Billy Corgan Reveals His Real Problem With Kurt Cobain, ‘We Made Peace Before His Death’

Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan recently sat down with Allison Hagendorf for an interview and reflected on his relationship with Kurt Cobain before his death following the Courtney Love issue.

When asked about his thoughts on Nirvana and Cobain, the frontman replied:

“I thought Kurt was just amazing. I mean, he was so talented. You were just like jealous of the talent. You’re like, ‘Who gets that much talent in one body?’ I was talking to somebody today about seeing when they came through town in ‘Bleach.’

Cabaret Metro, somewhere in 1990; maybe it was 89, even. Five hundred people in the crowd, not even sold out, and the minute he opened his mouth, you’re like, ‘Well, I can’t sing like that.’ That voice which everybody knows is incredible.”

Then, Corgan expressed the main issue between him and the late singer:

“The problem was his wife or future wife, was my ex-girlfriend, and that created an immediate riff. So add to that, the fact that he’s smart enough to understand that my band is probably one of the only bands that have any chance of even challenging his kingship, and that stuff does matter when you get down in the trenches of, like, who’s playing where on the bill and who’s getting paid what.

Even if you look at Kurt’s last will and testament in the letter that he left, he talks about it’s better to burn out and fade away. We were all very affected by what the business was doing to us. I don’t want to say that’s why he took his own life, but he chose to talk about it in his last words on earth.”

However, Billy had the chance to make peace with Cobain about the Love dispute:

“The nice thing that I’ve rarely talked about is toward the end of his life; obviously, I had no idea that he was going to go; we kind of made this weird peace. Whatever that was seemed to go away, and it was very nice and friendly.

I’m not saying we sat there and talked about the moon and stars. But it went from ‘I’m not sure I like you, and I know you definitely don’t like me’ to ‘How are you doing? Is everything cool?'”

In another interview a few months ago, the Smashing Pumpkins vocalist had expressed his admiration for the late Nirvana frontman one more time by calling him ‘intelligent.’ Billy Corgan believes that Kurt Cobain intentionally played dumb in his lyrics despite the depth of his songwriting.

You can watch his full chat below.