History

 

Thanks (In Part ) to Guitar World Magazine

 

The son of a blues guitarist, Billy Corgan grew up in a Chicago suburb, leaving home at the age of 19 to move to Florida with his fledging goth-metal band, the Marked. After the band failed, he returned to Chicago around 1988, where he began working at a used record store. At the shop he met guitarist James Iha, a graphic arts student at Loyola University. The two began collaborating , performing and recording songs with a drum machine. Corgan met D'arcy Wretzky at a club show; the two became friends, and she joined the band as a bassist.

The band had named themselves the Smashing Pumpkins and soon gained a dedicated local following, including the owner of a local club who booked them to open Jane's Addiction. before the pivotal concert, the band hired Jimmy Chamberlin, a former jazz musician, as the groups drummer.

In 1990 the Pumpkins released their debut single, "I Am One," on the local Chicago label Limited Potential. The single quickly soled out, and in December the band released "Tristessa" on Sub Pop. By this point, the Smashing Pumpkins had become the subject of a hot bidding war, and the group latched on a clever way to move to a major lable without losing indie credibility. They signed with Virgin Records, yet it was decided that the groups debut would be released on the Virgin subsidiary, Caroline; then the band would move to the majors.

The strategy worked. Gish, a majestic mix of Black Sabbath and dream- pop produced by Butch Vig, became a huge college and modern -rock hit upon it's spring 1991 release. During the Gish tour, however, tensions among the band members began to escalate as Iha and D'arcy, who had been lovers, went through a messy breakup, Chamberlain became addicted to drugs and alcohol, and Corgan entered a heavy depression. The tensions hadn't been resolved by the time the group entered the studio with Vig to record their second album. Towards the beginning of the sessions, the Pumpkins were given significant exposure through the inclusion of "drown" on the Singles movie soundtrack in the summer of 1992. As the sessions progressed relieved himself of his depression by working heavily-not only did he write a surplus of songs, he played nearly all of the guitars and bass on each track, which meant that release dates were delayed several times.

The resulting album, Siamese Dream, was an immaculate production owing much to Queen that was enthusiastically embraced by critics upon its July 1993 release. Siamese Dream became a blockbuster, debuting at number 10 on the charts and establishing the group as stars. "Cherub Rock", the first single, yet it was "Today" and the acoustic "Disarm" that sent the album into the stratosphere, as well as the group's relentless touring. Smashing Pumpkins became the headliners of 1994's Lollapalooza, and following the tour's completion, they went back to the studio to record a new album that Corgan had already announced would be a double-disc set. To tide fans over until the new album, the Pumpkins released the B-sides and rarities album Pisces Iscariot in October 1994.

Working with producers Flood And Alan Moulder, Smashing Pumpkins recorded for their third album which turned out to be, as Corgan predicted, a double-disc set called Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. This became even bigger than Siamese Dream, Debuting at Number One on the charts. On the strength of the singles "Bullet With Butterfly Wings", "1979", "Zero", and "Tonight, Tonight," it would sell over four million copies U.S.

The Pumpkins, Who'd graduated to stadium shows for the Mellon Collie tour, were at the peak of their popularity when things began to go wrong. On July 12, Prior to two scheduled shows at Madison Square Garden, drummer Jimmy Chamberlain and Jonathan Melvoin , the groups touring keyboardist, both suffered heroin overdoses; Chamberlain recovered, but Melvin died. In the wake of tragedy, the remaining Pumpkins fired Chamberlain and spent two months on hiatus, as they recovered and searched for a new drummer. Early in August, they announced that Matt Walker of the industrial band Filter would be the bands touring drummer, and Dennis Flemion , a member of the Frogs, would be the touring keyboardist for the remainder of the year.

The Pumpkins returned to the stage at the end of August and spent the next five months on tour. During this time, Corgan contributed some music to the Ron Howard film Ransom. Early in 1997, once the Pumpkins left the road, Iha and D'arcy launched Scratchy Records, a subsidiary of Mercury Records. In the Spring, the Smashing Pumpkins recorded two songs for the soundtrack to the Batman & Robin movie. In the early 1998, James Iha released his debut solo album, the heavily acoustic Let It Come Down (Virgin). At approximately the same time, Corgan, Iha, and D'arcy entered the studio to begin recording what would become Adore.

Adore produced a slower, more meaningful sound. "Ava Adore" was a chart topper, and when it started do fall, "Perfect" appeared on the charts. "Ava Adore" debuted at number 23 and "Perfect" at number 29, so you can see that this album hasn't had as much success as the other ones, and this has Corgan angry about people using them to be cool when MCIS was hot, and not buying their new music on Adore. "We're going through a crucial change in the music industry right now" quips Corgan. "We didn't want to make another Gish, Siamese Dream, or Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, we wanted something new. And we ended up where we started; the recording for this album was ironically the same way we recorded demos back in '89. We basically went in a ten year loop, were back where we started".

Shortly after New Years Day 1999, the Smashing Pumpkins have re-hired their old drummer Jimmy Chaimberlain, who was fired after he and Jonathan Melvoin shot up in their appartment one night. Chamberlain woke up the next morning and found Melvoin dead. Also, Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha and Fountains of Wayne/Ivy leader Adam Schlesinger have opened a recording studio, Stratosphere Sound, in New York. The first band slated to record at Stratosphere is Virginia rock group Fulflej, who are signed to Iha's Scratchie Records label. Another lawsuit has been filed against the Pumpkins, in which Peter Jeffery claims despite wearing ear plugs, he had his hearing damaged at a concert. This has the online Pumpkin community fuming, and wondering why he was the only one with a hearing loss. Along with the New Year came the usual rumours, such as "D'arcy's solo project", and "James is leaving the band because he doesn't want to go back to playing rock music", among others.

 

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Source of these files is from various Internet resources over the years.