“We don’t have a whole lot that we had similar in the way that we grew up, but this band is the blue-moon moment where we went, ‘You grew up listening to this tune? Me too,’” says Civil Wars singer-songwriter Joy Williams of her and her partner John Paul White’s appreciation of the Smashing Pumpkins.
Smashing Pumpkins’ music is all over the map — they touch on everything from psych rock and electronica to folk-tinged indie pop, sometimes — but frontman Billy Corgan isn’t shy to say that head-banging metal has always been a major influence. But while he personally is very vocal about the hard-hitting tunes he’s into, he feels that metal as a whole doesn’t get the respect that it deserves in the alternative community.
While the Smashing Pumpkins of today have gone through many transformations since the Smashing Pumpkins of yesteryear, one thing remains a constant – Billy Corgan.
On the heels of the recent release of their new album ‘Oceania,’ a classic Smashing Pumpkins compilation will get the reissue treatment. A remastered edition of 1994‘s ‘Pisces Iscariot,’ a compilation of B-sides and outtakes, will be released July 17.
This might sound a bit morbid, but Smashing Pumpkins‘ singer Billy Corgan, who just issued ‘Oceania,’ knows which song he would like to have played at his funeral. Turns out it’s one of the singer-guitarist’s own tunes. That’s not really surprising, given the depth and breadth of the Pumpkins’ expansive catalog of alt rock hits, which dominated the airwaves in the ’90s. So which one did he choose?
The Smashing Pumpkins and EMI Music are continuing their ambitious reissue campaign with the band’s entire catalog. The new entry into the series is the unlikely platinum-selling compilation disc, ‘Pisces Iscariot,’ which is set to be released later this month.
Billy Corgan’s war of words against, oh, pretty much everything continues. This time, while appearing last week (June 29) on CNN’s ‘Piers Morgan Tonight,’ the Smashing Pumpkins‘ auteur set his sights on the American public, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Billy Corgan has a lot of trash to talk as he does the promotional rounds for Smashing Pumpkins‘ new ‘Oceania’ album — from his “piss on f—in’ Radiohead” comment to his total dissing of his former bandmates — and his latest target is a big one. Speaking to Fuse, the singer pretty much bashed all bands of the grunge generation, calling them out for not living up to the ideals they supposedly set back in the roaring ’90s.
In a recent interview, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan offered his take on the grunge explosion of the ’90s both praising and criticizing bands such as Alice in Chains, Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
So the Smashing Pumpkins have become a prog rock band. Who could have known 20 years ago that Billy Corgan’s nasal sneer would float over the guitars of ‘The Celestials’ (yes, that’s the actual name of one of these songs), or that the Chicago band would release an album-within-an-album as their ninth release. ‘Oceania’ is a long player that longs for cosmic grandeur — and at times reaches those stratospheric ambitions.
Who knew the front cover art of an album that’s nearly 20 years old could cause such a controversy? The Smashing Pumpkins made their mark on the alternative nation with 1993′s ‘Siamese Dream,’ and in addition to hits like ‘Today’ and ‘Cherub Rock,’ the album featured quite memorable cover art: two adorable little girls with cherub-like faces who looked enough alike to be considered twins.
Billy Corgan seems to subscribe to the notion that if you don’t have anything nice to say, then … say it to the international press? The singer hasn’t held his ex-Smashing Pumpkins bandmates in the highest regard since the original lineup’s final split back in 2000, and he definitely throws another log on the fire of drama that is the band’s post-split relationship in a new interview with NME.
