Billy Corgan quotes

Billy Corgan is an American musician, songwriter, and the lead vocalist of the alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins. His distinctive voice and innovative songwriting have greatly influenced the sound of 1990s alternative rock. He continues to create music and perform both with his band and as a solo artist. Here are 157 of his quotes:

The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too.

Billy Corgan

I've always been spiritual but I've never had a proper context, and it took me awhile to find the proper context. It's hard to realize you can have any kind of relationship with God you want... and so I now have a punk rock relationship with God.

Billy Corgan

My earliest memory is of feeling different. My parents told me that I wasn't like other children.

Billy Corgan

Instead of taking the 'I'm cool, I hope you adore me' path (with my music), I chose the path of how to connect. I think that's the reason a lot of people feel a deeper connection with our band than other bands, and I also feel that's why people polarize on us. If you don't get it, it seems preposterous; if you do get it, it's really heavy - it has a weight to it.

Billy Corgan

Actually, I was having dinner with Michael [Stipe, of R.E.M.] when our second album went platinum, which up until that point was the highest success we'd ever had. And he turned to me during dinner and said, 'Welcome to the deep waters, kid.' I'll never forget that.

Billy Corgan

James, that's a bad situation. I'm not saying it's not repairable, but it's pretty far. When you go from being in one of the best bands in the world to some cover band... as far as I'm concerned, he was playing down at the pub.

Billy Corgan

To me, music was about being accepted and escaping from this crummy existence.

Billy Corgan

Music is 99% of my life. But I know I need a break. Besides, if you give people too much, they start to not want it. We need to restrain ourselves.

Billy Corgan

Life is everything and nothing all at once.

Billy Corgan

We have a problem with any labels that people try to hang on us, because all it does is drag you down.

Billy Corgan

The closer I get back to being who I really am, the stronger the music gets.

Billy Corgan

People act like Nirvana invented grunge; they just took it and personified it.

Billy Corgan

People always called the Cure gloomy, but listening to the Cure made me happy. There was something about the gloominess that gave me comfort, and I think we're the same way.

Billy Corgan

About six months ago, I listened to Siamese Dream. That was the first time I'd ever really heard my own album, because I had separated from the experience of making the record. And it really moved me. It made me cry, it's so beautiful.

Billy Corgan

I get more out of life just being myself, by just being a human being. Not by being a rock star, not by being whatever. Sometimes I act like a jerk, but I think people respect me for being myself. That's the ultimate thing about the Smashing Pumpkins.

Billy Corgan

The Smashing Pumpkins was never meant to be a small band. It was going to either be a big band, or a no band.

Billy Corgan

I think the original, 'They're the next Jane's Addiction' things that people said about us in the beginning have been pretty much wiped out.

Billy Corgan

This is not a reaction against a negative world. It's a response to a negative world.

Billy Corgan

I'm Irish and I was born on St. Patrick's Day. I'm lucky sevens.

Billy Corgan

The simplest way that I can understand therapy is that we're born a certain way, we're taught to be something different, and we spend our whole lives trying to unravel it and ultimately align ourselves with who we really are. Life, experiences, traumas -- whatever -- they all add up to make you some altered version of what you are. So there's this battle that goes on between what you are and what you become, and it's been very important for me to unravel what I was taught to be or what I became. and to draw a direct parallel to music -- the closer I get back to being who I really am, the stronger the music gets, because I think what talent I do have is connected to that person, it's not a manipulative process, it's intuitive. You can learn about chords and guitars, but there's a piece of you that makes it individual, and it's been a slow process for me to become whatever it is that I'm supposed to be.

Billy Corgan

...What people miss about (Marilyn) Manson is that he is just reflecting, he's an artist, people want to focus that energy on him, but it's not really him, it's really about you. So for every guy sitting there with a beer and a.45 in his belt, Manson is just speaking to that end of society. He's speaking as an artist. He's not speaking as himself, and that's where people get really lost with Manson.

Billy Corgan

We're like a really nice drink. We help people get through the day--we make life a little sunnier. I don't think we have any profound effect. If anybody has had a profound effect, it's The Beatles, and their effect is still minimal. There are things in the world way more important than music. Family is 50 times more important than music.

Billy Corgan