Jimmy Chamberlin's drum clinic, due 16 August, at the Chicago Drum Exchange has been postponed.READ MOAR (if you want)...Over the years, Jimmy and I have stayed in contact. When I came upon this idea to do this record in China with students I immediately thought it would be the perfect chance to work with Jimmy because I have always loved his crazy awesome drumming.
Are there other things you admire about Zeppelin?
When John Bonham died, they announced the band is done. They didn't step back and think about it. I've always respected that, because he was their brother and they knew it wasn't gonna be the same without him. And I had to learn those lessons the hard way. When Jimmy Chamberlin left the band in '96, I thought, "I'll just get somebody. The band is big and we'll find somebody great. It won't be the same, but it'll be just as good in a different way." It just doesn't work like that. You just don't replace your brother like that.
I'm not even going to bother to try and unravel the layers of bullshit in the above statements.Billy Corgan: Success held that band together longer than it should have been held together. It was dysfunctional. There were a lot of years there where I regretted the way it all went down, and now I think it was meant to die when it died how it died. We stole from the Promethean fire to fuel whatever our weird psychic death trip was and then we paid for it. Or got too close to the sun and crashed. It was just meant to be that way. And you can draw parallels from that with Jimmy’s situation [when he left the band in 2009] because maybe that was just a continuance of something that hadn’t been resolved back then.NME/Emily Mackay: He said in his statement on leaving that he “couldn’t just cash the cheque”…Corgan: See now, here is a perfect opportunity to bury Jimmy as a fucking liar. But I won’t. That’s a lie. That statement’s just a flat-out lie.NME: Was it that you wanted to take the band in a commercial direction, and he didn’t?Corgan: Ha ha! No, it’s the exact opposite. I wish I could explain it, but I don’t trust the world to understand the complexity of it. I think it’s telling that the first thing Jimmy did when he left the band was make a statement about money because that had a lot to do with it. But if you look at what I’ve done since he left, where have I made money?Later:NME: Do you still feel any rancour towards the other band members about the way it ended?Corgan: Uhhh… I’m OK with Jimmy. We don’t have a relationship at the moment, but I mean, I have no ill will. I want to see him do well. James Iha I think is just a piece of shit. I think he’s one of the worst human beings I’ve ever met in my life. And D’Arcy, she’s sort of, in her own way, sort of an innocent [...]If there’s any culprit in this it’s Iha. But, y’know, he was there at the right time of my life, we did do good things together, I think he is a good musician when he gives a fuck, which most of the time he doesn’t. And that’s about it.
... [Chamberlin's] roots are in Buddy Rich and Deep Purple, and that his neurotic, gunslinging style is considered semi-revolutionary among rock drummers for its reliance on jazz-style riffs. His most varied work was on the titanic of nineties avant-rock, Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, famous for its excess but scattered with off-chart gems like "Thru The Eyes Of Ruby," which perfects the Chamberlin snare sound and "Galapagos," a piece of stormy minimalism which Chamberlin has identified as one of his favorite Pumpkins moments...
The band as it then existed crashed on the rocks, of course... but at the peak of the Pumpkins, no one brought the thunder more regularly — no one in the entire world.
The kit Jimmy decided to order has a custom "prototype" Copper Lacquer Specialty with Chrome Hardware. Jimmy actually sent in a penny that we used as a color match. The Shells are a ply combination of VLT Maple and Mahogany with no reinforcement hoops. The kick drum hoops are Solid Black Lacquer. Sizes: 5x8, 7x10, 8x13, 10x14 rack toms, 14x14, 16x16 floor toms, and 16x22 kick, with a matching 5.5x14 snare and a stainless steel 6.5x14 snare.
"I want Corgan’s dreams, his songs and his band back together..."
"...I have waved any creative input and final say on everything, it will be, and rightly so, all Billy's. This is a make or break year for the band and only securing the best marketing deal will ensure the bands future, not the music.”
“It was about 7 or 8 tracks into the new record. In each track I heard the drums doing things I have done in other songs or pretty much would do - given the chance. I kept thinking, this in an odd bastardisation of my originality as an Artist and if Billy wanted to just get someone in to play like me, why not pick, say Matt Walker. He actually did it OK”. He continues “I figured that; if they’ve got a new guy in and he’s just going to approximate what I’d do, but so incredibly poorly I can’t really comprehend it, I should probably just do it myself”.
Mojo: You were playing with James and D'arcy but the arrival of Jimmy Chamberlin changed everything. How?
Corgan: When Jimmy joined the band we were playing a lot of kind of Cure type songs, very simple beats. Right away I could tell it was almost like he was playing dumb. We had one heavyish song and he was playing it without breaking sweat when any other drummer would have been huffing and puffing, so it wasn't too long before we sold our Jazz Chorus amps – which were the alternative amp of choice – and we got Marshall half-stacks. The louder we played, the louder he played. He was always one step ahead of us. There was nothing Jimmy couldn't do. Jimmy is an incredible emotional interpreter of the song, He would bring these emotional swells, almost like an orchestral swish, to what we were doing.
Did the band come close to splitting around Mellon Collie…?
No... Are you going to kick out one of the greatest drummers in the world who just helped make this massive album? Are you going to kick him out when you are playing this sold-out tour all around the world?...
In 2001 you and Jimmy formed Zwan with Matt Sweeney (Chavez), Dave Pajo (Slint/Sterolab) and Paz Lenchantin. What were you trying to achieve?
Jimmy and I had held this myth that if James and D'arcy had been better musicians the Pumpkins would have been bigger. So Zwan was an attempt at getting better musicians. It wasn't designed to be grandiose like the pumpkins, it was the opposite – let's have some fun, let's make a really good record with people we like. We went to Key West and rented a house. We would sit on the front porch and write songs and play all this kind of groovy stuff. Then, when it got serious the whole thing started to blow up and it was like "Oh my god, I am in the same nightmare again." It was the classic thing where you get out of a bad relationship and you think, "I am never going to do that again," and you go out and get the same kind of girlfriend but worse. That's what I did.
Corgan contradicts his previous remarks about the end of his relationship with former Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin...
Zane Lowe: How can you guys not be in contact still? Even if you’re not making music, if you have that kind of spiritual kinship? That’s deeper than that! Isn’t it?
Billy Corgan: You know, we’ve all had — and this may sound a little bit strange, but — we’ve all had great romances in our life, you know? And, they don’t always all go the way we want them to. And it doesn’t mean we don’t love, and doesn’t mean we don’t think fondly of… But I think relationships run their course. Jimmy and I made so much incredible music together, so, you know, if we never play together again, that’s okay with me.
He — you know, I want to speak for him for a second, I feel I can — he wanted to have his own musical journey. He was always on my musical journey. And so I have to really bow my hat to him and say…I think it’s that time in his life where he has to have his own musical journey. He’s entitled to it. He’s earned that. I understand why a fan would want to see him play with me and play those songs. He did it. Maybe having his own band and having his own music experience and not having somebody sort of veto over his head what the drum fill should be…I mean, you’ve got to remember, as psychic as that relationship was, he had to deal with me going, “Nah, I don’t really like that drum fill.” You know, “Can you slow that part down?” Because as the songwriter you get to make the calls. And he was always so so supportive of my music, so, I can’t say a bad word about it. I just think we reached a point where there was nothing else to do, and that’s that. The ugliness part is just the part of…that just goes with breaking up.
