It's been a while since Billy Corgan last made headlines for getting into a slap fight with another band. We figured maybe he had decided to lay low as he prepares for the Smashing Pumpkins' upcoming tour, but most likely, it's because he's run out of bands to complain about. That was the implication last Friday (Aug. 31), when Corgan went on the radio to clarify his recent remarks about Soundgarden.
"Out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins / Nature's kids, they don't have no function / I don't understand what they mean / And I really could really give a f---," Pavement's Stephen Malkmus famously sang on 'Range Life,' the epic country rock jam off the band's 1994 album, 'Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.' Pavement never actually hit the road with the Pumpkins, but understandably, that didn't stop Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan from taking offense. “I think it’s rooted in jealousy,” he said at the time, later adding, "People don't fall in love to Pavement ... they put on Smashing Pumpkins or Hole or Nirvana, because these bands actually mean something to them."
Smashing Pumpkins' latest album, 'Oceania,' is a Top 5 hit -- and Billy Corgan and company are doing their part to bring the music to fans, putting together a healthy run of tour dates that will keep them on the road for most of the rest of the year.
'The End Is the Beginning Is the End'
In an interview with MTV, Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan explained how he connected with Batman on this track. “For me, it was a great kind of artistic thing to do because it was very freeing,” he said. “I wasn’t talking about myself or trying to represent the Smashing Pumpkins. I was trying to represent Batman.”
The Smashing Pumpkins stopped by 'The Late Show With Jay Leno' on Thursday (Aug. 23) to offer up a performance of 'The Celestials,' a tune off their recently released "album within an album" 'Oceania.'
Big news, Smashing Pumpkins fans: The band has announced plans to mount a major fall 2012 North American arena tour. The trek will kick off on Oct. 10 in Seattle, Wash. and is scheduled to touch down in a total of 14 U.S. cities, although specific venues in each city and the remaining dates following the tour kick-off have yet to be revealed.
"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.
Earlier this summer, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan spoke out against the touring "nostalgia acts" recently put on by bands from the so-called grunge generation, saying such reunion treks "subvert the original meaning of the grunge generation’s music, which is rebellion." Now Corgan is back at it, going so far as insisting that these days such groups are just going after the filthy lucre -- and this time around, he's also naming names.
The Smashing Pumpkins have postponed tonight's (Aug. 7) concert at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Manila, Philippines due to monsoon-like torrential rains that have caused flooding and landslides in the region. The gig is instead now scheduled to take place at the same time and in the same place on Wednesday, Aug. 8.
The phone didn't exactly start ringing off the hook when Billy Corgan stated publicly that he'd love to be an 'American Idol' judge, but maybe being a mentor on 'The Voice' is more the Smashing Pumpkins singer's speed. His ear for epic rock anthems could definitely inspire a young protegee or two.
