MusicRadar

You sound very excited. You are excited!

"I am. You know, a) it's nice to have people like the record, because I've gotten used to people not liking what I do, and b) I'm back in a place where it all makes sense. That's what I'm most happy about. I'm so proud of this record. Oceania stands up with my best work. It really does open up new possibilities and will lead to new chapters for us.

"What's also cool is the live show we're doing. Right now, we're playing three singles in the set: Cherub Rock, Siva and Bullet With Butterfly Wings. The modern karaoke audience just wants you to play the hits, but The Smashing Pumpkins were never about that. It's difficult when an audience just wants the hits, because it's counterintuitive to why the band exists. So we've gone back to the old model of 'Hey, we're just gonna blow your minds!'

"We can be musical again. We can be exciting, we can push boundaries, we can be avant-garde – it's not always about the past. It gets to be such an old drumbeat: the past, the past, the past. [pauses, smiles] OK, now let's talk about the reissues!" [laughs]

When you announced that you were doing Oceania as a full album – an "album within an album" – you indicated that it was something of an experiment.

"Right, sure."

Now that it's finished and you're getting good response, would you consider recording another full album, or are you just not ready to go there yet?

"I would. I can see where we'll make another album after this. The difficulty is that it's such a consuming thing in my life. Making Oceania, I basically had six months of no life. I was in Chicago for half a year, and making this record is all I did.

"It's different for me now. When you're 24 and you can't wait to get your video on MTV, somebody can sell you the idea of doing nothing else for six months. But if you're 44 - uncertain, not sure who's going to listen, no idea where things are going - six months is a really big commitment.

"I know this might sound trite, but I want to play with my dogs. I want to go shopping. I want to stand on the beach and look out at the water."

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