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The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

John Cowsill | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Billy Corgan

Music, Arts, Performing Arts

4.6731 Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2025

⏱️ 81 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Billy Corgan sits down with John Cowsill (The Cowsills) for a deep-cut tour through ’60s pop history, from kitchen-table harmonies and four-set club nights as grade-schoolers to drumming as a nine-year-old on Ed Sullivan. He shares what really happened in the studio on “The Rain, the Park & Other Things” and “Hair,” and the family dynamics that fueled and fractured a once-in-a-generation vocal blend. They also trace John’s path from early Johnny Nash sessions to decades with the Beach Boys, a new duo with wife Vicki Peterson (The Bangles), and fronting The Smithereens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Yeah, my career picked me. I didn't pick it. I just did it.

0:03.0

Nine years old is nine years old.

0:05.0

Yeah. He sees us and he sees two little kids and, you know, just, hmm.

0:11.0

So he's handing us songs like, don't put your feet in the lemonade you go.

0:16.0

We just left Johnny Nash playing some serious stuff.

0:19.0

And now we're here. I love my Siamese cat because she's

0:24.3

not very fat with a toy piano. And I can't think of any other, in the 70, 80 years of rock history,

0:32.4

I think your family stands alone in this dynamic. I can't think of anything that even comes

0:36.2

close. They were telling us, you're going to be living in California. We're going, no, wait.

0:41.2

And we went from nothing, from zero to a hundred.

0:48.4

Don't jump ahead.

0:50.0

I can do it a lot.

0:55.5

Thank you so much for being here, John.

0:57.6

I'm so excited.

0:58.5

So let me explain to you how this whole thing came to me, because you did ask.

1:05.0

We never met before today.

1:06.7

So I saw you playing with the Beach Boys a few years back.

1:11.0

My wife, I love the Beach Boys, but my wife, who's a lot younger than I,

1:14.6

wanted to go see the Beach Boys play.

1:16.3

And we live close to Ravinia outside of Chicago.

1:19.3

And so you were playing with the Beach Boys then.

1:22.0

And I thought, who's the handsome young drummer?

...

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