SP INTERVIEWS / ARTICLES

Interview on MTV News - Aug 1996

Transcribed by Chris Tribout

"In music news, meanwhile, The Smashing Pumpkins -- having weathered the death last month of tour keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin, from a drug overdose, and the subsequent firing of drug-dependent drummer Jimmy Chamberlin -- resumed the group's interrupted tour in Las Vegas on Tuesday, with Filter drummer Matt Walker and Frogs keyboardist Dennis Flemion temporarily filling in the vacancies. We also caught up with the band in rehearsals a few days earlier.

BILLY CORGAN, Smashing Pumpkins: I think we were all expecting it to be kind of a weird, like, this doesn't feel right. And it's been totally fine. It still sounds like the Smashing Pumpkins, it still rocks and we're totally fine and happy with it.

TABITHA SOREN: How soon after the incident in New York and Melvoin's death did you start looking for a replacement?

CORGAN: We still wanted to continue on with the tour no matter what anybody thought, whether Jimmy was in the band or not in the band. So as soon as we decided to fire Jimmy, then it was obvious to us that we needed to find someone else because we were still planning on going out.

SOREN: What were the auditions like?

CORGAN: We basically invited the people that we knew their playing through other bands and things like that. It was not in any way, shape or form an open audition. Everybody played the same four songs and basically, by doing that, even though it was very repetitive for us, it very much showed the difference between one guy to the next.

MTV: They finally settled on drummer Matt Walker from the band Filter, who opened up for the Smashing Pumpkins on the European leg of their tour. But don't expect any of the Filter sound to seep into familiar Pumpkin songs.

MTV: They finally settled on drummer Matt Walker from the band Filter, who opened up for the Smashing Pumpkins on the European leg of their tour. But don't expect any of the Filter sound to seep into familiar Pumpkin songs.

CORGAN: We don't want to go through the whole process of retooling the band around Matt. We're not really in that position. I mean, we're so deep in the "Melancholy" [sic] record, I don't think that we can really play the songs any other way as it is. We'd have to step away for like six months and come back again, and that's just not going to happen. If we did, we would never go back on tour.

MTV: Taking over the touring keyboard position is Dennis Flemion from the Frogs.

SOREN: What does Dennis bring?

D'ARCY, Bass: Chaos.

JAMES IHA, Guitar: Awareness.

CORGAN: With a K.

SOREN: Can you describe what the rehearsals have been like?

D'ARCY: The drummer that we have -- Matt now, who's our drummer -- he's almost too good. We are like no, no, no, no your meter's too good.

CORGAN: Yeah, you're supposed to slow down there and speed up there. It's like he's had to almost unlearn what he's learned to be a good drummer to be able to play with us because we are so screwed up.

D'ARCY: Dennis, from the Frogs, he's got old costumes and he just likes to jump around and make jokes. We just needed someone to liven things up a little bit. It has got to be...

IHA: Levity.

D'ARCY: Levity is what we needed for the tour.

FAN 1: They pretty much rocked. I just got thrown out.

FAN 2: They seemed really excited to get back on the road and everything. They were talking to the audience.

CORGAN: We appreciate your support very much. We like to think that you're here because you love our music. And we love our music, too.

FAN 3: The new drummer was good, but I'd rather have the old drummer in there playing really good.

FAN 4: The new drummer rocks, man.

FAN 5: We're proud of them.

[Kurt:] Smashing Pumpkins discuss their troubled year in an interview with Tabitha Soren that you can see during the MTV News "Opening Act" for the "Video Music Awards," which'll start at 6:30 PM this coming Wednesday."

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