In a new interview with NME, Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan talked about his new podcast, ‘The Magnificent Others.’
While talking about guesting Gene Simmons into one of the episodes of his podcast, he also addressed Simmons’ ‘rock is dead’ claims. “No, I don’t [agree] at all. I’ve said similar silly things in the past. It sounds like a cool headline. I mean, Lenny Kravitz wrote a song ‘Rock Is Dead’. I was on Howard Stern around ‘98 saying rock is dead and Gene said it too.”
“I don’t think it’s real, because what happens and what gets overlooked is that the spirit of rock’n’roll is always going to be what kids decide to do in a sort of form of hatred or disgust with what they’re seeing,” Corgan continued. “For example, we have had 10-plus years now of just complete pop overload. I know that right now all over the world, there are kids figuring out ways to voice what they’re feeling against this pop hegemonic thing that just won’t stop. I know it’s there. I see it and I feel it.”
The KISS bassist made his famous comments in a 2014 interview with Esquire. He said, “Once you had a record company on your side, they would fund you, and that also meant when you toured they would give you tour support.”
“There are still record companies, and it does apply to pop, rap, and country to an extent. But for performers who are also songwriters — the creators — for rock music, for the soul, for the blues — it’s finally dead. The point is, yeah, rock is dead,” Gene shared.
In 2021, however, the rocker posted a tweet that looked like he might have changed his mind. He shared a video of a young girl dancing to Little Richard’s ‘Good Golly Miss Molly,’ with the caption, “This is why the world needs Rock’ n Roll, above all other genres.”
But he later pointed out the lack of iconic musicians in today’s music, saying there was no such band as the Beatles from 1988 until today.
