Billy Corgan has reinstated his Twitter account, and while he hasn’t yet tweeted, his updated list of who he follows is interesting. Corgan is following Soundgarden, a hint that his feud with the band over calling their 2010 reunion a cash grab may be over. Corgan is also following Donald Trump and Fred Durst.
In the last year and a half BillCo has reconciled with James Iha, Jimmy Chamberlin, Courtney Love, and Marilyn Manson. Below are highlights from Corgan and Soundgarden’s 2012-2014 feud.
Billy Corgan, August 2012 (PhilStar):
“There are those bands that are essentially coming back only to make money — playing their old albums, and maybe somewhere in the back of their minds they’re thinking there might be a future. I am not in that business, obviously. I condemn anybody who’s in that business but doesn’t admit (he’s) in that business. When Soundgarden came back and they just played their old songs, great. I was a fan of Soundgarden, but call it for what it is. They’re just out there to have one more round at the til.”
Billy Corgan, August 2012 (93.3):
“I want all of my generation to raise the bar, and I don’t appreciate when somebody from my generation, who I once considered a friend, decides to piss on my little spot in the corner for whatever reason at the same time he’s making the Timbaland album, you know what I mean?”
Chris Cornell, November 2012 (ABC News Radio):
“When Billy Corgan was completely broke, I got him a movie deal with [director] Cameron Crowe where he made $40,000. He was very happy about that, and he was specifically happy about the $40,000. So next time you see him, tell him he owes me my $40,000 back.”
Kim Thayil, January 2013 (The Phoenix):
“There’s a lot of other bands; Alice in Chains came back a few years before us, Smashing Pumpkins -– I guess that’s not really Smashing Pumpkins, it’s just a Billy Corgan solo project with a bunch of new guys, right?
Kim Thayil, September 2013 (Gigwise):
“It’s not possible for us to do a bad record. Here’s how it’s possible to do a bad record. You’ve got one jackass who runs the whole thing, and a bunch of guys they hire around him.” He added, “Now you can make a bad record because your stupid ideas aren’t being bounced around, going to the fucking ether.”
Billy Corgan, August 2014 (Stereogum):
“In fact, generally speaking, I’m more embarrassed than proud about what my generation has done with this particular era of material culture by just going out and quote-unquote ‘giving the public what they want.’ That is completely counter-intuitive to what the generation was marketed as. I use the word ‘marketing’ on purpose. That generation was marketed and sold as being counterculture. To have that generation now go, ‘Welllll, we’ve gotta pay our mortgage.’ You know? Every week in my life, I have one of these types of phone calls: You know, if you’d just go out and tour on Siamese Dream, you’d make a lot of money. As we say in Chicago: no shit, Sherlock.”
Kim Thayil, August 2014 (Dallas Observer):
“We don’t have one member who is deciding the composition of an album. You should know who I am talking about, but I am not going to name names. We have four guys who write songs here. We have four guys contributing material without someone calling bullshit on it. You follow me? There are many bands out there that are led by one guy who does all the writing? He might have some religious epiphany or some psychedelic experience and he will write all this material that can very easily suck. And the rest of his band feels like they have to play it. That is not Soundgarden. Consequently, we have never made a record that sucked.”
