Australian Music wesbite Undercover.com.au has posted a video interview done by a USA based news service with Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin, after their Rockwalk induction a few weeks ago. Not much new information came from this interview, nothing that we haven’t reported on before. From the video Billy talks about what they have planned for the rest of the year, here is a shortlist:

• Pre-Gish Demo’s later this year, maybe before Christmas
• DVD release of documentary on the Asheville Orange Peel and The Fillmore residency shows from mid-last year.
• A single from the “new” Smashing Pumpkins in the Fall (Australia’s Spring) around the 20th Anniversary tour
• A new album release for early next year

You can view the video on the Undercover.com.au website: Smashing Pumpkins Interview.

Transcript of interview

The Smashing Pumpkins, fresh off being inducted into Hollywood’s Rockwalk, show no signs of slowing down in 2008. After the much talked about reunion of Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain, who brought out new members Jeff Schroeder, Lisa Harriton and Ginger Reyes for a Smashing Pumpkins tour in 2007, the band are currently working on a documentary of their small club reunion tour. The small club reunion tour, which featured multiple night runs in Ashville, North Carolina and at the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco, California, showcased The Smashing Pumpkins new lineup performing songs from their extensive catalog, songs from the band’s latest album ‘Zeitgeist’ and a certain amount of improvisation in each set list.

We caught up with Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain to get their thoughts on staying very busy in 2008.

“Right now we got a lot up in the air. We’re working on a DVD that’s sort of a documentary of our residency Fillmore shows. We’re going to put out hopefully some of our early demos for Christmas, probably put out a new Pumpkins single with new Pumpkins in the fall and then do a fall tour and then we start putting out a new Pumpkins album probably beginning next year.”

Billy Corgan also talked about the documentary capturing the bands surprise at some of the crowd reactions to the bands small club reunion tour.

“It was interesting because we didn’t do what you would’ve expected us to do coming back after seven years. We decided to play these small shows and also write new songs while we were doing it and play lots of different songs from our catalog and we were met head on by the new American audience that just basically wants greatest hits. So it was a very interesting dynamic. It kind of surprised us and the documentary we’re making actually sort of charts the progress of our sort of optimism to the shows going in to sort of being surprised and shocked by some of the reactions we were getting and then the songs that came out of that process. It’s not a bad thing because the world is changing and I think we were sort of blind sided a little bit by the world that we’re living in now. Which I think now we’re totally acclimated to. It doesn’t shock us at all but at the time was sort of surprising.”

The Smashing Pumpkins will mark their 20th anniversary this September with a special series of shows in New York, Los Angeles and their native Chicago. Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain say they want to make each show special and they plan to have special guests at each show. The Smashing Pumpkins are also currently suing Virgin Records over the labels use of the band’s music in a recent Pepsi ad. The lawsuit demands that Virgin pay the band the profits that were earned in the campaign, and asks for an injunction against using the Pumpkins’ name or music in the future.

Long time Ozphoria member Anahedonia has uploaded his recording of the Australian show from Festival Hall in Melbourne, Victoria to the Live Music Archive. The Live Music Archive is a great resource that has been embraced by The Smashing Pumpkins where they have allowed fans to record and upload their shows, allowing people across the globe the download and enjoy these shows.

Click the links below to download them either in high quality FLAC or in MP3.

• 24 bit - http://www.archive.org/details/tsp2008-04-04.flac24
• 16 bit - http://www.archive.org/details/tsp2008-04-04.flac16 - (MP3’s available here)

A fantastic recording, although some parts are incomplete, it is fantastic to hear and relive this show for those who where lucky enough to be there. You can read about it all in the Ozphoria forum here: 04/04/08 - Festival Hall, Melbourne, VIC

We will let our readers know if any more shows are to surface from the Australian tour. Once again many thanks from everybody at Ozphoria to Anahedonia for recording this show and sharing it with everybody so quickly.

Recently Billy made some comments at the RockWalk with national radio syndicate Premier News & Prep. They include a notable blurb about some upcoming US tour dates.

The Smashing Pumpkins will mark their 20th anniversary this September with a special series of shows in New York, Los Angeles and their native Chicago. Frontman Billy Corgan says they want to make “each show special, [so we’ll] have special guests at each one.” Corgan says the band’s first decade was a lot different than the past decade. He tells us, “[I] look at the first 10 years as sort of like a car crash, like whoa, what happened? And the second 10 years has been like rebuilding.” –Steve Reynolds

Let the speculation begin!!

Source: smashingpumpkins.com

Fan and frequent poster on the Netphoria forums, MonteLDS, was lucky enough to record an interview with Billy Corgan when he was inducted into Hollywood’s RockWalk earlier today. During the interview Billy tallks about the future release of the shows from San Francisco at The Fillmore from last year - it would be a DVD with a possible CD soundtrack to accompany, along with the future tours for the band, 20th Anniversary shows coming up later this year and many more exciting bits of Smashing Pumpkins news.

You can watch the video here:
montelds.blogspot.com

From everybody at Ozphoria, a huge thankyou to MonteLDS for recording this very special and candid interview. For people who frequently read our forums you would already know that when on tour here in Australia a few weeks ago, us at Ozphoria we were lucky enough to have a chance encounter with Billy Corgan too - unfortunately we had no video cameras on us.

He discussed similar topics with us, including with the idea of charging more for ticket prices at smaller venues (which he mentions talking with us about this in this video posted by MonteLDS ). You can read all the information from our meeting with Billy in this thread: Lunch with Billy.

Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan reluctantly accepted a low-grade honor in Hollywood on Wednesday, after revealing that he had spent a lot of time wondering whether it was “a silly thing.”

Corgan and bandmate Jimmy Chamberlin placed their hands in wet cement for the Rockwalk, a shrine of sorts outside a music instrument shop. A hundred or so fans turned up, outnumbered by the media and assorted band hangers-on.

“I’m so used to bad vibes, people hating our band and throwing things at us. So it’s strange to be honored,” Corgan told the crowd.

“I had to think about it. I had to really lay in bed and think, ‘Is this a good thing? Is this a silly thing?’ I’m really honored. I’m really touched.”

He expressed similarly mixed emotions about being in one of the most popular rock bands of the 1990s, saying membership in ’70s rock gods Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath might have been preferable.

Clearly in a philosophical mood, Corgan said Smashing Pumpkins represented “an existential extension” of himself. The only problem is that he does not always know who he really is.

“So thank you for understanding that part of me that I don’t understand.”

Corgan and Chamberlin, the band’s drummer, are the sole original members of the Chicago band, which enjoyed such modern-rock hits as “Today” and “1979.” Internal dissension led to the band’s break-up in 2000. Corgan resurrected the Pumpkins in 2005, but without guitarist James Iha and bassist D’Arcy Wretzky.

He told reporters after the induction ceremony that he has “zero” personal communication with Iha and Wretzky.

“They should be here today. This is part of their legacy too,” he said, adding they were not invited.

“Our door is open, but … if people don’t walk through your door, what are you supposed to do? You can only be rejected so many times. You can only have so many overtures ignored.”

Wretzky, who quit the band in 1999, has largely left the music business. Iha has kept busy with a variety of musical collaborations.

Source: www.reuters.com

At the 16/04/08 - Monterrey Arena concert the Smashing Pumpkins finished the concert wearing sombreros and poncho’s!

The Smashing Pumpkins tour has come to an end with a final few special show in Central America. The setlists on the tour were very similar to the setlists during the Australian tour, with the inclusion of Muzzle and To Shelia. You can read all about the final shows from the tour on our Tour Discussion forum, as well as see links to video and audio recordings.

After a year of touring, with a small break over the new year period, the Smashing Pumpkins still have a busy few months ahead of them. To think about what has been accomplished in a single year is simply amazing - new band, new songs, new album, new EP, 3 world tours - its been one busy year. Looking back to this time last year we were just breaking the news of the new members joining The Smashing Pumpkins line up and also the news of the tracklisting for Zeitgeist. If you want to stroll down memory lane, you can read all the updates in our archive. Ozphoria 2007 Archive.

So what now? This week Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin are being inducted into Hollywood’s RockWalk of Fame, then they will start building the new studio - being called “Pumpkinland V2.0″. In recent interviews the Smashing Pumpkins have said that they are looking at releasing early work (possiby Gish-era demo’s) some time this year, so no doubt that will be a focus during this break from touring. They are scheduled to start an American tour in September 2008, so between now and then no doubt alot will of news and announcements from the band … and of course, we will be reporting it here.

So keep checking the Ozphoria and the forums for all the latest news. Finally to The Smashing Pumpkins - thankyou - for not only visiting our shores for the first time in 10 years but also giving fans all across the globe some wonderful memories over the past 12 months. The Zeitgeist era has officially come to an end, as with anything the Smashing Pumpkins do next … none of us know what to expect, but we all are equally excited about what is to come.

In early interviews with the Smashing Pumpkins members of the band had made mention about an early filmclip for the song ‘Rhinoceros’ where it was a mix of live concert footage and footage of ‘a girl on some swings’. It has been brought to our attention that this clip has finally (after 19 years) seen the light of day is now on YouTube.

This is a true rare part of Smashing Pumpkins history, it also uses a slightly different recording of Rhinoceros, rather than the versions from the Reel Time Sessions (1989) and the recording on Gish (1991).

Rhinoceros - Never Before Seen Smashing Pumpkins Video from 1989.

Comments and information from akerrwolf (poster of video):

“I made this video in college back in 1989. The Pumpkins didn’t have a record out yet. We filmed them in Chicago.”

“It’s really him singing and them in concert in Chicago, but we shot it on 16mm with no sound. We edited it later to a copy of the song the band gave us on cassette.”

Discuss this topic on the forum: Rhinoceros - Alternative Video

A few weeks after the tour concluded in Perth, Western Australia recordings from the Smashing Pumpkins Australian tour are beginning to surface. If you’re interesting to downloading copies of these recordings we high recommend you frequently check out our Tour Forum and also Smashing Pumpkins - Australian Show Recordings thread in our Traders Forum for all the information about where and how you can download the shows.

Alot of the recordings have been released as a lossless format (FLAC) with tapers asking that shows only be shared in this format. Therefore meaning NO MP3’s will be posted online. While we know majority of people prefer MP3, we have to respect the wishes of tapers that go to this effort to allow us to hear these wonderful shows.

For more information on downloading these recordings and formats, we have a FAQ thread: Torrents and FLAC files.

Finally we are still in the process of uploading all the video we recorded at various shows across the tour, remember to keep checking out our youtube channel at youtube.com/ozphoria, here is one of the recent additions we recorded.

The Smashing Pumpkins - Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

Originally written by Pink Floyd, The Smashing Pumpkins are joined on stage by Billy Corgan’s brother Jesse.