The Antiquiet has published an in-depth interview of Billy Corgan talking about his upcoming new album ‘Oceania’ (out June 19) and the new Smashing Pumpkins incarnation.
And beside a pseudo-intellectual conversation about the concept of God, creative collaboration and risks taken during creation, there is this Billy Corgan’s statement about being tired of hearing who he is from others:
‘I mean, pick your year. From ’89 on I’ve had people tell me who I am. And they pick my personality as if it’s a one or two-dimensional thing, and I’m more like a tetrahedron. I can’t think of any people outside of Weird Al Yankovic who have both embraced and pissed on Rock more than I have. Obviously there’s a level of reverence, but there’s also a level of intelligence to even know what to piss on. ‘Cause I’m not pissing on Rainbow. I’m not pissing on Deep Purple. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity. This value system that says Jonny Greenwood is more valuable than Ritchie Blackmore. Not in the world I grew up in, buddy. Not in the world I grew up in.
So I find myself defending things. Is Ritchie Blackmore a better guitar player than me and Jonny Greenwood? Yes. Have we all made contributions? Yes. I’m not attacking that. I’m attacking the pomposity that says this is more valuable than that. I’m sick of that. I’m so fucking sick of it, and nobody seems to tire of it.’
‘I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead because of all this pomposity’? That must be a joke, because coming from Corgan, we just have to laugh really hard… Corgan's name is synonymous with pomposity, Corgan is a pompous fool who has revealed last year he was writing a ‘spiritual memoir’, and when he said this to Rolling Stone, he was considering the 300 already written pages only the first third of the book! Just read this, it is way too much I can handle in the pomposity territory:
‘It's a very interesting take inside my personal life and my band life. I've decided to write this on my own, which is complete insanity. I try to spend about an hour a day on the book, which is the time I would usually put towards music writing. So that means I have to find that hour, because I won't give up that music writing time. It's a journey, for sure.’
Does he listen to him when he is speaking? Does he realize how affected he sounds? I bet he doesn’t, the internet is filled with his crazy rants and egotistic declarations, his diva lawsuits against videographers who took footage that hasn’t pleased his majesty … The pretentious fool hasn’t hesitated saying during an interview that there were only a few people of his generation who had his level of talent, or that he was part of the generation that changed the world!!
In 2009, it was reported he was even charging his fans for seeing his blog, he then described as going ‘behind the wizard’s curtain’, and he is the kind of guy who can stop after playing three songs to say ‘It’s not cool that you cheer more for that song than for the last song.’… Should I continue? In 5 minutes, I got a million examples of his arrogant asshole-ness.
Billy Corgan is not only an asshole but also a jealous prick, what was his point? Who has ever compared Ritchie Blackmore to Jonny Greenwood anyway? Radiohead is a very successful band and the Smashing Pumpkins are getting so old.