Billy Corgan Reveals Blatant Nirvana Ripoff

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Nirvana classic album “Nevermind” is one of the timeless creations of the band and The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan recently opened up on the band producer.  Corgan claimed that it’s his guitar tone which was stolen. Sure, he cannot exactly sue anyone for the guitar tone. But if he is talking the truth, then Nirvana owes a lot to Billy.

Billy Corgan makes bold claims on Nirvana

In a recent video shared by Laney in honor of him signing a deal with the amp manufacturer, Corgan looks back on those days and how the producer Butch Vig ended up taking some inspiration — for the lack of a better work — from The Smashing Pumpkins and channeling it all into Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” He recalled:

“A story I like to tell is we recorded our album Gish in 1990, going into 1991. [Butch Vig] left that album to go and make ‘Nevermind’ with Nirvana.

“The first time I heard ‘Nevermind,’ I looked at Butch Vig – we were sitting next to a lake on a July 4th day circa 1991 — and I said, ‘Motherfucker, you stole my guitar sound!’ So that’s all I’ll say about that.”

Corgan also looked back on experiencing Black Sabbath for the first time as an 8-year-old. The album in question was “Master of Reality” and he was hit by its opening song “Sweet Leaf.” As he further explains, he kept chasing that guitar and vocal tone for years to come. Corgan offered:

“I’ve chased that sound my whole life. And you can hear echoes of it in… Whether it’s Randy Rhoads with Ozzy or even Freddie Mercury with Brian May. There’s other echoes of that type of thing. Even Sweet was another band guitar voicing and the voice in their unique way.

“But for me, Sabbath was the blueprint. And until I started using Laney Amps… I bought a vintage amp, which was the same Supergroup series — I never realized that part of what attracted me to that sound was the Laney sound.

“Because a lot of guitar players — and I’m sure we’ve all met them — they kind of see guitar sound as sort of like ‘pick your flavor of a hot sauce’ or something. For me, tone is everything. When you think of Tony’s tone, it’s synonymous with the vision I get in my head of Tony’s width and size and power.

“The Laney sound is not always the ‘biggest’ sound. And even when I worked with Tony in the studio on his solo album [2000’s ‘Iommi’], I was shocked Tony’s gain was on 6. It’s the way that Laney sound makes you feel. It’s not always a high-gain thing.”