Billy Corgan

Born in Chicago in 1967, Billy Corgan established himself in the late 1980s as the principal songwriter, guitarist and singer of the Smashing Pumpkins, which he co-founded with James Iha before D’arcy Wretzky and Jimmy Chamberlin joined. His writing blends alternative rock, hard rock, grunge and psychedelia, with a marked taste for contrasts between thick guitars, more fragile melodies and dark atmospheres. Within the Smashing Pumpkins, Corgan shaped the identity of records such as Gish (1991), Siamese Dream (1993), Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995), Adore (1998) and Machina/The Machines of God (2000), holding a central role in composition and artistic direction. After the band's split in 2000, he launched Zwan with Jimmy Chamberlin; their sole album Mary Star of the Sea was released in 2003. He also published the collection Blinking with Fists in 2004 and his first solo album, TheFutureEmbrace, in 2005, which has a more electronic and shoegaze-tinged sound. The Smashing Pumpkins were revived from 2007 in shifting lineups, while Corgan pursued more personal work in parallel with Ogilala (2017) and Cotillions (2019), two albums featuring pared-down writing between folk, acoustic and introspective rock. He has also collaborated with Hole, New Order and Marianne Faithfull.