Billy Corgan and his partner Chloe Mendel hosted a benefit concert on July 27th to support the victims of the July 4th Highland Park mass shooting, and at the event, he performed a new Smashing Pumpkins song called “Photograph” that he said was inspired by the tragedy.
Corgan, a Chicago native, explained that “Photograph” is about finding a picture of himself “standing in the very spot where this horrible thing happened,” and how the most sudden of events can completely change the meaning of the most innocuous of things. “Good things become bad, bad things become good, simple things become complicated,” he said.
“I don’t know if it’s a good song or a bad song, but it certainly expresses the way that I feel,” Corgan added. Listen to “Photograph” here (at around the 97-minute mark).
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Corgan and Mendel’s benefit, dubbed Together and Together Again, was livestreamed online and featured performances from Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, Perry Farrell, and more. The concert ultimately raised over $250,000 through donations and merchandise sales, according to a press release.
All of the money from the event went to the Highland Park Community Foundation’s July 4th Fund, formed after a gunman opened fire at an Independence Day parade, killing seven and injuring dozens more. Merchandise from the event will be on sale until Monday, August 1st, and donations are accepted until then.
Smashing Pumpkins released CYR in 2020, but guitarist Jeff Schroeder said a new album — “that big, epic” one Corgan has been teasing as the follow-up to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and Machina/The Machine of God — isn’t far away. In the meantime, the band is gearing up to hit the road with Jane’s Addiction on the fall “Spirits on Fire Tour.” Tickets to that trek are on sale now, and we concocted our very own dream setlist for the occasion.
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