When it comes to experiencing strong emotions as a listener, which albums, performances, and artists come to mind?
David Bowie’s last album Blackstar gets me every time I listen to it. Especially the song “Lazarus.” To me, he is an immortal artist.
And writing his own obituary - speaking to us from the afterworld with this album - was so brilliant and powerful and heartbreaking.
On the first anniversary of his death, we made a cello cover version of the whole album. Channeling Bowie’s voice with my cello is always an emotional roller coaster for me.
There can be many different kinds of emotions in art – soft, harsh, healing, aggressive, uplifting and many more. Which do you tend to feel drawn to most?
I don’t really think about music and art in those terms. I think you can experience a very wide range of emotions from a great work of art. But it only works if it’s not intentionally meant to do that – music that tries to manipulate emotions always falls flat.
In other words, great music is a kind of discovery, uncovering of a form of truth. It can be very personal, even quirky, sometimes it can be complicated and layered, sometime raw and simple. But the emotions we feel are a physical reaction and can be very subjective. We react emotionally to music based on our own experiences and personal history and the kind of memories and stories and deep visceral response it evokes in us.
Yet, I’m not sure we experience music, or the world around us for that matter, in the same way. When we listen to a piece of music together, how do I know if you hear it the same way I do? How do I know if you see the same colors I do? We have shared language that we all participate in but what I say, and you say, while it sounds the same, might reflect two different experiences.
So, I guess all the emotions that you mentioned are valid for me – except aggressive. I don’t connect to anything that convey aggression. Art, as life, should never be aggressive.
I have had a hard time explaining that listening to death metal calms me down. When you listen to a song or composition, does it tend to fill you with the same emotions – or are there “paradoxical” effects?
Interesting question. I guess it goes back to what I said in the previous question.
Our feelings and experiences are not linear and predictable. How we experience music is inherently subjective.
In as far as it plays a role for the music you like listening to or making, what role do words and the voice of a vocalist play for the transmission of emotions?
I mostly prefer music to be nonverbal. I like the openness of the sound world when it is devoid of language. It feels more liberating to me in terms of where it takes me. Music for me is a form of trance, meditation, ritual.
But sometimes, words are needed, and they work. They create a sort of boundaries and limitations that can lead to a powerful form.
When I think of Janis Joplin, her voice was so raw and visceral and the words she sang were an important part of it. Same is true for Nina Simone and Amy Winehouse.
When it comes to experiencing emotions as as a creator, how would you describe the physical sensation of experiencing them? [Where do you feel them, do you have a visual sensation/representation, is there a sense of release or a build-up of tension etc …]
I am very visual. I see music, not just hear it – images, colors. It’s an organic process. I don’t try to impose anything. I surrender and allow myself to become porous. That’s when I can truly connect.
It’s a fine balance between been led by what surrounds me and leading with intention. It only works when I allow myself to let go. to be vulnerable. Be nothing. It’s like you collapse and become ashes and rebuild every time you create.
When it comes to composing / songwriting, are you finding that spontaneity and just a few takes tend to capture emotions best? Or does honing a piece bring you closer to that goal?
When I make an album, I get very obsessive. I redo every take many times. I have a hard time settling on the “right” one. It is inevitably a compromise. And I don’t like to compromise. I am a perfectionist by nature (and nurture), but I don’t believe in perfection in art. So, I live in that paradox.
I often wish there was a form of recording where you could release a different version of the same album every day. Slightly different. With another color, another dynamic, another intonation. The shades of music are endless.
When you make an album, you must settle on the one moment where you experienced it in a particular manner. That’s why I have a hard time listening to my own albums after I create them.
How much of the emotions of your own music, would you say, are already part of the composition, how much is the result of the recording process?
It’s always a mixture of both. But the music isn’t realized until it is performed/recorded.
The sounds exist; the music exist but it’s inaudible, invisible. When you play, you bring it to life anew every time. And in the process, it is sometimes transformed, and you discover something you didn’t know was there.
When I am truly tuned-in and shed all preconceived notions, when I allow myself to be a vessel, that’s when the transformation happen. And often I am transformed in the process as well.
Those layers of seeing and feeling and experiencing deeply, they add up.
For Salt, what kind of emotions were you looking to get across?
Salt is built on remembrance and defiance. I wasn't thinking in terms of conveying specific emotions so much as creating a space for contemplation around memory and witness.
The album explores that tension between being told to move forward and the need to honor what we've left behind. There's something profound in Lot's wife's act of looking back—I wanted the music to hold that complexity, the ache of severed connections alongside the courage it takes to bear witness. I wanted to make space for those emotions that don’t resolve neatly, looking back—knowing the cost—and doing it anyway.
There is sorrow in it, yes, but also tenderness, awe, and a kind of quiet but powerful rebellion.
How do you capture the emotions you want to get across in the studio?
It's about creating an environment where both intimacy and expansiveness can coexist. The cello needs to feel close enough to be personal but also have the space to become monumental.
We worked with dynamics and space - sometimes the music feels like a whisper, sometimes like a pillar of salt.
What role do factors like volume, effects like distortion, amplification, and production in general for in terms of creating the emotions, energies or impressions you want?
Texture is emotion. Distortion, delay, reverb - they’re like emotional amplifiers. They take the raw material and stretch it into new dimensions.
I often think of production as painting with shadows and light. The production choices support the narrative arc of Salt. We use space and resonance to create that sense of looking back across vast distances. Sometimes I want the cello to feel ancient, otherworldly; other times it's completely raw and present.
The way a cello growls through an amp or dissolves into reverb can speak volumes.
In terms of emotions, what changes when you're performing live on stage, with an audience present, compared to the recording stage?
Everything is more dangerous when you are on stage. The risk of the moment becomes part of the emotion. You’re not just transmitting music - you are sharing it, letting it be altered by the presence of other bodies in the room.
There’s a kind of emotional conductivity that can’t be replicated in a studio. It’s a different kind of ritual. The pace is different. No second chances. No regrets.
It’s a type of explosion that unfolds over a period of a few hours never to be repeated.
How does the presence of the audience and your interaction with it change the emotional impact of the music and how would you describe the creative interaction with listeners during a gig?
The audience brings their own memories, their own experiences of loss and resilience. It’s like a feedback loop. I offer something, and the audience reflects it back - with their energy, breath, stillness.
Sometimes I feel a collective inhale before a moment lands. Sometimes a quiet gasp tells me they’re right there with me. It’s a conversation. A kind of communion.
What kind of feedback have you received from listeners or concert audiences in terms of the experience that your music and/or performances have had on them?
I will let other people describe their reaction to my work … :-)
I hope they are moved in some way. I hope they feel it brings them closer to a peaceful place, and that they, too, feel the urge to create.
We are all creative creatures.
Would you say that you prefer to stay in control to be able to shape the emotions or do you surrender to them and allow the music to take over? Who, ultimately has control during a live performance?
Control is a false comfort. The best performances happen when I am porous enough to be moved with the sound, not by it.
It is not about dominating the emotion but channeling it, trusting it, letting it pass through.
The emotions that music is able to generate can be extremely powerful. How, do you think, can artists make use of this power to bring about change in the world?
By telling the truth. Not the literal truth, but the emotional one - the kind that gets under the skin and stays there. Music can humanize what politics dehumanizes. It can create space for empathy, for memory, for grief.
And I think that matters - especially now. When words fail, music can say: Feel this. Remember this. Don’t look away.
Maya Beiser Interview Image by Abigail Fenton“Music that tries to manipulate emotions always falls flat.”
ON THE RISE
It was the beginning of 1996 when an up and coming alternative group called the Smashing Pumpkins set out on a global run in support of their latest release, “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.” One of the earliest dates brought them to Los Angeles for a packed performance at the legendary Palace Theatre, where fans filled the venue wall to wall. Instead of opening with the loud, abrasive energy that dominated alternative rock the year before, the band surprised everyone by beginning with a quiet piano performance.
The song was the album’s title track, a deeply reflective piece filled with emotion, optimism and the feeling of stepping into a new chapter. Billy Corgan, who was 28 at the time, wrote it while teaching himself how to play piano.
Corgan recalls the moment feeling almost unreal, surrounded by the Palace Theatre’s velvet drapes, the gentle melody and the overwhelming excitement from the crowd. Then everything erupted as pounding drums and roaring guitars crashed into the room, fully introducing the massive soundscape of “Mellon Collie.”
Three decades later, “Mellon Collie” is widely viewed as one of the defining rock records of the 1990s, later inspiring artists such as Muse, My Chemical Romance and Silversun Pickups. The album marked a dramatic turning point for the band, who had previously become known for the dreamy, progressive leaning sound of their 1993 breakthrough “Siamese Dream.” Unlike that record, “Mellon Collie” arrived as an ambitious concept double album, with lyrics tracing a journey that Corgan described as “one day that can represent your entire life.”
Throughout that concept, the record shifts through crushing and emotional examinations of rage and identity on tracks like “Muzzle,” “Zero” and “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” nostalgic and delicate moments in “Cupid De Locke” and “Thirty-Three,” and themes of youth and romance in “1979” and “Love.” Its enormous range in both storytelling and musical direction made it stand apart from other rock albums of its era, abandoning the detached attitude often associated with grunge in favor of sincerity, emotion and experimentation.
Taking cues from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” the noisy textures of Sonic Youth, the symbolic songwriting and layered arrangements of Black Sabbath, along with surreal visual art influences, “Mellon Collie” pushed the Smashing Pumpkins further than ever before. The album challenged the group to discover how far they could stretch creatively and how completely they could capture human emotion within a single project.
To celebrate the album’s 30th anniversary, the band has partnered with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, their hometown orchestra, to reinterpret “Mellon Collie” as an opera production. They are also releasing the album again alongside previously unheard recordings from the 1996 “Infinite Sadness” tour. Featuring performances from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, the recordings preserve the intensity of the live shows and document a defining chapter in the band’s story.
In “Tonight, Tonight,” Corgan reflects, “And our lives are forever changed, we will never be the same.”
Looking back at the legacy of “Mellon Collie,” those lyrics feel hauntingly accurate. “Nothing was quite the same after this album,” Corgan told the Times. In many ways, that statement could not be more true.
The album earned seven Grammy nominations and launched the band into another level of fame through massive MTV exposure and a series of enduring hit singles. Away from the spotlight, however, Corgan was struggling through the collapse of his first marriage. During the tour, growing tensions inside the group eventually exploded following the overdose death of touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin. Later that same year, Corgan also lost his mother.
What followed “Mellon Collie” and the turbulent 1996 tour was a period filled with instability and upheaval. Yet within the life of the album itself existed a rare moment where Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins came together in complete creative harmony to make a record that would ultimately shape their careers and, in many ways, the course of their lives.
Something I really love, especially about the piano and “Tonight, Tonight” as the opening track, is this feeling of hope that it starts off with, or maybe that’s just what I got from it.
[Laughs] It starts with hope and ends somewhere else, let’s put it that way.
What was the intention with starting with this feeling and what was it inspired by at the time?
I was going through a lot in my personal life, and I was grappling with the changes in my life and the awareness that I had in my life, given what I’d been through as a child and now as an adult with success, it was like I was trying to grapple with all that and wondering what really matters.
I think if you look at the general narrative of the album, it starts with the idea and it starts with the dream and what is possible within the dream. So, for example, you pointed to the piano piece that opens the record.
I went to a store, not too far from where I’m sitting and talking to you [he was calling from his car in Chicago], and bought an old 1920s piano with mismatched legs for $2,500. Now that may not seem like a big deal, but at 27 years old, when I was writing the record, I never owned a piano nor was I allowed to play a piano in my relatives’ houses.
So I finally had this moment of, wow, I can actually buy a piano and I can play my own piano in my own house. As silly as that sounds, it had never crossed my mind that way. I’d always lived in apartments and I was always on the road. It was like a new beginning. It starts with the gift that I gave myself and that ends up having a lot of influence on the compositional structure of the record.
And then “Tonight, Tonight,” was a song that we messed around with for about four months. And one night it just came to me in a flash, like what the song needed to sound like, and I went upstairs to this room that I had in my house and I just remember playing it like I could hear the whole orchestra in my head and I thought, OK, that’s what I need to do.
Something I see on this new reissue is that there’s going to be a lot of recordings from that live 1996 tour right after the release of the album. What was it like relistening to these performances, especially as it was the last tour with the band’s full original lineup?
We had crested a particular wave at the time. We had a No. 1 album. We were playing, I think, a 90-date arena tour, which, now there’s a ton of artists playing stadiums, but back then an arena show was essentially the top of the mountain. So then we had success, we had fame, we had money that we’d never had.
With that, we had all the trappings. And I think in the recordings that are on this record that’s coming out, it’s like a light burning bright before it burns out. If you’ve ever had that experience, you’re in a room and all of a sudden the lightbulb gets really intense and then it burns out. So, you hear us basically burning out.
And there’s a sort of incandescent poetic beauty to all that, and there’s just the sorrow to it because you also realize it’s the last of that moment. In many ways, it was truly the end of that band. I mean, yes, the band has continued, and James [Iha] and Jimmy [Chamberlin] and I have been playing back together again for seven years, and released more records and had a tremendous amount of success of late.
But you can never recapture the innocence of youth or the innocence of the time. When you combine those types of experiences with loss and sorrow and the knowledge of what didn’t happen or what could have happened, then it makes revisiting this time bittersweet.
What do you think “Mellon Collie” means today and how has it been for you to see younger generations continue to be inspired by it?
I view that album in particular very much within the realm of a child who grows up in a latchkey situation. It’s very much a Gen X term. Latchkey kids were those whose parents were working a lot or not home, so they grew up by and large unsupervised. So what does a kid who grows up unsupervised do? They watched a lot of television, and then we consumed a lot of sugar and got up to a lot of delinquent-type things.
So I think the album is very representative of that experience and I think why it continues to resonate for subsequent generations is, it’s very dissociative. Back in the ’90s, the mainstream culture, including the L.A. Times and the New York Times, they really struggled with, “Where’s this all coming from?” Now you are living in a world that is constantly dissociative thanks to social media.
The thing that’s surprising, I’m basing it on personal conversations I’ve had with tons of musicians through the years, is that our album gave some musicians the permission to pursue a wider artistic vision. Because “Mellon Collie” is so wide. It has so much breadth. So what I’ve heard from other artists is, “Wow, when I heard that album, I thought, I can do this too, but in my own way.” And that to me is like, that’s a penultimate compliment from another musician. It’s really humbling.
The greatest thrill now is seeing that young people really do connect with the record. And they connect with songs that are different from the previous generations, which is even cooler. They seem to like the weirder stuff on it rather than the ... let’s call it, the classic rock alternative stuff.
That’s a cool way of looking at it. Like the previous generation probably was really obsessed with “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” and maybe newer listeners aren’t as focused on that song specifically. In that song, it’s interesting that you say, “Can you fake it for just one more show?” Or this feeling of putting on a performance and feeling that you have to fake it as an artist. Is that something that still resonates with you?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because you work so hard to be on that stage and then, as Roger Waters so aptly describes in “The Wall,” you find yourself having a surrealist experience on that same stage. You put yourself through hell to get there and then one day you’re standing there and you’re like, what am I doing here?
I’ve had similar moments where I’m standing on stage and you feel like you’re tripping on drugs, but you’re totally sober. Because the thing that you love inverts on you. When I was a kid, I thought being on TV was a peak thing. But then I was there, about to perform on TV, and there were all these things going on, like you’re tired, or you’re being sued or your bandmate doesn’t like the deli tray. And I just thought, what am I doing here? I felt like I was living in “Spinal Tap.” This is supposed to be fun. This is supposed to be glamorous. This is supposed to be a thousand other things that you put on the rock-star checklist and you find yourself saying, I don’t want to be here.
If you turn to your friends or your family and say, “I’m really struggling with how I’m supposed to process the information that I’m receiving up here,” you’re told you’re ungrateful or you’re out of your mind or you really need to check your ego. I reached a point where it was like, no, I don’t have the skill set to survive punishing my mind, body, spirit five to six nights a week in front of strangers singing songs that are very personal to me and I hear the cheering and I see the flash bulbs popping, but I’m so numb that I can’t feel what’s happening. So in a lot of ways, that song and the themes from the album are still real.
You’ve said in the “Mellon Collie” sessions, you guys were working on 50 songs at once, that you’re working for six hours a day, just really intense in the studio. What are your thoughts as you think back to that? Were there any memories that really arise for you?
Despite our public persona of being dysfunctional and brawling, we were quite quiet in the rehearsal space. We almost never had guests and 97% of the time, it was just the four of us in a room working.
So, the real memory for me is just day after day after day of trying tons and tons of different ideas, and it started to wind itself into a story through those 60-plus songs, many of which came out in those few years. It was our best period of musical alignment and I think you can hear that. We worked very hard and very peacefully together for eight months to put all that together.
We had just come off a tour, “Siamese Dream,” which was a 14-month tour, and we went in the studio for eight months, made the “Mellon Collie” record, and we immediately went back on tour. And that tour was 22 months long. So when you ask my memory from that time, it’s like, can you describe the blur? It was a really beautiful blur, you know?
You said something really interesting earlier about “Tonight, Tonight” coming to you with the sound of an orchestra. Talk about what it was like to see that song and this album come to life as an opera with Chicago Lyric.
The idea that I would even not only write something on the piano, and now, a full orchestra is playing that song here in Chicago with the lyrics I wrote ... is totally mind-blowing. The first time I heard it with an orchestra, I started to cry, because I thought, this is so crazy. This song that I used to teach myself how to play the piano was now being played by some of the greatest musicians in the world in this beautiful opera hall. I can’t explain to you the strangeness of that journey.
I was made fun of [for using classical instruments in ’90s rock music]. It was seen as too precocious or too artsy or too, I don’t know, overly grand. And now, if you look at alternative music, I mean, there’s been an absolute explosion of people using unconventional instrumentation within the breath of alternative music, as it should be. So it makes me laugh now that there was a time where somehow that was pseudo-controversial.
Coming to my last question for you, how did this album impact your life 30 years later and impact your artistry?
After putting out something like this, artistically it was a triumph. But then publicly it became surreal. We hit a level where people were following you through malls and we were on MTV. It’s not like we had not tasted success, but this was this other stratospheric aspect of success. And something about that album just kind of blew everything wide open.
Family relationships, personal relationships, business relationships, everything just kind of went sideways. I remember thinking nothing was quite the same after that album. Which is true, but it’s not true the way you think it is.
The album has never left my life and is never far away from the conversation. It was never like I put it down and left it behind. Other people won’t let me forget and that’s a good thing because the value holds, and I’ll never forget about it.
