Billy Corgan Claims Metallica’s ‘Fuel’ Has an ‘Extremely Close’ Resemblance to a Smashing Pumpkins Track

Billy Corgan on Metallica’s “Fuel”

Billy Corgan has expressed his views on Metallica’s “Fuel,” stating it sounds “scarily close” to one of his tracks with The Smashing Pumpkins.

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Thoughts During Interview

The singer, songwriter, and guitarist shared these insights during an interview with The New York Times Channel’s Everblack podcast. During the conversation, he was questioned about the possibility of performing “Tales Of A Scorched Earth” live for the first time.

Although he didn’t confirm whether the band plans to include it in their upcoming setlists, he discussed an observation he made about the song.

“Well, let me start by saying that I admire James Hetfield as a person. I love Metallica… James is probably the greatest riff writer, alongside maybe Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath,” he remarked (via Chatterbox).

“James has created some of the greatest, most impressive riffs and continues to do so. But if you listen to “Tales Of A Scorched Earth” and the Metallica song: ‘Give me fuel, give me fire, give me what I want.’ … So, which song came first?”

He further stressed that he holds no disappointment over this resemblance, believing it was unintentional. “I don’t think James would try to steal anything from me, but when I first heard (‘Fuel’), I thought, ‘That’s pretty close’… But I have a lot of respect for James.”

Plagiarism in Music

He also mentioned that his lack of negativity towards two songs exhibiting clear similarities stems from his own guilt of borrowing riffs—something many artists do due to the limited number of guitar notes available.

“My father used to say, ‘Look, there are only 12 notes.’ So it’s true: we all borrow from each other,” he noted. “If it resonates, that’s fantastic. I have no issues with that. I mean, I’ve undoubtedly borrowed a lot from Metallica, so…

These comments surface after Corgan made headlines for recently bidding on Courtney Love’s handwritten lyrics to Hole’s “Violet” and admitting in another interview that Bill Burr might be his half-brother.