Billy Corgan

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Billy Corgan was born in 1967 in Chicago. His parents divorced when he was small, and he had a difficult childhood with a father who was often away. That father was a guitarist and recommended Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix to him, but otherwise Billy taught himself to play. He listened to Black Sabbath, Queen and Cheap Trick, and later discovered the alternative rock of Bauhaus and The Cure. After a few small bands he decided to go all in on music.

Music and breakthrough

In 1988 he founded The Smashing Pumpkins in Chicago with the guitarist James Iha, the bassist D'arcy Wretzky and the drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. On the debut Gish (1991) the band mixed psychedelic rock with heavy metal. The breakthrough came in 1993 with Siamese Dream, with Today, Cherub Rock and Disarm. Corgan was seen as a control freak: on that album he played almost all the guitar and bass parts himself. In 1995 the double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness followed.

Influence

Corgan wrote the songs, sang in a high, somewhat nasal voice and built walls of distorted guitars, which he alternated with soft, dreamy passages. In this way he helped make alternative rock big in the 1990s. After the band split in 2000 he started Zwan and made solo records, before reviving The Smashing Pumpkins in 2007. He also became the owner of a wrestling promotion.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1999Stigmata: Music From the MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack (soundtrack)
• 2005TheFutureEmbrace
• 2014AEGEA
• 2017Ogilala
• 2019Cotillions

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Mixtape 4: When Rock Was Still Pop^NL Reader

Mentioned in other articles

• Siamese Dream AlbumSinger and guitarist Billy Corgan piled dozens of guitar parts on top of one another into a wall of sound.

See also

• Ogilala
• Cotillions