The one group Billy Corgan called “the ultimate band”
As pioneers of the 1990s alternative rock scene, The Smashing Pumpkins have inspired a wide array of bands that followed, including Muse, Interpol, and Placebo. In fact, even Gerard and Mikey Way of My Chemical Romance have credited seeing The Smashing Pumpkins live as the spark that made them want to start a band of their own.
Mikey Way told Entertainment Weekly in 2006 that after seeing The Smashing Pumpkins at Madison Square Garden, “Me and Gerard were both like, ‘This is the band we want to be’”. Talking about that same gig with Rock Sound in 2021, Way added: “I remember nudging him [Gerard] and being like, ‘this is what I want to do. This is what we’re gonna do – and we’re gonna play in this room’”. When My Chemical Romance did play at Madison Square Garden, Gerard Way told the story from the stage of how seeing The Smashing Pumpkins there had so inspired them.
Considering the huge and lasting impact they had on the musicians that came after them, who was it that, in turn, inspired The Smashing Pumpkins? In 1995, frontman Billy Corgan sat down with Rolling Stone, discussing the music that most excited and inspired him growing up. Considering Corgan’s position as perhaps one of the most inspiring acts of his generation, discovering his influences is a one-stop shop for a range of artists to be educated on.
“The first one [record] I can remember buying was ‘Meet the Beatles!’ at a garage sale for five cents,” Corgan explained. “We had other records lying around when I was five or six. ‘Having a Rave Up With the Yardbirds’, ‘Songs in the Key of Life’, Jimi Hendrix albums. And weird stuff like the Delfonics. Al Green. I was never into punk rock. I liked Blondie, but all that other New York stuff like Talking Heads never rang true for me. I grew up on ’70s radio.” A real eclectic mix, Corgan also went on to namecheck Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath as noted points of inspiration.
But much like My Chemical Romance wanted to be The Smashing Pumpkins, there was one band, more than any other, who Billy Corgan most wanted his group to be like. The Beatles may have changed Corgan’s life, but as a band, there was only one group worthy of his unstoppable praise: “Cheap Trick were the ultimate band,” he said. “I think the Pumpkins just picked up from where that left off.”
Throughout the years, Corgan has acknowledged the influence that Cheap Trick have had on his music and how the group may not have got the acclaim of The Beatles, but for a section of Chicago, they were everything and more. Writing on Facebook ahead of their 2016 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Corgan added: “To Chicagoans, Robin, Rick, Tom and Bun E will always be our Fab Four”. Elsewhere, Corgan has said that his song ‘Tonight, Tonight’ is an homage to the Chicago four-piece band.
A year after he first cited their influence on him to Rolling Stone, Corgan got to live out one of his dreams, as he joined Cheap Trick on stage at Park West, Chicago, for a performance of their 1978 single ‘Auf Wiedersehen’. It was yet another concert experience that led to a moment of inspiration to give Cheap Trick their name.
Having worked under a few different line-ups and a couple of different titles – first as Fuse and then as Sick Man of Europe – the band finally settled on the name that they are still using to this day after attending a concert by English group Slade in 1973, where bassist Tom Petersson quipped the glam-rockers had used “every cheap trick in the book” to entertain their audience.
