Billy Corgan is one of the most recognizable faces flying the flag for ’90s alternative rock, having even recently made a surprise appearance at Coachella during rising indie-alt star Sombr’s set to bash out a Smashing Pumpkins classic.
However, the artist at the helm of the Pumpkins ship revealed that his inimitable guitar style can be traced back to what he calls a “weird decision” to practice guitar for four hours a day... in the dark.
“I was the type of guy who would have a record on eight hours a day,” he says on the And The Writer Is… podcast. “I was literally that guy.”
Listening to records for hour after hour encouraged Corgan to craft his own music.
“I was like, ‘Okay, if I'm going to do this, I'm really going to do it.’ I made this weird decision that day: I'm going to play four hours a day,” he asserts. “I don't know why I picked four hours a day. I would time myself, and I would get up in the middle of night, play it in the middle of the night, in the dark, no light, and just learn how to play the guitar without seeing it.”
Corgan stayed true to himself and played “four hours a day for four years in a row.” So what happened after the four-year mark? “When I hit the four-year anniversary, I was like, ‘I'm good,’” he replies. “I still practiced, but not like it did.”
Corgan doesn't explicitly explain why he decided to take such an unorthodox approach, but one can only assume it had something to do with discipline and familiarity. If you can find your way around a fretboard in the pitch black in your bedroom, chances are you'd fare quite well on a dark arena stage, too.
Back then, Corgan never thought he’d flourish into a songwriter, preferring to occupy the “gunslinger” role, à la “Malmsteen, Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhodes…” instead. “I thought I was [only] going to be a guitar player,” he divulges.
“By junior, senior year in high school, I start conceptually wrapping my head around the idea of writing songs. I had a metal band. We had no lead singer. So I would write riff-based songs like Iron Maiden.”
In an extensive interview with Guitar World, Corgan recently reflected on a tonal journey four decades in the making, and why he’s the most excited he’s been to make a guitar album in 25 years.
