Billy Corgan

William Patrick "Billy" Corgan Jr. (born March 17, 1967) is an American musician, songwriter, producer, TV writer, and poet, best known as the lead singer, guitarist, and sole permanent member of The Smashing Pumpkins. Formed by Corgan and guitarist James Iha in Chicago, Illinois, in 1987, the band quickly gained steam with the addition of bassist D'arcy Wretzky and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. The band's direction has largely been driven by Corgan through his confessional lyrics, grandiose production values, and virtuosic musical interplay. Three years after their first studio album release, Gish, the Smashing Pumpkins had transformed themselves into a major label success. Strong album sales and large-scale tours propelled the band's increasing fame in the 1990s until their break-up in 2000. Corgan started a new band called Zwan, and after their quick demise, he released a solo album (TheFutureEmbrace) and a collection of poetry (Blinking with Fists) before setting his sights on reforming Smashing Pumpkins.

The Mighty Boosh

The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from three stage shows and a six-episode radio series, it has since spawned a total of 20 television episodes for BBC Three and two live tours of the UK, as well as two live shows in the United States. The troupe is named after a childhood hairstyle of co-star Michael Fielding.

In June 2013, it was confirmed that The Mighty Boosh would reunite for a US festival called Festival Supreme in October 2013.

Various members of The Mighty Boosh have appeared in a number of different comedy series including Nathan Barley, Snuff Box and Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy, and regular Boosh collaborators included Richard Ayoade and Matt Berry.

The Mighty Boosh is a BBC production which aired from 2003 to 2007. The first series is set in a zoo owned by Bob Fossil, the second in a flat and the third in a second hand shop in Dalston called Nabootique. Vince and Howard run the shop and Naboo owns it.

John Mayer

John Clayton Mayer (/ˈmeɪ.ər/; born October 16, 1977) is an American singer-songwriter and producer. He was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and raised in nearby Fairfield. He attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, but disenrolled and moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1997 with Clay Cook. Together, they formed a short-lived, two-man band called Lo-Fi Masters. After their split, Mayer continued to play local clubs—refining his skills and gaining a following. After his appearance at the 2001 South by Southwest Festival, he was signed to Aware Records, and then Columbia Records, which released his first EP, Inside Wants Out. His following two full-length albums—Room for Squares (2001) and Heavier Things (2003)—did well commercially, achieving multi-platinum status. In 2003, he won the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for the single "Your Body Is a Wonderland".

Though Mayer started his career mainly performing acoustic rock, he began moving towards the blues genre that had originally influenced him as a musician. By 2005, he was collaborating with blues artists such as B. B. King, Buddy Guy, and Eric Clapton. Forming the John Mayer Trio, he released a live album in 2005 called Try!, and his third studio album Continuum in 2006. Both albums received wide critical acclaim, and Continuum earned Mayer a 2007 Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album. He also won Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for "Waiting on the World to Change". That album was followed by Battle Studies in 2009, a return to pop, with a number-one grossing tour.

Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author, essayist, orator, religious and literary critic, and journalist. Hitchens later spent much of his career in the United States and became a US citizen in 2007.

He contributed to New Statesman, The Nation, The Atlantic, London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Slate, and Vanity Fair. Hitchens was the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of over 30 books, including five collections of essays, on a range of subjects, including politics, literature, and religion. A staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure. Known for his contrarian stance on a number of issues, Hitchens criticized such public and generally popular figures as Mother Teresa; Bill Clinton; Henry Kissinger; Princess Diana; and Pope Benedict XVI. He was the elder brother of the conservative journalist and author Peter Hitchens.

Trent Reznor

Michael Trent Reznor (born May 17, 1965), known professionally as Trent Reznor, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and film score composer. As a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, he has led the industrial rock project Nine Inch Nails since 1988. His first release as Nine Inch Nails, the 1989 album Pretty Hate Machine, was a commercial and critical success. He has since released eight studio albums. He left Interscope Records in 2007 and was an independent recording artist until signing with Columbia Records in 2012.

Reznor was associated with the bands Option 30, The Urge, The Innocent, and Exotic Birds in the mid-1980s. Outside of Nine Inch Nails, he has contributed to the albums of artists such as Marilyn Manson and Saul Williams. He and his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, are members of the post-industrial group How to Destroy Angels, alongside Reznor's fellow composer Atticus Ross and long-time Nine Inch Nails graphic designer Rob Sheridan.

Reznor and Ross scored the David Fincher films The Social Network (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and Gone Girl (2014), winning the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Social Network and the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In 1997, Reznor appeared in Time's list of the year's most influential people, while Spin magazine has described him as "the most vital artist in music".