In a new New York Times article, it was revealed that James Iha emailing Smashing Pumpkins co-founder Billy Corgan helped initiate their reconciliation and reunion.
After some tentative emails initiated by Mr. Iha — their first real contact since 2001 — and then a few air-clearing dinners, Mr. Corgan began the process of slowly piecing back together his core creative unit. With enough time past, and having each toiled with enough subpar substitutes, they made it work this time — and Mr. Corgan finally got his band back.
Iha later implied in the interview that Corgan was less of a taskmaster now — the guitarist was delighted that, recently, he could miss some band responsibilities to drop off his kids at school without any pushback.
Iha added that he had tried not to pay much attention to Corgan and the Pumpkins in the years they were apart. “I didn’t allow myself to think about it that much,” he said. “But there would be reminders — a song on the radio or in the grocery store.” Corgan frequently trashed Iha in the press for years as a ‘piece of shit’ and ‘the worst human being I’ve ever met in my life.’
Iha seemed excited about new Smashing Pumpkins material. “He still has angst,” Mr. Iha said proudly of Mr. Corgan, who began reciting new, still-dour lyrics — the Pumpkins also realized that by playing only their most loved songs on this tour, they could be, for once, crowd pleasers.
“It’s a concession to a bigger goal,” Mr. Corgan said, promising to play the music, for the first time, as faithfully as possible to its recorded version. “We collectively need to rebuild the public trust in our brand.”
D’arcy discussed her reunion negotiations, which sadly never came to fruition, in an Alternative Nation interview last month.
“Everybody was doing completely different stuff. James was doing different stuff, Jimmy was doing different stuff. Jimmy didn’t even say yes until not that long ago, Billy was having a lot of trouble getting Jimmy to agree to do it from what I’m told, I never spoke with Jimmy and I never spoke with James. I tried to speak with James one time after Billy called me moping. The whole conversation was him saying, ‘The fans just want you [D’arcy], they don’t want me [Billy]. They don’t want the whole band, it’s just about you [D’arcy].’
He had not planned to do a solo album. He did that crazy tour where he said he was going to do every era of the band, I was like here we go again, Billy going out and trying to get validation from everyone that it’s all about him, because we talked for an hour about how people want the whole band back, it’s not about me, and me trying to build his stupid ego back up again. Then I called James and I said, ‘We have a problem.’
All of us wanted to do the tour, Billy and I wanted to do the band again.”
