Billy Corgan Extorted over new Smashing Pumpkins album

The band released the rock opera album ATUM on Friday, but months before that paid a hacker to not leak it

This past Friday, The Smashing Pumpkins released their 33-track rock opera, ATUM. However, in a recent interview vocalist Billy Corgan said six months before the album’s release, he was forced to pay off a hacker threatening to leak tracks from the new album. The FBI also got involved and prevented the leak before it could happen.

Corgan also said that other bands’ works were hacked by the same person, and he was shocked at the material they posessed. “The stuff from other artists was ‘shocking’ and included ‘classic stuff from bands of the past probably doing reissues”.