Billy Corgan sat down with Lars Ulrich for the Beats 1 program It’s Electric! to discuss the upcoming Smashing Pumpkins reunion tour and the band’s new music. One topic that came up was the strained relationship between Corgan and former bandmate D’Arcy Wretzky — who will not be participating in the tour. Corgan went on to clear up his feelings on this situation, stating that he and the remaining bandmates would rather stay on the music and avoid “the shitty reality show.”
The 51-year-old frontman was initially reluctant to discuss his relationship with Wretzky when Ulrich brought up the discussion as “the white elephant in the room.” “It’s been cast so into a tabloid thing, that you’re basically feeding back into the machine and I don’t think the real story is interesting to people as the story they want,” Corgan said. He mentioned that the relationship between he and Wretzky has been cordial at times, yet the two have also not been in a room together in 19 years.
In terms of moving forward without Wretzky, Corgan noted the “magical thing” that happens when he, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, and guitarist James Iha perform together. “If that’s not your guiding principle, then it’s a shitty reality show. And we don’t want the shitty reality show, we really don’t. We’d rather just stay on the music, and if we can do that, great,” he told Ulrich. The performer also quoted Chamberlin’s comments on continuining without Wretzky: “Now that we’ve seen how it all went, it was never gonna work.”
Corgan also made an appearance on The Late, Late Show with James Corden to perform the track “Archer” from his 2017 solo album Ogilala.
Watch Corgan’s interview and performance in the clips below.
https://youtu.be/_zyAaFezNIE