Billy Corgan could easily be cashing checks by replaying 1990s hits of the Smashing Pumpkins, whose brooding rock spoke to a subset of youth in the know. But even at the height of his fame, Corgan was thinking bigger.
Now 47, Corgan has grown into an indie rock renaissance man, pursuing interests as diverse as Eastern spirituality and professional wrestling while refusing to resign himself to being a musical nostalgia act.
On the Smashing Pumpkins’ new album Monuments to an Elegy, Corgan — the band’s frontman, songwriter and sole consistent member — is once again in epic mode.
He has described Monuments to an Elegy, which came out on Tuesday in the United States, as the latest instalment of Teargarden by Kaleidyscope — a larger, concept album of songs inspired by a deck of Tarot cards. Another record is slated for 2015.
Despite clocking in at little more than half an hour, Monuments to an Elegy sprawls widely in style, consistent with Corgan’s passion for juxtaposing electronic and guitar elements as witnessed on the Smashing Pumpkins’ chart-topping 1995 double album, Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness.
From electronica to hard rock
Monuments to an Elegy starts with echoes of the 1990s Pumpkins. The first track, Tiberius, opens with a gentle keyboard before being overpowered by a guitar that could have come from the band’s hard-charging first two albums, Gish and Siamese Dream.
Being Beige, the album’s first single, similarly works its way from a mournful acoustic guitar to a harder sound as Corgan — no stranger to romantic woe — sings in his distinctively plaintive voice, “I don’t love you, for what it’s worth / So if you’re leaving, can ou hurt?”
Later, on tracks Run2me and Dorian, the album takes a significant detour into dark electronica that brings to mind New Order or even at times Robyn.
Monuments to an Elegy swings by the end to a classic hard rock sound on Anti-Hero, showcasing the album’s surprise choice of drummer — Tommy Lee of Motley Crue.
Asked what it was like to work with the notoriously rowdy heavy metal star and ex-husband of model Pamela Anderson, Corgan told a fan Q&A video that Lee was a “great drummer” and that there was “nothing like sitting around the pool and hearing about things that you can’t believe even happened or were physically possible with another human.”
Corgan hinted that the follow-up album to be released next year, Day for Night, would keep the heavier sound. A prolific blogger, Corgan wrote that recording the album was going slowly but that he decided, “We need more guitars and less everything else.”
Experimental projects
On a small tour to promote Monuments to an Elegy, the Smashing Pumpkins have made a concession by playing some of their most recognisable hits including Disarm,” Corgan’s account of his difficult childhood.
But Corgan — who has repeatedly insisted that he wants to move forward artistically — has also devoted energies to much more experimental endeavors.
Earlier this year, Corgan created an eight-hour ambient interpretation of Siddhartha, Herman Hesse’s 1922 novel inspired by the Buddha. Corgan performed the work for free at the vegan teahouse he founded in the suburbs of his native Chicago.
And on Saturday, a Chicago-area theater premiered Corgan’s short musical Pretty Persephone about the Eleusinian Mysteries, the secretive sacred rites of ancient Greece.
Corgan said that he has turned down offers to work on a larger musical. He said that his projects were designed to be fun and reach a select crowd, whereas Monuments to an Elegy was meant for a broader audience.
Corgan also founded a professional wrestling company that has staged bouts around Chicago, although he recently ended involvement.
Corgan, who returned to Chicago in 2003 from Los Angeles, said he did not want to “play along with the system” of the music industry. Corgan has also become increasingly outspoken in his political views, accusing the government and media of stifling free information.
In one of a series of televised interviews with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Corgan said that he had gradually found a way to keep his integrity in music.
“For years, I had thought of retiring because I thought I just can’t live in this slimy, dirty business,” he said.
