Alice In Chains producer Toby Wright recently discussed Gene Simmons wanting to imitate Billy Corgan on a KISS album during The Smashing Pumpkins’ peak in popularity in the mid-90’s.
Wright told Louder Sound, “They wanted to follow a little hip trend going on at the time called grunge music. The bottom line was, like all artists, they wanted to sell records. I remember getting into a big argument with Gene about the direction of the album. He said he wanted to be like that ‘bald guy, the one that’s on the top of the charts.’ He meant Billy Corgan.
We were about done with the record when Gene got the call. Somebody offered him 100 million to put back on the makeup with all the original members. We all knew right as the words came out of his mouth that we were done.”
The Smashing Pumpkins just confirmed their plan to recreate Gish. Corgan also discussed the current geopolitical climate on Apple Music with Zane Lowe. Alternative Nation transcribed his comments, “But I’m hyper aware of what’s happening in the world. I pay a lot of attention. And I think you surf those waves and can anticipate where things are going long before they got there. And certainly, in terms of the American geopolitical sphere, there’s been this building tension that goes way back.
People like to point to the last four years or whatever, but this is deep. I mean, I remember talking about it with the Melody Maker in ’92. This tension between the two halves of America or the flyover country or something like that. So this has been a long, long building narrative.
And we have a tremendous opportunity now to come together and build the perfect world, the perfect music world, the perfect artistic world, the perfect world for everybody to achieve their dream. Or we can carry on and repeat those history books that I’ve read too where it ends up with weird, weird stuff happening.”
