Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman Billy Corgan isn’t getting any nicer as he gets older, the singer has been busy slagging his fellow contemporaries.
Corgan took shots at two bands in particular, the brunt of the abuse was aimed at the Seattle band Pearl Jam, although he certainly didn’t bite his tongue speaking about Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters.
The Pumpkins musician was chatting with notorious radio talk-show host Howard Stern. Stern is no stranger to telling people exactly what he thinks, no matter how brutal it is.
However, this time it was Corgan dissing his competition. He claimed Pearl Jam ‘weren’t even close’ to his band’s talent and described their music as ‘derivative’.
Corgan said: “If you listen to the band’s work, and I know they have a tremendous fanbase and they should, they’re a great band but you know, I’m a Beatles guy, a Stones guy and a Kinks but if you go to a lot of those other bands they just don’t have the work. I just don’t think Pearl Jam have the songs.”
The singer compared Smashing Pumpkins to Nirvana, stating that they were in their own class in the nineties, “I think the work speaks for itself.”
He continued talking about Pearl Jam, “If you stack my songs up, Cobain’s songs up and that band’s [Pearl Jam] songs up, they don’t have the songs. They’re a great band, still an arena act, they’ve gotten it done for a long time and I have to bow to that.”
He described Dave Grohl as a ‘great songwriter’ but claimed that Foo Fighters have become stagnant over the years.
Corgan said: “Dave [Grohl] is a great musician, a great songwriter and has done the work but to me, my criticism of the Foo Fighters, if I’m being a music critic, is that they just haven’t evolved and that’s sort of the recent wrap on them is, you know, making the same music.”
“Obviously, I’ve put my whole life on the line for making different types music as I’ve gone along. We’ve talked last time I was here about playing old songs, evolving and it’s just my mentality. I know it’s not for everybody. Listen, [Dave’s] getting it done so it’s like, if you want to be competitive, my philosophy against his, he’s the one winning.”
Listen to the full interview between Billy Corgan & Howard Stern below.
