Billy Corgan

On the Smashing Pumpkins' new concept album, letting go of old grievances, and seeing the bright side of life

- ANDY GREENE

Few Smashing Pumpkins fans realized it at the time, but the group’s 1995 double LP, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, was the start of a loose storyline about a character known as Zero, who was reborn as Glass on 2000’s Machina/The Machines of God. Two decades later, Billy Corgan is revisiting the whole saga on the triple album Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts, where the central figure — now known as Shiny — has been exiled in space. “For a while I thought this new album was never going to happen because the band’s enthusiasm was suspect,” Corgan says. “But the pandemic was a watershed moment for me. I thought, ‘What’s happening in the world, I have no control over. At least I control the world of Shiny and his friends.’ ”

You’re trusting your fans to follow a pretty complex story with this album. Did you worry many of them wouldn’t be able to do it?

It’s actually hard-baked in there that most people won’t follow the story. It doesn’t really bother me, because it’s the same way for Mellon Collie and Machina. Most people don’t know what the records are really about. They’re focused on their favorite drum solo or whatever. It’s fine.

They can follow the story in a lot more detail on your new podcast.

I had a lot of people tell me that no one would listen. Well, that’s fine, too.… If you went back in a time machine to me 30 years ago, I would be plagued by the idea that not every person was paying attention. Now, I’m almost pleasantly surprised that people pay attention. That’s the icing on the cake.