Billy Corgan
Billy Corgan
William Patrick "Billy" Corgan Jr. is an American musician, songwriter, producer, television writer, poet, and professional wrestling promoter best known as the lead singer, guitarist, and sole permanent member of The Smashing Pumpkins. Formed by Corgan and guitarist James Iha in Chicago, Illinois, in 1987, the band quickly gained steam with the addition of bassist D'arcy Wretzky and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. The band's direction has largely been driven by Corgan through his confessional lyrics, grandiose production values, and virtuosic musical...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth17 March 1967
CityElk Grove Village, IL
CountryUnited States of America
The weird nihilism that permeates Mellon Collie is extremely relevant to what's going on right now. So many kids are intelligent and articulate, but they don't know what to do with themselves.
Life is everything and nothing all at once.
When you move artistically, the natural inclination is to denounce everything that's gone before.
Heavy metal is a universal energy -- it's the sound of a volcano. It's rock, it's earth shattering. Somewhere in our primal being we understand.
The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too.
Music is 99% of my life. But I know I need a break. Besides, if you give people too much, they start to not want it. We need to restrain ourselves.
Every year that goes by, I lose that much more motivation to play rock.
The music is all we care about -- so if that's bad, then we're bad.
I think the original, 'They're the next Jane's Addiction' things that people said about us in the beginning have been pretty much wiped out.
You could have a zillion Facebook followers. Those people don't buy records. It's about a hundred to one...Record companies, they don't have any money so they see social media as the free marketing...So,...'Billy, light yourself on fire and stand upside down, and that'll market the record'. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. I don't think people by records because of anything that happens on Facebook. They buy records cause they're friends say 'I bought this record and I love it'.
About six months ago, I listened to Siamese Dream. That was the first time I'd ever really heard my own album, because I had separated from the experience of making the record. And it really moved me. It made me cry, it's so beautiful.
If the next record is no better than Gish, then we've failed.
Gish was the best representation of where we were at the time.
A missive to all you metal bands, the world is totally over the rock thing. Rock is deader than it's ever been.