I recently saw a brilliant interview with Billy Corgan, frontman for the legendary Smashing Pumpkins, about new project called “A Night of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness”. 

It is a reinterpretation of their third album of the same name from 1995, which cemented the band’s popularity in the genre of alternative, heavy metal and grunge, psychedelic rock and electronica. 

The interview includes Corgan’s raw disclosure of his struggle to overcome his upbringing with an unsupportive father, in order to achieve his dream of being a rock musician. But what struck me about the exchange is the occasion of this reprise of band’s arguably breakthrough album. Corgan has reimagined it as an opera, being restaged for a limited engagement at the Lyric Opera of Chicago with a backdrop of a 60-piece orchestra.  

It is as unlikely a mosh pit as you might ever imagine. Well actually maybe not so much. 

This very unique production is taking place in the wonderfully ornate art-deco performance space built in 1929 (think gold leaf, plush velvet and red carpets) which has been home to the Lyric since its inception. As opera houses go it is a real over the top throwbacks to the Gilded Age.  

But the work that gets produced at the Lyric, even from the traditional operatic canon, is anything but antique. Founded in 1954, the opera company has had as its mission to redefine opera, presenting thought provoking, artistically excellent productions that can inspire new audiences, bringing them novel ways to experience the “magic of our artform.” So, this collaboration with Corgan is really in the Lyric’s DNA.  

When Graeme asked me to contribute to PunkVoices, I thought hard about what I could say to this group. I am not the marketing scientist or merchant of the formulaic “how to’s” of brand building. I actually describe myself as a practitioner in the “dark arts” of marketing. I am not a research methodologist or an expert of any sort (although I have deep respect for marketers and researchers who mastered techniques and principles from the “before times” when we didn’t have friends named Claude or Gemini.) 

I am, however, fascinated with stories. How humans are influenced by metaphors, allegories and fables. I love the dotted lines, the cautionary tales, the eureka moments. I love the things that don’t seem at all connected until you think about them, and they become the catalysts for thinking differently. I firmly believe that we make sense of chaotic times (and aren’t these ones we are in just epic?) when we listen to random stories, as well as art and theatre and music, and work hard to unpack what these expressions can mean to our life situations. 

Why was I compelled to tell you the story of Corgan taking “A Night of Mellon Collie” to a Chicago opera company? Maybe that is what we should all be doing, metaphorically. Taking our stories to new performance halls. No really, hear me out. 

In times when traditional channels to reach a reliable pool of prospects for our businesses and services aren’t delivering, why not invest in new channels? New places in which to share our narratives?  

Not that this is an easy fix. Corgan worked devilishly hard and reimagined his particular strain of heavy metal rock and how it could transcend merely performing it in a very different venue to make something that can delight a new audience. If you are positioning your services to a new pool of prospects that way you tell articulate the value you deliver may have to evolve. Variations on a theme, if you will. 

And that is what we will have to do to. Reimagine who might be interested in what we have to say and sell, and how and where we can tell them our stories. Rethink who can benefit beyond our typical customers. Step out of our comfort zones and sing from unlikely perches. But I suspect the instinct to do this is what motivated a lot of us to sign up for the PunkVoices in the first place. 

If Graeme indulges me to share more “stuff” in PunkVoices, the warning is that my stories will likely be random, maybe not terribly useful and definitely not much more than ramblings.  

But if they resonate, happy to talk about it. And stay punk. 

For other ramblings, check out my podcast Story Conversations if you are inclined.