The Smashing Pumpkins

Billy Corgan Collapses During Smashing Pumpkins Concert

23 Jul 2010 13:20:25 EDT

'That wasn't a stage move or clumsiness— that was me blacking out,' Corgan tweeted after Tampa, Florida, show.
By James Montgomery

If Billy Corgan falls on a stage in South Florida, and no one notices, does he make a sound?

It's an existential question, to be sure, but a valid one. Especially after what took place during a Smashing Pumpkins' concert on Wednesday (July 21) night in Tampa, Florida, when Corgan collapsed on stage while performing "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" and seemingly no one — at least not anyone reviewing the show — seemed to notice.

In fact, it wasn't until the following morning, when Corgan took to his Twitter account to address the incident, that anyone began reporting on his spill, which he attributed to "blacking out."

"Thanks a million to the fans in Tampa last night for a tremendous show! We can't tell you how much we appreciate you today," he wrote. "And for those that saw me fall last night during 'Bullet,' that wasn't a stage move or clumsiness — that was me blacking out and wiping out.

"I have no memory of falling against the drum riser and my guitar cabinet," Corgan continued. "But I can tell you I've got quite a good bruise and am moving slow."

In YouTube footage posted after the show, Corgan can be seen leading the sold-out crowd in a sing-along of the iconic "Bullet" chorus. Then, after taking a step back from his mic stand, the SP frontman collapses on the floor. Most in the audience didn't notice the spill, and he was back on his feet within seconds.

Aside from some bruising, Corgan appeared to have suffered no other injuries after the collapse, as he spent the rest of Thursday taking meetings with folks at TNA Wrestling in Nashville .

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Jessica Simpson Says She's Not 'Wild' Enough To Join Smashing Pumpkins

18 Mar 2010 06:52:00 EDT

'I don't know that I can stand onstage and represent Billy the way he is,' singer says.
By Jocelyn Vena

Jessica Simpson recently worked with Billy Corgan on her new song "Who We Are" — so is there any chance that Simpson could become a member of Corgan's band the Smashing Pumpkins in the future?

"I don't know that I would be a good addition to the Smashing Pumpkins," she joked. "You gotta be a little bit more wild and crazy."

She admitted that perhaps her image isn't a right fit for Corgan and his group. "I mean, I have some crazy moments in my life or things about me, but I don't know that I can stand onstage and represent Billy the way he is," she added. "He does that fine on his own."

Despite their differences, Simpson regards Corgan as a "dear friend" and shared that he was a great help to her when she recorded her latest track. "I asked him to help out with arranging the song," she explained. "And he had some ideas to change it up a bit musically and some really cool arrangements and some great guitar things."

Simpson said that working with Corgan really taught her a lot. "To be able to sit with Billy [is a learning experience], and I always feel comfortable with him 'cause he is a close friend of mine," she said. "And I know he had my best interest at heart and it was great to be able to collaborate with him and to have him there in the studio."

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Jessica Simpson On Working With 'Dear Friend' Billy Corgan

17 Mar 2010 14:42:00 EDT

'It was great to be able to collaborate with him,' she says of Smashing Pumpkins frontman.
By Jocelyn Vena

Jessica Simpson worked with a seemingly unlikely collaborator on her new track "Who We Are," the theme to her new docu-series, "The Price of Beauty": Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan.

"Billy is a dear friend of mine and I asked him to help out with arranging the song," she told MTV News. "And he had some ideas to change it up a bit musically and some really cool arrangements and some great guitar things."

Simpson explained that working with Corgan, who came to the singer's defense after John Mayer made explicit comments about her in a recent Playboy interview, really taught her a lot. "To be able to sit with Billy [is a learning experience], and I always feel comfortable with him 'cause he is a close friend of mine," she said. "And I know he had my best interest at heart and it was great to be able to collaborate with him and to have him there in the studio."

The song embraces the show's theme about loving the person you are. "I ended up writing the song with some friends and it was about all these places that I'd gone to and the experience that I had," she said. "It's about the beauty of who we are and embracing that and knowing that we are all authentic — that every single person is different," she added. "But they all have something different about themselves that they need to discover."

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Billy Corgan Discusses His 'Love' For Jessica Simpson, Smashing Pumpkins Breakup

05 Mar 2010 12:54:00 EST

'I think if people knew her like I knew her, they would love her like I do,' Corgan tells Rolling Stone.
By Jocelyn Vena

While Billy Corgan was mum about his relationship with pop star Jessica Simpson when he spoke to The Chicago Tribune last month, the Smashing Pumpkins frontman was a bit more forthcoming to Rolling Stone about Simpson, who recently appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and discussed ex-boyfriend John Mayer's controversial comments about her in Playboy.

"If I go, 'Oh, we're just friends,' then it's like, 'Did they go out, did he dump her or she dump him, what happened?' It has nothing to do with any of that. Sometimes people just like being around each other, and good things come out of that," he told the magazine. "My goal in life is to love whoever I think is worth loving, and I think if people knew her like I knew her, they would love her like I do. It's really simple."

He had harsher words for his former bandmates in the Smashing Pumpkins. "Rather than break up the band, what I should have done is chuck James [Iha] out," Corgan explained. "I should have just said to Jimmy [Chamberlin], 'You go to rehab, and we'll continue, and James, get the f--- out of here.' Instead, I fell on my sword for James, for what I thought was a friend."

He also opened up about his career now and his ongoing work on the Pumpkins' Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, a planned 44-track collection he's gradually releasing over the course of three years via free download from his Web site.

"There's a lot of days where you feel forgotten," he said. "Do I belong in the conversation about the best artists in the world? My answer is yes, I do. I've been too productive for too long, and despite what anybody wants to strip away from me, I am influential. I am. So all the Pitchforks in the world [referring to the popular indie-rock Web site] can try to strip me of every ounce of dignity, but I belong."

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Billy Corgan Explains Relationship With Jessica Simpson

22 Feb 2010 10:05:00 EST

Smashing Pumpkins frontman doesn't say whether he's dating Simpson, but they collaborated on TV-show theme song.
By Jocelyn Vena

Recently, tabloids and gossip blogs have been speculating on whether Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and pop star Jessica Simpson are an item. The two were spotted leaving a hotel together in December, and last month Simpson tweeted a photo of the pair working together in the studio.

On Thursday, Corgan opened up to The Chicago Tribune about the reason behind the pairing: Simpson apparently wanted the alt-rock titan to help her write the theme song for "The Price of Beauty," her forthcoming VH1 show about cultural ideas of attractiveness.

"She asked me to help her out on the theme song for her new TV show," Corgan said. "[The show] has an interesting concept. She goes around the world to show how different people perceive beauty. In some cultures, bigger is better. In some, smaller is better. It's interesting."

Simpson has dabbled in both the pop and country worlds musically, but it seems that Corgan has been helping her explore her inner rock god. "I ended up writing part of [the theme song]," he told the paper. "It has a little bit of an alternative-rock edge, but it's still very poppy."

While Corgan was clear about his musical collaborations with Simpson, he was vague about his possible romantic involvement with the pop singer. But he was forthcoming on what it was like to be a focus point of tabloid culture: "The stuff that I've seen doesn't have any bearing to the reality that I'm in," he said. "It's like being in a cartoon. It has nothing to do with what's really going on or how I feel."

Corgan is currently working on the Pumpkins' Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, a planned 44-track collection he's gradually releasing over the course of three years via free download from his Web site.

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Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan Calls 'Song For A Son' A 'Folk Song'

11 Dec 2009 14:33:00 EST

Frontman explains how his new track's complexity leaves it open 'to a lot of interpretation.'
By Kyle Anderson

Anybody who saw one of the Smashing Pumpkins' 20th-anniversary concerts last year would have already been familiar with the new tune "A Song for a Son." Everyone else got to hear the song this week, when Billy Corgan released it as part of his ambitious new project Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, an album that will consist of 44 tracks released at regular intervals over the next three years, all of which will be available to download for free.

The studio version is a dramatic departure from the song everybody heard in concert. "The live version was a real meat-and-potatoes version," Corgan told MTV News, expressing his frustration with it. "It sounded like a bar band playing it. I was sort of unhappy with it because I knew there was more there."

Corgan describes "A Song for a Son" as "a folk song." "A lot of the songs I write have a lot of chord changes, which opens them up to a lot of interpretation," he said, explaining how the tune's basic structure forced him to explore and expand. "Whenever you do a song like that, a Bob Dylan type of song, you have to keep it interesting. And my harmonica playing isn't very good," he added, which is why there are two huge guitar solos and a handful of dynamic shifts.

Though there is no word on when the next song from Teargarden by Kaleidyscope will appear, you can follow his progress in the studio at the blog he has set up (which also explores some Smashing Pumpkins history).

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Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan Explains Why He's Giving Away New LP For Free

07 Dec 2009 16:27:00 EST

'Song for a Son,' first song from Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, is streaming free now.
By Kyle Anderson

Billy Corgan has never been a guy who has followed trends. When everybody was making grunge, he made an intricate, heavily produced album (Siamese Dream). While most musicians were toying with the third wave of punk, he wrote a sprawling double-disc concept album (Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness). And when people demanded an album that sounded like Smashing Pumpkins, he made one that reminded many of Depeche Mode (Adore).

That may be why in an era when everybody is trying to figure out how to sell music (variable pricing, tiered pricing, deluxe editions, et cetera), Corgan has decided to give away three years' worth of work for free. On Monday (December 7), he unveiled the first song from the 44-track opus he's calling Teargarden by Kaleidyscope. The tune is called "Song for a Son," and it's currently streaming at Spinner.com (and will soon be available on the Smashing Pumpkins' official Web site).

The six-minute tune first made an appearance on the Smashing Pumpkins' anniversary tour in 2008, but the final version is dramatically different from its live incarnation. "[The tour version] sounded like a very straight-ahead version of it," Corgan told MTV News on Friday. "It was like a bar band playing it." The new version has several different movements and at least two huge guitar solos. "I got back into the guitar after playing a few shows with Dave Navarro," he said. "I can't beat [his] abs, so the only way I can compete is with guitar solos."

Teargarden by Kaleidyscope will be unveiled four songs at a time in a series of 11 EPs, all of which will be available for a free download. When the project is completed, Corgan (the remaining original member of the Smashing Pumpkins) will sell the 11 discs as a collector's item.

But why would a band whose previous album (2007's Zeitgeist) went gold decide to give away so much product for free? It's something that Corgan has thought about a lot.

"The simplest thing was: Let's just take away the money part of it," he said. "What I like about it is, it takes away the passive-aggressive situation of asking somebody to buy something. I've never liked being a pitchman. I have to create the quality, and I have to assume that the quality will create the interest, and the interest will come back to me somehow."

Corgan expects the entire Teargarden by Kaleidyscope project to take three years, and he intends on seeing it through to the end. And he's not concerned about the possible consequences. "If it doesn't work, at least I don't have to be a pitchman," he said. "I can just be me."

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Vuelven los Smashing Pumpkins con disco gratuito

17 Sep 2009 17:03:00 EDT

"Estoy feliz de anunciar finalmente los planes para el próximo álbum de Smashing Pumpkins". Con estas palabras, el carismático Billy Corgan dio a conocer la sorpresiva estrategia de lanzamiento de su octavo disco, sucesor de "Zeitgeist", de 2007.

La nueva obra de la banda, titulada "Teargarden by Kaleidyscope" estará compuesta por nada menos que ¡cuarenta y cuatro temas!, que serán editados de a uno por vez y estarán disponibles para su descarga gratuita a través de la web del grupo.

"Gratis es gratis", afirmó Corgan. "No será necesario registrarse ni nada, podrán entrar y bajar las canciones que gusten, todas las veces que quieran". El frontman también adelantó que esta semana comenzaron las grabaciones en su estudio.

El ambicioso proyecto, además, promete volver a las bases psicodélicas del conjunto, con temas atmosféricos y melódicos.

Los primeros temas que darán forma a "Teargarden by Kaleidyscope" saldrán a la luz hacia fines de octubre.

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The Smashing Pumpkins

Smashing Pumpkins May Have Tapped 19-Year-Old Unknown As New Drummer

09 Jun 2009 16:34:00 EDT

A Pumpkins rep confirms that Billy Corgan is working on demos with Mike Byrne.
By Gil Kaufman

Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan said he was looking for some new blood when he announced open auditions earlier this year to replace departed drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. And, according to Pumpkins fan site Hipsters United, the great Pumpkin — at this point the only remaining original member of the band — might have found his man in unknown 19-year-old drummer Mike Byrne.

Corgan blogged on Friday that he has found the band's "drummer of the future," explaining that he's still on target to release new music in October. "I've worked with him so far for one week, and all indications are really good that he's the man for the job," Corgan wrote of the unnamed drummer. "Going to work with him some more before it becomes official. Whoever takes the job has quite big shoes to fill, no doubt about it."

Smashing Pumpkins rep Mitch Schneider confirmed to MTV News on Tuesday (June 9) that Corgan is working with Byrne in the studio on demos. "I think he's an incredibly gifted drummer, and so far things are going really well," Corgan said, according to Schneider's statement.

The Hipsters United site quickly dug up some evidence that Corgan was referring to Byrne, who reportedly sits behind the kit for Oregon band Moses, Smell the Roses, in his blog post. Among the evidence is that the Berklee College of Music freshman — who was just 1 when the band's debut album Gish was released — wrote on his MySpace page in mid-May that he was "with the Pumpkins till next Saturday." He then updated his status on Monday to say, "Mike is off for another couple weeks at Pumpkin camp."

Ben Spees, a friend who is recording the latest Moses album, Tweeted on Friday about Corgan's blog post, writing, "Billy Corgan posted about Mike in his blog. Drummer of the future."

If he does make the lineup, Byrne — who reportedly has had only four years of drum lessons — would be the youngest member of the band, led by 42-year-old Corgan. New guitarist Jeff Schroeder is 35, and new bassist Ginger Pooley is 29. A spokesperson for the Pumpkins had no comment at press time.

Either way, it would be a big step up for Byrne, whose band just played a May 29 house show in Beaverton, Oregon. He appears to be having some fun with all the speculation, judging from the gig Moses posted on MySpace for December 31, 2010: "Billy Corgan's House w/Frank Zappa and David Crowder Band." The cost of the gig? $10,000.

[This story was originally published at 4:34 p.m. ET on 06.09.2009]

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Smashing Pumpkins To Hold Open Auditions For New Drummer

31 Mar 2009 10:32:00 EDT

Interested parties should be in Los Angeles on April 10.
By Gil Kaufman

How do you go about replacing one of the most distinctive drummers in alt rock? With an open audition, of course. Just a week after original Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin quit the group, the Pumpkins (a.k.a. lone remaining original member Billy Corgan) announced on on their official site on Monday that an open audition will be held in Los Angeles on April 10 to fill the vacant position.

"The Smashing Pumpkins are continuing to make music after the departure of original member Jimmy Chamberlin, " read the announcement on the official Pumpkins site. "When Jimmy originally auditioned for the Smashing Pumpkins, he was playing in a locally touring jazz band that was playing weddings and street fairs. It just goes to show that you never know where the next big talent will come from." Before Chamberlin joined the band in 1988, Corgan and former guitarist James Iha performed with a drum machine.

Throwing the door open to all interested parties with "exceptional drumming ability and a desire to be part of a massive creative and progressive musical project with a rich 20-year history," the post also explained that the auditions are for recording and touring drummers, noting that there may be "multiple positions" open.

Applicants are asked to send a headshot, music, video links and a résumé listing their bands, live-performance experience, awards and any music education in their background to a Gmail address.

Not waiting to fill the drummer's seat, Corgan announced last week that he's been working on demos for new Pumpkins songs, which could end up on the band's next album, only their second to not feature Chamberlin. The drummer explained somewhat cryptically last week that he was leaving the band with no bad blood, but that he simply could no longer "pretend I'm into something I'm not. ... I can't just, 'Cash the check.' "

Though the two had a longtime friendship and Corgan excitedly invited Chamberlin back into the fold after the drummer was sent into a three-year exile due to his drug issues, Corgan said he's psyched about moving forward. "It's going well and I'm very happy and in a great mood. I'm not sad (about what has happened), actually excited to be working on new SP!" Corgan said on Thursday of the five tunes he's working on, with an eye toward hitting the studio in May.

"The songs sound like spring!" he added. In one of the strangest bits of news to come out of the sessions, the official Pumpkins site recently reported that among those joining Corgan in the studio is friend Mark Tulin, bassist for the late-1960s psychedelic band the Electric Prunes, best known for their tune "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night."

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