hello everyone, how are you, i am fine, thanks and...let me start by saying that i thought of the idea of answering a few questions, now that the band had ended, would help clear up a few things and also keep this web site from become a dead space with no new thoughts or ideas...i can say personally that i am very pleased with the amount of interest the site has drawn as more and more pumpkins fans from around the world find out about it...the pumpkins, existing now of course only as a ghost, hope that this site can be more than just arguing about which album is worse (that's a joke/illinois style)...that is why we have provided links to things we believe in, and also hope to keep you abreast of what is going on within the pumpkin family (see matt walker's new project, the impossible jamming machine)...i can tell you that beyond planning what we are going to do musically as individuals right now, there are many exciting pumpkin projects in the works, even as i type this...it's been 4 months since the last show, but the spirit of the band is alive and well...thanks, love billy

1. Will we ever know? OR is the whole idea to make what we want out of it?

i assume this question means the machina story and theories, etc. assuming that it is, there are two answers, one: the interaction of the fans was part of the story, so as long as there is interaction from the fans, and until all the true stories have been told, no, you can never completely know and two: you can watch a movie 2 or 3 times before you notice something that you didn't see before...i can say that in people's hurry to "figure it all out" that many parts of the story, and huge chunks of the concept have not been explored...

4. The revolution: Is it in our hearts and minds or a physical task at hand?

the idea of a revolution is to topple that which exists...of course when i use the word in a "pop" sense, and by that i mean revolution t.v. style, i mean that we've got to blow up in popular culture that which becomes boring and obvious, even if it includes myself...so no, it is not a physical thing, but there are things you can do beyond being disenchanted in your heart...if you do not use the voice you have, then you can't expect anything to change...if you don't like what's on the radio, call the station and using your God given intelligence tell them why...or write a letter if you are shy...with alternative music in particular, real fans must attempt to counter the voice of the american mob that wants what it wants without consciensce...the music industry does notice when an album like kid a goes in at number one, and it does encourage the signing of better bands with a deeper musical message...contrary to popular belief, i don't think "popular" music is evil, it only becomes evil when people make it seem more important than it is only because it is selling...no matter what the trend is at any given moment, i personally believe more in music that has a deeper social consciensce...

16. Will you offer the disenchanted youth of america some words (or a book!) of advice?

can't help with your depression but can recommend some authors and books...one huge influence on my thinking has been philip k. dick (valis, the divine invasion, the scanner darkly)...also see william s. burroughs (the naked lunch, the soft boys, nova express)...someone recently turned me onto ken wilber (the spectrum of consciousness) who is just an incredible thinker, and has really helped me to see the world thru different eyes...also i've been reading ernest hemingway (the sun also rises)...you can never go wrong with jack kerouac (on the road, dharma bums)...i also recommend j.g. ballard (crash) or william gibson's last book, i can't think of the title right now...

30. How do you decide on how to perform a song when you do a concert, because live versions of some songs tend to vary greatly. Do you try to go for a general theme, does it reflect your feelings at the given time?

this question has come up alot thru the years, so i guess now would be the time to answer before we release those 14 different versions of bullet...the band came to the conclusion many years ago that playing the songs the same way every night, especially as much as we toured, got boring to us...we never thought of our songs as perfect paintings that were sacrosanct and untouchable, they were ours to destroy as we pleased...we realized that changing the songs around so much displeased certain people, but we felt it was better to see a band excited by the music it was playing than to see a band playing perfect versions disinterestedly...

34. How many recordings exist of songs that nobody, besides people very close to the band, have heard? and 39. will there be a pearl jam-esque series of bootlegs available in the future?

i can tell you that there are many songs that were written by me during the different periods of making the albums that the band have not even heard...there is alot of stuff, and we are just trying to figure out what to do with all of it...there seems to be an insatiable deisre for new things, but i am struck by how quickly something will emerge and be dissected and judged...this makes me hesitant to release certain things because i don't want anything we have ever done to be viewed lightly because we certainly didn't take it that way...that also goes for the live recordings that we posess...at different times, different factions of fans seem to romanticize particular periods of time...everyone cannot always agree on the validity of a certain approach the band took, and only later is more of a consesus reached...for example, i know that many people are very critical of the sound of machina 1, citing machina 2 and it's rawness as something that they are more attracted to...although i respect and understand those opinions, i strongly disagree...for your amusment, i offer this...siamese dream was criticized at the time it was released for it's overproduced and overbearing sound...and the sound of machina 2, and the songs, are from the same recording sessions as machina 1...we have always felt that we knew what we were doing, and stand behind machina 1... there is only a difference of approach in the mixing, and certainly the song selection...i only offer this as evidence that a time will come where all the work can be seen clearly from the vista of proper hindsight, and when that comes, so will the work...