Billy Corgan on John Mayer: "He's Trying to Destroy His Career"

After reading John Mayer's controversial recent interviews, Billy Corgan is convinced Mayer is trying to self-destruct. "He's trying to destroy his career," Corgan told Rolling Stone's Brian Hiatt in an interview outtake from RS' revealing new Corgan feature in the new issue, on sale now. "Rather than take a year off or change his musical direction... some part of it is irritating his soul to the point where he's trying to blow it up. Certainly a talented guy, but empathetically, standing on the sidelines, it's hard to watch someone literally burn their career to the ground — speaking as somebody who's done it."

Corgan also responded to Mayer's comments on their mutual friend Jessica Simpson ("sexual napalm," Mayer called her). "As far as it pertains to her. I think for any person who has celebrity to sort of drop rocks at somebody else's feet like that — there's things you should really just keep your mouths shut on. There's things that should just be left alone."

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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