Yungblud Teams With Smashing Pumpkins on New Version of ‘Zombie’

Yungblud continues to pull in the top talent from the music world as he’s just issued a new darker version of his Grammy-nominated song “Zombie” with an assist from The Smashing Pumpkins.

The pairing is the culmination of a long-running mutual respect between the artists and the exclamation point to an already outstanding track that Yungblud felt was needed.

In Loudwire’s cover story interview, Yungblud shared, “When I was making ‘Zombie,’ I was really channeling Siamese Dream. It was really the sadness and the melancholic emotion mixed with the aggression of Billy‘s fucking guitars … Billy, as a songwriter, was really at the forefront of my inspiration when I was making this album. When ‘Zombie’ came along, I knew I wanted to do a new version of it.”

“I called Billy and I was like, ‘Billy, please help me scratch this itch. I want this record to dig in harder.’ There still needs to be an almost Jekyll and Hyde element, there needs to be the version that’s full of light and full of life and optimism, but then there needs to be this dark version that is pessimistic and a little bit bitter and a bit aggressive.”

Listen to the song directly below.

Yungblud, “Zombie” (With Smashing Pumpkins)

Yungblud — The Cover Story Interview

The Mutual Respect Between Yungblud and Billy Corgan

Even before Yungblud’s big year in 2025, he was already on Billy Corgan‘s radar. During a 2023 interview with Allison Hagendorf, the Smashing Pumpkins frontman commented, “I can tell where he’s going and, if I’m right, we’ll be talking about him for the next 50 years.”

The musicians famously crossed paths again this summer when they both appeared at the Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne concert celebration Back to the Beginning and Yungblud later would guest on Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast.

In a statement about their collaboration, Yungblud shared, “Siamese Dream was an album that was there for me more than I could ever explain when I was growing so to be making music with the band that created it is really quite hard to comprehend. Billy has always been such a massive inspiration to me but more recently a huge mentor of mine. His outlook on the importance of truth in art is something that I’ve always held close to my heart.”

“Yungblud’s star shines bright, so it’s been great fun to lend our zig-zag voice to his ‘Zombie’ which he’s said was inspired by one of our own. Hence the encouragement that we make this rendition as personal as possible and I’m proud to say we’ve done that; if only to honor him in return,” Corgan added.

The Smashing Pumpkins collab is just the latest example of Yungblud’s growing presence in the music world. Last year, he famously covered Black Sabbath’s “Changes” at the Back to the Beginning concert. He would then team with Aerosmith on the One More Time EP and join them onstage in saluting Ozzy at the MTV Video Music Awards ceremony.

Yungblud’s year has also seen him calling upon Steve Martin and country superstar Lainey Wilson in reimagined versions of songs from his collaborative EP with Aerosmith.

The Evolution of “Zombie”

As further proof that a song lives beyond the original recording that lives on a record, Yungblud has now reimagined the song in its third form. The original version, heard below, appeared on his Idols album upon its release and has earned the musician a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song.

Just last month, Yungblud followed with an acoustic version of the song, which can also be heard below.

The song was written by Yungblud about his late grandmother and is one of the most personal tracks he’s penned in his career. The Idols album featuring “Zombie” is currently available.

Yungblud will resume his touring in support of the record on Jan. 10 in Moore Park, Australia. The world tour will continue into the U.K. and Europe and then North America leading into the summer. All tour dates and ticketing info can be found through Yungblud’s website.