BILLY CORGAN: 'If I'm Considered Difficult Because I Don't Wanna Fit In, I'm OK With That'

During a recent interview with Australia's long-running rock station Triple M, THE SMASHING PUMPKINS mainman Billy Corgan was asked if he was bothered by his reputation as someone who is "difficult" to work with. "I think I've helped create, in my own way, an image that isn't conducive to, like, an understanding, let's put it that way," he replied. "But the concept of being difficult… if it means, 'Hey, you don't fit in this nice little box like the NICKELBACKs and LINKIN PARKs of the world,' then call me difficult; that's a good difficult. If I'm considered difficult because I don't wanna fit in, I'm OK with that. If I'm difficult because I've been difficult, I'm willing to say, 'Yeah, I have been difficult,' and I've oftentimes apologized to people. I'd say, 'I'm really sorry. I was dumb or a kid or being silly,' or 'I thought I was on an art project or something.' But at the end of the day, what I say to anybody is look at my track record with music. Even if you don't like what I've done, I've just put out music, music, music... [It's] always about music. So it's not like I've lived a life of an image and there's not a lot behind it. There's always been the music first — always. And so I'm really proud of that part. At the end of the day, if I'm gonna be judged as a personality, well, I've failed— I've already failed, and there's nothing I'm gonna do to reclaim that outside of, like, saving 50 kids from a burning bus or something. So if I'm gonna be judged as a musician, put me up against anybody, 'cause I belong there."

An audio excerpt from Corgan's interview with Triple M can be heard below.

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS recently issued a brand new track, "Spangled", as a free download, marking the sixth release from the band's in-progress 44-song project "Teargarden By Kaleidyscope". It is the second song (the recently released "Freak" was the first) from what will be the band's second EP — "Teargarden By Kaleidyscope Volume 2: The Solstice Bare" — tied to this project.

The PUMPKINS raised over $80,000 at their sold-out benefit concert on July 27 at Chicago's Metro for Matthew Leone, bassist for Chicago band MADINA LAKE. The money is going to the Matthew Leone Fund at Sweet Relief and is helping to pay for the ongoing medical care needed for the musician who this past June was hospitalized with severe brain trauma after intervening to stop a woman he passed on the street from being beaten by her husband.