The band Billy Corgan called “quintessential Smashing Pumpkins”
One of the most commercially successful and recognisable bands of the 1990s, Smashing Pumpkins have certainly left their mark on music since their inception in 1988. Nowadays, the group has been credited as an influence on a vast range of bands, from Muse to My Chemical Romance. However, frontman and only constant member throughout the band’s history, Billy Corgan, revealed that the signature Smashing Pumpkins sound was lifted almost entirely from someone else.
Most bands would keep quiet about such a thing; it can be quite uncomfortable to have your work accused of ripping someone else off, but then again, Smashing Pumpkins aren’t ‘most bands’. Forming around a Chicago record store in the 1980s, the Pumpkins were heavily influenced by goth rock, particularly The Cure, in their early years. At a time in America during which grunge was on its way up, Corgan’s band instead drew upon heavy metal, psychedelia and dream pop.
Despite this, Smashing Pumpkins were soon lumped together with the growing number of grunge bands, including Nirvana, Mudhoney and Pearl Jam. Receiving a considerable amount of commercial success on their second album, Siamese Dream, the Pumpkins soon found themselves heavily criticised by their punk and indie rock contemporaries, being referred to as “the grunge Monkees” by Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü.
Undeterred, the band soon became a household name across the country as a result of the success of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, even landing the band a guest appearance on The Simpsons – not the kind of thing that grants you any grunge credibility.
Corgan has always been open about the influences that went into the Smashing Pumpkins sound. In the early years, he drew from many English post-punk groups, New Order in particular, and as time went on, he even spoke about how prog-rock titans Rush went into the making of the track ‘Cherub Rock’.
One of the biggest influences throughout Smashing Pumpkins’ long and illustrious career, however, comes in the form of heavy metal godfathers, Black Sabbath. Speaking to Artists Direct, Corgan revealed, “If you think of quintessential Smashing Pumpkins, that’s the sound, I make no bones about it. I got it straight from Black Sabbath”. The Birmingham rock band pioneered the heavy metal genre, so perhaps it is unsurprising that Corgan cites them as such a big influence. Nevertheless, it is unusual for any band frontman to attribute the essence of their sound entirely to one other artist, even one as influential as Sabbath.
The group have continued their Sabbath-inspired career, remaining active from their original reformation in 2006 to the present day. Continuing to expand and build upon their seemingly endless pool of inspiration, the band released the four-LP epic rock opera ATUM in 2022 and are set to tour with fellow Gen X icons Green Day, Weezer and Rancid next year. It seems the 1990s never left. The tickets just got more expensive.
