His comments about the ages of 28-31 really rang true with me. I know these years were angst-ridden for me, where I seemed to be questioning every aspect of my life, but once I made it to through, I had this sense of acceptance and contentment. Psychic death is a good way to explain the experience.
Pitchfork: I was actually gonna ask you about God. [Your publicist] Brian and I were actually just talking about astrology...we were talking about going through our Saturn Return.BC: How old are you?
Pitchfork: I'm 29.
BC: Oh, that's the tough one. Twenty-eight to 31 is the tough period.
Pitchfork: Really? Great.
BC: You have to be really careful because it's so cataclysmic, so life-altering. People do really dramatic things like get married, or they'll get divorced. Your chances of committing suicide go way up. It's basically psychic death. You see the signs of it around 27, and you're still on the out-end of it around 31. Everyone I've talked to who's gone through that and come out the other side walks out of it like, "MY LIFE IS GREAT."
Pitchfork: Like a molting process.
BC: Absolutely, but it's really beautiful. And you see people who don't go through their Saturn Return properly-- my ex-bandmate D'Arcy is a classic example-- and they're like, trapped in hell. They're like in a suspended state; they freeze, because they won't go through the act. They'll do anything to avoid the psychic death. But you have to go through it.
That's why 14 and 15 are such terrible times. Saturn Return is just the return of your planets to their original position.
Pitchfork: Then it happens again when you're 56.
BC: Yeah, midlife crisis. I'm happy to have gone through that, but it was really terrible. In my Saturn Return period, my mom died and I got a divorce.
Pitchfork: It seems like it's been harder for the men I know, honestly.
BC: It could have something to do with the fact that women are sort of more emotional beings while men are kind of like, still working out the, "Well, do I fuck lots of girls, or do I get committed?" They're still on the fundamental primal concepts, while I think women are more apt to deal with those things early.
Pitchfork: So what happened with yours?
BC: Mine occurred at the absolute peak of my career. Smashing Pumpkins were running around playing 200 concerts a year-- making money, lotta babes-- and there was the irony of the high with the low.
Pitchfork: So you were just like, dealing with your psychic turmoil while all this stuff was happening?
BC: Well, I didn't deal with it; that was sort of the problem. Like any form of death, at some point you just have to get up and say yeah I'll take it, whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen and sorta chop your head off. It's easy to avoid all that...there's always another moment, another girl, another high, another drug, there's always something to distract you.
My mom's death was the big head-crusher, because I could no longer deny what was going on...symbolically, it was the moment.
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