Photo by Kristin Page

In a note posted to his website People and Their Cars, Billy Corgan has announced that starting today, he and his "mate Justin" are embarking on a journey across the country to "chart the beginnings of a new documentary I'm aching to make about America." They don't have any set route, and are instead asking fans to tell them where to go. "If that intrigues you, and you or yours have family along our route, we'd like you to contact us with good heart," he writes. "For we'll need help and support to make this work as I imagine it in my mind."

He also says he wants to perform in "old-fashioned parlors and the like" where he can collect "impressions of the country as it once was."

The trip begins today, before the Smashing Pumpkins' "In Plainsong" acoustic tour kicks off in March.

Here's the salient bit, which includes an idea of what the project will entail:

So though it may seem I'd be more interested in where the cool kids hang about, we'll be much more taken with documenting the stories of an elderly class that can share impressions of the country as it once was; good, bad, or indifferent. And in order to do so with integrity, I'll need to be invited into old-fashioned parlors and the like to retain some sense memory of what's come and gone. In exchange, I'll bring along a guitar to play, in what we'll call an unofficial tour before the IN PLAINSONG shows; all of which go on sale this Friday, February 5th.

Here's another excerpt of his mission statement, in which he offers a mea culpa for his history of contentiousness: