Corgan Quotes & Sayings

I've never had coffee. I've always hated the smell. It was always tea. I was a pretty typical kid, though. I grew up drinking Lipton. I didn't know there was other tea to drink. — Billy Corgan

I grew up in the suburbs and basically associate the suburbs with cultural death. — Billy Corgan

You can only be this high-powered mojo rock band for so long, then you just can't look people in the eye. So, we've projected our own demise. — Billy Corgan

I don't have a problem with 'Idol' or 'X Factor,' I have a problem with when those things are not given the proper contextual hue. — Billy Corgan

My mother and I parting company at four years old is a recurring theme; although it's not symbolically necessarily present, it's present in all my relationships. — Billy Corgan

What has gone on in my childhood, and the personal problems that we've had in the band, have given a lot of people hope. (It shows) if you keep your nose pointed straight you can actually get somewhere
to a happy place. — Billy Corgan

If you don't fit into this kind of like gossipy, trendy, Web-hit thingy, you're relegated to sort of second-class celebrity status. — Billy Corgan

I've become a guy who's like a complaining, whining neurotic. — Billy Corgan

If you've sold over a million records, you are not punk rock, you are milking the system for everything that it's worth. — Billy Corgan

Beware of those angels with their wings glued on. — Billy Corgan

I often have deer on my property and there's a fox and owls. You're not going to see that in the city. — Billy Corgan

It's what the mainstream does - they absorb things and they blunt the power of it. And so the next generation and the next generation has to become more shocking and more provocative in order to get any rise out of anybody. — Billy Corgan

I don't think I'm before my time, I just don't think I'm in my time. — Billy Corgan

I wanted more than life could ever grant — Billy Corgan

All humans are part male and part female. The other side must be explored to gain complete understanding ofourselves and the world we live in. Forme, the idea of having a feminine perspective is a willingness to be vulnerable. — Billy Corgan

Most of my arguments with musicians through the years have had more to do with their attitude about music, or their attitude about their own lives, or their personal responsibility. Music has never really been the big centerpiece of the fight. — Billy Corgan

Radiohead and Our Lady Peace are doing the seven layers of guitar, and I kind of jumped on that before anyone else did. — Billy Corgan

I'm sort of like a lame, single guy in a red sports car. — Billy Corgan

If practice makes perfect, and no one's perfect, then why practice? — Billy Corgan

You have to keep adapting to the times. If you kind of go with it, it can kind of fun. — Billy Corgan

It seems to me that references to bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin meant more to me a year ago and all those old things are totally losing importance. — Billy Corgan

I walked away from going to church when I was 8. I didn't set foot in another church until I was 28. — Billy Corgan

The ideology of the Smashing Pumpkins was ultimately more valuable than the music of the Smashing Pumpkins. That's what critics can't put their finger on. — Billy Corgan

People try to make a big deal, like I don't want to play my old songs. That's not it. I don't want to play my old songs if that's my only option. That's a different thing. — Billy Corgan

It's about the girlfriend who left me last year. I tried to put all my anger in those words, even though I'm just as much to blame for the break-up. 'Soma' is based on the idea that a love relationship is almost the same as opium: it slowly puts you to sleep, it soothes you, and gives you the illusion of sureness and security. Very deceivable. — Billy Corgan

If the next record is no better than Gish, then we've failed. — Billy Corgan

People always called the Cure gloomy, but listening to the Cure made me happy. There was something about the gloominess that gave me comfort, and I think we're the same way. — Billy Corgan

I don't want to be a dead hero. — Billy Corgan

We can look you in the eye and talk to you about life, heart, love rock'n'roll, whatever, but we do not have the moral authority to tell people how to vote or what to do with their bodies. We are just a rock band. — Billy Corgan

I have a saying, which is, 'Crazy is good for business.' I think rock and roll really is about being a bit crazy. — Billy Corgan

It's wonderful to read interviews by old blues guys - they talk about all their influences, they talk about who taught them how to play, and who they saw, and how they were determined to play that way. — Billy Corgan

I mean, I'm certainly not a 'teaophyte,' or whatever the word would be. — Billy Corgan

You could have a zillion Facebook followers. Those people don't buy records. It's about a hundred to one ... Record companies, they don't have any money, so they see social media as the free marketing ... So ... 'Billy, light yourself on fire and stand upside down, and that'll market the record.' — Billy Corgan

Compliments and criticism are all ultimately based on some form of projection. — Billy Corgan

As a 28 year old who's lived long enough to know the difference, I know now that the feelings I felt an 16 were not necessarily correct. But however overly dramatic, the desperation and hopelessness I felt at 16 was my reality. — Billy Corgan

Wrestling is one of the last truly rebellious American things left. — Billy Corgan

Considering you don't have any experience, I'll start you at ten dollars per hour until I can get you enrolled in classes, which I'll pay for. While you're going to school, I'll pay you twenty dollars an hour. And when you graduate, I'll raise you to forty dollars an hour. — Sky Corgan

Rock in the mainstream culture has lost a lot of its mojo. — Billy Corgan

To be able to put your arms around 24 years of music, it's really fun. — Billy Corgan

Heavy metal is a universal energy
it's the sound of a volcano. It's rock, it's earth shattering. Somewhere in our primal being we understand. — Billy Corgan

In the beginning, though, I have to admit that I did have a chip on my shoulder. I did want to prove everyone wrong. But after I went through the process and came out the other side, it wasn't about anyone else. — Billy Corgan

Well, I'm known as a guitar-rock guy, you know? You're not supposed to play with synthesizers. This is not in the rulebook. — Billy Corgan

You just reach a point sometimes with somebody where it just doesn't work. — Billy Corgan

When I had a job catering, I catered a wedding for the Smashing Pumpkins bassist in Indiana. And I served Billy Corgan shrimp off a tray. — Amy Poehler

I still believe in my country. — Billy Corgan

Life is everything and nothing all at once. — Billy Corgan

I lay a lot of blame at the feet of Dusty Baker for not being more strict about fundamentals, which I think would give the team a stronger day-to-day identity. — Billy Corgan

When I've tried to reinvent the wheel, I get bashed for not doing the familiar things. — Billy Corgan

I don't think people buy records because of anything that happens on Facebook. They buy records cause they're friends say 'I bought this record and I love it.' — Billy Corgan

Don't judge yourself by someone else's standards. You will always lose — Billy Corgan

This is not a reaction against a negative world. It's a response to a negative world. — Billy Corgan

Do I belong in the conversation about the best artists in the world? My answer is yes, I do. — Billy Corgan

That's at the root of the human interaction: fair trade. — Billy Corgan

It makes me crazy to think that somebody might attack my city or any other city. — Billy Corgan

I want to be able to look back and think that as long as I was going this, I did the best that I could. — Billy Corgan

I've seen foreigners really shift on their view of America, and that's hard for me to take. — Billy Corgan

I'm a really honest person. — Billy Corgan

I'm a Pisces, and Pisces have this weird inability to be completely spontaneous. We're too conscious of our actions. I've always been way too sensible for my own good. — Billy Corgan

Even if you don't believe in God, exploring fully the idea of a god or gods should pose no threat to you. — Billy Corgan

I feel completely free to do whatever I want and how I want to do it. I feel unburdened by my past. — Billy Corgan

I've had a lot of things rendered as not being effective or as some indication of my lack of sanity, only to be praised ten, fifteen, twenty years later for what I did once in this overt consciousness. — Billy Corgan

When you move artistically, the natural inclination is to denounce everything that's gone before. — Billy Corgan

People think I take some sort of masochistic pleasure out of putting out music that's gonna be unpopular. — Billy Corgan

When you present people with things from the heart and from the soul, they make better choices: They make better choices about their bodies, they make better choices about their partners, they make better choices about the environment. — Billy Corgan

Instead of taking the 'I'm cool, I hope you adore me' path (with my music), I chose the path of how to connect. I think that's the reason a lot of people feel a deeper connection with our band than other bands, and I also feel that's why people polarize on us. If you don't get it, it seems preposterous; if you do get it, it's really heavy
it has a weight to it. — Billy Corgan

People act like Nirvana invented grunge; they just took it and personified it. — Billy Corgan

The things I'm guided to do are really strange to me. — Billy Corgan

The Killer in me is the Killer in you. — Billy Corgan

Everything about life makes me lonely. — Billy Corgan

Actually, I was having dinner with Michael [Stipe, of R.E.M.] when our second album went platinum, which up until that point was the highest success we'd ever had. And he turned to me during dinner and said, 'Welcome to the deep waters, kid.' I'll never forget that. — Billy Corgan

I don't like that the government is going to manipulate the information to try to convince me that what I'm eating is not what I'm really eating. If people choose to eat cardboard because it's ten cents cheaper, then let them. That's at the root of freedom. But in the reverse, I'd like to know if what I'm eating or consuming or buying is somehow hurting or exploiting someone in another part of the planet. — Billy Corgan

When you actually like each other, it translates to the music. — Billy Corgan

Most great records really start with the drums. — Billy Corgan

The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too. — Billy Corgan

Say you write a song about a chandelier, and the chandelier gives off light. And the light is the color red and red reminds you of the color your not supposed to wear around a bull. So you name the song 'Cow.' — Billy Corgan

You will never see the four original Pumpkins on stage ever again, unless it's a Hall of Fame thing. But you would never see a tour. There's so much damage, there's no way. — Billy Corgan

I know how stupid people can be. I've played in front of 5,000 people that bought a ticket to my concert, and some guy who's bought a ticket decides he's going to throw a bottle at my head. That's a simple act of stupidity. That's not even defiance. — Billy Corgan

James, that's a bad situation. I'm not saying it's not repairable, but it's pretty far. When you go from being in one of the best bands in the world to some cover band ... as far as I'm concerned, he was playing down at the pub. — Billy Corgan

Once a pumpkin, Always a pumpkin. — Billy Corgan

Gish was the best representation of where we were at the time. — Billy Corgan

Around the mid-'90s every hair guy who would have been in a hair-metal band got his tattoos and suddenly decided he was alternative. It just became like a thing. — Billy Corgan

There's a lot of days where you feel forgotten. — Billy Corgan

We weren't like mates who decided to form a band. The other three met me because they were interested in being in the band that I was starting. — Billy Corgan

Most people don't know that wrestling came out of the circus. — Billy Corgan

I didn't grow up with my mother, and so losing her for real was like, some sort of latent childhood, some sort of unresolved issue. When she left for real, it was sort of like, I was done. — Billy Corgan

I'm a bit weird. — Billy Corgan

In my particular instance, I came from a family that didn't have anything. Everything I earned in life I made. Myself. With songs that I wrote. — Billy Corgan

I'm definitely responsible for coming in with some basic chord changes, or ideas. Everybody in the band looks to me to come up with the basic seed, so it's not very productive to come in with nothing. — Billy Corgan

I work differently than most people. — Billy Corgan

I realize I'm a mirror. — Billy Corgan

About six months ago, I listened to Siamese Dream. That was the first time I'd ever really heard my own album, because I had separated from the experience of making the record. And it really moved me. It made me cry, it's so beautiful. — Billy Corgan

I'm a green-tea guy. — Billy Corgan

I mean there's certainly a lot of progressive rock and metal that exists at the underground level, which has its own vitality, as it should. But it seems to have lost its ability to really charge up the hill. — Billy Corgan

Time is never time at all. You can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth. And our lives are forever changed. We will never be the same. The more you change, the less you feel. — Billy Corgan

There are people out there who are older who are cool. I want that. — Billy Corgan

I have a musical ancestry as much as I have a family ancestry. Honoring those ancestors gives you access to a greater source of appreciation and information than you would have if you were just going on your own ego system. — Billy Corgan

There's nothing wrong with technology. It's when technology is the story and not the artist, that's the problem. — Billy Corgan

I'm very disappointed in my country right now, because I think we've kind of lost our moral compass. — Billy Corgan

I was part of a generation that changed the world, and it was taken over by posers. — Billy Corgan

I tend to be reactionary. — Billy Corgan