Billy Corgan is working tirelessly to balance the Smashing Pumpkins’ commitments and his new role with wrestling promotion TNA.
Since taking the job, Corgan says he’s been pulling double shifts as he rehearses with the Pumpkins ahead of their joint End Times Tour with Marilyn Manson, which starts on July 7.
He tells Rolling Stone: “I’m basically working two full-time jobs, and it’s really hard to balance, because obviously my day job in the Pumpkins is pretty intense. For TNA, at 8am I’m writing emails and at midnight I’m writing emails – I’m filling in every hour I’m not working on music with my wrestling job.”
Corgan adds his biggest job with TNA will be to change the public perception of wrestling.
He says: “As I’ve learned in my music career, there is change in the real sense of the word, and there is change symbolically, and often symbolic change is more valuable than real change. When they go together, then you have everything.
“That’s very much what needs to happen because wrestling doesn’t always get its due in American culture, even though it’s been on television for 70 continuous years. It’s a big, big business and you have incredible athletes – even people who have played in the NFL.
“There’s a real celebration of something there that needs to be mainstream in American culture.”
Smashing Pumpkins released their latest album Monuments To An Elegy in December.
