Billy Corgan Talks New Smashing Pumpkins Album and Relationship with D’Arcy Wretzky

Billy Corgan performing with Smashing Pumpkins in 2016
Billy Corgan performing with Smashing Pumpkins in 2016. Photo by Larry Marano/REX/Shutterstock (5669046k)

Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman Billy Corgan recently had a chat with Metallica drummer’s Lars Ulrich on his Beats 1 radio show, It’s Electric, and offered an update about the band’s upcoming album.

According to Corgan, the band already finished recording eight tracks for the album on which they worked with legendary producer Rick Rubin. Although this will be the first album to feature the Smashing Pumpkins’ classic line-up (or most of it) since 2000’s Machina, the process of making songs didn’t change.

“In this case, it came really quickly,” Corgan said to Ulrichs. “We did 16 demos in three weeks, and then I played Rick what I thought were the eight best songs, hoping he would pick one, and he picked all eight… We were standing there like, our eyes are blinking. We thought we were just going to do a single.”

In February 2018, Smashing Pumpkins announced that founding members – guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin – rejoined the band and will embark on a Shiny and Oh So Bright Tour in July 2018. Still, the band’s original line-up wasn’t brought back together in full, since bassist D’arcy Wretzky won’t be part of the reunion. Jack Bates, the son of New Order’s Peter Hook, will play bass on the tour.

Speaking with Ulrich, Billy Corgan revealed that he hasn’t been in the same room as Wretzky for 19 years, and although he tried to repair his relationship with her, it didn’t work.

“I spent two years before all that repairing my relationship, and every time I tried to get into a room with her — so, I still haven’t been in a room with her in 19 years,” he explained. “It was a telephone thing and you’re trying to say, ‘This can happen, this can happen, what do you think?’ Always very pleasant, great, awesome, and only when it became obvious that it wasn’t the way she wanted it to be, it turned into this other thing that was reminiscent of the past.”

D’arcy Wretzky previously stated that she was offered to be a part of the tour briefly, but that Corgan decided to pull the offer and hired Bates before she had the time to respond.