The Smashing Pumpkins are an American alternative rock band that formed in Chicago in
1988.[1] While the group has gone through several lineup
changes, The Smashing Pumpkins consisted of Billy Corgan (vocals/guitar), James Iha
(guitar/vocals), D'arcy Wretzky (bass/vocals), and Jimmy Chamberlin (drums/percussion) for most of the band's recording career.
Disavowing the punk rock roots shared by many of their alt-rock contemporaries,[2] the Pumpkins have a diverse, densely layered, and guitar-heavy
sound, containing elements of gothic rock, heavy
metal, dream pop, psychedelic rock,
progressive rock, shoegazer-style production and,
in later recordings, electronica. Frontman Billy Corgan is the group's primary
songwriter—his grand musical ambitions and cathartic lyrics have shaped the band's albums and songs, which have been described as
"anguished, bruised reports from Billy Corgan's nightmare-land".[3]
The Smashing Pumpkins broke into the musical mainstream with their second album, 1993's Siamese Dream. The group built their audience with extensive touring and their follow-up, 1995's
double album Mellon Collie and
the Infinite Sadness, debuted at number one on the Billboard
charts. With approximately 18.3 million albums sold in the United States alone as of 2006,[4] The Smashing Pumpkins were one of the most commercially successful and critically
acclaimed bands of the 1990s.[5] However, internal
fighting, drug use, and diminishing sales hampered the band and led to a 2000 break-up. In April 2006, the band officially
announced that they were reuniting and recording a new album. Returning members Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin were joined by
new additions Jeff Schroeder (guitar/vocals), Ginger
Reyes (bass/vocals), and Lisa Harriton (keyboard/vocals) in 2007 to tour behind
their new release, Zeitgeist.
History
Early years: 1988–1991
At the age of nineteen, singer and guitarist Billy Corgan left his native Chicago, Illinois, moving to St. Petersburg, Florida with his gothic rock band The Marked. The band had limited success and quickly
broke up. Corgan returned to Chicago, taking a job in a record store. While working there, he met guitarist James Iha. Adorning
themselves with paisley and other psychedelic trappings, the two began writing songs
together (with the aid of a drum machine) that were heavily influenced by The Cure and New Order.[6] Corgan met bassist D'arcy Wretzky in 1988 after a show by the
Dan Reed Network where they argued the merits of the band. After finding out Wretzky
played bass, Corgan stated his band's need for a bassist and gave Wretzky his telephone number. Wretzky soon joined the band, and
she and Iha later had a short-lived romance.[7] The first
performance of The Smashing Pumpkins was on July 9, 1988, at the
Polish bar Chicago 21. This performance included only Corgan and Iha with a drum machine.[8] On August 10, 1988, the band played for the first time as a trio at the Avalon Nightclub.[9] After this show, Cabaret
Metro owner Joe Shanahan agreed to book the band on the condition that they replace the drum machine with a live drummer.
Jazz drummer Jimmy Chamberlin was recruited for the band after a recommendation from a friend of
Corgan's.[9] Chamberlin was at
first an unlikely match, as he knew nothing of alternative rock at the time. As Corgan recalled of the period, "We were
completely into the sad-rock, Cure kind of thing. It took about two or three practices before I realized that the power in his
playing was something that enabled us to rock harder than we could ever have imagined."[6] On October 5, 1988, the complete band took the stage for the first time at the Cabaret Metro.[9] Although not an official member of the band at this point,
Chamberlin would soon be announced as such, and the complete four-person lineup from this first show at the Metro would be
unchanged for the next seven years.
In 1989, the group had recorded a handful of demo tapes, which appeared later on the bootleg release Early 1989 Demos. The Pumpkins made their first appearance on vinyl that same year on the
compilation album Light Into Dark, which featured several Chicago alternative
bands. They released their first record, a limited edition single of "I Am One", in 1990 on local Chicago label Limited Potential. The single sold out and they released another
single, "Tristessa", on Sub Pop, after which they
signed to Caroline Records.[11] The Smashing Pumpkins recorded their 1991 debut album Gish with producer Butch Vig at his Smart
Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, for $20,000.[12] In order to gain the consistency he desired, Corgan often played all instruments
save drums, which created tension in the band. The music fused heavy metal guitars,
psychedelia and dream pop, garnering them
comparisons to Jane's Addiction.[13] Gish became a minor success, with the single "Rhinoceros" receiving some airplay on modern rock radio. After
releasing the Lull EP in October 1991 on Caroline Records, the band formally signed
with Virgin Records, which was affiliated with Caroline.[11] The band supported the album with a tour that included opening for
bands such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction, and Guns N' Roses. During the tour, Iha and Wretzky went through a messy breakup, Chamberlin became addicted
to narcotics and alcohol, and Corgan entered a deep depression,[14] writing some songs for the upcoming album in the parking garage where he
lived at the time.[15]
Mainstream success: 1992–1994
With the breakthrough of alternative rock into the American mainstream due to the popularity of grunge bands such as Nirvana and Pearl
Jam, The Smashing Pumpkins were poised for major commercial success. At this time, and amid their protests, the Pumpkins
were routinely lumped in with the grunge movement. In a Halloween
night interview on MTV's 120 Minutes in 1993, Corgan
remarked, "We've graduated now from [being called] 'the next Jane's Addiction' to 'the next Nirvana,' now we're 'the next Pearl
Jam.'"[16] The group nevertheless contributed the song
"Drown" to the platinum-selling soundtrack of the 1992 movie
Singles, a film set in the Seattle grunge music scene.
![The band in concert in 1993, as shown in the Greatest Hits Video Collection (2001). They performed "Geek U.S.A." live with fifty professional clowns onstage after they were told they would be presented however they wished on tour.[17]](http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/0/03/180px-Smashing_Pumpkins_live_seattle.jpg)
The band in concert in 1993, as shown in the
Greatest Hits Video
Collection (2001). They performed "Geek U.S.A." live with fifty professional
clowns
onstage after they were told they would be presented however they wished on tour.
[17]
Corgan said that in the wake of Nirvana's landmark 1991 album Nevermind, "We felt a
great pressure that if we didn't come up with a record that was huge, we were done. It was that simple in our minds. We felt like
our lives depended on it."[6] Corgan's depression
deepened to the point where he contemplated suicide.[18] To counteract his depression, Corgan worked overtime, saying he practically
lived in the studio for the 1993 follow-up album, Siamese Dream. The album was
recorded at Triclops Sound Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, mostly between December 1992
and March 1993. The band lived in Marietta during the sessions, as Butch Vig reprised
his role as producer. The decision to record so far away from their hometown was motivated partly by the band's desire to avoid
local friends and distractions during the recording, but largely as a desperate attempt to cut Chamberlin off from his known drug
connections.[6] In this respect, the strategy
failed, as Chamberlin quickly managed to find new connections and often was absent without any contact for days at a
time.[6]
The recording environment was very difficult, and the band fought constantly. The contemporary music press portrayed Corgan as
a tyrant during the recording sessions. Corgan admitted there was some truth to the accusations, though he felt the press
misunderstood the situation.[19] Rumors circulated that
he had recorded all the guitar and bass parts himself. It was never confirmed exactly how much each member participated on the
album; Corgan did say he performed a majority of the guitar work, but only because he could record tracks and parts in far fewer
takes.[20] In all, it took over four months to
complete the record, with the budget exceeding $250,000.[20] Despite all the problems in its recording, Siamese Dream debuted at number ten on the
Billboard charts,[21] and sold over four million copies in the U.S. alone.[22] MTV put the videos for the songs "Today" and "Disarm" into heavy rotation, garnering
the Pumpkins international attention.
While the Pumpkins were successful, they were not universally adored by the alternative rock community. Participants in the
indie scene had derided the band as careerists since their early days.[8] Indie rock band Pavement's 1994 song "Range Life" refers to the band with the lines "I don't understand what they
mean/And I could really give a fuck", which have been widely interpreted as an insult (although Stephen Malkmus, lead singer of Pavement, has stated "I never dissed their music. I just dissed their
status.").[23] Former Hüsker
Dü frontman Bob Mould called them "the grunge Monkees",[6] and fellow
Chicago musician/producer Steve Albini wrote a scathing letter in response to an article
praising the band. He countered that the Pumpkins were no more alternative than REO
Speedwagon and said they were created "by, of and for the mainstream" and "stylistically appropriate for the current
college party scene, but ultimately insignificant".[24]
Others such as Courtney Love of Hole (who dated
Corgan before marrying Nirvana's Kurt Cobain) were vocal supporters of the band.
In 1994, Virgin released the B-sides/rarities compilation Pisces Iscariot which outperformed Siamese Dream by reaching number four on the
Billboard charts.[25] Also released was a VHS cassette titled Vieuphoria featuring a mix of live performances and behind-the-scenes footage. Following relentless
touring to support the recordings, including headline slots on the 1994 Lollapalooza tour
and at Reading Festival in 1995, the band took time off to write the
follow-up album.
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness: 1995–1997
Corgan worked nonstop over the next year and wrote, according to statements in interviews, about fifty-six songs for the next
album.[26] Following this spell of concentrated
creativity, the Pumpkins went back into the studio with producers Flood and
Alan Moulder to work on what Corgan described as "The
Wall for Generation X",[27] a comparison with Pink Floyd's famous two-LP concept album.
The result was Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,
a double album featuring twenty-eight songs and lasting over two hours (the vinyl version
of the album contained three records, two extra songs, and an alternate tracklisting). The songs were intended to hang together
conceptually as a symbol of the cycle of life and death.[8] Praised by Time as "the group's most
ambitious and accomplished work yet",[28] Mellon
Collie debuted at number one on the Billboard charts in October 1995.[29] Even more successful than Siamese Dream, it was certified nine times platinum in the United
States[30] and became the best-selling double album of
the decade to date.[31] It also garnered seven
1997 Grammy Award nominations, including Album of the Year. The band won only the
Best Hard Rock Performance award, for the album's lead
single "Bullet with Butterfly Wings". The album spawned five singles—"Bullet
with Butterfly Wings", "1979", "Zero",
"Tonight, Tonight", and "Thirty-Three"—of
which the first three were certified gold and all but "Zero" entered the Top 40. Many of the remaining songs that did not make it
onto Mellon Collie were released as B-sides to the singles, and were eventually compiled in The Aeroplane Flies High box set. As a testament to the band's popularity, Virgin Records
originally intended to limit the set to 200,000 copies, but produced more after the original run sold out due to overwhelming
demand.[32]
Billy Corgan onstage during the
Mellon Collie tour, featuring a shaved head and his iconic "Zero" shirt.
In 1996, the Pumpkins embarked on an extended world tour in support of Mellon Collie. Corgan's look during this
period—a shaved head, a longsleeve black shirt with the word "Zero" printed on it, and silver pants—became iconic.[33] That year, the band also made a guest appearance in an
episode of The Simpsons, "Homerpalooza". With
considerable video rotation on MTV, major industry awards, and "Zero" shirts selling in many malls, the Pumpkins were considered one of the most popular bands of the time.[34][35] But
the year was far from entirely positive for the band. In May, the Smashing Pumpkins played a gig at The Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. The venue was overcrowded and despite the band's repeated requests
for moshing to stop, a seventeen-year-old fan named Bernadette O'Brien was crushed to death. The
concert ended early and the following night's performance in Belfast was cancelled out of respect for her.[36] However, while Corgan maintained that moshing’s “time [had] come and
gone,” the band would continue to request open-floor concerts throughout the rest of the tour.[37]
The band suffered a personal tragedy on the night of July 11, 1996, when touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin and Chamberlin overdosed
on heroin in a hotel room in New York City. Melvoin died,
and Chamberlin was arrested for drug possession. A few days later, the band announced that Chamberlin had been fired as a result
of the incident.[38] The Pumpkins chose to finish the
tour with another drummer and keyboardist, a decision that Corgan later said was the worst the band had ever made, damaging both
their music and their reputation.[6] Meanwhile
the band had given interviews since the release of Mellon Collie stating that it would be the last conventional Pumpkins
record,[39] and that rock was becoming
stale. James Iha said at the end of 1996, "The future is in electronic music. It really seems boring just to play rock
music."[40]
Adore, Machina, and breakup: 1998–2000
The Smashing Pumpkins as a trio in 1998. The band adopted a darker, more subdued look to accompany the release of their fourth
album,
Adore.
After the release of Mellon Collie, the Pumpkins contributed multiple songs to various compilations. Released in early
1997, the song “Eye” relied almost exclusively on electronic instruments and signaled a
drastic shift from the Pumpkins’ previous musical styles. At the time, Corgan stated his "idea [was] to reconfigure the focus and
get away from the classic guitars-bass-drum rock format”.[41] Later that year, the group contributed "The
End is the Beginning is the End" to the soundtrack for the film
Batman & Robin. With Matt
Walker on drums, the song featured a heavy sound similar to "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" while still having strong
electronic influences. The song later won the 1998 Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. Though Corgan announced that the song
represented the sound people could expect from the band in the future,[42] the band’s next album would feature few guitar driven songs. Recorded following the death of
Corgan's mother and his divorce, 1998's Adore represented a significant change of
style from the Pumpkins' previous guitar-based rock, veering into electronica. The record, cut with assistance from studio
drummers and drum machines, was infused with a darker aesthetic than much of the band's earlier work. The group also modified its
public image, shedding its alternative hipster look for a more subdued appearance. Although Adore received favorable
reviews and was nominated for Best Alternative Performance at the Grammy Awards, the album had only sold about 830,000 copies in
the United States by the end of the year, which lead the music industry to consider it a failure.[43] The album nonetheless sold three times as many copies overseas.[6] On June 30,
1998, the band embarked on a seventeen-date, fifteen-city charity North American tour in support of
Adore. At each stop on the tour, the band donated 100 percent of tickets sales to a local charity organization. The tour's
expenses were entirely funded out of the band's own pockets. All told, the band donated over $2.8 million to charity as a result
of the tour.[44]
In 1999, the band surprised fans by reuniting with a rehabilitated Jimmy Chamberlin for a brief tour dubbed "The Arising",
which showcased both new and classic material. The lineup was short-lived, however, as upon the completion of the album
Machina/The Machines of God, the band announced the departure of
Wretzky in September.[45] Former Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur was recruited for the
"Sacred and Profane" tour in support of the album and appeared in the videos accompanying its release. Released in 2000,
Machina was initially promoted as the Pumpkins' return to a more traditional rock sound, after the more gothic,
electronic-sounding Adore.[46] The
album debuted at number three on the Billboard charts,[47] but quickly disappeared and as of 2007 has only been certified gold.[48][49]
Music journalist Jim DeRogatis, who described the album as "one of the strongest of their
career", noted that the stalled sales for Machina in comparison to teen pop ascendant at
the time "seems like concrete proof that a new wave of young pop fans has turned a deaf ear toward alternative rock".[50]
The band's touring lineup in 2000 with Chamberlin back on drums and Melissa Auf der Maur replacing Wretzky on bass.
On May 23, 2000, in a live radio interview on KROQ-FM (Los Angeles), Billy Corgan announced the band's decision to break up at the end of that year following
additional touring and recording.[46] The
group's final album before the break-up, Machina II/The
Friends & Enemies of Modern Music, was released in September 2000 in a limited pressing on vinyl with permission
and instructions for free redistribution on the Internet by fans. Only twenty-five copies were
cut, each of which was hand numbered and given to friends of the band along with band members themselves. The album, released
under the Constantinople Records label created by Corgan, consisted of one double
LP and three ten-inch EPs.[51] This is the only Smashing
Pumpkins studio album that is not under an EMI-owned record label. Originally, the band asked Virgin
to offer Machina II as a free download to anyone who bought Machina. When the record label declined, Corgan opted
to release the material independently.[52]
On December 2, 2000, The Smashing Pumpkins played a farewell
concert at The Metro, the same Chicago club where their career had effectively started twelve years earlier. The four-hour-long
show featured 35 songs spanning the group's career, and attendees were given a recording of the band’s first concert at The
Metro, Live at Cabaret Metro 10-5-88.[52] The single "Untitled" was
released commercially to coincide with the farewell show.
Post-breakup: 2001–2004
In 2001, the compilation Rotten Apples was released.
The double-disc version of the album, released as a limited edition, included a B-sides/rarities collection called
Judas Ø. The Greatest Hits Video
Collection DVD was also released at the same time, which compiled all of the Pumpkins
promo videos from Gish to Machina along with unreleased material.[53] Vieuphoria was released on DVD in 2002, as was the soundtrack album Earphoria, previously released solely to radio stations in 1994.
Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin reunited in 2001 as members of Corgan's next project, the shortlived supergroup Zwan. Their only album, Mary Star of the Sea, was released to generally positive reviews but, after cancelling a few
festival appearances, Corgan announced the demise of the band in 2003 under cloudy circumstances. During 2001, Corgan also toured
as part of New Order and provided vocals on their comeback album
Get Ready. In October 2004, Corgan released his first book,
Blinking with Fists, a collection of poetry. In June 2005, he released a solo
album, TheFutureEmbrace. It was greeted with generally mixed reviews and
lackluster sales. Only one single, "Walking Shade", was released in support of the album.
In addition to drumming with Zwan, Jimmy Chamberlin also formed an alternative rock/jazz
fusion project band called The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex. They released
an album in 2005 titled Life Begins Again. Corgan provided guest vocals on the
track "Lokicat". James Iha served as a guitarist in A Perfect Circle, appearing on
their Thirteenth Step club tour and 2004 album, eMOTIVe. He has also been involved
with other acts such as Chino Moreno's Team Sleep and
Vanessa and the O's. He continues to work with his own record label as well,
Scratchie Records. D'arcy Wretzky has not made any public statements or appearances
nor given any interviews since leaving the band in 1999. On January 25, 2000, she was arrested after she allegedly purchased three bags of crack cocaine,
but after successfully completing a court-ordered drug education program, the charges were dropped.[54]
Corgan insisted during this period that the band would not reform, although when Zwan broke up he announced, "I think my heart
was in Smashing Pumpkins [. . .] I think it was naive of me to think that I could find something that would mean as much to
me."[55] On February
17, 2004, Corgan posted a bitter message on his personal blog
calling Wretzky a "mean-spirited drug addict" and blaming Iha for the breakup of The Smashing Pumpkins.[56] On June 3, 2004, he added that "the depth of my hurt [from Iha] is only matched with the depth of my gratitude".[57] Iha responded to Corgan's claims in 2005, saying, "No, I
didn't break up the band. The only person who could have done that is Billy."[58]
Reunion: 2005–present
On June 21, 2005, the day of the release of his album
TheFutureEmbrace, Corgan took out a full-page advertisement in the
Chicago Tribune newspaper to announce that he planned to reunite the band. "For a
year now," Corgan wrote, "I have walked around with a secret, a secret I chose to ke
