Smashing Pumpkins Pavement Fued: Billy Corgan vs Stephen Malkmus Over Range Life

Smashing Pumpkins Pavement Feud from the 90's between Billy Corgan and Stephen Malkmus.

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Billy Corgan has never shied away from speaking his mind and has been at the heart of a number of feuds, including with artists like Courtney Love, D’arcy Wretzky, Soundgarden and even Smash Mouth. By the way I’ve done a few videos on these feuds, links are down below. But in today’s video we’re going to explore his feud with the indie band Pavement.

The indie rock band never anticipated the reaction they’d get from Corgan when Stephen Malkmus wrote the lyrics to song “Range Life,” where he’d take aim at the Smashing Pumpkins. The song was found on the group’s 1994 album crooked rain crooked rain. The lyrics go as follows”

“Out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins...nature kids, they don't have no function," adding, "I don't understand what they mean / And I could really give a fuck."

It probably didn’t help that Range Life became one of Pavement’s best known songs. The criticism seemed to come out of nowhere, since Pavement had never toured with The Smashing Pumpkins up until this point.

In an interview, Corgan said the lyrics to Range Life were and i quote “rooted in jealousy” going on to say There’s always been flak we’ve gotten from certain bands that somehow we cheated our way to the top. “people don't fall in love to pavement they put on Smashing Pumpkins or hole or Nirvana because these bands actually mean something to them.”

The feud would rage on for more than two decades.

In a 1999 interview with New York Rock magazine, Malcomus said:

“We never [dissed them.] I only laughed about the band name, because it does sound kind of silly … I like their songs – well, most of their songs anyway … I just dissed their status. I never really cared for the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle or being indie.”

In 2007, Malkmus tried to clear the air in a 2007 interview to Oregon live. He said the lyric was actually a tribute to how big The Smashing Pumpkins were at the time, referring to the song like as and i quote “reading the headlines” and calling the lyric “a backhanded compliment.” He would go on to say how The Pumpkins wrote a lot of great songs.

In an interview with Fuse, Corrigan explained why he had a problem with nostalgia acts from the grudge generation:

“It sort of subverts the original meaning of the grunge generation, which was rebellion.We need those artists to take on the social issues. Our generation had a message and this one [is just focused on making money.] So F*** them.”

In that same interview, he also criticized Pavement for going on a greatest hits tour, saying they were cashing in.

He said that artists who only play old material on tour “are dead as artists” and reunion tours are only a problem when “that becomes the whole story.”

This whole idea of not selling out was a big deal for the artists of the grunge area. An article from MTV news explains:

Pavement stayed ultra-indie until the end, while Corgan's Smashing Pumpkins were considered sell-outs because they made big-sounding music that was all over the radio and MTV.

Corgan kept the feud going for years after the original incident. In 2010,
upon learning the pavement would be sharing the same festival bill as the
Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan took toTwitter to say the following:

“Just found out that Smashing Pumpkins is playing with pavement in Brazil it's
going to be one of those New Orleans type funerals. I say that because they represent the death of the alternative dream and we follow with the affirmation of life part.”

In 2010, a Guardian online article called out Corrigan as a hypocrite saying that: “Pavement's reunion gigs are reportedly awesome, while Smashing Pumpkins' new songs are relatively terrible.”

Fast forward 8 years later and Smashing Pumpkins announced a reunion tour with their classic lineup The only problem? Corgan was in a nasty feud with bassist D’Arcy Wretsky at the time, so she would sit out of the reunion

That same year, in an interview with Spin Magazine online, Malkmus compared the situation to Lindsay Buckingham not appearing on the Fleetwod Mac reunion tour saying, saying ticket sales were weak because fans are sick of seeing and i quote “fake reunions, almost-reunions”, referring to Smashing Pumpkins bassist D’Arcy Wretszky’s not being involved in the reunion. He

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