Smashing Pumpkins Quotes

• The ideology of the Smashing Pumpkins was ultimately more valuable than the music of the Smashing Pumpkins. That's what critics can't put their finger on.

  Billy Corgan

  Pumpkin, Smashing, Fingers

  53 Copy quote

• I never wanted to leave the Smashing Pumpkins. That was never the plan.

  Billy Corgan

  Pumpkin, Smashing, Plans

  52 Copy quote

• 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.

  Billy Corgan

  Stars, Thinking, Rocks

  Dirt Magazine, 1992.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in the cage.

  Billy Corgan

  Rats, Cages, Rage

  7 Copy quote

• When I had a job catering, I catered a wedding for the Smashing Pumpkins bassist in Indiana. And I served Billy Corgan shrimp off a tray.

  Amy Poehler

  Wedding, Jobs, Shrimp

  "Amy Poehler: Playing Politics, But Only On Television". NPR Interview, www.npr.org. October 20, 2011.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Smashing Pumpkins was never meant to be a small band. It was going to either be a big band, or a no band.

  Billy Corgan

  Band, Pumpkin, Bigs

  "Smashing Pumpkins: Fully Illustrated Book & Interview Disc". Book by Jim Stapleton, 1996.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Smashing Pumpkins has never been a band about hit songs.

  Billy Corgan

  Song, Band, Pumpkin

  5 Copy quote

• When I lived in New York, there wasn't as much TV or film around. I got asked to do a couple of indie films, just based on me being from The Smashing Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle. I did a couple of indie movies from Japan and one from Canada, and I thought it was an exciting, fun thing to do. I had a great time doing it, it was just that, in New York, there really wasn't as much. My studio in New York closed, so I moved out to L.A. and just started looking into composing as another thing to do, as a musician. I like it a lot. It's fun and it's a different way of thinking about music.

  James Iha

  New York, Couple, Fun

  "James Iha on Scoring James Franco’s ‘Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?’". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 17, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was never able to get through Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. I've never been able to make it through. And I love the Smashing Pumpkins, they're one of my favorite bands ever, but I've never been able to listen to the whole thing all the way through.

  John Wozniak

  Love, Sadness, Band

  4 Copy quote

• Asleep by the Smiths Vapour Trail by Ride Scarborough Fair by Simon & Garfunkel A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum Dear Prudence by the Beatles Gypsy by Suzanne Vega Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues Daydream by Smashing Pumpkins Dusk by Genesis (before Phil Collins was even in the band!) MLK by U2 Blackbird by the Beatles Landslide by Fleetwood Mac Asleep by the Smiths (again!) -Charlie's mixtape

  Stephen Chbosky

  Night, Vegas, White

  Stephen Chbosky (2012). “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, p.55, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• My father played guitar, so I always wanted to play for that reason. But I think the biggest reason was just the '90s in general - growing up listening to the Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day and bands like that, and going to concerts and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world.

  Jack Antonoff

  Growing Up, Father, Thinking

  10 Copy quote

• I grew up in the '80s and '90s listening to Public Enemy and Mobb Deep and the Smashing Pumpkins. I don't even know what it was like in the '60s - I wasn't alive then - so the Mayer Hawthorne sound is taking what I can learn from the classics, and blending it with my hip-hop DJ and producer background and punk-rock bands that I played in as a kid.

  Mayer Hawthorne

  Kids, Rocks, 80s And 90s

  4 Copy quote

• The first real concert, other than going with my dad to see Three Dog Night, was Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage. I was fourteen or fifteen. I liked Shirley Manson because she reminded me of Annie Lennox. They both have these deep, sexy, powerful alto voices.

  Amy Lee

  Sexy, Dog, Powerful

  7 Copy quote

• I idolised bands like Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins, who wanted to reach as many people as they could.

  Nate Ruess

  People, Jam, Band

  6 Copy quote