Billy Corgan Rock Quotations

Heavy metal is a universal energy -- it's the sound of a volcano. It's rock, it's earth shattering. Somewhere in our primal being we understand.

The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too.

Every year that goes by, I lose that much more motivation to play rock.

A missive to all you metal bands, the world is totally over the rock thing. Rock is deader than it's ever been.

We can look you in the eye and talk to you about life, heart, love rock'n'roll, whatever, but we do not have the moral authority to tell people how to vote or what to do with their bodies. We are just a rock band.

Well, all rock and roll is based in artifice.

Rock in the mainstream culture has lost a lot of its mojo.

I mean there's certainly a lot of progressive rock and metal that exists at the underground level, which has its own vitality, as it should. But it seems to have lost its ability to really charge up the hill.

If you've sold over a million records, you are not punk rock, you are milking the system for everything that it's worth.

When alternative music - which is supposed to be the standard-bearer of where white rock is headed - becomes either too cute or too manufactured, that's just really not good.

Well, I'm known as a guitar-rock guy, you know? You're not supposed to play with synthesizers. This is not in the rulebook.

I get more out of life just being myself, by just being a human being. Not by being a rock star, not by being whatever. Sometimes I act like a jerk, but I think people respect me for being myself. That's the ultimate thing about the Smashing Pumpkins.

You can only be this high-powered mojo rock band for so long, then you just can't look people in the eye. So, we've projected our own demise.

I think God is the most unexplored territory in rock and roll music.

The great thing about rock n' roll is, if you want to fight - like, fight the system, fight the man, fight the government, fight the people in front of you - it's Don Quixote all over again. You're really chasing windmills.

Most people are living lives of sort of survival. And constantly posing an existential crisis, either through fantasy or oblivion, really has been pretty much explored in rock and roll. At least in the western version of rock n' roll.

I was trying to be this person who is cool, eternally rocking.

Rock & roll is not about what you play, it's about how you play it.

I think rock & roll has prepared me for a lot of flexibility.

Rock and Roll is still asking people like me to live up to the old guard's concept of what success is but it doesn't mean anything.

The mythology in rock n' roll is that I'm a bit of a loose cannon. Yet I've produced more music than anybody in my generation. So how much of a loose cannon am I? But the general public believes that I'm a loose cannon, so let them believe it. I'm not going to correct them.

We had a wonderful time with this kind of grunge awareness, where suddenly rock was cool again. People wanted to head loud guitars. It was a great time, and I'm glad we were there. But the gimmick part has worn off.

That's the great thing about rock n' roll: the myth is ultimately more important than the reality. And that's what you learn - you just learn to go with the mythology.

I've always been spiritual but I've never had a proper context, and it took me awhile to find the proper context. It's hard to realize you can have any kind of relationship with God you want... and so I now have a punk rock relationship with God.

I'm like the Fugitive, running from the one-armed indie-rock community!

Being in a rock band is just an excuse not to get a job

Interviewer: "If you weren't a rock star..." Billy: "I wouldn't be wearing these silver pants.

I think rock & roll has prepared me for a lot of flexibility.

Where is this great love for rock and roll that existed for 50 or 60 years?

I have a saying, which is, 'Crazy is good for business.' I think rock and roll really is about being a bit crazy.