Yungblud Announces Darker ‘Zombie’ Collaboration With Smashing Pumpkins: Here’s When It Arrives
The song and accompanying music video will drop Jan. 2.
1/1/2026
The song and accompanying music video will drop Jan. 2.
YUNGBLUD performs onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards 2025 held at UBS Arena on September 07, 2025 in New York, New York. Christopher Polk
Yungblud is teaming up with the Smashing Pumpkins for a darker reimagining of his song “Zombie.”
On Thursday (Jan. 1), the 28-year-old British singer announced that the collaboration and its accompanying music video will drop on Friday (Jan. 2).
“Zombie with The Smashing Pumpkins out worldwide midnight,” Yungblud captioned an Instagram photo of himself alongside Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan. “Music video out tomorrow. Happy new year.”
The post includes black-and-white photos of Yungblud (real name: Dominic Harrison) with the other Pumpkins members, as well as a snapshot of him rocking out with Corgan — likely a still from the forthcoming music video. Yungblud also teased a snippet of the collaboration on his Instagram Stories.
“Zombie,” which is nominated for best rock song at the 2026 Grammy Awards, appears on Yungblud’s fourth studio album, Idols, also nominated for best rock album.
Yungblud shared the story behind the collaboration in an interview with Loudwire.
“When I was making ‘Zombie,’ I was really channeling Siamese Dream,” he told the publication. “It was really the sadness and the melancholic emotion mixed with the aggression of Billy’s f—king guitars … Billy, as a songwriter, was really at the forefront of my inspiration when I was making this album. When ‘Zombie’ came along, I knew I wanted to do a new version if it.”
The rocker explained that the original version of “Zombie” was heavier, but he adjusted it because he worried it might sound too much like the Pumpkins. While he’s happy with the album version, he always imagined another take.
“I called Billy and I was like, ‘Billy, please help me scratch this itch. I want this record to dig in harder,'” Yungblud said. “There still needs to be an almost Jekyll and Hyde element, there needs to be the version that’s full of light and full of life and optimism, but then there needs to be this dark version that is pessimistic and a little bit bitter and a bit aggressive.”
Within 10 days of the conversation, Yungblud flew to Chicago, the Pumpkins’ hometown, to record the song and its music video.
This isn’t Yungblud’s first collaboration with a famous rock band. In September, he released “My Only Angel” with Aerosmith, which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Hard Rock Songs chart. The track was part of a five-song collaborative EP, One More Time, released in late November.
Yungblud released Idols in June, which topped the U.K. Albums Chart and reached No. 15 on Billboard’s Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart.
Check out Yungblud’s Instagram post about the collaboration here.
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