Watch Billy Corgan’s ‘Silent’ Movie ‘Pillbox’
Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan has released a 41-minute "silent" movie, accompanied by music from his new solo album Ogilala. Watch Pillbox – tag-lined “No hero dies but twice” – above.
The film tells the story of a man who leaves the woman he loves to fight a war overseas. It begins in the style of early 20th-century silent movies before crossing into a colorful psychedelic ethic as the man, who has by now crossed a king and been punished for it, tries to make his way home.
When the film was released to select theaters in October, Corgan said: “I thought it was a different approach to listening to an album – to watch it in essence with a related, albeit non-linear, silent movie. Art is art. And together the two pieces create a work unto itself.
“For as long as I can remember the delineation point between songs I wrote for myself and songs I’d pen for whatever band was something I couldn’t explain,” he said. “And it remains so, for they all feel quite personal to me, no matter their time or era. The lone difference on songs for Ogilala is that they seemed to want little in the way of adornment.”
Ogilala was produced by Rick Rubin and released under the name of William Patrick Corgan on Oct. 13. "Having written the songs for voice and guitar, I put myself in Rick’s hands to take the music wherever he’d like," he said of Rubin's involvement. "Normally I would have done more, and tinkered more on production, but rather Rick put the onus on me to deliver at a molecular level via live takes. The rest was simply a reaction.”
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