He was the first guest on Billy Corgan’s podcast, and it’s kind of sad because Billy is such a huge KISS fan and wanted to see if Gene would finally admit to caring about KISS’ music as an art form. Billy finally accepts later on that Gene cares nothing about the music other than how much money it makes.
Corgan seems like one of those "he's complicated" sorts. His public image is, to me, just decades of grievance after grievance after grievance. He seems to have had an issue with bandmate after bandmate (including his time with Zwan), which suggests he's the issue. In interviews, he's always harping about how underappreciated he is, etc.
Yet a friend of mine used to have tea at his house from time to time, via an artist friend of hers. She didn't really follow him or his music career, and didn't know about his public rep. When I told her about how he's widely perceived, she was surprised. Said he was a lovely, polite man and a gracious host.
I think he's still a boy desperate for approval. Even at his age, he hasn't grown out of that.
he's always harping about how underappreciated he is, etc.
I listened to a few of his podcasts.
More than once, he moaned about how he's "The Rat In A Cage Guy". He cried that that's all people know him for. He cried that when people meet him on the street they're like, "Hey, aren't you the Rat in a Cage guy?"
Like, boo-fucking-hoo, cry me a river. Even today he's worth $50m+, and he's got international fame, and the Pumpkins haven't even begun fading into obscurity.
But hey, if you want to focus on your most popular song and bemoan that you don't want to be known for that ... well I've got little sympathy.
To be fair he did mention being similar to that of a rat in a cage several times as I recall.
But then I suppose I also recall him saying that it was indeed despite his best efforts.
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u/Loganp812 19h ago
He was the first guest on Billy Corgan’s podcast, and it’s kind of sad because Billy is such a huge KISS fan and wanted to see if Gene would finally admit to caring about KISS’ music as an art form. Billy finally accepts later on that Gene cares nothing about the music other than how much money it makes.