If you spot Billy Corgan today (and it's hard to miss him considering his height), be sure to pat him on the back and give him a Hallmark card, because the Smashing Pumpkins mastermind celebrates his birthday on March 17. He is now 43 years old.
A native of Chicago (he's a diehard Cubs fan), Corgan founded the Smashing Pumpkins in 1988. Though the early work was spartan (the Pumpkins played a handful of shows accompanied by a drum machine because they hadn't yet hired skinsman Jimmy Chamberlin) but the group quickly established themselves as a force on the alternative rock scene in the early 1990s.
Combining elements of prog, punk, classic rock and industrial music, the Smashing Pumpkins' first three albums — 1991's Gish, 1993's Siamese Dream and 1995's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness — represent perhaps the greatest trifecta in rock history. In those albums, Corgan proved himself to be both a brilliant and prolific songwriter, churning out dozens of songs about angst, heartbreak and his own troubled childhood. He is responsible for some of the cornerstones of alt-rock radio, including "Today," "Cherub Rock," "Disarm," "Tonight Tonight" and "1979."
During the tour for Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Smashing Pumpkins touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin died of an overdose while doing drugs with Chamberlin, which lead to his exit from the band. Following that, they were never the same. The group broke up at the turn of the millennium, leading Corgan to cut one album with a new band called Zwan and another as a solo artist. In 2007, re-emerged under the Smashing Pumpkins name and dropped Zeitgeist. He is currently working on his boldest experiment yet, slowly releasing a 44-track entirely free album called Teargarden by Kaleidyscope. In between recording sessions, he has also been helping out Jessica Simpson with new music.
Most of the world first got a look at Corgan through the video for "Siva," a savage single from Gish that acts as a perfect manifesto to the Smashing Pumpkins' music: Simultaneously brutal and gorgeous, razor-sharp and freewheeling, violent and graceful.
On Monday (January 18), Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan unleashed "Widow Wake My Mind," the second track from his ongoing 44-song (and entirely free) opus Teargarden by Kaleidyscope. (You can download the track at the official Smashing Pumpkins Web site.) Last month when Corgan stopped by the MTV Newsroom to discuss the album's debut track "Song for a Son," the frontman told us that "Widow Wake My Mind" was in the running to be the first song, but he opted for "Song for a Son" because it had a more epic quality. "'Widow Wake My Mind' sounds like a more obvious single," Corgan said.
He's right, as while "Song for a Son" was a heavy, shifty epic, "Widow Wake My Mind" shines a little light on the more whimsical side of Corgan's songwriting. It's a bright, poppy, jumpy tune that features a playful groove and pretty anthemic chorus. There's even a tinkling piano interlude that lends it an ethereal quality. The tune was produced by Kerry Brown, who has been spending plenty of quality time in the studio with Corgan (and also with Jessica Simpson), and it sounds clean, crisp and radio-ready.
Back in December, Corgan stated that he would try to release around one song per month as Teargarden by Kaleidyscope progresses, and he expects the whole thing to take him about three years. It's a long haul, but he likes the fact that listeners can get into it as much as they want. "The average consumer can download it for free, as much or as little of it as they want," he explained. "At the end, the whole thing will be brought together in a special package that isn't for the average consumer. In a way, it's a work in progress, but at the same time people can share in it and participate in it in the normal ways." Considering the variations on the first two songs he's dropped, we're tremendously excited for whatever Corgan is delivering next.
Tags Billy Corgan, smashing pumpkins, video
Back in January, Jessica Simpson and Billy Corgan were seen hanging out together. Soon their friends were dishing that the pair was dating. It kind of left us feeling a little confused. For instance, how did that pop star turned country singer even meet the morose former Smashing Pumpkins frontman?
After laying low for a few weeks (so low that we almost forgot about the wacky pairing) comes news that Jessica and Billy are working in the studio together. And this isn't news from friends of sources, but instead from Jessica's Twitter, where she shares such gems as "Happy Birthday Jimmy Page!! You have always been one of my favorites" and "Dear elderly man at the gym: its hard 4 me 2 keep composure whilst punching at chipmunk speed when ur ball sack spills out of ur wind shorts."
But our favorite tweet appeared just the other day, when she tweeted a photo of herself and Corgan in the studio working on music that has since been removed. She has apparently been in the studio with him and producer Kerry Brown (who is working on Corgan's ongoing opus Teargarden by Kaleidyscope).
What will this song sound like? Will it be some weird cross between "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" and "I Wanna Love You Forever"? Is Jessica providing backing vocals for a Teargarden track or does Simpson want her next album to sound less like country and more like Zeitgeist? Only time will tell, but until then, this remains our favorite left-field musical tag-team of 2010.
Tags Billy Corgan, Jessica Simpson, smashing pumpkins
Throughout his two decade career in rock music, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has wrestled with spirituality in his lyrics. In the past few years, his focus on his faith has become even more pronounced. He recently launched a Web site called Everything From Here To There, which contains Corgan's thoughts on God, philosophy and how they relate to current events. He also just signed a deal to write a book that he called a "spiritual memoir," a project he'll be undertaking while also recording and releasing songs for his huge, all-free album Teargarden by Kaleidyscope.
This is no accident. As Corgan told MTV News last week when he stopped in to talk about his new track "A Song for a Son," spirituality has always been a part of his life, and he has taken great pains to actively engage it in an honest way. "That's the great undiscovered part of rock and roll," Corgan said. "Rock and roll tackled drugs and sex and gender and race relations, but here we are in 2009, and God is still a 'Whoa! Don't go there!' kind of thing."
That's not to say that Smashing Pumpkins are morphing into Casting Crowns, but it does open Corgan up for an interesting type of scrutiny. "I had a fan come up to me and say, 'Is this God stuff for real?'" he said. "He thought it was one of my crazy art projects. But it is for real, and it's honest. I really think that if I'm not making people uncomfortable, then I'm not doing my job. And with my Chicago mentality, I have to be doing my job. It's not easy, but it's honest."
Tags Billy Corgan, smashing pumpkins, video
Anybody who has downloaded "A Song for a Son," the first track from Smashing Pumpkins' newest epic opus Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, knows that it's a stellar slab of rock, complete with a pair of features that are somewhat endangered on the rock scene: Guitar solos. The two six-string diversions on "A Song for a Son" are the type of blistering burners that recall guitar greats of the past like Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page and Slash. When Corgan stopped by the MTV Newsroom last week to give us a preview of the first song and an explanation of the 44-track free album, I asked him where the inspiration to dive back into guitar heroics came from, and apparently we have Jane's Addiction axeman Dave Navarro to thank.
"I'm having a strange renaissance with the guitar solo," he said. "I think playing with Dave Navarro on the Spirits in the Sky tour reignited my desire to totally go there. He was just kicking my rear all over the place. He's so good, and it made me get competitive."
As Corgan points out, you have to go toe-to-toe with Navarro on the guitar because it's difficult to compete with him in other areas. "You can't compete with the abs," he said. "He's about the handsomest guy ever — girls are melting over railings to get to him. The solo is the only way to compete!"
"A Song for a Son" is currently available for free on the official Smashing Pumpkins Web site, with more tracks from the album coming soon.
Tags Billy Corgan, Dave Navarro, smashing pumpkins, video
Friday afternoons at MTV News tend to get a little hectic. Most people are trying to get out the door to get the weekend started, but there will always be plenty to do before everybody can check out. Stories need to be written. Blogs need to be updated. Video needs to be cut. And sometimes, icons need to be interviewed. That was the case on Friday (December 4) when Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan visited the MTV Newsroom to chat about his new single "A Song for a Son," the first track from his epic new project Teargarden by Kaleidyscope.
Since the song just premiered today, I had no prior knowledge of the tune before Corgan showed up for our interview. Luckily, he brought along a copy of it, and we sat together (along with the handful of Friday afternoon stragglers in the Newsroom) listening to the song's six minutes of tonal shifts, crescendos and big-ass guitar solos. It's a track that recalls Corgan's best work from the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness era.
Teargarden by Kaleidyscope is a hell of a project to undertake. Corgan plans on releasing the 44 song album four tracks at a time as a part of 11 separate releases over the next three years. In addition to the new song and the album project, we talked a lot about the process of giving away free music, his focus on spiritualism and what we both think about Dave Navarro's abs.
Plenty more nuggets will emerge from the nearly 30-minute sit-down, but for now, enjoy Corgan trying to explain the whole project. And in case Billy is reading this: Your gloves are on your way back to you (the poor guy left the Newsroom without them, which must have been quite the bear in the frosty New York winter).
Tags Billy Corgan, smashing pumpkins, video
Zach Swickey
