Billy: "With me a song's never finished. And I think that we portray that in our concerts because we continue to change the songs. We've actually just started playing this new version of Bullet with Butterfly Wings which is on the surface it seems like the same song, but the melodies are completely different and the emotional intent of the song has changed and so thereby the context of the words has changed. In fact I think maybe the recording is the beginning of the mutation as opposed to the final. Because when something is well done you can riff on it forever. It's just getting it up to that high level, that's like pushing a rock up a hill, but once the rock is up the hill, the rock can roll in any direction." The Raft.
Q: What were you thinking when you wrote the line "can you fake it for just one more show"?
BC: "I came out of Lollapalooza, which was for me very very difficult and I made it a lot more difficult than it needed to be, but it was just that notion of being surrounded by people who don't really understand what it's like to get up on stage. People from an external point of view see getting up on stage as exciting and it's so fun. They don't realize the physical drain it has upon your body and you pass that fulcrum point of where it ceases to be fun, and you have everyone around you going "what's the big deal just get up on stage and play, you guys are great, you can do it, what's the big deal?" Well they don't understand. And they wave money and carrots and all in front of your face. And - its just I don't easily explain lyrics, but its just the notion of locking yourself in, but you can complain all you want but your still up there.
Billy: "Believe it or not, the original riff from this song came to me during one of the Siamese Dream recording sessions. Somewhere I have a tape of us from 1993 endlessly playing the "World is a Vampire" part over and over. But it wasn't until a year and a half later that I finished the song, writing the "rat in the cage" part on a acoustic guitar at the BBC studios in London on the same day that "Landslide" was recorded."
Q: What's the sickest pedal that you own?
Billy: "The Fender Blender. Kevin Shields [of my Bloody Valentine] told me to get one. It's just the destructo pedal of all time. Listen to the song "Bullet" - at about two-and-a-half minutes there's a part where the key changes and it comes in all loud and thick and the speakers sound real distorty. That's that pedal. There are so many weird harmonics in the thing that if you turn it up a certain way, you get distortion beyond distortion. It makes the guitar sound almost unintelligible."
the world is a vampire, sent to drain
secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames
and what do i get, for my pain
betrayed desires, and a piece of the game
even though i know-i suppose i'll show
all my cool and cold-like old job
despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage
then someone will say what is lost can never be saved
despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage
now i'm naked, nothing but an animal
but can you fake it, for just one more show
and what do you want, i want to change
and what have you got
when you feel the same
even though i know-i suppose i'll show
all my cool and cold-like old job
despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage
then someone will say what is lost can never be saved
despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage
tell me i'm the only one
tell me there's no other one
jesus was an only son
tell me i'm the chosen one
jesus was an only son for you
despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage
and i still believe that i cannot be saved
Bullet with Butterfly Wings Single
The Aeroplane Flies High
Launch CD (live)