Billy Corgan has shared his views on Metallica’s song ‘Fuel’, and said that it is “awfully close” to one of his songs with The Smashing Pumpkins.
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The singer, songwriter and guitarist brought up the comparisons while appearing for an interview on the Everblack podcast. At one point during the discussion, he was asked about the possibility of him performing ‘Tales Of A Scorched Earth’ live for the first time.
While he didn’t explicitly reveal whether or not the band are thinking about embedding it into the setlists any time soon, he did go on to outline one thing he’s noticed about the track.
“ Well, let me caveat this by saying that I love James Hetfield as a person. I love Metallica … James is probably the greatest riff writer outside of maybe [Black Sabbath’s] Tony Iommi,” he began (via Blabbermouth).
“James has written some of the greatest, most amazing riffs, and he’s still writing them. But if you listen to ‘Tales Of A Scorched Earth’ and you listen to that Metallica song, ‘Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.’ … Now, which song came first?”
He continued, outlining that he doesn’t harbour any frustration over the move as he doesn’t think it was done deliberately. “Now, I don’t think James would rip anything off from me, but the first time I heard [‘Fuel’], I was, like, ‘That’s awfully close’… But I love me some James.”
Elsewhere, he also went on to say that the reason why he doesn’t have more of a negative outlook on the two songs having distinct similarities is because he is just as guilty as plagiarism – as are countless other artists due to the limited number of notes on a guitar.
“My father used to say, ‘Look, there’s only 12 notes.’ So, that’s the great thing, we all rip each other off,” he said. “If it works, great. I’ve got no problem with that. I mean, I’ve certainly ripped Metallica off plenty, so…”
The comments on the interview come following Corgan making headlines for recently entering the auction to win Courtney Love‘s handwritten lyrics to the Hole song ‘Violet’, and for admitting in a separate interview that there is a possibility that Bill Burr could be his half-brother.
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