Circus-
Circus: You stated often enough, that you dont want to talk about Jimmy anymore.
Corgan: That's right, if there would be something left to say, he'd still be a band member.
Cir: Actually, I only meant to ask if you're happy without a drummer or if you aim to become a quartet again.
Iha: It would be nice, but you know we dont want to force the issue and we didnt really find anybody that who'd fit in. On the other hand we have enough time to search for a drummer, it's not something we want to do in a rush. I think we'd like to have a drummer again but I dont think it will happen anytime soon.
Cir: Billy, you have the reputation of being very difficult. Does that bother you a lot?
Cor: To be honest, no, it doesn't bother me at all, it keeps certain people at bay, makes them keep a distance. Sometimes I think nobody really cares who I am or what I am. Most of the people out there only care for song, good songs, they dont really care who I am. Of course they act like they care, but if you really open up to them they dont care at all.
Cir: Some journalists even claimed that you dont care for your fans.
Cor: I know those guys, they dont want facts, they just want big headlines, no matter if they're true of not. It's not like we dont care about our fans, if somebody claims we dont care about them, then that's rubbish, a bunch of crap! I think there's hardly another band of our generation who toured more than the Smashing Pumpkins. We didnt hide, we were always in the public eye, in the spotlight even! We never hid, we were always available, even for our worst critics!
Cir: The Pumpkine are popular worldwide, isnt it strange that the American press treated you not very courteous? You were called basically everything from a prophet of doom to a churlish, rude, egomanic, It seems strange, you'd expect that they're proud of you.
Cor: ... the American press decided at some stage that they dont like us. Of course there are who like us as a band, and the others hate us, they seem to hate us more and more, big deal, there's nothing you can do about it anyway. We're recording albums, we like our albums and our albums sell. So? Who cares what they say? You've got to know what's important for you, for us it's the music. You know if you see a band out there who's really bad, who's simply shit, but they're selling millions of albums and then you think for yourself "The kids should rather buy our albums instead of that rubbish!" I think that's our philosophy "better us than them!"
Cir: In the past you said you needed a stranger or an outsider in the studio and Butch Vig and Flood were great producers. What made you produce the album yourself?
Cor: I think it would have been a real waste of Flood's time if we've hired him as a producer, he's a creative wizard and you can't waste his time with a job where he only has to press the "record" and the "stop" buttons. That's what would have happened with him, Adore is a very simple album and it wouldnt have been his thing. That's something we knew from the start, basically that was the only thing we really knew, that Adore would be a simple album!
Cir: That's really suprising, if you planned Adore as a simple album right from the start, why did it take you so long to record it? It took you almost six months.
Cor: I guess that's because in the beginning I wasn't really sure what I wanted. You know I was trying around, testing things and I knew what I didnt want, but it was really difficult to find a positive definition. It was far easier to decide what I didnt want than to know what I was looking for, so I had to try things and eliminate what I didnt want.
Cir: Are you really the workaholic people claim you are?
Cor: [Groans] The problem is my mind, if my brain starts working, its too late. [Laughs] You know I start thinking stuff like "What if the vocals would be like this or that, or if I'd put another guitar there, change that part.." Well, and in a matter of minutes I have something like 48 diffrent guitars, and I'm back at the same place where I usually end.
Cir: The songs are far more mellow.
Cor: That was definitely necessary, we wrote some songs in the past who are the ultimate Smashing Pumpkins interpretation of rock songs, we closed that chapter. I'm looking for new challenges, personally and artistically, something that's new and interesting for me.
Cir: How do you think your fans will react?
D'Ar: I hope they'll like it, of course that album is diffrent, its not an album where you can just listen in, I think you have to dig a bit deeper and deal with it. Most of the songs require that you listen to them a couple of times bfore they really grip you.
Cir: In Europe, you only played n concert in every country.
Cor: We can always come back for more, cant we? We just didn't want to get mixed up between yesterdays rock and the new album and jump back and forth!
Cir: So what are your future plans? No big tours?
Cor: Not really! the last ['95-96] tour was a heavy burden and we have no desire to repeat it, we remember all too well what happened, so we're definitely keep the tour short and will return to the studio to work on the new album - this time with [Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness co-producer] flood!
Talking with the Smashing Pumpkins (1998)
D'Arcy: We really tried everything to support him, but we felt like he just spit at us, its finished!
Cor: There relly isnt anything left to say!
D'Ar: Were rather complex personalities, were prett hard to understand sometimes- most of the time - and it would be really difficult for an outsider to understand what's going on.
Cor: If we find the right one, it would be the one in a million!
Just think about Mellon Collie, why release so many songs if not for the sake of the fans? People who claim that we dont care for our fans didnt really make the effort to think about it at all! A double album is something for the fans, its not marketing, it doesent push your career, if it would have been a planned career move, then it would have been the worst one possible.
D'Ar: We've been accused of a lot of things, sometimes its even comical. Certain decisions were bad for our careers but important for us, as a band and as individuals, but people still claim that we did them for the sake of our career.
Cor: Also the think that I dont like my generation, I love my generation, but again, that probably doesent make a good headline!
If you look back, there are a lot of bands in the history of music who never minded being popular: The Beatles, The Kinks, The Who.... I dont think they were bad because they were successful, success doesn't make a band bad, it doesn't work that way and it's ignorant to claim that commercial successful bands are automatically bad. It's completely ignorant to claim a band is only good as long as they're not successful.
D'Ar: We discussed several approache, an album that's very bass orientated, rather acoustic, mellow and organic... That's how we started, we recorded the first demos and thought "Great, we're going to be finished in six weeks" but then we changed our minds.
Cor: [Laughs] I guess I banged my head somewhere and decided to start from scrap again and all of a sudden, six months were gone.
Cor: Our other songs, our older albums drive you crazy, and that's what they're meant to do. Adore is very diffrent from our previous recordings, it doesn't urge or crown you. Some of our early works yell at you "Hey you, over there, here I am. Hey!" Adore is completely diffrent, it whispers "I'm here, listen to me if you want to..." It invites you in a shy way and then it grown on you.
