Billy Corgan's close identification with professional wrestlers may have only recently begun manifesting itself in music videos and reality shows, but for those who have been paying attention over the past couple of decades, Corgan has long conducted himself with the posturing, flexing bravado of your average WWF star. His deeply held grudges against former teammates, his strangely one-sided mocking of rivals, the lobbing of petty insults and threats of violence—almost everything Corgan has said publicly in the past few years has basically made him sound like an alt-rock Randy Savage, and this latest interview with Antiquiet (via NME) is certainly no different.
Lamenting that "the world has never been more dangerous than it is right now, and we have a limp, impotent artistic response to the situation," Corgan sets about elucidating how he's fully erect artistically and should be "celebrated as a radical" whose "fucking voice kills fascists" (with a nod to Woody Guthrie), and why he's tired of people who "pick my personality as if it’s a one or two-dimensional thing, and I’m more like a tetrahedron." By way of illustrating the ways in which he has several different facets, all of which end up, again and again, at the same needling point, Corgan also compares himself to "Weird Al" Yankovic and metaphorically pisses on Radiohead, the latter because of "pomposity" and because Corgan doesn't recognize irony anymore:
I can’t think of any people outside of Weird Al Yankovic who have both embraced and pissed on Rock more than I have. Obviously there’s a level of reverence, but there’s also a level of intelligence to even know what to piss on. ‘Cause I’m not pissing on Rainbow. I’m not pissing on Deep Purple. But I’ll piss on fuckin’ Radiohead, because of all this pomposity. This value system that says Jonny Greenwood is more valuable than Ritchie Blackmore. Not in the world I grew up in, buddy. Not in the world I grew up in.
Continuing to rail against the oppressive system that has long assigned greater value to Jonny Greenwood than Ritchie Blackmore, despite the fact that Billy Corgan grew up in this world, buddy, Corgan also continues to talk to himself by saying, "So I find myself defending things. Is Ritchie Blackmore a better guitar player than me and Jonny Greenwood? Yes. Have we all made contributions? Yes. I’m not attacking that. I’m attacking the pomposity that says this is more valuable than that. I’m sick of that. I’m so fucking sick of it, and nobody seems to tire of it." So hear him now, pompous guitarist-ranking system that apparently exists: The radical Billy Corgan is gonna put the hurt on you.