Recently, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan’s considerable music legacy has become somewhat overshadows by his tendency to be… well, kind of a querulous ninny. The Pumpkins leader just seems to be kind of ticked off by just about everything around him, and he’s letting people know about it.
Whether you hate or love his outspoken nature, you’ll certainly have an opinion of it after having a listen to Corgan’s recent appearance on Triple J. During the interview with Breakfast hosts Matt and Alex yesterday morning, Corgan, who’s in town to play Soundwave 2015, turned his critical gaze to one of Australia’s most-loved cities.
Following Soundwave promoter AJ Maddah’s announcement that this year would be the last time the festival hits the South Australian capital due to what he described as “pathetic” attendance figures, Corgan weighed in on what he saw as a “lack of enthusiasm” for the event in Adelaide.
“I can’t always speak to Australian culture,” Corgan began. “It did remind me, in America we have a thing called the Rust Belt, which is where all the factories and all the manufacturing used to be, between New York and Chicago, which is where I’m from.”
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“And with America losing a lot of those jobs, those cities have downturned a lot, economically. We don’t necessarily go [on tour] through those cities as much as we used to because the money’s not there and thereby the audience isn’t there,” the frontman continued.
“Australia seems to be doing pretty well with the mining and all that, so I don’t necessarily think it’s an economic thing – I can’t really speak to it – but it didn’t seem like there was a lot of enthusiasm in the city for the festival, which is a bit strange.”
Why a bit strange? Well, Corgan doesn’t really think much of the town that The Australian described as the country’s “premier festival city”. “No disrespect to Adelaide,” Corgan clarified, “but people don’t think Adelaide is a cultural centre much like they don’t think of the city I’m from, Chicago, as a cultural centre.”
“So when you don’t see that kind of enthusiasm from the people in the city towards a festival coming in; well, the artists of course and, by extension the promoter, can only help but think there’s not a real thirst for it.”
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Okay, so maybe Corgan isn’t entirely aware that Adelaide is in fact a buzzing cultural hub packed with music activity, but Chicago isn’t a “cultural centre”? Really, Billy Corgan? Muddy Waters? Sam Cooke? Kanye West? The birthplace of house music isn’t a cultural centre?
Regardless, Corgan admitted that the lacklustre turnout at Soundwave Adelaide could just be symptomatic of a general lack of enthusiasm for rock music, which he reckons is losing ground to EDM as the primary musical interest of the younger generation.
“Rock’s at its best when it’s pushing new ground and so what that tells me as an artist and as an observer is rock needs to go back to a dangerous place to get the kids excited,” Corgan said. “When you talk to most young people, when they talk from a place of excitement, they’re talking about EDM shows they saw.”
“Maybe it’s easy to just blame the people of Adelaide for not showing up to, say, the Soundwave festival like the promoter would have liked, but at the end of the day, maybe it’s down to the bands not providing the kind of music and entertainment and cutting edge culture that gets kids out in droves.”
