It appears that Billy Corgan has reverted back to using his most well-known moniker.
In October, the Smashing Pumpkins frontman released a new solo album, ‘Ogilala’, under his full birth name William Patrick Corgan.
Corgan first expressed his desire to no longer be called “Billy” back in 2015, telling a crowd singing him happy birthday at a show in Peru: “My name is not Billy. My name is William.”
Then this September, Corgan explained to Rolling Stone why he wasn’t released music as Billy Corgan any longer, saying: “At some point, ‘Billy’ just gets kind of weird. I was obviously Billy in the band, but now I feel like that is somebody else. It’s hard to explain other than it’s like sometimes you just want to change up the wallpaper.”
He later told CBS’ This Morning: “Once I saw that it irritated people then I thought, ‘OK, I’m definitely going to do this.’”
Now listings of ‘Ogilala’ on various platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music and iTunes are all credited to Billy Corgan instead of William Patrick Corgan. Also Corgan’s Vevo account has changed its name from WilliamPCorganVEVO to BillyCorganVEVO.
The record even has new artwork that no longer features the initials, WPC. However, Corgan’s Facebook page remains under the name William Patrick.
At the time of publishing, Corgan hasn’t yet responded to the name change.
Meanwhile, Billy Corgan recently called Chad Kroeger an “incredible songwriter” and compared Nickelback to porn.