Wednesday night, The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and his longtime partner, Chloé Mendel, hosted a virtual benefit concert supporting the victims of the July 4 shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, where the couple has long lived. During the show, Corgan debuted a new song that he wrote about the tragedy.
Speaking to the audience ahead of the performance, Corgan shared that he was initially wary of using what happened as inspiration for music.
“It kind of reminds me of when you get your heart broken when you’re young and you write really bad poetry,” Corgan said. “I don’t want to write really bad poetry about something that was very hurtful.”
Later, Corgan found himself working on a new Pumpkins song, which turned into his “reaction … to what happened.”
“I don’t know if it’s a good song or a bad song, but it certainly expresses the way that I feel,” he said.
You can watch Corgan’s rendition of the song via the archived YouTube stream of the concert, starting around the 1:37:00 mark. The show, which raised over $250,000 for the Highland Park Community Foundation’s shooting response fund, also featured performances by Jane’s Addiction‘s Perry Farrell and Bob Moses, among others.
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