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"So somehow we had to find something in ourselves that made us feel supernatural or superhero-ish. And it was by wrapping ourselves in the things we loved, and in some ways the things we hated, that seemed to kind of forge our identity."
As well as crediting fatherhood for helping his own personal growth through the years ("Now that I have children, I wish I had the background in my life and the confidence to just be whoever I was, because I think that person is actually quite nice, and is talented"), Billy reveals that The Smashing Pumpkins have also taken similar strides in accepting who they are as a band now.
"I think Cyr is the result of us getting our confidence back that we can do whatever we want to do, and we’re not beholden to a certain style or idiomatic approach," he ponders. "As long as we pick a lane we’re excited by, good stuff will come out of it. I’m working on a song right now that sounds like it could have been written in 1993. And if we recorded it that way people would be, like, ‘They’re back!’ No, we never went away… But if you were to sit in a room with Jimmy [Chamberlin, drums] and I for 12 hours, our discussion is always, ‘How do we get to the next bus stop?’ That’s all we ever focus on."
Hell yeah. For a musical insight into what Billy means, listen to Pumpkins' two brand-new Cyr tracks, Purple Blood and Dulcet In E: