Billy Corgan Sets Sights on Making Documentary "About America"

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Feb 4, 2016

While Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan kicks off another round of "In Plainsong" dates in March, he's announced that he's also just hit the road to begin making a documentary about America. He announced his film plans today (February 4) in a blog post.

Corgan used his People and Their Cars page to explain the plan, noting that he and his pal "Justin" have set to work on a doc Corgan is "aching to make about America." They've apparently already left, with their route travelling south along the Illinois river and towards the Mississippi, and then eventually out west.

Apparently, there will be a nostalgic twist to the film, as the Smashing Pumpkins member hopes to document "the stories of an elderly class that can share impressions of the country as it once was; good, bad, or indifferent."

He explained:

My mate Justin and I are set to head out and chart the beginnings of a new documentary I'm aching to make about America. And as we meet strangers and friends in living rooms and backyards and porches, and near campfires and rusting trolleys, we'll need your help of where to go and what we must see. If that intrigues you, and you or yours have family along our route, we'd like you to contact us with good heart. For we'll need help and support to make this work as I imagine it in my mind. To sketch at least the beginnings of a project that may be so vast it'll take much more than a 3 week roustabout to understand.

Corgan is looking for willing participants to invite him "into old-fashioned parlors and the like to retain some sense memory of what's come and gone." He'll apparently have a guitar on hand too, meaning the trek could be counted as an unofficial tour ahead of the "In Plainsong" dates.

In case you're down south and interested in having Corgan over for a bit, you can fill out a submission form over here.

As for the upcoming "In Plainsong" dates, it's added in Corgan's blog post that the electro-acoustic shows may include a "suite of Siamese Dream songs," and possibly some material he had first prepped with Zwan.

A Toronto date takes place at Massey Hall on April 12. The rest of the tour info can be found here.

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