Anyway, "what will happen to The Smashing Pumpkins?" you're probably asking. Corgan has plans to go into the studio in spring to record singles as The Smashing Pumpkins. But at this point he might as well pull a James Iha and go from bad to disaster: now he's in a band called Tinted Windows with Taylor Hanson. Yawn.

If you didn't know, the Pumpkins haven't seen their original lineup in over 10 years. Read about it at their wiki.

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The Smashing Pumpkins' 20th anniversary tour has finally and thankfully concluded. I'm not sure how many more of these obnoxious outbursts fans could take. But Billy Corgan showed optimism in an interview towards the band's future projects, which apparently will be limited to singles. The Smashing Pumpkins have no plans to put out a Zeitgeist follow-up.

Corgan: We're done with the record business, so we're free to do whatever I want.

Tribune: So "Zeitgeist" was the last album?

Corgan: We're done with that. There is no point. People don't even listen to it all. They put it on their iPod, they drag over the two singles, and skip over the rest. The listening patterns have changed, so why are we killing ourselves to do albums, to create balance, and do the arty track to set up the single? It's done.

Corgan: The real story was Iha was driving me out of my mind. He was so negative. The guy literally drove me insane. When I walked out of that band, I didn't know what to do anymore. I didn't have a direction, a central focus. I wandered through different things, but I couldn't find that central thing. As soon as I got back in the band my brain started working again. I was engaged again.

Tribune: So how will you release music?

Corgan: Our primary function now is to be a singles band, that drives Pumpkins Inc. through singles. We'll still be creative, but in a different form. We won't do shows like this anymore, where we try to draw a good crowd and balance the past with the present. We'll go small and do exactly what we want to do and stop playing catalogue. We'll be like a new band that can't rely on old gimmicks. I'm not stupid. I want people to feel good about what we do. What we weren't getting [from playing a more balanced show with older songs] was excitement. We're in the polarizing business. We don't want a pat on the back: Good to have you back. We want a reaction, even if it's a negative reaction.

Tribune: People are still talking about that show you did a few weeks ago at the Chicago Theatre.

Corgan: Energy we can do something with. Apathy we can't work with. Who's above us? Who's lighting the culture on fire? Nobody. We don't have to live in that world. We have the biggest manager [Irving Azoff] in the world. He tells us we can get there, we will get there. We will crack the egg like we did in '92, without doing something embarrassing like working with Timbaland. We will find how to do our thing and make it work. I can write songs. We're big boys. We'll do it. Last time I talked with you, I said we're going to come back and make a better album. The album we made surprised us. We kept going back to this primitive thing. We wanted to do "Siamese Dream II." Elaborate, orchestrated, but it wasn't coming from me. It put us back in this organic process, and in this position of fighting back to why we do what we do. Now I understand it. It's the difference between intellectual process and emotional process. We're sober, healthy, we understand the business we're in, and the pragmatic reality of what it takes. We have the skill set, we always have, and we belong in the conversation, and we will kick down the door to get back in the conversation. You take a milquetoast middle-of-the-road fake-tattoo band, we can out-write them. If you come up with the songs, the fans will show up. We found with "Zeitgeist" that the alternative audience isn't alternative anymore. They're a pop audience that listens to Nickelback. So doing a 10-minute song, nobody will listen to it. We have to come up with singles like "1979," and come up with songs that sound good on the radio. We have to write those kinds of songs.

Tribune: Why'd you break up the Pumpkins in 2000?

Corgan: The real story was was Iha driving me out of my mind. He was so negative. The guy literally drove me insane. When I walked out of that band, I didn’t know what to do anymore. I didn’t have a direction, a central focus. I wandered through different things, but I couldn’t find that central thing. As soon as I got back in the band my brain started working again. I was engaged again.

That's the meat of the interview, see the rest at the Chicago Tribune.

Corgan followed two days later with a clarification of the interview on the SP blog, basically defending the band's set list that was criticized for not having enough oldies. I didn't think the interview needed clarification about the set list thing considering it was a minor problem - fans should be happy with the band's set list except in weird cases like the Mars Volta concert I saw in September where they played ONE song from each of their two best albums. A big concern this whole time has been lashing out against your own fans -- fans are the ones that don't just "drag over the two singles, and skip over the rest" -- something he didn't touch on in the interview or the clarification.

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At the tour's most recent Chicago stop, Corgan rudely, irrationally, pointlessly, idiotically, and immaturely lashed out against his fans (of all people!), asking rhetorically why Smashing Pumpkins fans don't like the Smashing Pumpkins anymore (note this is amidst "We love you Billy!" cheers and comments of the like). Who exactly are you addressing Billy? Regardless of how many fans you're losing or whatever, the people showing up to your concert obviously like you. Sometimes crowds are disappointing, but it's almost never worth it to halt a concert because of it. Unless you're Nickelback.

The Smashing Pumpkins 20th Anniversary Tour:

11-21 Chicago, IL - Auditorium Theatre ("Black Sunshine")
11-22 Chicago, IL - Auditorium Theatre ("White Crosses")
11-24 Kansas City, MO - Midland Theater
11-25 Kansas City, MO - Midland Theater
11-26 St. Louis, MO - Fox Theatre
11-29 Las Vegas, NV - The Pearl
11-30 San Diego, CA - RIMAC Arena
12-02 Los Angeles, CA - Gibson Amphitheatre ("Black Sunshine")
12-03 Los Angeles, CA - Gibson Amphitheatre ("White Crosses")

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"G.L.O.W." debuted almost two weeks ago on Chicago's Q-101 and comes out officially on Guitar Hero World Tour on November 26.

We're hoping to hear more about the Pumpkins next album come November 27th, when the band's official site "comes back".

UPDATE (10/27 4:38pm): Apparently I got some bad info. I wasn't able to watch the performance on Jimmy Kimmel, and the Pumpkins to no surprise DID play "G.L.O.W.". Here it is (sorry about that!):

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"1979" and "The Everlasting Gaze" will be bundled with "G.L.O.W." for purchase, and the classic "Today" will come standard with the game.

A nice little surprise: now you'll be able to play as Billy Corgan! Didn't see it coming? Neither did I.

The Pumpkins are on tour now, hitting the big cities for their 20th anniversary. The "Gish" dates you might have heard about, where the band will play (mainly) songs from their 1991 debut album, will happen sometime Q1-Q2 of 2009.

[via Billboard]

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