Billy Corgan Of ‘The Smashing Pumpkins’ Talks About The Reality Of Being A Rockstar, And Buying A Ferrari In All Cash

“Power corrupts.”

If you have 15 minutes to spare today, allot it to listening to Smashing Pumpkin’s lead singer Billy Corgan talk about his experience with fame. On top of being one of the most talented musicians of modern time, he is super smart, insightful, and, at 50 years old, views his experiences dealing with money and prominence very clearly.

Corgan formed the Smashing Pumpkins back in 1988 and was thrust into the musical mainstream in 1993 with the bands second album, Siamese Dream. The band followed up Siamese Dream with the iconic 28-track Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness album, which went certified diamond, earned the band seven Grammy Award nominations, as well as 9 MTV Music Video Awards nominations.

Corgan–being the lead singer, primary songwriter, guitarist, and most charismatic member of the group–talked with Joe Rogan about how his fame and bank account outgrew his fellow band members’ and how it “organically sewed discontent” which then attributed to the band’s breakup in 2000. The collateral damage of the breakup was the lawsuits that followed between band members and nearly two decades of radio silence between Corgan and other members of the band. Add in drug use, music industry vultures, and diminishing record sales, the band was setting itself up for an explosion.

One of the lighter moments of his chat with Joe Rogan was when Rogan made a Nickelback joke and Corgan praised the band’s leader singer Chad Kroeger as “an incredible songwriter.”Say what you want about Nickelback, but Billy Corgan will never call me an incredible anything. You win this time, Chad.

You can watch the whole interview here.

Or the Smashing Pumpkins perform Tonight at Glastonbury in 2013.

[h/t YouTube]

 

 

Matt Keohan Avatar
Matt’s love of writing was born during a sixth grade assembly when it was announced that his essay titled “Why Drugs Are Bad” had taken first prize in D.A.R.E.’s grade-wide contest. The anti-drug people gave him a $50 savings bond for his brave contribution to crime-fighting, and upon the bond’s maturity 10 years later, he used it to buy his very first bag of marijuana.