Billy Corgan’s Ex-Bandmate Pajo: Billy and Trump Share “Ego,” “Bully Mentality”
David Pajo was once bandmates with Billy Corgan in the supergroup Zwan. (Pajo is also a member of Slint, has worked with Interpol, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and released many albums as a solo artist.) In a new interview with the Kreative Kontrol podcast, Pajo, who has previously expounded on the comical frustrations of working with Corgan, compares the Smashing Pumpkins frontman to Donald Trump, due to Corgan’s “millions of dollars,” “ego,” and “bully mentality.” He also said that Corgan “can very convincingly front that he’s a sensitive liberal person, but maybe now that Trump’s made it OK to not act like that, for people like him, he’s gonna start shouting that.” (Last year, Corgan appeared on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ radio show to complain about “social justice warriors” and “socialists.”)
Below, check out some quotes from the episode, in which Pajo also talks about Corgan dissing the White Stripes and the possibility of Slint recording together again. And listen to the full episode as well.
When the campaign was happening, I was like, ‘Wow, Trump is so much like Corgan. I’m sure Billy loves this guy. I know he’s a Trump supporter. He has to be. He’s got millions of dollars. He’s got that ego. He loves the bully mentality.’ I don’t keep up with him, and I don’t wanna talk bad about him. But I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he was a Trump supporter. In fact, I’d be more surprised if he wasn’t. …
When Smashing Pumpkins’ last one or two records didn’t sell that well, Billy went on this rant about how he was disappointed in his fans for not understanding the record and not buying it. That’s such a weird thing to me [laughs]. To scold your fans for not buying your record. But that is the way he thinks. And when bands like the White Stripes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Interpol were starting up in the New York scene, he would say stuff to me, like, to him they were all just little bands. He was like, the biggest White Stripes sold this much; my records have totally slaughtered them! …
It’s probably really weird for a lot of people. [Corgan] can very convincingly front that he’s a sensitive liberal person, but maybe now that Trump’s made it OK to not act like that, for people like him, he’s gonna start shouting that.
On the prospect of new Slint music, Pajo added:
I think we enhance each other’s good sides. But just because people live in different parts of the country now, and everybody has their own lives and kids, if we were to write something together, it wouldn’t be loose like it was when we were younger. We’d have to be organized and rent a practice space. I think everybody would be into working together but maybe the personalities involved are too difficult.
Revisit Pitchfork’s 2014 interview with Slint.
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