Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan Admits Hiding His True Identity

Almost every artist has a stage persona, but it might not always reflect their true selves. It appears that Billy Corgan falls into that category, and his real-life personality is quite different from how we see him as an artist. In a recent interview with Loudwire Nights, Corgan revealed that he has been hiding his real identity.

“I don’t know,” said Billy Corgan when asked if he is now at ease presenting his authentic self. “I’ve had this weird experience where I probably tried for the last seven to ten years to explain to people that I was playing different characters and that my real-life personality is actually quite different. And I found, more often than not, that people aren’t interested. They are actually more interested in the character.”

Corgan continued, “You can take that in different ways, you can take it as a diss, or you can take it as a sort of a rift on how people of your culture and what they’re attracted to is what they’re interested in, which on one level confirms my point that I as a normal person is not interesting enough, and then I get to be an outsized version of myself to gain attention for people to hear what I was saying as a musician.”

The musician then added that fans don’t want him to reflect his true identity, saying, “So, it’s hard to say, but I’ve had that experience very often where they meet the real me, and they’re just not that interested in the real me. They want the cartoon version. So, even if I want to play myself, I’m oftentimes confronted with the fact that people don’t want me to play myself.”

So, Billy Corgan argued that he has been relentlessly trying to explain that his real personality is quite different than what the fans see on the stage. As the artist admits, he has played various characters for years. Moreover, Corgan says he feels nobody is interested in seeing his true self, and they all want the outsized person of him to listen to what he has to say.

Smashing Pumpkins announced that they planned to release a double album in 2021, but they didn’t make any new releases that year. After revealing the album’s title as ‘Atum: A Rock Opera In Three Acts,’ the band announced the release dates of each act. On November 15, the Pumpkins excited the fans by releasing the first act, ‘Atum: Act One.’