Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Muse, and The Black Keys manager Peter Mensch called Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan an ‘arsehole’ in a new Billboard interview.
Working with The Smashing Pumpkins
We have a no arseholes rule at Q Prime. It’s because of Billy Corgan. He was a very difficult person to work with. He’s a really talented guy, just doesn’t want to listen to anybody’s advice — at least as far as I could tell.
Managing Jimmy Page. Twice.
He fired me. I fired him. [First time] was around 2006. I had lunch with him and we met for lunch every other month. He’s a nice man. In 2007 he said, ‘Okay, you can manage me, but you’ve got to come to Led Zeppelin meetings. We have these quarterly Led Zeppelin meetings.’ There was an agenda, like a proper business meeting, and the fifth item on there brought up by Bill Curbishley, who was managing Robert Plant at the time, was that [legendary Atlantic Records co-founder] Ahmet Ertegun had died. Bill Curbishley said we should play a memorial concert for him. I’m on the job for two hours and all of a sudden Bill Curbishley wants [Led Zeppelin] to play a concert. And by the end of the meeting we had agreed to play a tribute concert.
The key to Metallica’s lasting popularity
James Hetfield speaks to group of people that no one else speaks to. That’s one of the reasons why Metallica are as big as they are now. No one else is even close to them. If hard rock is about losing your inhibitions or frustrations, James Hetfield still to this day, his lyrics, are fucking angry. He’s fueled by hate also.
