Smashing Pumpkins singer, songwriter, and guitarist Billy Corgan has taken a shot at lists that rank the greatest guitar players of all time, feeling that he’s either ranked too low or snubbed from the lists altogether.
In an interview with Guitar World, Corgan expressed feeling under appreciated from the publications who compile these lists, guitar lovers, and even Smashing Pumpkins fans. “Most people don’t even recognize my contributions as a guitar player,” Corgan told Guitar World. “They don’t even assume I’m the one playing a lot of the guitar.”
He went on, saying that his guitar skills are worthy of a bit more recognition. “You have these silly lists that come out about the greatest guitar players; I usually don’t even make those lists,” he said. “Or they’ll put me behind somebody who I could play circles around. I don’t mean to denigrate the person in front of me or the people in front of me, but come on, you know? I’m enough of a guitar player to know who’s a great guitar player.”
Corgan also mentioned that his responsibilities as a songwriter and bandleader are overlooked due to his role as frontman. “I’m writing the song, lyrics, melodies, arrangements and playing most of the complicated guitar. And I’m capable of doing a solo on top of that. I think that’s hard for people to process… They don’t want to believe one person can do all those things.”
And lastly, Corgan once again maintained that he is someone who knows great guitar playing when they hear it. “I’ve played on stage with George Lynch and Uli Jon Roth, two of the greatest guitar players in history. I sat for hours across from Eddie Van Halen at 5150 with my jaw open, watching Eddie play, okay? My father was a great guitar player. I’ve got no problem acknowledging some of the greatest guitar players ever,” Corgan said before concluding, “I would never even put myself in their company, [but] there’s a lot of people who pretend to play guitar. I certainly have no problem believing I’m better than a lot of them.”
While Guitar World notes that Corgan did indeed place on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, he notably did not appear on Rolling Stone’s similar list from last year. As for Consequence, we have not yet published a list of the greatest axemen in history… but if and when we do, it’s nice to know Corgan will probably give it a quick scan to see if his name is on it (we did, however, publish our lists of the best bassists and best drummers of all time this year).
Meanwhile, the Smashing Pumpkins just embarked on a November tour of Latin America, while Corgan recently announced a brief December solo tour of Australia. Aghori Mhori Mei, the Smashing Pumpkins’ 13th album, arrived in August.