Lentines- "Kenny Aronoff Talks About His Latest Smashing Pumpkins Tour" -by Tama
(1998)
Tama: The Smashing Pumpkins is a much different gig for you. What new challenges has this presented during the tour?
Kenny: One of the differences has been my way of thinking while I’m playing with the Pumpkins. With most tours, there has been a song list that eventually is the same each night, and the challenge is to play each show with the same excitement and enthusiasm every night. With the Pumpkins, Billy (Corgan) likes to change the set every night 30 minutes before the show. Therefore I have to concentrate a lot on making sure the show runs smoothly and remember my parts in the not-so-familiar songs. Sometimes we don’t play a certain song for three weeks. Billy has a photographic memory and expects perfection every night. I have to listen and focus on what Billy is doing all the time because he likes to make spontaneous changes at any given moment on stage and expects me to anticipate where he’s going at any given moment. Perfection with Flexibility.
Tama: You’re using much bigger drums with the Pumpkins. Why?
Kenny: I’m using bigger drums on this tour because Billy requested big, large, deep-sounding drums with attack and clarity, also. So I increased the sizes of my drums from 10, 12, 14, 16 toms to 12, 14, 16, 18 toms and a 20” gong drum. My bass drum is the same (24”), but 2” deeper (18” deep). Snare is still 5x14” brass shell.
Tama: Have the bigger sizes affected the way you approcah the kit?
Kenny: The thing about bigger drums is that it sure makes it feel weird when I go back to playing my smaller drums again. I try to tune the bigger drums up as high as I can without choking the drum, so the drum can be heard in the big boomy places we play.
Tama: What challenges has playing with two percussionists on this tour presented? Do you feel that it changed your traditional role any?
Kenny: I haven’t played that much different with the Pumpkins having two percussionists on the tour, mostly because the band is very guitar, bass, and drum oriented to start with. The percussion enhanced what I was doing, and they were there mostly to replace the loops and sequences on the Adore album. Billy didn’t want to use loops to play to every night. The big challenge playing with two percussionists is to get three people to feel the music the same way. To get three people locked up real tight is a hard thing to do.
Tama: This was quite a whirlwind tour for the Smashing Pumpkins. Any amusing tour anecdotes you can share with us?
Kenny: We worked so hard that I didn’t have that many wild and crazy nights out. We did play some very crazy places. One radio show was on top of a roof in Paris with 200 fans there, but it was televised to 50 million people. Another time we played in Japan during the day. We played on a flat bed truck while it moved toward the audience and it was also televised all over Japan. That same night in Tokyo we were in the studio playing live on the morning show in LA (8am LA, around 12 midnight Tokyo). In Hamburg we played outside in the red light district with 30 to 50 thousand people in the streets. In Genoa, Italy, we played on a barge in the bay with the city behind us. In Sydney, Australia, we played in a parking garage with the harbour as a backdrop with boats and the Sydney opera house behind us. In Minneapolis we played for a block party. 165,000 people showed up and some girl broke out of prison somehow because she wanted to see us so bad (she shouldn’t have told her cellmates — they told the authorities eventually and the police caught her). We played a club in Moscow (Rubles were stronger then).
Tama: Do you see the Pumpkins gig as a long-term thing?
Kenny: That would be cool. But I can’t determine that, because so far we’ve only talked about the Adore tour. We’ve talked about doing some future stuff together.
Tama: Will you be doing any recording with the Pumpkins?
Kenny: Perhaps. It’s been talked about.
Tama: Will you continue to work with others in addition to the Pumpkins?
Kenny: Yes, I will — If I have the time.
Tama: What else have you been working on and with whom?
Kenny: I haven’t been able to do that many sessions since April because I’ve been all over the world with the Pumpkins. But I managed to do a little recording in Nashville, LA, and San Francisco.
For those of you who didn’t know, Kenny was the touring drummer with the Smashing Pumpkins from April to October 1998, and has been all over the world with them. While he was on tour he took some time out of his busy schedule to do the following interview:
