Some metalheads may have been a bit befuddled by Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins participating in the Back to the Beginning concert in 2025. After all, he is primarily known for such alt-rock classics as “Disarm,” “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” and “1979.”
But longtime Pumpkin fans know the truth – Corgan is a metalhead at heart, especially as heard on select standouts from the band’s first two classic albums, 1991’s Gish and 1993’s Siamese Dream, and their odds and ends set, 1994’s Pisces Iscariot (just give such tunes as “Siva,” “Geek USA,” and “Pissant” a spin to catch my drift).
My 2026 book, I Am One: The Smashing Pumpkins Story, 1988-1994, focuses on this stellar era of the band. And below are a few bits from the book that most certainly support this claim.
Just a few months before the release of the book, I had the opportunity to ask original Sepultura singer/guitarist Max Cavalera if he agreed or disagreed that Smashing Pumpkins were one of the heaviest alternative bands of the ’90s. “Agreed,” Cavalera said. “They had really cool songs, heavy songs. I enjoyed the shit out of it. That stuff is great. You can jam that now and it sounds amazing.”
“I actually had a chance…we did That Metal Show [which aired on April 4, 2015], and Billy was there. It was cool. Got to hang out a little bit with him and talk a little bit of metal. And we both realized we’re fans of old school heavy metal. So, that was pretty fun – talking about Scorpions and Angel Witch. It was cool that he knew metal. ‘You’re a heavy metal dude? That’s awesome!’”
And while speaking to Rolling Stone back in 1994, Corgan credited Black Sabbath as being one of his earliest musical influences.
“Eight years old, I put on the Black Sabbath record, and my life is forever changed. It sounded so fucking heavy. It rattled the bones. I wanted that feeling. With Bauhaus and the Cure, it was the ability to create a mood and an atmosphere. The air gets heavier. With Jimi Hendrix, it was the ability to translate this other level of guitar. Cheap Trick – it was a vocal influence. Although Tom Petersson once told me that Rick Nielsen called us ‘tuneless and nonmelodic’.”
Another time back around the release of Siamese Dream, Corgan would recall, “The first thing I remember having a real impact on me was Master Of Reality by Black Sabbath, because it sounded so amazing. The voice and the guitars clicked in my head – that was the way music should sound. That was before I knew about the subject matter, ’cause when you’re eight years old that doesn’t matter. I loved Cheap Trick too, as they came from Chicago.”
Also in the book are several exclusive interviews, including one with the head of the Alternative Nation site, Brett Buchanan, in which he theorizes that the reason why Corgan’s vocal approach changed after Siamese Dream was due to the Pumpkins tackling heavier material.
“A big reason his voice changed on Mellon Collie was there was an incorporation of more of a metal sound into that album. More of a live metal performance sound on songs like ‘Bodies’ and ‘An Ode To No One’.”
“Those songs sounded different in both performance and production style than Gish and Siamese Dream. So, Billy had a more raw, screaming delivery on songs like those. But then there were other songs that would have fit in on Siamese Dream, like ‘Muzzle’ – his vocal delivery on that. So, I think it was a change in production style and songwriting on Mellon Collie that led to a change in his singing style.”
So there you have it, proof that alongside a handful of other bands (Soundgarden, Faith No More, Ministry, Helmet, Alice in Chains, etc.), the Smashing Pumpkins were one of the heaviest alt-rock bands during the early to mid ’90s.
I Am One: The Smashing Pumpkins Story, 1988-1994 is available as paperback, hardcover, and Kindle versions.
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