The Smashing Pumpkins frontman says his only meeting with Dolly Parton was brief but meaningful, but he isn’t ready to tell the anecdote
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NEED TO KNOW
- The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan says his only meeting with Dolly Parton was brief but meaningful
- Corgan praised Parton’s humanitarian work, including her efforts to provide books to children
- He says newer pop songwriting trends influenced the band’s upcoming song “Black Stars”
Billy Corgan is keeping his Dolly Parton story close to his vest for now. He’ll tell it later down the road.
The Smashing Pumpkins frontman and the late icon only crossed paths once, but the meeting left a mark.
“So I never had the chance to meet her outside of this one story —which I’m not going to tell — but the reason I’m telling you this is because after her passing, I watched a lot of people on social media … this incredible outpouring of love and respect from every genre in music: metal, country, obviously, pop,” Corgan, 59, told PEOPLE at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas earlier this month.
“And the fact that she was a humanitarian, especially with literacy and hundreds of millions of books shared and all of that, I thought I just don’t want to be another person sort of jumping on this social pile and saying, ‘Hey, it’s my turn to tell my story.’ So I feel like when that’s all calmed down in a very kind of sweet way, I’ll tell that story.”
Like many, Corgan was a fan of Parton and often heard industry chatter about how “amazing” she is. He eventually got his chance to find out for himself.
“I want to tell the story. It’s a very nice story. It’s short, and it’s beautiful,” he said, “but the point is — maybe because I lived in a time before social culture — I understand everybody’s willing to share, and I enjoyed everybody sharing, but my story is so small against these amazing stories that I keep hearing. So I didn’t want to be like, ‘Oh yeah, me too.’”
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Like Parton, who died on Aug. 25 after a “brief battle with cancer,” Corgan is celebrated for his songwriting throughout his career, and he’s reflective on how his process has changed over time.
“Well, when pop became so dominant, I guess in the 21st century, it just seemed like pop was never going to end, and thankfully it’s kind of ending a bit, so we get to have another turn at the wheel, the rock and roll crew,” he said. “What was interesting about pop — and I think it was a response to digital culture — was shorter intros, get right to the vocal, get to the chorus faster.”
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Initially, Corgan found the format “annoying” because it “felt reductionist,” but he eventually changed his tune, believing the pop was an evolution of the big band sound from the jazz era.
“So what I did is I tried to apply some of those principles into my songwriting. We have a new song coming out called ‘Black Stars,’ and literally that ideology is in that song,” he said. “I wouldn’t have written that song that way 30 years ago, so definitely, this generation has influenced me.”
Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins performed over the Sept. 18-19 weekend at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas. This year’s Saturday lineup also featured Benson Boone, Ciara, Lainey Wilson, LE SSERAFIM, Major Lazer, Muse, Snoop Dogg and a performance by Stella Lefty.
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