Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins has opened up about facing criticisms over his career and his continued struggles with receiving praise from those around him.
“Even when we were successful, it was just constant criticism, ” Corgan told Stern. “Maybe there was a lot of praise, but I didn’t hear it because when you’re in that mindset you just hear the criticism. It’s like if somebody talks to you for a minute and they say one small critical thing and that’s all you remember about the conversation.”
“So, that may have been my life. People may have told me how great I was every five seconds and I just didn’t hear it, ” he said.
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“But my memory was like we would get on stage and play to 15, 000 people and I’d walk offstage and somebody would be standing backstage saying, ‘You shouldn’t have done that and you shouldn’t have done this and people are mad and you’re such an idiot.’ That’s what I remember.”
Asked if his childhood had a bearing on his hypercritical tendencies, Corgan replied: “If your own parents tell you you’re a fucking idiot and then the guy 15 years down the road is [calling] you an idiot and he’s the manager of this band and this band and this band and they’ve had all this success, you’re thinking, ‘Well maybe that’s just how it is. What do I know?’”
, Corgan (who wrote the song) revealed that “Not once after that song did anybody in my life — anybody — pull me in a room and say, ‘Can you give me more of that?’”
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Was him telling the world “‘You want me to be this rat in a cage? Here I am, ’” pointing out that even till this day fans and critics are still asking for more songs like that — something that, as he puts it, reconfirms everything his parents said.
“If you’re not this, you’re worthless. You have no value. If you’re not willing to sacrifice in these ways, you’re worthless. If you’re not willing to do what we say, you’re worthless.”
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4 “We’re a very loud band. The energy from that contributes to the way we play” How Dusk blend punk and Americana to create a three- barnburneWhen Billy Corgan got his guitar back after 27 years, he called Chicago guitar miracle worker Geoff Benge to fix it up. (Mark Konkol)
CHICAGO — Maybe you’ve heard about Billy Corgan’s prized Fender Stratocaster, the one responsible for the dreamy tones that defined Smashing Pumpkin’s debut album, Gish. Drummer Jimmy Chamberlin reportedly borrowed the guitar from a friend, or so the story goes, and sold it to Corgan, who refers to it as the“guitar that changed the direction of our lives.”
“The minute I started playing on the Strat, it was like it came to life. It was like everything I was doing suddenly was amplified, ” Corgan toldRolling Stone senior writer Kory Grow. “On that Strat, it was like you suddenly could hear every little thing I was doing. … Suddenly the sound of the band got way more beautiful, psychedelic and wide.”
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He immediately recognized unique details: The cigarette burn on the neck. The initials “KM” engraved in the bridge. The sloppy artwork Corgan added himself, the f-word scratched into the paint, and, of course, the way it felt in his hands.
You can see the joy in Corgan’s face in photos of the rocker’s reunion with his beloved “Bullet Strat” documented on YouTube, and celebrated online.
As things turn out, “somewhere” is a converted auto-repair garage at 1828 West Belmont in Roscoe Village, home to Chicago luthier Geoff Benge’s guitar shop.
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There’s a reason the “Gish” guitar ended up at Benge’s place. If you’re looking for a Chicago guy to fix your most precious guitar there’s probably nobody better, according to people who know about these things.
I first met Benge in 2008 at his fix-it shop’s former Lake View location. He told me about the one-armed guitar player who brought in a Regal guitar that had been carried across Europe during WWII, and now rested in pieces in its case. Benge fixed it up so good that when the owner first pressed his fingers against the neck, he cried. At home, the man said with joyful tears, his wife would do the strumming.
He’s worked on guitars since he scored his first job emptying ashtrays at Sound Post, a long-gone Evanston guitar shop, when he as 14. He helped open Guitar Works, and did a stint in the repair shop at Chicago Music Exchange before building his own repair business based on referrals from a long list of renowned Chicago guitarists. Nicholas Tremulis, Liz Phair, Rolling Stones bassist Darryl Jones, Steve Albini and, of course, Corgan all count Benge as their trusted guitar repairman, and sometimes miracle worker.
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In 1993, Albini, the famed recording engineer and owner of Electric Audio studios, had Benge convert a collection of right-handed guitars — including a rare aluminum Voleno guitar — so each one could be played lefty, in other words, upside-down and backwards.
“So, I told him, Albini’s taking them to record Nirvana, ” Bataille says, laughing. “Pretty cool thatwe set up guitars used [by Kurt Cobain] on ‘In Utero.”
“You know what I remember, ” he said, while twisting the tuner on a recently restrung acoustic. “Months later, Albini brought the guitars back and said, ‘Make ’em righty again.’ So, I did.”
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After taking the guitar apart, taking into account it’s outfitted with one of Fender’s first die-cast bridge saddles and talking with a guitar electronics expert in California, Benge pegged the Strat as a ’75. But the serial number etched on the 3-bolt neck plate hints at a different story.
The Stratocaster’s exact vintage, well, that’s complicated. Corgan’s Stratocaster was built during the heart of the “CBS era” — a low point in Fender’s corporate history when the quality of each guitar was a crap shoot.
Between 1973 and 1975 Fender’s factory was in flux, lacked inventory and quality controls and, Norvell says, factory workers “went off script.” Back then all Fender guitars were made by hand, and put together with mismatched parts from unmarked bins. Sometimes, even guitar necks and bodies didn’t match.
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Benge found the Stratocaster’s “flat pole” pickups were stamped with the date, Dec. 30, 1975. The guitar’s ’76 serial number hints that a Fender craftsman didn’t put the finishing touches on before celebrating on New Year’s Eve.I’ve been trying to get hold of Billy Corgan for years. Professionally, I’ve spent two years requesting, asking, reminding and persisting with various PR people to try to get an interview with the Smashing Pumpkins’ main man. Personally, it has been a lot longer.
Was released. I’d been playing guitar at that point for around three years and the sounds on this vast, sprawling double record blew me away. Everyone has their life-changing musical moments, and this was one of mine. Mellon Collie was light years away from the other records that came out that year. In terms of scope, vision, ambition and variety, this third album by Chicago’s Smashing Pumpkins has it all, and it has remained fresh and impressive despite the passing of over two decades.
The Smashing Pumpkins are one of the biggest selling bands of the modern era with well over 30 million album sales (Mellon Collie itself sold over 10 million). Though each album- from the dream-fuzz of Siamese Dream through the Gothic, windswept electro of Adore- the Pumpkins have had a shifting yet always recognisable sound, with Billy Corgan’s distinctive voice and unequalled songwriting at its core.
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The guitar playing has always been particularly epic, too: between Corgan and fellow guitarist James Iha, they brought boundary pushing tones, textures and hair-raising solos to a genre often afraid to go for greatness.
I’ve always thought that the guitar playing in the Smashing Pumpkins was underrated and under-appreciated. That was part of my motivation to seek out an audience with Corgan.
My ambition sharpened in focus when a rare solo Billy Corgan acoustic show was announced close to ’s Central Support office in Glasgow. In the end, it was our friends at Yamaha who broke through the PR red tape and won us a thumbs up from Corgan himself. Yamaha make his superb signature guitar, the LJ16BC, and this was ostensibly part of what I was to talk about.
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My opportunity to speak with him came the day after the band played a triumphant show at Donington’s Download festival. Billy had travelled up to Glasgow for the show and had a million things on his mind. Never the less, I was warmly welcomed into the dressing room at St Luke’s, and offered a seat on an artfully distressed couch as Billy boiled the kettle for a cup of his signature Madame Zuzu’s tea.
We ended up talking about lots of things, though I admit my question sheet didn’t get looked at much! We didn’t even get to chat specifics about guitars, though that’s
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