Billy Corgan on past claims he didn’t “get the credit” for creating the landscape for bands like Muse
Billy Corgan has addressed his previous claims he didn’t “get the credit” for being the creator of the musical landscape for bands such as Muse.
Back in 2015 while speaking to Gigwise, the Smashing Pumpkins legend opened up about how he felt that he didn’t get the respect he deserved as a musician.
“I wrote more hits than anybody of my generation, and I am not seen as a songwriter,” he said at the time. “I helped launch a bunch of people playing in guitar bands, Muse being a perfect example.”
Corgan continued: “I don’t get credit for that. I broke different styles into the alternative pop mainstream with strings and all sorts of stuff, I don’t get credit for that. I’m more treated like this weird uncle who no one understands why he’s at Thanksgiving. I’m just tired of that story. It’s not a mistake that I am still here making music. I don’t know how else to say that and my music is the only way I can say that.”
The rock icon has now looked back on those comments as part of a recent interview with NME, where he also spoke about his new podcast The Magnificent Others.
“Well, let me say this, first of all, Muse is an incredible band,” he told NME. “I think I was just being a bit sour about it all, but nothing to do with them – more just feeling a little bit pushed aside by the way it was being viewed by the media and, at times, the public.
“Honestly, that’s not something I’m proud of, because I just think it’s kind of cheesy to run around and point and say, ‘Hey, remember me, the guy at the end of the bar?’ So setting all that aside, I do feel it’s taken some time, but people are starting to figure out what we did do.”
He added that he now chooses to stay out of all of that, explaining that “it’s better left to fans and whoever to decide what your value is.”
“I should have known it would work itself out over time, and it has so,” he said. “I think that’s born out by the fact that there’s so much interest in the band playing not only our old music but our new music.
“These days I have nothing to complain about. So, I’ll just leave it at that. But Muse is a great band and really one of the only bands, I think, post into the 21st Century that’s really made any kind of real ground in alternative rock.”
Muse frontman Matt Bellamy has always been vocal about how Smashing Pumpkins inspired the band in their youth. They also paid tribute to the band by covering parts of Pumpkins classics ‘Cherub Rock’ and ‘Zero’ live in 2018.
“When we were growing up we were listening to bands like Iron Maiden,” he said in 2022. “And though we connected more through Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine and the Smashing Pumpkins, we always had this love for eighties metal. Metallica were also a big one for us.”
Elsewhere in his conversation with NME, Corgan opened up about the ongoing conversation about rock being “dead”, and shared that the spirit of rock and roll will live on because it “is always going to be what kids decide to do in a sort of form of hatred or disgust with what they’re seeing.”
He also opened up about performing at Black Sabbath’s forthcoming final gig in Birmingham later this summer.
“It’s going to be magical. There’s so much love out there for Ozzy,” he shared. “It all comes together on this one magical night. It’s what rock’n’roll is supposed to be about. That’s kinda what I was harping about: it’s ultimately a celebration rather than, ‘Let’s talk about what happened in 1972’.”
In other news, The Smashing Pumpkins recently announced the details of their huge show at London’s Gunnersbury Park and UK tour in August.
Muse meanwhile, are gearing to up to record a new album for release in 2026 with a run of European festival shows planned for this summer.
The post Billy Corgan on past claims he didn’t “get the credit” for creating the landscape for bands like Muse appeared first on NME.
Anagricel Duran
NME
