Billy Corgan Rolls Bus Over Pearl Jam & Foo Fighters
One of the best parts about Smashing Pumpkins putting out new music is that it usually means Billy Corgan is going to get down with his candid self while doing interviews.
During a conversation today on the The Howard Stern Show, he blasted Pearl Jam’s musical output, before noting that Foo 
Fighters haven’t evolved album-to-album.
“I think they were derivative and the work speaks for itself,” said Corgan about Pearl Jam. “I just don’t think Pearl Jam have the songs. If you stack my songs up, Cobain’s songs up and that band’s songs up, they don’t have the songs. They’re a great band, still an arena act, they’ve been getting it done for a long time, and I have to bow to that, but it’s a mystery to me on how they have because I just don’t get it. They don’t have the songs. People will take that the wrong way but speaking competitively, they are my competitors and I have to say who am I competing against and why.”
When Corgan was asked if he’d be interested in collaborating with Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, it’s suggested that the friendship they once had was changed by the fame they encountered.
“I would have to understand his motivation, we were friends at one point so it’s not like there is a relationship train-track there. I haven’t been in a social frame with the guy in I don’t know how long, but I think a lot of people are transformed by fame. I knew one person and then there was another person. I’m another person, so maybe he felt the same way about me. You can’t blame the guy though, he was on the cover of TIME Magazine, not me, and dealt with a level of fame that I never dealt with.”
Corgan’s bullet-spraying toward his ‘90s rock counterparts continued with Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters, with the cat-loving, Anderson Cooper-hating Pumpkins leader saying: “I’m not particularly thrilled with the Foo Fighters. Dave 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 – it is that they just haven’t evolved and that’s sort of the recent wrap on them…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 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, he’s getting it done so it’s like, if you want to be competitive, my philosophy against his, he’s the one winning.”
So what’s the point of all this?
It’s that Smashing Pumpkins have released their new album Monuments of an Elegy.
-Adam Grant
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