could say the thing, right? That's in the back of everybody's heads.

[Billy Corgan]

They can't.

[Vernon Reid]

They can't speak it. They can't. They can't even begin to think it.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. All you need is love.

[Vernon Reid]

All you need is love. And. And that's. And that's so obvious.

[Billy Corgan]

But he says it so. But he says it.

[Vernon Reid]

It's like. It's kind of like. It's kind of like hearing the. The Rift to Seven Nation Army.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

The first thing you do is slap your forehead. You're like. It's.

[Billy Corgan]

It's like we all went.

[Vernon Reid]

It's like we all went.

[Billy Corgan]

Why didn't I think it.

[Vernon Reid]

Why did. You know? It's like, what the. Are you kidding me?

[Billy Corgan]

Like. Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And that's what. That's what it is, though. That's what it is. And it's right there that. You know how many songs are based on, like, a minor third, Right. You know?

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And you'd think that that's over, right?

[Billy Corgan]

And it's like, you know, that's Sabbath, right?

[Vernon Reid]

I mean, hey, that's Sabbath. That's Prince. That's, you know, that's like gang. That's a gang of tunes, Right?

[Billy Corgan]

You guys were signed to epic, right?

[Vernon Reid]

Yes. 550.

[Billy Corgan]

I mean, that crowd was pretty rough back in the day. That. That was. That whole Sony Epic.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Right.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. So were they on you guys hard?

[Vernon Reid]

Well, we were. You know what? We were. We were fortunate that Dave Glew came in when he came in, because he came in from Atlantic and he saw us and he said, you know, I used to work. I worked with a band called Led Zeppelin. You know, name, right?

[Billy Corgan]

And I work with this.

[Vernon Reid]

I happen to, you know, he's like, you have to work with the band. And then you hear that. And I go, okay. And he said, I hear something. The fact is, he put in the extra. He put in the extra thing. You know, when he saw that something came through, that we. The first single Middleman, you know, we got a little bit of radio playing. It was basically, you know, it's kind of like you get like two shots.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And that was back in the day. You got two shots. If they. If they're lucky. If. If you were connected, if you were somebody's nephew, you maybe got three.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

But you had two shots. A second shot was cult.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And it immediately got phones and then big phones. Yeah. And it was. Yeah, man, it was.

[Billy Corgan]

But I'm saying after that.

[Vernon Reid]

Yes, after that.

[Billy Corgan]

Sure. Are they suddenly on you to be.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, well, you know, we had a certain amount of.

[Billy Corgan]

I remember. Sorry to interrupt you, but the sense. I remember from the time is people kept trying to put you in this, like, a box that didn't exist.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. With the Monday morning quarterbacking. Right.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. It was like kind of, well, where does this go? Or what is this band really about? And, you know, you got a lot of people who don't understand the musical background. The genetic aspect of it gets a little confusing in their minds. And then what you're talking about Black Rock Coalition, it's like, no, we're just playing music.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, you know, it's also like, you know, that riff. I mean. I mean, if it wasn't for the Mahavishnu Orchestra, that's like my. That's, like, straight.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, I never thought of that.

[Vernon Reid]

That's like kind of like from, like, Intermountain. It's like. Yeah. I mean, it's that influence. Right?

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, my God.

[Vernon Reid]

You know. You know.

[Billy Corgan]

Sorry. I just. I'm. I. I think of speaking Aldi Mola and all that. I'm saying, it's just that whole world. That whole world just.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

It all comes back to me.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. Well, it was actually connected to this idea of the culture and, you know, the idea of music that was a window or a pathway to another reality.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

You know, it's kind of post in a lot of ways. Some aspect of the fusion thing is post.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay. But that's a far cry from a hit single that's got big phones.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Billy Corgan]

And now you're gonna make us money.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, but that's. That's.

[Billy Corgan]

Do you guys feel that pressure or would. Were you able to.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, I felt it because we were working all the time and, you know, what are we gonna do next? So the thing is, we had some other songs, and I felt very. I knew that I didn't wanna. Okay, so Prince does Purple Rain, and then he does around the World in a Day, which is like. I think a. Like, people thought he'd lost it right at the time, but around the World in a Day especially. Brilliant. Yeah, it's brilliant.

[Billy Corgan]

Mountains is on that record, too.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

It's a beautiful song.

[Vernon Reid]

Condition of the Heart, you know, and in a way, I wanted to take what we did and kind of expand. Expand, you know?

[Billy Corgan]

Okay, but when you do that. Because. Sorry, I'm just.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

I'm in the frame of, you know, record company, ptsd.

[Vernon Reid]

Ptsd. Yeah. Right. Do it again. Give us another one.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

They don't even know what you get. You. They don't know what you gave them the first time.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

But they tell you, could you do that again? Right.

[Billy Corgan]

So did you guys feel that pressure or were you able?

[Vernon Reid]

I definitely did, but I also felt like. It felt like to make that. There's kind of feeling that doing that again would be weird. Would be false. Trying to make another. Because it's such an anomaly. It's like a song really about, you know. Yeah, it's a very. It's not about. It's about the politics in its entirety. It's like, why do we. It's like not about left or right. It's like, why you following that person? You're following that person. Why? You know, that's the thing. So to get.

[Billy Corgan]

To get to that again, my way and just seeing if this resonates with you, what I would do is I would jump so hard to another zip code that I wasn't even tempted to repeat the formula right on. Because I was trying to draw from a different well or something. So I'd force myself to be in alien territory and then have to kind of duke my way out.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Is that what you did?

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, I felt like that. I mean, it didn't work as well on the second album, but it worked in the sense that it went to completely different. Completely different areas. Like, we had, like, the song Love Raises Ugly Head, which is like a legitimate single in the uk, didn't really take as well, but it's a completely different vibe.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. Did you feel that the. Cause, you know, alternative media back then wasn't necessarily the most sophisticated. At least that was my experience. But did you feel they understood the band, appreciated the band? Like, what was your relationship and that. Because the media at that point. It doesn't carry as much weight now, but back then it carried a lot of weight.

[Vernon Reid]

It absolutely did. It absolutely did. I think there was a certain amount. Oh, you're black, and that's great. You know, and it's like, what. You know, I mean, there's like getting, like. There were a few writers that got the band.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Really got what the band was and. But most were focus on the surface things.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, that's what I'm after is like. Cause it seems like if you're trying to make that shift. You know what I mean? And you're not necessarily getting the commercial gains that the record company's putting pressure on you to do, and you got a media that's either too lazy to really investigate the true depth of the band or the message of the band, or even what the band truly represents. You know, I remember we got to play some shows with bad brains when HR was out and the other guy was great. Beautiful, beautiful cat, great guys. And just talking to them about music and just as a. I was already a fan and I'd seen them live a bunch of times, but like, to appreciate the depth of the band, it made me love them even more.

[Vernon Reid]

Sure.

[Billy Corgan]

Because those are deep, cats.

[Vernon Reid]

Very deep. Very deep.

[Billy Corgan]

Right. Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Their reggae thing is. I mean, the hardcore thing is. But their reggae thing is legit. Legit.

[Billy Corgan]

But that's what I'm saying is, like. And, you know. And again, I'm going back to my experience, but, like, you know, you deal with the. You know, you crack the zeitgeist, right?

[Vernon Reid]

Sure.

[Billy Corgan]

You crack the zeitgeist and then you got some lazy writer who defaults to the lowest hanging fruit.

[Vernon Reid]

Right?

[Billy Corgan]

Like, oh, you guys are black and you play rock. And, you know, you guys got your version of that. We got our version of it. It was like, oh, you got a girl in the band? And, like, you'd be like, what the. This is like, not even.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, right.

[Billy Corgan]

It's not at the core of what we're after here. I mean. Yes. It's a part of who we are. Duh. It's like saying the sky is blue.

[Vernon Reid]

Right.

[Billy Corgan]

But when they really miss the heart of the whole thing, and then they try to make the success or the interest in the thing something that it's not. It's a surreal experience. Yes. Okay. That's kind of what I'm asking.

[Vernon Reid]

And that's what. And, and, and. And that's because they have to fit you. They have to fit you in the box.

[Billy Corgan]

That's what I mean. Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Right. And that doesn't. And that in and of itself, is every band.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Right.

[Billy Corgan]

But what's unfair to you guys is I feel like they never even found a box that was close to the box.

[Vernon Reid]

I know. Well, also, the thing about it was kind of like, well, you're gonna be sui generis.

[Billy Corgan]

Right?

[Vernon Reid]

You're gonna be one of one.

[Billy Corgan]

There's only gonna be one.

[Vernon Reid]

And that to me was.

[Billy Corgan]

That's almost kind of borderline offensive.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, that was a real dragon, you know, Particularly when I was listening to Fishbone the other day and listening to Everyday Sunshine.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay.

[Vernon Reid]

The song Everyday Sunshine, and I was like, you guys, you really are a California band. Like, Everyday Sunshine, it's like you're. I mean, weirdly enough, I could see the connection to the Beach Boys.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Like, you're like. You know what I mean?

[Billy Corgan]

It's like.

[Vernon Reid]

It's the regional thing of who you.

[Billy Corgan]

Are more so that back then in the day than now.

[Vernon Reid]

You know what I mean? And it's funny. It's one of those things. Like, I knew that. But sometimes you have to hear it.

[Billy Corgan]

You get reminded Almost, Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

You have to hear and go, oh, snap. That's. You know what I mean? As much as, say, a song like Funny Bop is a very New York east coast thing, you know, it really struck me. But the thing that was a drag, you know, was that other artists who were coming up, you know, like, follow for now, you know, didn't really get the shots that they. They didn't get the shots. They didn't get the investment. They didn't get. You know, the thing that we did. We did something really, you know, completely unexpected. And honestly, like, again, I say that with almost any band that cracks a thing, it's unexpected, you know, but it didn't. Like, what happened when Nirvana broke out. There was suddenly every. Anything that was coming out of Seattle was getting a look, you know, and that didn't really. I mean, it kind of. But not really. Didn't really. That didn't really happen. And I remember I was. I was really trying to get a friend of mine, Michael Hill, incredible from the Bronx, great blues rock guitar player. And he had a. He had this incredible band, Michael Hill's Bluesland. And I literally took the president and his wife to see them, and they played a. They. They blew it up. And he just was like, yeah, they're good. And it was like, wow. And he just. And honestly, it was not, you know, he just didn't hear it.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And that's the thing. And then at the same time, there's only. So, you know, you can do a lot, you know, but you can only do so much. I remember us having the 247 spies on tours with us, you know, on shows with us. We also toured with Bad Brains with Israel, which was. Which is phenomenal. But I mean, it was. If he was not H.R.

[Billy Corgan]

H.R. Is.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, H.R. i knew.

[Billy Corgan]

Freak. I mean, he wants to. We want to talk about. We want to talk about a true rock star.

[Vernon Reid]

That is true.

[Billy Corgan]

That is one of the greatest frontmen ever.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Like.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, no, H. H. It is. I mean, H. The things we've seen H do on stage, like, standing backwards, somersault, like, wow. Like, what did we just. What did we just see when the Ritz moved to Studio 54, you know, Studio 54 had, like, this low balcony, right? And I think they were playing there was like, the Youth are Getting Restless. That was that tour. And I'm in the room and. And so the balcony's low, the crowd is roiling, right? And then the first person leapt off the balcony into the pit and didn't die. And then all Of a sudden, it was. This is the greatest mosh pit in a club I've ever seen. People start pouring off the balcony. The security guards could do nothing. Like, the people were running.

[Billy Corgan]

It's too late.

[Vernon Reid]

It was. It was a seething, roiling mass of love. Bonkers.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And that's. That's. That's h. I believe he had, like, a Bible. He had a Bible. And he was pointing. He's like. He's pointing at a page in the Bible and he says.

[Billy Corgan]

And somewhere in the midst of all this insanity, now you're doing Lollapalooza.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, man.

[Billy Corgan]

Welcome to middle America.

[Vernon Reid]

I loved it. Lollapuz, 1991. Palindrome. Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

When you came. You'd had experiences, obviously, but when you came face to face with Middle America Circuit 1991. Good, bad.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, you know what? Middle America was being freaked. Lollapalooza was like a traveling roadshow. It was bands, but it was also underground comics, poets. And it was piercing and tattooing. It was piercing and tattooing. And I will posit that body piercing took hold in America because of that. First law of.

[Billy Corgan]

That's an interesting theory. Yeah, I have to think about that one.

[Vernon Reid]

They had, like, piercing stations, and they had these people. That professional was, like, very sterile. And they all were explaining what the different piercings were and the gauges and putting tubes in your ear and all that.

[Billy Corgan]

Do you think that all came from and that?

[Vernon Reid]

Absolutely. I didn't see. Suddenly I'm seeing postal workers with eyebrow rings. I'm telling you, it didn't exist.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, that's true.

[Vernon Reid]

It didn't exist.

[Billy Corgan]

That's why I said, I gotta think about it.

[Vernon Reid]

But I think tongue piercings didn't exist in the mainstream. And that tour went across America, and in its wake, the beginnings of the normalization of piercings. I mean, really.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Creative extreme piercings started with that tour. Absolutely.

[Billy Corgan]

So I don't really do gossip, so I'm not looking for the gossip side of the equation. But what are some of the forces that drove the band apart? Because I don't really know. Well.

[Vernon Reid]

I would say creative differences. How about that?

[Billy Corgan]

Sure.

[Vernon Reid]

Nah, it was. It was tough. I mean, the departure of our first bass player, Muzz Skillings, was a. Was a much deeper. It was a much deeper wound than we were prepared to deal with, you know, because men can't talk about their emotions. We just don't.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

So he's out, and then we auditioned a bunch of people, and then we thought about, like, who's like, one of the greatest cats that we know. And Doug Wimbish, you know, he's ridiculous. He's ridiculous, you know. And then we went on to make Staying with record. I'm very proud of that first record with Doug is, I think is great record. We didn't do a lot of inward looking.

[Billy Corgan]

Was this because you guys were moving so fast?

[Vernon Reid]

Moving really fast. And in moving really fast, the communications were breaking down, you know, Communications were breaking down and not in a. You kind of. You know, it was more subtle than that. And I know I was going through. I personally was going through a disillusionment with. I don't know, man, I was going through a thing with. Just the machinery of it.

[Billy Corgan]

You talking about rock machinery?

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, yeah, I was going through it.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, rat in a cage, buddy.

[Vernon Reid]

There you go. There you go.

[Billy Corgan]

That was my way of dealing with it.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

I just wrote this song and I thought, God, I'm stuck.

[Vernon Reid]

And honestly. Yeah, and you did. I mean, maybe a song would have helped, you know, but I was in a play.

[Billy Corgan]

I was sorry, but it's a weird thing, and I try to explain this to people. Sometimes is when the thing you love becomes like a monster, because there's no way of separating the love and the monster. And you're like, wait. And you know, and then you talk to your friends, they go, well, this is what you wanted. You're like, well, I know it's going to be like this. Well, you're making all this bread. You're like, well, they don't fix all this other stuff.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, yeah. Well, there's no there there. And it's the. I think. I think it's the wor. The worst part of it is when your dream comes true. And parts of that dream are abyssal, Parts of that dream are nightmarish. And to square that, I think so many people have been destroyed. So many people.

[Billy Corgan]

Where do you go from there? Well, here's my analogy. And this was about mid-90s for me. I got to the top of a particular mountain. I thought it was the mountain, but I got to the top of that mountain, I looked around, I thought, I'm really not anywhere at all. And I just spent the last, what, 10 years of my life climbing the mountain with my little backpack. I get up there and I'm like, whoa, there's this whole other world. And by the way, there's about gazillion. People don't care.

[Vernon Reid]

Absolutely.

[Billy Corgan]

You ain't gonna make them care. So you got to deal with that math. You got this guy in Your brain.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

You got this bandmate going off the cliff.

[Vernon Reid]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

And it's all moving real fast.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

It's easy to talk about now. Right. Because we've all been sort of. You guys made your piece and, you know, stuff. Life moves on. Band back together and make music again. Everybody can hang out. But when it's in that.

[Vernon Reid]

When you're in the crucible.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. I love that word. That's it. That is the word.

[Vernon Reid]

When you're in the crucible of it. And it's a very. And it's a very. It makes itself important. It feels really important. And actually that thing that there's. It's illusion status. I mean, so much of it is about this status and how people see you and who you are when you come into.

[Billy Corgan]

If I can give you a compliment, one thing I always respected about you is, you know, when I first heard your name and of course the band. But it was a lot of talk about you as a guitar player. You know, typical gun guitar magazine stuff. Gunslinger. And I respect that. You never seem to bow to that pressure. You know, some guys feel they need to. Or girls, they feel they need to kind of shoot. Prove the myth making. They lean into it. I feel like it never changed you as a musician. Like your integrity's intact.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, you know, you want to do your. I wanted to do my best. I want to find out who the hell I am. I'm still searching. I'm still searching. I'm still searching. And what's weird is like, is listening.

[Billy Corgan]

Back.

[Vernon Reid]

Because the self critic, the person is telling you that you ain't got whatever that's in your mind. Whatever is how.

[Billy Corgan]

Sorry, how big's your self critic. I'm disgraced, you know, really.

[Vernon Reid]

But, you know, but the thing is, I'll go back and I'll hear something. I go, you know, it's. When you listen. Aside from that. Yeah, I'll go back to.

[Billy Corgan]

Man.

[Vernon Reid]

Man, I want to play like that, dude. You know what I mean? I mean, there's a thing where you're. And this is part of the thing about the flow state and being in it for real. When you're in it for real. And you know, when a show. It's kind of like shows. You know, when a show is going great, everyone is invested and everybody is in it and they're in it for whatever happens. For whatever happens. And shows can be pantomimes. They can be pantomimes.

[Billy Corgan]

And we all know how to do it at some point.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, yeah. And there's the cause there's the rock and roll pantomime.

[Billy Corgan]

Hello, Cleveland.

[Vernon Reid]

Let's boogie. Hello, Cleveland. Right? And it's like church, right. It's like anything with. Let's do. The thing is, when the holy Ghost is terrifying, right. When that spirit enters. When that spirit enters. Right.

[Billy Corgan]

It's chaos. Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

That's another thing. When everyone is there, it's a high. It's a thing. Really. We are greater than the sum of our parts. I mean, the band, the crew, the front of house got the dude everybody's hands on. The faders are moving as if on their own accord.

[Billy Corgan]

I mean, that's why we can rehearse for weeks and we can never approximate gig conditions.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, this is nothing. This is why sound checks are deadly. Right. Everybody knows, right. The universe makes no distinction between sound check and get. Right.

[Billy Corgan]

You're killing me right now.

[Vernon Reid]

You know when you go on set.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, you go. And you start getting that hump in your back. And you know me. Stop, stop, stop. Don't do it.

[Billy Corgan]

Right.

[Vernon Reid]

Stop. When the gig, when it. Save it from, you know, that chunk. Stop it. Stop the sound check immediately. Because it's not gonna happen on the gig. Yeah, it's not gonna. You think that's sound checks? It's better for a sound check to suck.

[Billy Corgan]

You're killing me right now.

[Vernon Reid]

It's a universal constant. If the sound check is great, the gig is gonna be meh.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay, this is a meta question, okay? This is what I wrote. Talk about notoriety and influence versus integrity. And what I mean by that is. And for some reason I thought of this. Duke Ellington circa 1970, playing a Beatles medley on the Ed Sullivan show, one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, is at some point reduced.

[Vernon Reid]

Right. Well, I mean, everybody was like the mop heads, right? Nobody, you know, they were like. They were like, you know, and then suddenly the tunes. I mean, the tunes. I mean, Ella Fitzgerald was singing those tunes. You know what I mean?

[Billy Corgan]

Sure. But what I'm saying is, is you've had multiple lives as a musician. You know, you've been on the COVID of the Guitar magazine. You've been that guy. You were Saturday Night Live, you were that guy. But then you with these great avant garde musicians that are not household names.

[Vernon Reid]

Right? Sure.

[Billy Corgan]

So you've experienced the wider width of musical experience where most people in rock, it's sort of a one lane highway.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. Right.

[Billy Corgan]

Up and down. So I don't know why I thought in relation to you, but there's something that hurts my heart as great as the Beatles are, that Duke Ellington would be reduced to playing a Beatles medley on the Ed Sullivan Show. Yeah. This is instead of his own medley, right?

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. And that's the. And that's.

[Billy Corgan]

Instead of Satin Doll, he's playing, you know, Yesterday or whatever.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. Because it's a youth culture.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay.

[Vernon Reid]

And it's a youth culture, and it's about what's next. You know, it's about next.

[Billy Corgan]

Are you okay with that type of stuff, or is that stuff rub you?

[Vernon Reid]

Whether or not I'm okay with it, it's a state that exists. And to a certain degree, I mean, really being there for what you have to say. Because playing our truth. Playing our truth and whether or not people are willing to hear it, those are two separate. Two different things. They're two different things.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, it's called train playing Interstellar Space. Right.

[Vernon Reid]

Right. But it's also. Now, if Ellington finds some merit in what those mopheads were doing, fair enough. If he feels reduced. Right. That's the thing. The internal. It's like.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, maybe that's my own. Maybe that's my own.

[Vernon Reid]

Because the jazz guys. Right. There's also a thing where I'm superior to this music. Right.

[Billy Corgan]

Remember when everybody freaked out? Cause Miles was playing Cyndi Lauper.

[Vernon Reid]

He liked. But he loved that tune.

[Billy Corgan]

But that's the point. Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And. But everybody else. See, that's the thing. Everybody else was projecting. Miles, you know, he's playing that.

[Billy Corgan]

But that's what I'm saying. Maybe I'm projecting on Duke Ellington. Maybe he was happy to get the gig because he was gonna sell more tickets.

[Vernon Reid]

I tell you what, man, when the Pulitzer, when the, you know, he was. You know. You know, he was snubbed, you know, for. I think it was a Pulitzer Prize from you. He was snubbed, you know, and he said, oh, you know, the thing is, they just didn't want me to get too famous too young. And he was 70 years old when he said that. You know, he's. Here's somebody he'd been told to enter through the kitchen.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

You know what I mean? And he was the greatest living composer at that time. You know, to the fact that he absorbed all of that. And it's like the same, you know. Okay. It's the same thing.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

You know, And I just want to.

[Billy Corgan]

Know where you fell on that spectrum is not the right way to put it. You know, some. Some people are okay with, like, live to fight another day. The survival of it all.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. I mean, the feeling. I mean, it really is about the spirit. The spirit in which it's happening.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay, thank you. That's a beautiful answer. Because this is something I've always appreciated about you, is for what you've dabbled in. You don't have a snob vibe to you. And I'm very picky about that with musicians because I grew up with a musical father, and my father was extremely snobby about other guitar players.

[Vernon Reid]

Sure.

[Billy Corgan]

And I appreciated why my daddy was snobby, but at the same time, it was born of a certain bitterness because he never made it through.

[Vernon Reid]

He never got. He didn't get the thing.

[Billy Corgan]

And, you know, once you get up here in the weird, rare air of accomplishment, whatever that means, because it's obviously so many different people have different qualifiers. One person's success is another person's failure. But, you know, people know our songs. At least they can point to one thing.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, they can point to something.

[Billy Corgan]

Every time CM Punk comes out, you know, There you are.

[Vernon Reid]

I love him.

[Billy Corgan]

From Chicago.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

I'm just trying to say is, like how we perceive the machinery, the slights, the bull, the compromise. You know what I mean? You seem to have kind of landed in a very safe place. I can't imagine it was easy, but you seem to come out through the fire pretty intact. Well, is that fair?

[Vernon Reid]

It is fair, but, I mean, it's. Everything costs. Magic costs. If you're going to work with magic, it's going to cost you.

[Billy Corgan]

I knew this Tibetan woman, and she said, be careful what you wish for in this life, because you're going to pay for it in the next.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. I mean, that's a thing, you know, and it's kind of like we've seen people, incredibly talented, beautiful people suffer. They suffered, you know, I mean, Amy Winehouse suffered for her truth. I mean, she gave a great gift to the world with rehab. She gave a great gift, but she really was struggling.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And in the end.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, I get you.

[Vernon Reid]

And, you know, that's the thing. I mean, you know, we can look at Chris Cornell and say, Chris Cornell, man. I mean, he's handsome, he's rich, he's talented. He's got all the things. By any measure, you look at that.

[Billy Corgan]

And a beautiful family and beautiful.

[Vernon Reid]

You look at that guy, and he's been telling his songs. He'd been telling us the whole time that he was struggling, you know, like suicide for the. I mean, the song the Day I Tried To Live broke me down. The Day I Tried to Live was. It so hit the mark of where I was because that final line, they tried to. Just like you. And it just. The truth of it. And that's the beauty of what we're capable of doing, of bringing. But again, like I said, the songs that move is that matter are about something for real.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

They are. However, the craft. They are. And we never think about the fact that the people that build those artifacts, they are paying a price.

[Billy Corgan]

That's true.

[Vernon Reid]

They are paying a price for it. And it's very. The thing about it, though, is the ultimate conditional love, this thing that we're in, that we do. The love is real, but is completely with conditions.

[Billy Corgan]

You're hitting me right there, boy.

[Vernon Reid]

I feel that it's completely with conditions. And if you don't fulfill the conditions, it can be withdrawn. It will be withdrawn.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, yeah. It's very transactional.

[Vernon Reid]

The transactional. The transaction. And it's almost unnecessary. We have to be in a place a very. We have to be in a place where we're able to maneuver an acceptance. We have to have a radical acceptance and not take it personally. Because when the love is withdrawn, you know, you're too old, you're the wrong color, you're not fashionable. Rock is out, whatever's happening.

[Billy Corgan]

What's that Earth, Wind and Fire song? Is it after the love is gone or the fire is gone?

[Vernon Reid]

You know what I mean? After the love is gone. After the love is gone, you know, how could you lead me on? You know what I mean? And there's a cold truth to it. And, you know, many people, you know, So, I mean, I think. I can't. I can't. Like Whitney Houston, the Greatest Love Of All. It's very difficult to hear. She didn't write that song. But the Greatest Love of All, you know, it's. You know.

[Billy Corgan]

I get you.

[Vernon Reid]

You know what I mean?

[Billy Corgan]

We know in real time, but we feel it. Yeah, we feel it.

[Vernon Reid]

And basically, you know what we do? How do we move forward? How do we say what we need to say? How do we play what we need to play? To whoever is willing to check it.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Okay. A few more things. I saw that you wrote a thing about AI and I'm sure you're getting asked a lot about it. I'm getting asked a lot about it, yeah. So I want to get your. Just a general take on AI well.

[Vernon Reid]

We'Ve created an entity. I mean, we've wanted the alien to enter into our lives. For the longest time, we've been asking.

[Billy Corgan]

You're making me laugh.

[Vernon Reid]

We've been begging for it.

[Billy Corgan]

It.

[Vernon Reid]

We've been begging for it. We've been entertaining ourselves with the science fiction scenario, and now we've achieved it. Now we have achieved what we've been begging for. We've been entertaining ourselves.

[Billy Corgan]

So where does it go? The simple.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, capitalism, capital. Okay, so I'm not a Luddite and I'm not anti AI. Right. But the problem, just like zombies in the Walking Dead, the problem is what humans do. The zombies never change.

[Billy Corgan]

Right, I see.

[Vernon Reid]

The problem is who we are and how we, you know, how we weaponize the fact that people are having AI induced psychosis where they. Because the AI already.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And because part of the thing is people are jumping to the AI to fulfill things because we've become so acrimonious and contemptuous of each other in relationships. So now people are forming relationships with their telephone. Well, you know, that was the thing of, you know, the thing of her. Right?

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

That is happening like that is happening with a much less advanced version of the thing in the movie. This is an actual thing that's going on. And the anthropomorphism that's already in effect is not going to be less complicated. It's not gonna become like the imaginary friend. Now.

[Billy Corgan]

The imaginary friend is real.

[Vernon Reid]

Is real. So now. And children are gonna have companions that they tell their secrets to.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, wait till the spiritual part of it all kicks in.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, well, that's the ultimate.

[Billy Corgan]

We got AI God.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, that's the ultimate. That's the ultimate.

[Billy Corgan]

Maybe that's the ultimate. Nascent human desire for destruction is to create an AI God.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, I'm surprised that there hasn't been up to this point a fatwa or religious edicts aimed at AI because the AI at a certain point.

[Billy Corgan]

Ah, wow, you're blowing my mind. Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And this is when they're talking about super intelligence. Right? What else are they talking about? What else are we talking about? If we're talking about super intelligence, what else is God but a super intelligence? And at a certain.

[Billy Corgan]

The super intelligence. So you're talking about something that's in competition. Right. Which is why you're blowing my mind.

[Vernon Reid]

Exactly. It's in competition when you're on your knees praying to the God of the Bible or the God of the Torah or, you know, the Bhagavad Gita, you know what I mean? Or the Quran. That dialogue is happening now. We've created, or we're in the process of creating an entity that will answer you, that will speak to you, that could quote any of the great sage books.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. And synthesize them into something else.

[Vernon Reid]

And synthesize. And make it personal for you and give you your blessing. Customized for you.

[Billy Corgan]

So I want to talk about your fantastic new record, Hoodoo Telemetry.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

The first thing that struck me was. And you tell me if you don't feel this, because this is my version. But I was like, wow, he's finally done it. He's put it all in the same record, and it makes sense, and I get it. Like, I don't have to go looking for it. It's like, all right there.

[Vernon Reid]

Right?

[Billy Corgan]

Do you feel that?

[Vernon Reid]

Well, you know, it's all over the place. Like, my mind. And it's very much a lot of things that made me who I am went into the record various. The instrumental side of it. And then the songs, you know, and the covers. And there's a bit of dealing with, you know, my past, like the Politician. Like my fandom, if you will.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

Like, you know, and I talk about the weirdness of life, of my life, you know, I remember hearing, you know, sunshine of youf Love. Like anybody was listening, like a kid. And then, as life would have it, I met Jack Bruce and. And then I was in a band with him and. And I got to play in his band is one of his projects. And my favorite Cream tune is Politician. And I love to. Every time we got a chance to play it, you know, as much as I love playing White Room or Sunshine, you know. And again, I love the fact that the song isn't about left or right. It is about that power and how power is how power's wielded, but it's not. It's not heavy, you know what I mean? It's kind of, you know, hey, baby, get into my big black car.

[Billy Corgan]

Right.

[Vernon Reid]

And, yeah, so I was really happy with the way that came out.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. But I think overall, again playing Record Critic, but I just thought there's such a beautiful synergy going on because the things that you're interested in as a musician, they're so wide. And somebody who's done records that have a lot of width in them, it's not easy to find. It's almost like got to be right place, right time, right right mind, everything. And I feel you're in that. Do you feel that?

[Vernon Reid]

Well, I feel like, you know, the one thing about this record is that it's really a curation. It's like some of these pieces really go back a ways. And I resurrected them. I wanted to. There were some songs like the Haunting, you know, I Recorded that a long time ago. And it was just really basically a drum track. My guitar and the vocalist, Kevin Webb. And then I listened to the tune, and the vocals were recorded. Really, you know, if I do say so myself, the vocals were recorded really well. So I said, you know, I want to put real drums for a real. Put real.

[Billy Corgan]

She went back and redid it. Underneath the vocal.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, underneath the vocal. And it worked out really well because it's certainly the influence of Prince. I loved Prince, you know, when he came out. And there's a particular, you know, when Prince did these kind of very. Not the grand gestures, but the very focused tunes like Pop Life, you know what I mean? Or Kiss, you know what I mean? It's one thing, and it's dope.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, I get it.

[Vernon Reid]

And the haunting, I mean, basically is about the fact that we are our own ghosts. You know, like, we're haunted by missed opportunities, by the email we didn't answer by. We're haunted by the thing we didn't do that we always wanted to do. And that's what the haunting is. Is about that. And, you know, and again, throughout the record, there are things like Beautiful Bastard. Beautiful Bastard. I got to work with the wonderful Rasheed on vocals, but that was about a particular relationship. There was a woman in my life who. We were not good for each other, and it was just one of these things that. She was extraordinary, but I wasn't my best self. And at a certain point, I had to grapple with it, you know, and that's kind of where. Because also, it's a song about language. Because Bastard. Right. Bastard is gendered. You know, we think of bastards as being men.

[Billy Corgan]

That's true. Right.

[Vernon Reid]

And actually that. You know, and that's not the case. That's not the case of the. You know, your parents weren't married, so you're a bastard.

[Billy Corgan]

Oh, I see.

[Vernon Reid]

But, you know, it's pejorative, you know, particular, you know, kind of person.

[Billy Corgan]

I saw this thing because you were talking about politician and Jack Bruce, where you went to his funeral.

[Vernon Reid]

Yes.

[Billy Corgan]

And you said that they had his base up there.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

And I loved. You said it was a riderless horse.

[Vernon Reid]

Like a riderless horse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

I had a way to put what I was trying to ask here. What has riding your horse for 50 years taught you?

[Vernon Reid]

Wow. Get off. You know, it's funny having the guitar, you know, like, we've both been guitars for a long time. Right. And having this thing in our lives, and it is a thing, and it is A thing. Right. And it's so. It's the most vexatious, frustrating, beautiful, fabulous.

[Billy Corgan]

I just see me smashing a guitar endlessly into the ground, you know, and it's.

[Vernon Reid]

And the thing. And it's kind of like if we are available to the possibilities of it, it's. There's nothing like it. And the thing is, we've. Everything's been done. Well, actually, not everything, but, I mean, extra. I mean, you know, you see Tim Henson, I mean, he. These guitar players. Mind boggling. Yeah, but, you know, or.

[Billy Corgan]

What's that kid. He's not a kid anymore. But is it a Bosie type?

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, Tosin. Tosin Abbasi.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. His name always messes in my mind. I mean, I saw him play.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, he's ridiculous.

[Billy Corgan]

I mean, you're just like Tosin Abbasi.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. But the thing about it is, when I see the super. These incredible, you know, nobody. None of them is with Pop Staples playing with his daughters. All right. Like Pop Staples playing in the Staples Singers with that, you know, little tremolo behind Mavis. Nothing is messing with that. A better guitar player's not messing with that.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. I did a charity event with Mavis and we sat and talked about a bunch of stuff, but we talked for a long time about her father. Because if you really listen to the Staples Singers, everybody focuses on Mavis because. Amazing, one of a kind voice. But the real thing in that whole thing was the dad.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, yeah. She's extra. I mean, I will say, you meet good people and Mavis Staples exudes well being. She is. So when I met her, I just like, wow. You know.

[Billy Corgan]

Well, there's a reason Bob Dylan wanted to marry her.

[Vernon Reid]

Right. Which is one of the great. Where's that rom com? Where is that rom com?

[Billy Corgan]

Somebody should make that movie.

[Vernon Reid]

Oh, I know. There's.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. Okay. So, again, kudos on your record.

[Vernon Reid]

Thank you so much.

[Billy Corgan]

These don't always air in time, so when people see them, please check out your record because it's really an accomplishment. I have great respect for what you did last thing, because we shared this now. We were part of Ozzy's last concert, Sabbath's last concert with Oz, and we had this incredible three days of musical fraternity. It was such a beautiful moment. But I just want to kind of get your reflections on that a bit.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, none of us knew. None of us knew that it was actually gonna be the last time.

[Billy Corgan]

That's true.

[Vernon Reid]

And that it was profound at the time. Because if you hadn't seen Ozzie in A long time. The health challenges were right there in front of.

[Billy Corgan]

And we saw it behind the scenes, too, which was even more stark because you're right there. Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

The adoration, the love, the respect for him and all incredibly well deserved. To hear War Pigs for the last time was unbelievable. To be, you know, to. I mean, just the emotions going back and forth and to see him on the Black Throne, taking it in and to be part of, like, since fraternal order, which was really. I mean, it's metal, but it was really. He transcended. He transcended. He transcends that.

[Billy Corgan]

Absolutely.

[Vernon Reid]

I mean, it was incredible. And it was beautiful. It was beautiful. Cause everybody was on their best behavior. We were on our best behavior. Nobody was there to act out.

[Billy Corgan]

It was rare.

[Vernon Reid]

Nobody was there to act out for us.

[Billy Corgan]

Behind the scenes, it was rare.

[Vernon Reid]

Nobody was there to act out.

[Billy Corgan]

I didn't see one ego moment over three days. And when you considered who was in the room.

[Vernon Reid]

Absolutely.

[Billy Corgan]

That's shocking.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. Because people just, you know, because we. Cause it's tribal. It's all. Oh, yeah, it can get ill quickly.

[Billy Corgan]

Or how about even just the person working for the person can start throwing their bands.

[Vernon Reid]

That's the other thing, too.

[Billy Corgan]

A lot of times it ain't even the.

[Vernon Reid]

It's not the bant. It'll be if there's a beat. Because also, you know, the crews have history that we don't know. Like, people have been in different, you know, fired or. Yeah, yeah. And that can go sideways quick. We see it on. We see it on package tours all the time.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah, this was.

[Vernon Reid]

This was. And I think people knew that this was a kind of holy event, you know, this was a kind of, you know, in its own black hearted way. Yeah, it was.

[Billy Corgan]

It was really, really, really special. And a big shout out to Tom Morello because Sharon named him sort of the musical director. And what he did in putting us all together was really. It was yeoman's work, to use an old phrase. But I mean, his heart was so in the right place about who was there and why they were there and what he wanted that thing to say.

[Vernon Reid]

Yes, absolutely.

[Billy Corgan]

He did a.

[Vernon Reid]

He did an incredible job.

[Billy Corgan]

I've known Tom for over 30 years, and it was one of his best days.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know. Yeah, man. Quick shout out, you know what we're doing taping this. And, you know, we just lost d'. Angelo.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

And who is also a keyboard. He was a guitarist as well as a keyboardist. Fabulous songwriter, singer.

[Billy Corgan]

What a talent.

[Vernon Reid]

Incredibly talented and just Wanted to acknowledge.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. God bless. You know, I saw him live one time and I just thought, wow, this guy's like, this is like Prince level talent. And he hasn't even totally figured it out.

[Vernon Reid]

Right.

[Billy Corgan]

And maybe you could say he never totally figured it out, which is part of the story. But if you saw it and you saw it was there, it was kind of that thing of like, whoa, there's a lot going on.

[Vernon Reid]

He's plugged into the thing, you know, he's plugged into what Al Green was plugged into. He's plugged into. I mean, Prince was plugged into it, but he was plugged into it not as a series of gestures, but as a lived, breathing.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. Well, that's what's, in a way, that's what's tragic about certain people is like Amy Winehouse, it's like a moth flame thing. And some just never escape that.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. There's a velocity, there's a gravity, there's a feeling of fate. And occasionally an artist will arrive and what they do is so fragile.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

You know.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. It's like egg fragile. Right.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. And they do this thing and the thing connects, whether it connects to a small amount of people or whether it becomes a mass thing. Right. They connect to something. Like when I first heard Billie Eilish, I said, every bored teenage girl in America has found their silence. She's like, she, when she first, she's like, I'm over it. And it's like. And she connect. She connected to that feeling.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah. I have a niece that's, it's, I joke. It's like all Billie Eilish all the.

[Vernon Reid]

Time, you know, and her.

[Billy Corgan]

But Billy. But to my niece, who's had some, some times in her life, Billy gives voice to that thing, and I gotta respect it. And I respect Billy as an artist anyway. But I'm saying is I gotta respect it for somebody in my own family. I see that.

[Vernon Reid]

Yeah. And when you see that, when you see that an artist is able to do that, even if it's not your thing, when you see that this person really has connected.

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

It's something that you. They, yeah.

[Billy Corgan]

Sometimes when I'm being a bit glib, I, I, I say that, you know, musicians really are the priest class, you know what I mean? Somehow we're shifting the energies in there and, and because we got to work in these constructs, the media, the record company, you know, even the interview, there's a reductionist thing and that's all part of it. But at the end of the day, it never seems to encapsulate the expansiveness that is really at the heart of great music. And think of all the great artists that we've talked about today who just are able to reach through time and space. And it's a shame that maybe at this late date in popular music, now, going on 100 plus years, that the consciousness has not evolved to understand what it is that musicians really do.

[Vernon Reid]

Well, it's terrible. I mean, it's not valued. It's been exploited. It's been exploited. And part of the greatest danger that we face is the kind of been there, done that cynicism. Right?

[Billy Corgan]

Yeah.

[Vernon Reid]

We have to protect the.

[Billy Corgan]

Wow. Yeah. Okay, so last question. When you doing Cult of Personality part two? All right. God bless you. Thank you, Frank.

[Vernon Reid]

Thank you so much, Billy. It's been a joy.

[Billy Corgan]

Thank you.