In addition to creating the Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan has also gotten caught up in
a heap of trouble a lot of which he started himself.
Love, it's who you know
Before Courtney Love started dating the late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, she was involved
with Billy Corgan.
The relationship might have lasted longer if Corgan had been more generous in spirit.
When Smashing Pumpkins played a few European dates with Nirvana back in 1991, Love tagged
along.
In the 2015 documentary Montage of Heck, she revealed exactly how she wound up on a fateful
ferry ride with Cobain:
"Billy Corgan would not pay for my flight back from Roskilde, and Nirvana had played
with the Pumpkins at that show."
Love admitted she already had a huge crush on Cobain, but said Corgan's stinginess basically
drove her into his arms:
"I was still dating and sleeping with Billy Corgan, but he kinda lost me at this moment;
this is the moment he specifically lost me."
Following his breakup with Love, Corgan reportedly pulled out of a tour with the Red Hot Chili
Peppers and Nirvana because he didn't want to share a bill with Cobain's band.
In the months after Cobain's death in 1994, Corgan and Love reportedly got back together,
and he even wrote some songs for the 1998 Hole album Celebrity Skin.
Corgan nevertheless trashed the album in the press, saying it:
"[...] left a bad taste in [his] mouth."
Behold!
The Night Mare
Here's a question for you: How can you tell when your team's morale is beyond low?
"One more thing… what do you think keeps a band together?"
That interview took place while Smashing Pumpkins completed their 1993 album Siamese Dream,
which was reportedly a nightmare to record.
Corgan allegedly had such exacting standards, he scrapped all contributions from guitarist
James Iha and bassist D'Arcy Wretzky.
Then he reportedly re-recorded all their parts himself.
Talk about micromanaging.
Shortly after the album dropped, Corgan insulted his bandmates in an interview with Spin:
"I gave them a year and a half to prepare for this record […] yet they continue to
keep failing me."
In 2013, legendary producer Butch Vig told Triple J:
"Making the record, I felt like it almost killed me, I was so physically exhausted and
mentally exhausted."
Nearly 20 years later, Corgan told the NME that he was suicidal when recording the album
and was actively, quote, "plotting his own death."
He also touched upon his mental health issues in an interview with Half of Us:
"I cut myself, I stayed up all night, you know, I did things with sleep deprivation."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
He needs a Muzzle
In 2016, Billy Corgan appeared on The Alex Jones Show, a syndicated radio program hosted
by Alex Jones, a right-wing conspiracy theorist who was eventually permanently banned from
Twitter for abusive behavior.
At one point, Jones brought up, quote, "social justice warriors" and asked Corgan the best
way to deal with them:
Corgan said, quote, "There's two schools of thought":
"One is, they're gone.
You know?
They're Maoist.
They have the Little Red Book in their hand.
You're not gonna get them back."
"It's a cult."
He then compared those activists to members of the Ku Klux Klan:
"The Klan member spitting in some person of color's face, don't you think that guy thought
he was right, too?"
Uhhhh….yikes.
Siamese Dream
You wouldn't tend to associate Billy Corgan with cute little kitty cats, would you?
Sure, maybe rats in cages, but cats?
Well, magazine covers don't lie.
In 2014, Corgan adopted two cats named Sami and Mr. Thom from an animal shelter in Chicago.
In an issue of PAWS Chicago, Corgan said the cats were his, quote, "rock 'n' roll kittens."
Well, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper poked some fun at Corgan's, uh, catty side on an episode
of Anderson Cooper 360:
"Maybe he's being ironic, or maybe when the cool rock stars start doing less rock-starry
things, it kind of makes us face our own mortality."
It turns out Corgan wasn't being ironic at all, and totally went off on Cooper in a now-deleted
Tweet:
"Sorry to disappoint, but [...] I'm still making REAL music.
I realize you're too busy being a globalist shill to know the difference, but there are
those of us who do as we like."
Corgan wasn't quite done, either.
A few months later, Corgan's concert merchandise tables started selling T-shirts bearing images
of the musician's cats captioned with, quote, "F--- you Anderson Cooper."
Thru the Eyes of D'arcy
In February 2018, Corgan unveiled plans for the "Shiny and Oh So Bright Tour," a 30th
anniversary celebration of the Smashing Pumpkins.
It was announced that drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and guitarist James Iha would be along for
the ride, too.
One notable omission: bassist D'arcy Wretzky, who was kicked out of the band by Corgan in
the late '90s.
Here they are together in 1994, during theoretically happier times:
"Is there anything you'd like to say to the world?"
"No, you've pretty much said it.
" "And will continue… will continue so."
In 2005, Corgan claimed he fired Wretzky because of his:
"[...] distrust of her in the studio coupled with her apparent slow descent into insanity
and/or drugs.
(Take your pick)."
But years later for a moment it seemed Wretzky might really be a Pumpkin again.
In 2016, Corgan made a Facebook Live video to let fans know he was back in touch with
her:
"I've been in communication with Darcy for the first time in about sixteen, seventeen
years; it's awesome you know, to have my friend back."
Apparently all that good cheer didn't last.
In January 2018, Wretzky told BlastEcho:
"The band has decided to go with a different bass player."
To make matters worse, in February 2018, she told Alternative Nation:
"I honestly think he may have a brain tumor.
He's always been insufferable."
"It's not a tumor!
It's not a tumor.
At all."