Billy Corgan thinks a Metallica song sounds ‘awfully close’ to a Smashing Pumpkins song

Give Billy Corgan that which he desires, which is acknowledgement that the Metallica song “Fuel” may be a bit too reminiscent of The Smashing Pumpkins‘ “Tales of a Scorched Earth.”

“Fuel” appeared on Metallica’s 1997 album, Reload, while “Tales of a Scorched Earth” was released two years earlier on the Pumpkins’ 1995 record, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

“If you listen to ‘Tales of a Scorched Earth’ and you listen to [‘Fuel’],” Corgan says on the Everblack Podcast. “I don’t think James [Hetfield] would rip anything off from me, but first time I heard that song, I was like, ‘That’s awfully close!'”

Corgan doesn’t have any hard feelings, though, and says he thinks Hetfield is “probably the greatest riff writer outside of maybe [Black Sabbath‘s] Tony Iommi.”

“James has written some of the greatest, most amazing riffs, and he’s still writing them,” Corgan says.