Billy Corgan: With Kurt Cobain he lost his “greatest opponent”

Billy Corgan always likes to show off his confidence and pride in the success of the Smashing Pumpkins. However, in an interview published May 13, he said his group lost their greatest challenger when Kurt Cobain died. Reflecting on many rock bands, the musician also took a moment to talk about the late Nirvana mastermind. “When Kurt died, I cried because I lost my greatest opponent,” he said with regret.

The Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana produced and released some of their music at the same time. The Pumpkins’ debut album, GISH, was released in 1991 – a few months before Nirvana released their hit album NEVERMIND. In July 1993 the Pumpkins released SIAMESE DREAM, and Nirvana’s IN UTERO followed a few months later in September of the same year. Smashing Pumpkins’ MELLON COLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS was not released to the public until October 1995 – more than a year after Kurt Cobain’s suicide on April 5, 1994.

In an interview with Zane Lowe of Apple Music 1, Billy Corgan said: “I want to beat the best”. The US musician compared his ongoing thirst for success to that of athletes: “I don’t want to win the championship because it’s just me and a bunch of losers. It’s like Michael Jordan, probably the greatest athlete I’ll ever see in my life. I mean, I want to talk about a real alpha. The guy wanted to win the valet tip himself, you know what I mean?”

Interview with Billy Corgan:

In a recent interview, Corgan shared how he would deal with criticism. The 56-year-old began the digression into his psyche with the words: “Even when we [The Smashing Pumpkins] were successful, there was constant criticism. […] Maybe there was a lot of praise, but I didn’t hear that. Because when you’re in that mindset, you only hear the criticism.” So you can roughly imagine how Corgan approaches topics and how extremely goal-oriented he was and is.

The Smashing Pumpkins last released the three-act rock opera ATUM – ACT III was released on April 21, 2023.