Smashing Pumpkins founder and frontman Billy Corgan says that his iconic band no longer has a fanbase.
“Honestly I think the fanbase is gone,” Corgan told the Wall Street Journal. “I know it’s a prickly way to put it, but I don’t think there are fans anymore”.
Corgan described his definition of a fan to WSJ’s John Jurgensen saying, “I would define a fan as someone who explores the depth of the artist’s work, and allows the artist to show you something. It’s not up to the artist to walk you by the hand. I don’t think there are that many of those people who exist. I’d say they’re in the low thousands”.
Corgan says Smashing Pumpkins are a misunderstood entity today. “For whatever reason–cultural shifts or my own need to shift my public personalities–I have not gotten the cultural review worthy of my position,” he told Jurgenson.
However he does see himself as someone who survived in the business. “When you look at my generation, I come out on the leaner side of the conversation about people who actually survived, and prospered and continued on. My position as an artist has basically not changed in a world where even Pavement started doing reunion tours. All the people who walked around puffing out their chests about the word integrity? A lot of those people are long f—-ng gone”.
Smashing Pumpkins released their new album ‘Monuments to an Elegy’ on Cooking Vinyl this week.
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