Billy Corgan
From WikiHero
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| Billy Corgan | |
| First Appearance | Guitar Hero World Tour |
| Genre | Alternative Rock |
| Likes | having a great day |
| Dislikes | being a rat in a cage |
| Fretboard | A group of planets with rings around each one against a black backround |
Billy Corgan (born William Patrick Corgan, Jr. in March 17, 1967, in Elk Grove Village, IL) is the singer and guitarist for Smashing Pumpkins. He is unlocked as a playable character after playing Today in the Guitar Hero World Tour Band Career. He requires no money to unlock and can be used immediately after you unlock him
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[edit] Biography
As the vocalist and guitarist for the alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, Billy has helped push the limits of modern rock music with his complex and layered songwriting. - Guitar Hero World Tour in-game bio
Corgan, who grew much faster than his fellow students, was a strong athlete in elementary school. In addition to being a member of his Marquardt Middle School baseball team, he collected baseball cards (amassing over 10,000) and listened to every Chicago Cubs game. However, by the time he began attending Glenbard North High School in Carol Stream, Illinois, he had become only an average athlete. He decided to start playing guitar when he went over to a friend's house and saw his friend's Flying V. Corgan gave his savings to his father, who bought him a used imitation Gibson Les Paul. Corgan, Sr. steered his son stylistically, encouraging him to listen to Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix, but refused on-hand instruction because he was skeptical of his son's dedication. Billy Corgan would later claim he is a self-taught guitarist. His musical interests in his formative years included hard rock like Led Zeppelin, heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath, and mainstream rock like Queen, Boston, Electric Light Orchestra, and Cheap Trick. In high school, Corgan discovered alternative rock through Bauhaus, The Cure, and The Smiths.
Corgan performed in a string of bands in high school. One band was called Lex, with guitarist Mike Subrt, bassist Dan Shaw, and drummer Pete Sallis. They performed in a few back yards, garages, and the high school variety show and played two songs - "Bastille Day" by Rush, and "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne. Corgan graduated as an honor student. Despite grant and scholarship offers from a number of schools, including the University of Michigan, and a tuition fund left by his grandmother, Corgan decided to pursue music full-time. Not finding the Chicago music scene to his liking, he moved from Chicago to St. Petersburg, Florida in 1985 with his first major band, The Marked (so named for the conspicuous birthmarks of both Corgan and drummer Ron Roesing). Not finding success in St. Petersburg, the band dissolved; Corgan moved back to Chicago to live with his father.
[edit] The Smashing Pumpkins
Corgan heard about James Iha from a mutual friend of theirs, but never really met up on plans, till one day while working at a record store, Corgan met guitarist James Iha and the two began recording demos, which Corgan describes as "doomy little goth-pop records." After recording their first two demos that Billy wrote, James decided to write one for himself. After looking over it, Billy naturally criticized it. James took this very seriously and did not talk to Corgan for about another two months, till one day they just decided to make some more demos. He then met bassist D'arcy Wretzky after a local show, arguing with her about a band that had just played. Soon after, the Smashing Pumpkins were formed. The trio began to play together at local clubs with only a drum machine for percussion. The band would soon recruit drummer Jimmy Chamberlin to secure a show at the Metro, in Chicago, where they played for the first time as a quartet on October 5, 1988.
The new band fused diverse threads such as psychedelic rock and heavy metal into a distinctive sound on their inaugural album, Gish (1991). Gish fared better than expected, but the follow-up, Siamese Dream, became a huge hit. The band became known for internal drama during this period, with Corgan frequently characterized in the music press as a "control freak" and a perfectionist because he was said to have often rerecorded Iha and Wretzky's guitar and bass parts on Gish and Siamese Dream. Despite this, the album was well received by critics, and the songs "Cherub Rock", "Today" and "Disarm" became smash hits.
The band's 1995 follow-up effort, the double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, was even more successful, spawning a string of hit singles. The album was nominated for seven Grammy awards that year and would eventually be certified nine times platinum in the United States. The song "1979" was Corgan's biggest hit to date, reaching #1 on Billboard's modern rock and mainstream rock charts. Their appearance on Saturday Night Live on November 11, 1995 to promote this material also was the television debut appearance of Corgan's shaved head, which he has maintained consistently ever since. Previously, Corgan had, in typical rockstar fashion, varied his hair styles fairly often.
During the album's tour, the band was plagued by Chamberlin's heroin addiction. On July 12, 1996, Chamberlin and touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin overdosed in a hotel room. Chamberlin survived, but Melvoin did not. The Pumpkins made the decision to fire Chamberlin and would continue as a trio. Their next effort, 1998's Adore, was undertaken with drum machines and studio drummers, and consisted of more subdued material than the band's previous efforts. Adore earned high praise from some critics and many fans, but other critics and most of the more casual listeners thought the band had strayed too far from its strengths, resulting in a significant decrease in album sales (it sold 1.3 million discs in the U.S. alone).
Chamberlin was reunited with the band in 1999, and 2000 saw Machina/The Machines of God, a concept album on which the band deliberately played to their public image; critics were again divided, and sales were lower than ever. At the end of the recording for Machina, bassist D'Arcy quit the band and was replaced for the upcoming tour by former Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur. In 2000, the band released Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music for free over the internet.
The Smashing Pumpkins split up later in 2000 and played their last show on December 2 of that year at the Metro.
[edit] Zwan
Following the breakup of the Smashing Pumpkins, Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin joined forces with Matt Sweeney (formerly of the bands Chavez and Skunk) to start Zwan. Corgan had been friends with Sweeney since early in his career and Sweeney was thanked in the liner notes to The Smashing Pumpkins album Siamese Dream. Sweeney recruited David Pajo (member of Slint, Papa M., Stereolab and many Drag City Records acts) as a bassist, and the band debuted as a four-piece in late 2001.
Paz Lenchantin completed the group in spring 2002, at which time Pajo switched to guitar duties. The band initially played low-key shows in California, while slowly touring in small clubs throughout 2001 and 2002. Their first large-scale performance was at WKQX's Jamboree Festival in May 2002, in the Chicago area. Most songs they played during this era did not make it onto their album.
After the initial press junket surrounding the release of Zwan's sole album, Mary Star of the Sea, fractures became apparent within the band. In June 2003, Zwan cancelled most of its scheduled European tour. Not long after, Dave Pajo embarked on a solo tour as Papa M, and Paz Lenchantin formally left Zwan to join him.
Billy Corgan announced the band had broken up on Chicago's WGN, on September 15, 2003. "I really enjoyed my experience with Zwan, but at the end of the day, without that sense of deeper family loyalty, it just becomes like anything else," Corgan said. "Our attitude in the Pumpkins was, it was a do or die proposition, and that got us through all the hard times we went through, particularly with the Pumpkins where we had two members with serious drug problems."
[edit] Solo career
Corgan began writing revealing autobiographical posts on his website and his MySpace page, commenting, "I no longer want to protect the people I tormented." On February 17, 2004, Corgan posted a message in which he blamed guitarist James Iha for the breakup of The Smashing Pumpkins four years prior. He also referred to bassist D'arcy Wretzky as "a mean-spirited drug addict." On June 3, 2004 he posted an apology of sorts to Iha, writing that "I love him very, very much...the depth of my hurt is only matched by the depth of my gratitude". In another post, Corgan insulted his former Zwan bandmates, claiming they had been obnoxiously self-conscious about their "indie cred" to the point of hurting those around them. Poking fun at their indie stance, he called them "poseurs" and declared them to be "filthy", opportunistic, and selfish. In late 2004, Corgan published Blinking with Fists, a book of poetry. Despite mixed reviews, the book debuted on the New York Times Best Seller list. It was one of the first books ever written by a rock-star artist that ever got in the NYT Best Sellers list.
In 2004, he began a solo music career, initially performing acoustic folk songs related to Chicago history. He abandoned this style in favor of an electronic/shoegaze/alternative rock sound for his first solo album, TheFutureEmbrace. Released on June 21, 2005 through Reprise Records, it garnered mixed reviews from the press and only sold 69,000 copies. Corgan toured behind his solo album with a touring band that included Linda Strawberry, Brian Liesegang and Matt Walker in 2005. This tour was not as extensive as previous Smashing Pumpkins or Zwan tours.
[edit] The Smashing Pumpkins revival
In 2005, Corgan took out a full-page ad in Chicago's two major newspapers (The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times) revealing his desire to reform the Smashing Pumpkins. Several days later, Jimmy Chamberlin accepted Billy Corgan's offer for a reunion.
On April 20, 2006 the band's official website confirmed that the group was indeed reuniting. The band went into studio for much of 2006 and early 2007, and performed its first show in seven years on May 22, 2007, with new members Ginger Reyes (bass) and Jeff Schroeder (guitar) replacing Wretzky and Iha. The new album, titled Zeitgeist, was released in the U.S. on July 10, 2007, and debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts. Corgan and the rest of the Pumpkins toured extensively throughout 2007 and 2008, also releasing the EP American Gothic and the singles "G.L.O.W." and "Superchrist". The band is currently working on new material; however, it will move forward without Chamberlin, who left the band again in March 2009.
[edit] Appearance
Billy Corgan wears a long sleeved gray T-Shirt with a picture of a silver planet on it with black rings, he also wears a long white cross weave skirt, and has a shaved head.
