Billy Corgan, lead singer of Chicago rock band the Smashing Pumpkins has let Australian TV viewers know what would have happened to Kanye West if the rapper had interrupted an award speech of his.
Referring to West’s recent spoof of his own antics at Taylor Swift’s infamous MTV Video Music Award acceptance, this time feigning to interrupt Beck at this year’s Grammys (and interrupting him in so doing), Corgan told The Morning Show viewers he would have “knocked out” West if he had interrupted his awards show speech.
“I’ve stood at that podium too and I’ll tell you what, if somebody got up on my stage, I would knock them out. I don’t care who it is, I would have knocked him out,” said Corgan, adding: “I think he really believes what he’s saying, I just think that’s the inappropriate venue to do it, because in essence that’s Beck’s moment.”
Corgan made light of any claims that he may have an agenda against the rapper however, saying: “Between Kanye and I, it’d probably be a stand-off but Kim (Kardashian, West’s wife), would probably take me down.”
Corgan, who is currently in Australia performing at the Soundwave music festival, also voiced his concerns on the current state of the music industry. In particular, he described what he considers to be the “scourge” of dance music.
“I know it’s a bit early but to me it’s headed basically towards a form of pornography,” he went on. “You have particularly young women sexualising themselves earlier and earlier in really inappropriate ways to get attention.
“Quite frankly if you look at the history of the music business, the biggest stars are individuals; there’s only one Bob Marley, there’s only one Ozzy Osbourne or Madonna. You can try but you can’t recreate them, so the industry has sort of become more about following rather than leading.”
