Billy Corgan has been at it again. Shooting his mouth off about his own brilliance, that is.
This time in a new interview with Premier Guitar, the Smashing Pumpkins leader has been boasting about how he can conjure up songs from any era of the band at will.
He began talking about why prefers to take a modernist approach to his songwriting. “I think it’s more trying to find something that seems to signify whatever’s happening at the moment, he explained. “It’s a truthfulness. You could say to me, ‘Hey, play me some ‘Siamese’-type thing that you would’ve done in ‘92,’ and in five minutes, I could write you something that would sound like a song that would’ve been a ‘Siamese’ song in ‘92.”
He continued: “I can dial in any era of the band or my writing at will, because they’re all based on methodologies and certain emotional templates. So, I’m trying to do that for today. What is the 2024 version of that that makes me feel something - anything at all?”
“If I pick up a guitar, I’m looking to play something that surprises me. It’s whatever comes out. And sometimes you hit the wrong chord and go, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ Or you find a new inversion or something that you never thought of before. You try to play a different scale run than you’ve played 10,000 times, always landing on the same note. It’s just looking for something just a little bit new.”
He concluded: “I find oftentimes, in that quiet solitude of just you and the guitar, this communication can happen that sort of expresses something about yourself that is surprising – an emotional feeling or a way of approach.”
Just last week Corgan was talking about how he thinks he is underrated as a guitarist. “Most people don’t even recognise my contributions as a guitar player,” he said before complaining about his absence from ‘Best Ever Guitarist’- type lists. “I usually don’t even make those lists,” he said. “Or they’ll put me behind somebody who I could play circles around. I don’t mean to denigrate the people in front of me… but come on, you know?”
Never mind. There’s plenty for Billy to look forward to. The thirteenth Smashing Pumpkins studio album Aghori Mhori Mei has been well-received by fans and it gets a physical release in a couple of weeks time. Then in December he heads out on a six date solo tour of Australia, which will give him ample opportunity to show the good people down under just how impressive a guitarist he is.
