During a recent chat with Allison Hagendorf, Billy Corgan talked about how Metallica helped him when he was dealing with his grandmother’s death.
“I told Lars [Ulrich] this when I was on his show, ‘Fade to Black’ by Metallica came out when my grandmother was dying of cancer,” the Smashing Pumpkins singer recalled. “That song saved my life… When you’ve had those moments with rock, there’s a loyalty between band and fan.”
In a separate interview, Corgan expressed his love for Metallica, sharing how a concert changed him as a teenager. He also talked about discovering Black Sabbath when he was eight while looking through his uncle’s record collection.
The rocker explained, “The first thing I ever hear from Black Sabbath is f*cking ‘Sweet Leaf.’ There’s that guitar, which I’m still trying to get, right? And then here comes the Ozzy voice, the doubled fucking Ozzy voice. And I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is the greatest thing I’ve ever f*cking heard in my life. And I’m eight.”
Corgan also said that his music taste grew beyond hard rock and metal. As a teenager, he delivered pizzas while listening to a cassette tape with Metallica on one side and Joy Division on the other. He said, “That pretty much sums up my sort of aesthetic.”
“We didn’t necessarily go to the nice school, we didn’t get to read the cool newspaper. For me, bands like Metallica told me that there is this other world that is more closely aligned with the experience you’re having than the one you’re being told about,” Billy also told Ulrich on the drummer’s Apple Music Beats 1 show.
Corgan is preparing to hit the road with Smashing Pumpkins next month. Their South American tour starts on November 1 in Brasilia, Brazil.