The Smashing Pumpkins formed in Chicago, IL. in 1988. Since then they have endured many hardships but have never failed at providing our ears with nothing but masterpeices, here is a quick briefing on how it all happened.
First Billy and James hooked up through mutaral friends. Next they meet D'Arcy outside of a concert. When Billy got into an argument with her about the show he found that she played bass, and they swapped phone numbers. They began to play as a three piece with a drum machine. Then after being seen with the drum machine, they were introduced to the finishing piece of the original Pumpkins, Jimmy Chamberlin.
The band found gigs throughout the Chicago land area through all of 1988 and 1989. Their second gig as the entire band was opening for Jane's Addiction at the Metro in Chicago. Though it wasn't till 1990 when the band was picked up by Caroline records, and the band begun work on the album Gish.
Gish did well on the college charts and soon the Pumpkins found their way to Virgin records. Now work began on Siamese Dream, though it wasn't easy to make, seeing as the band members began to go off in different directions. Billy almost had a nervous break down, and recorded most all of the bass and guitar parts on the album himself. Though this was a good time for them, in that with the release of this record they would get much MTV airplay of the video for Today, four hit songs on the radio, and the album that went platinum many times. The band was on the rise, and now the stage set for their double cd, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
With the release of Mellon Collie the band picked up even more radio smash hits, and with that many more fans, and they had the best selling double cd ever. The shows for the Mellon Collie tour where selling out in matters of minutes, for days in a row.
But then trouble struck. In 1996 touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin died of a herion overdose, while shoting up with drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, Jimmy was arrested for possesion of the drug, and subsequently fired from the band. But the Pumpkins carried on, after taking a short break, to practice with the replacement dummer of the time, Matt Walker (filter). They set back out on the road to complete the Mellon
Collie tour.
Now to 1998, with the release of Adore. Adore was a more electronic based album, and with the change came a change in the peoples opinions, only real fans stuck by the band during this era. With this, their tour was short, they did charity shows across the U.S. raising over five hundred thousand dollars for the Make-a-Wish Foundation of Chicago, and for this the largest donation made by one body to the make a wish, July 7th was declared Smashing Pumpkins Day in Chicago. Though their hometown show never even sold out, sad but true.
And now in 1999, the return of Jimmy Chamberlin spreading joy to all pumpkins fans, as the pumpkins work on their new album. But of course with the good must come the bad, just a few short months after the return of the original drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, bassist D'Arcy quit to persue a career in acting. With the departure of D'Arcy happening simaltaniously with the departure of Hole bassist Melissa Aurf Der Mar, Melissa has taken D'Arcy's place in the band, or at least for now. February 28th, 2000 has also been named Smashing Pumpkins Day in Chicago, for the performance and signing the did to celebrate the release of Machina/the machines of God the next day.
And now to the end of the story...for the time being....The Pumpkins have annouced the spliting of the band. The end is near...."someday we'll wave hello, and wish we'd never waved goodbye"...we can only hope that one day they will return and rule the charts yet again.. As for now we can only look forward to what we will hear of them as individuals.
And on 07-07-00 the fans attempted to band together to show their love and respect for the band.
Now a third day has been proclaimed Smashing Pumpkins Day in Chicago. December 2. Now how many bands have had three days named after them? huh? that just goes to show how special the Pumpkinds truely are, especial here in the hometown of Chicago.