so the boy lent me the super awesome smashing pumpkins boxed set a whiles back, and thus my love for the pumpkins has been summarily revived once again. and though i remain dubious about billy corgan’s latest solo effort, things like this and the rumors swirling around it ultimately get me all excited and then very wary.
and i mean, who knows what’s going on in corgan’s crazy little dome. then again, he seems to be about relatively complete disclosure these days.
who knows? who really knows. then again, pink floyd is reuniting. so maybe…just maybe…it could happen for the pumpkins?
oh god they’re playing with my emotions.
NEVER SAY NEVER
December 2000
The Smashing Pumpkins play their last concert at Chicago’s Metro. Shortly afterward, Billy Corgan is quoted in Britain’s Melody Maker, saying, “We feel pretty solid about breaking up. I don’t think it’s gonna be three years and get back together. So I do look at it with finality.”December 2003
It’s three years later, and at least former Pumpkins guitarist James Iha is open to the idea of a reunion, telling Scripps Howard News Service he would “not be opposed to” working again with Corgan, either in a reunion of the Pumpkins or in any other capacity.May 2004
Corgan is asked about the chances for a Pumpkins reunion while visiting with Chicago area high schoolers. The Naperville Sun quotes him: “Have you ever seen VH1’s ‘Behind the Music’? The band gets famous, gets rich, does drugs, breaks up and then goes into therapy and gets along. The part about the therapy and getting along is not going to happen.”October 2004
Corgan dismisses the possibility of reunion, telling the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “My relationship with [Pumpkins drummer] Jimmy Chamberlin is great. I know we’ll work together again. But my relationships with James and D’Arcy» [Wretzky, bassist] are piss-beyond-poor, so read into that whatever you want.”February 2005
Chamberlin contemplates the motivations behind a possible reunion in an interview at contactmusic.com: “When I talk to Billy, that question sometimes comes up. The Pixies are selling out arenas now they’ve reformed, so this would be the time to go out and make some money — people seem to be eating this s— up. But it’s too precious to put a dollar sign on it. Money didn’t form that band in the first place, so money isn’t going to re-form it.”May 2005
MTV asks Corgan about a Pumpkins reunion, a question that causes him to chuckle. “When people ask me about a Smashing Pumpkins reunion, to me, they’re asking two things,” he responds. “One, ‘Will we ever see the Smashing Pumpkins as we remember them onstage?’ And two, ‘Gee, it’s probably going to sound like we remember, right?’ And the answer to both questions is no. You won’t see the four Smashing Pumpkins onstage again. That’s not going to happen. Secondarily, even if you saw the Smashing Pumpkins, it would continue to pick up where we left off, which is an extremely progressive, aggressive and not-easy-to- understand unit.”June 2005
Asked by Sun-Times pop critic Jim DeRogatis whether the Pumpkins might ever reunite, Corgan recalls a recent e-mail exchange with Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue: “He was like, ‘Everybody has got a price.’ I said, ‘Not these guys!’ It really wasn’t about money for them, because if it was about money, I could have bought them. There was nothing I could do, say or pay them. If it ain’t in you, it ain’t in you.”
source: suntimes.com
