During a recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan spoke about how Nickelback and Creed have newfound support after years of being two of this century’s most made fun of and “hated” bands. He says Creed and Nickelback are about to make a huge payday with their Summer of 99 festival.
“You’re about to see that Nickelback and Creed are about to go on a huge run of business… They survived [the hate], and now comes the inevitable moment of, ‘It was really good’… they wrote a lot of great songs,” Corgan said.
He continued, explaining that he thinks Smashing Pumpkins will also receive more love from the general public as time goes on. “It’s kind of how I feel about my musical life. Time will tell my story much better than I did.”
“We’re probably one of the most misunderstood bands in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. That sounds like a wrestling statement, but it’s fairly accurate,” Corgan added a bit later on in the conversation.
“I think it has a lot to do with the issues of Gen X, and it has a lot to do with a relationship that I set into motion with the media when I was a very young person, playing kind of a funny game — like doing my own my own version of Andy Kaufman or Bob Zmuda. Because I thought it was all shitty, so I was just like, ‘I’m just going to play with this like a toy because I think it’s kind of funny.’”
“I didn’t realize that the coming culture was going to kind of almost be attracted to people who are willing to immolate themselves on the public stage. Most people who are attracted to fame, they want to run towards the shiny part of it. I was attracted to the non-shiny part, which is, ‘Okay, I’ll light myself on fire and let’s see what happens,’ or ‘I’ll light you on fire and let’s see what happens.’”
“So, it kind of worked in the ’90s when everybody was rolling and moving along. Well, here comes Napster, the music business craters, then a bunch of people die, and there you are at 40 years old, you’re supposed to carry some flag for a generation that doesn’t even know who it is anymore.”
When asked how he navigates that, Corgan explained: “The simple version is: I’ve had a lot of the top people in the business sit me down one-on-one in a room and tell me ‘Just give them what they want. Your life will be a lot better, you’ll make more money’. And my response every time was: ‘I don’t give a f*ck. I’m here because I’m a freak and I ain’t changing for anything.’”
