SP INTERVIEWS / ARTICLES

The Smashing Pumpkins on Hora Prima, aired on Dec. 19th, 1996
(Latin MTV)

(Sent to us by Catalina Lascano)

I=interviewer, DW=D'arcy, BC=Billy, JI=James

JI: Hi! This is D'arcy, Billy and I'm James and you are watching "Hora Prima" MTV, yeah!

(Hora Prima intro)

I: Well, here we are with what we promised, The Smashing Pumpkins, three of them, this is the current line up for the band. Thank you very much for your time...You've been in Brazil so you've had in a way your contact with the Latin American press, press from Argentina Chile and Brazil. What do you remember of Brazil? Hollywood Rock was great...

DW: We don't talk about Brazil anymore...

I: No?

JI: The food, beaches, Sugar Loafer Mountain..

DW: Yeah, we went hand-gliding there

JI: We went hand-gilding

I: No kidding...

JI: Defying death..

DW: The kids were sure crazy too. It was fun to play there

I: Don't you want to remember anything from the show?

DW: Except for that, the kids were good

BC: The audiences were great

DW: Really good

I: Did you play most of Mellon Collie material or old stuff too, like Siamese Dream or Gish?

JI: 75% was off the new album

BC: I remember that the people seemed to know the Siamese Dream stuff way way better than the new Mellon Collie stuff...

JI: Yeah...

BC: Somebody told me that they thought that a lot of kids maybe they didn't know Mellon Collie because it's too expensive in Brazil, they told me the price was very expensive

I: Very expensive, a double C.D.,...but it's worth it!

BC: Well...I don't know...tell it to everybody

DW: It's worth it!

I: What happened between Siamese Dream , last time I met you, the Siamese Dream period was just starting, by the end of 1993, what happened between that and the Mellon Collie era?

BC: Right...

I: Where did you get that much inspiration?

BC: Well, I drew a lot of inspiration from the fact that I knew this was going to be our last kind of traditional rock album and uh, I knew this was gonna be the end of this kind of phase of The Smashing Pumpkins. I kind of wanted to get it everything on it that we hadn't before. We've always written a lot of acoustic material, and things like that, we never really put it on the records. I guess I was kind of unhappy that we never really represented all sides of the band, so that was what really inspired me.

I: Was it hard to choose those 28 songs?

BC: I would say that it was easy to choose maybe 15 of them, and then and then everything after that could have...one B-side could have been good or not, it was hard to choose like the last 13 or 14 songs.

I: Here with The Smashing Pumpkins, let's watch the following, starting with Hora Prima, with 3 of the Pumpkins, this is "Tonight Tonight".

Off to "Tonight, Tonight" video and then to "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" video

PART 2
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I= We're back in Hora Prima with The Smashing Pumpkins. We still have the whole European Music Awards thing fresh. So, why did you decide to do "Bullet with Butterfly Wings"? It's a song that we heard a lot a year ago, 'cause it was Mellon Collie's first single and of course you did a very aggresive, in your face version

JI= We wanted to rock the eurotrash (D'arcy laughs)

I= Usually you do that in TV, that kind of heavyness or you do it live too, like the version for Bullet with Butterfly Wings live is always as heavy as that?

DW= Heavier.

BC= Heavier actually...I wanted to play Muzzle, I don't know why we didn't play "Muzzle"

I= Maybe because...

BC= I think...I think the thing is that a lot of people in Europe still don't know who we are

DW= They know that song.

BC= And we were still trying to get people to realize that we're that band.

I= There were a lot of costumes onstage and the whole set, could you tell me a little more about that?

BC= The rat. The rat is right over there.

(Shot of Jimmy Frog who's sitting in another side of the room)

JI= Unmasked...Wave rat, wave rat.

I= Because you had a guest there playing the...

JI= Guitar.

BC= It's the green angel, the green, broke angel.

JI= We lost it there...

I= It looks like you had fun, had you been playing in London or you just did the EMA?

DW= We just flew in. We were on tour, flew in for that.

BC= Flew in for that.

DW= 24 hours.

I= It's hard to do that, you flew in for that, you just go there for 4 minutes.

BC= We had much more to say.

JI= I always like to play 12 minutes songs.

BC= Like The Fugees. (The four laugh)

I= Not very long ago I met Robert Smith from The Cure, and he told me from the heart, you could tell, that The Smashing Pumpkins was one of his favorite bands. So, 1979 is something that shows, in my opinion, a little bit of The Cure. Did you like The Cure in the very beginning? Was it one of your influences?

BC= Um...Actually Robert Smith wrote that song, he was nice enough to give it to us.

JI= He just threw it...

BC= He just threw it to us...

JI= He sent us the demo tape.

BC= Thanks, Robert!

I= (to the camera) Let's watch this song that's supposed to be influenced by The Cure. This is 1979.

Off to the video for 1979

I= Here we are with The Smashing Pumpkins. We're in Miami Beach. They're here to play, in fact, they're playing tonight. Let's talk about the live shows. When you started you did something very, very special for the fans. You did an acoustic set first, and then an electric set , so what are you doing now, are you mixingt stuff or...

JI= Mostly electric, but we have a small 2 to 3 songs acoustic set in the middle of the show. Well, actually he's the only one who plays acoustic. (Points to Billy, they all laugh)

BC= No, we...I mean, when you're playing a lot of people, ten-twelve thousand people, you have to keep kind of...(snaps his fingers really fast)

JI= It's electric.

BC= There's not a lot of time to get like...(points up) spaced out. Basically, people just wanna rock. And we're there to provide them with whatever they need at that particular moment.

I= There are 28 songs in Mellon Collie. Are there any songs that were not meant to be played live?

BC= Actually, I think...(slides the MCIS CD that's on the table over to him, making a screeching sound)

DW= Aaaah!!!

BC= I think we played every song live.

DW= Except "Dumb"

BC= No, we played every song live.

DW= No, I know that we didn't (grabs the CD from Billy) play Stumbleine.

BC= Yes.

DW= Did we? We did yeah.

I= So you play different versions?

BC= Yeah. We did different versions of a lot of songs and still do different versions of some songs.

DW= (Holding the CD up to the camera) Every song.

BC= Uh, uh, I know what you're saying. Our intentionwas not to really worry about having to play every song in the album, but strangely enough we managed to play everything. At point, we actually planned on doing a concert where we were gonna play the whole album. But that was before what's this guy's name? left the band (The Pumpkins laugh) and we canned that idea.

I= We're gonna watch the video for Zero. And...actually, I have the CD single for Zero, so there's like 5 or 6 extra songs.

BC= 6

I= So did you try to show as much as possible as B-sides, singles...

BC= (nodding) Yeah.

I= You know, as let's keep'em going, to show what the Mellon Collie period was all about?

BC= Yeah, the thing about singles, we try to make every single kind of close to the song. With Zero, you get the B-sides that were the rock kind of B-sides that didn't make it to the album but they were kind from the same period. The songs are like it, if you liked Zero, you kind of get to like the rest.

I= OK, now Zero the video. Very short, about the video, it's a very strange video, a very weird video. I was expecting something like, again my impression, like something from you playing live, just you on stage, but you did something very fancy. What do you remember of the video?

DW= What's the question?

I= What do you remember about Zero?

DW= I don't remember anything, I blanked out.

BC= I remember trying to creep everyone out.

DW= I remember food, lots of food everywhere. There was all kinds.

BC= The theme of the video is super-creep.

I= Yeah, it's super creep. Even the part of the keyboard is creepy.

DW= I think it's fun.

Off to Zero.

I= We're back again with The Smashing Pumpkins. We're gonna have a little pause. But now, the big question is about the drummer in Smashing Pumpkins. Is gonna be Matt Walker the new drummer or it's not decided yet if you're going to in a near future...

BC= Matt has passed some of the initial tests, but we're not finished the full psychological battery, we got to see him naked.

DW= He's got to go through, um, the maze.

JI= Yeah, the isolation chamber in the cold hours.

I= Is there a time for the beginning of 1997 to begin to work in the next album?

BC= I think I'm gonna start working. James is working on a solo record. So um, I'm gonna start working on my own for a little while but I don't think we're gonna start working on it together probably 'til the summer. We're not really planning on putting up another album 'til the spring of '98.

I= 1998?

BC= Yeah, we need to get away from it for a while. I mean, we've been going non-stop for a really long time and our biggest concern is that the music is gonna suffer. I think we need to recharge the batteries, start fresh and once we start again, we'll go hardcore for a while.

JI= Another endless cycle.

I= One pause and we'll be back with Hora Prima, with The Smashing Pumpkins. Don't go.

Off to commercials.

I= We're back with The Smashing Pumpkins, and here's another doubt about the drummer. I heard two days ago about Jimmy Chamberlin's new project with the guy from Skid Row, the girl from The Breeders,

BC= And the guy from The Frogs.

I= And the guy from The Frogs.

JI= Jimmy Frog, the green angel.

BC= The green angel.

I= Yes?

BC= Yeah, that's him.

JI= This is for the green angels project.

DW= We should have put them in Scratchie. (The Pumpkins laugh)

I= Did you know about it or was it something like all of the sudden or...

DW= We didn't know.

JI= We didn't know anything about it.

I= OK, it's called The Last Hard Men and we'll have to keep track of them.

DW= What????

JI= Last Hard Men.

BC= That's their name.

DW= Oh!!! (laughs)

I= OK, let's go on to the present of the Smashing Pumpkins, the release of the new box, called The Aeroplane Flies High. And it's got all the singles...

BC= 5 Mellon Collie singles, 28 B-sides.

Off to a live performance of Zero.

I= Is is something like you did with Pisces Iscariot? Some new material. I mean, we have enough songs to listen to for a year.

BC= Yeah, the idea is that we wrote so many songs for Mellon Collie, we just kind of wanted to put everything out, and obviously the normal...no one wants to listen to a 56 songs album. Although Prince just put out a 36 songs album...well, we just figured we'd do it our way which is to put them out on singles and then put them in a box, and see if people buy them, it's up to them. If you think about this, it's like...it's like Mellon Collie but more.

JI= And a good package.

I= The Aeroplane Flies High means like, is it a sentence? The Aeroplane Flies High?

BC= What does Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness mean in a sentence?

I= Well, for me it makes sense: Melancholy and the infinite sadness.

BC= Yeah? Siamese Dream?

= No, it doesn't make sense.

BC= Gish?

I= No.

BC= Well...

I= We've been left with the doubt of The Aeroplane Flies High. This is Smashing Pumpkins, Quiet.

Off to Quiet (the Vieuphoria version)

Off to commercials

I= We're back with The Smashing Pumpkins. They're not only on tour, but they also bring new bands to the scene. You don't speak any Spanish?

All of them= no

I= You don't understand a word I'm saying (switches to English) I was talking about bringing new bands as opening acts for you. But now you have a huge band, in a way, playing with you: Garbage. And now everybody is talking about Garbage and the renassaince of pop in the 90's. How did the idea come out, like the idea of touring together with Garbage? D'arcy?

BC= That was a pretty...it was an easy decision. DW= There weren't many other bands to choose from and we liked them. And we've known Butch and Duke and Steve for a really long time.

BC= Since 1990, so...

DW= Very long time.

BC= That one was easy because of our relationship with Butch.

I= It must be a special relationship because Butch was the producer for Siamese Dream, of course there were a lot of ups and downs in that producing period.

BC= I mean, it's hard to put it across, but our relationship with Butch is more than just producer and band. We're very close friends, you know. It's hard to explain that to people.

I= This is the CD Butch produced (shows Siamese Dream to the camera) Why did you decide to co-produce the new album with two different producers?

BC= I think we probably, we thought we got as far as we could go with Butch because I think we were too close. And I thought that bringing in two people that we haven't really worked with would show new results. And it did. It pushed us in a way we haven't been pushed before. Because all the recordings we've done up until Mellon Collie we've done with Butch, so everything we understood about recording was through Butch. So we needed someone to come and say: "Well, maybe we should try it this way". You know, new things.

I= We're gonna watch the video for Disarm. How do you feel about Disarm? Disarm is a song, in a way, Smashing Pumpkins broke out with. Great song, acoustic, the video was amazing, the video IS amazing. How do you feel about that song? That song was like a song of perception...

BC= I think it's a very special song. I mean, it's one of those songs that 20 years from now it won't sound from 1993. It will sound from whenever. I don't think a lot of, I think there's been , I think there's only been a couple 2 or 3 songs that we've done that have been like Disarm, they're of a different time.

I= Let's watch this, Disarm, with The Smashing Pumpkins.

Off to Disarm.

I= Well, our time is now almost over with The Smashing Pumpkins. Thanks for your time. When are you gonna tour Latin America?

JI= Ugh...

BC= (covers his face with his hand)

I= You've got a big Latin American audience...1997?

DW= 1999?

I= 1999?

BC= I think that this last year's been the first year that things are really starting to happen for us in Latin America. We just wanna make sure that there's an audience there. Um, when we put out our next album, we're planning maybe only playing 50 concerts total. Chances are we will come, but we'll only be in 2 or 3 concerts total in Latin America. We're not gonna do a big tour.

I= OK.

BC= We will do a big size tour, not a long tour. We feel bad because we wanna go everywhere that people wanna see us. But there's just a point where we've been on tour almost a year now and still haven't covered everywhere. There's just a point where we have to make records, that's what we're about, more than playing live.

I= At least you know that if you play Chile, Argentina and Brazil, again, people from Bolivia, Peru and Uruguay, anyway it's really close, so if they wanna go see The Smashing Pumpkins, they're gonna go.

BC= And, and we've had so much succes in certain parts of the world that it's hard sometimes to go to a place where people don't really know you too well.

I= OK, Thank you very much for your time. I hope the best for your future.

JI= (waves goodbye)

I= For the renaissance of The Smashing Pumpkins in terms of sound and everything.

BC= (makes a rising bird gesture), The Phoenix is rising from me.

I= (to the camera) OK, I'll see you guys next week and next week we'll have Garbage with us. So don't forget.

Off to a live performance of Where Boys Fear to Tread

Closing Credits

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