BILLY CORGAN Calls SMASHING PUMPKINS Split A 'Mistake'

Benjy Eisen of Spinner.com recently conducted an interview with SMASHING PUMPKINS mainman Billy Corgan. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Spinner.com: Why are you releasing the 44 songs of "Teargarden by Kaleidyscope" for free?

Corgan: I've never been comfortable with the idea that you work for a couple of years just to come up with a pile of 12 songs and that becomes the album. What I like about the idea of recording the songs one at a time is I'm always in the moment with the song. I'm hoping it will raise the quality of the songs that I release so that every song is important to me. Hopefully the audience will feel that way too.

It's going to take a while for the record business to find its new bearings. In the meantime, it keeps acting like it's the old record business, which I think really works against the artistic aspect of putting out music. I thought I would walk around all of that, make the songs available for free and I figured out a way that I could feel invested. I figure it's going to take three years and I'm always putting out something I feel excited about, and then I'm also getting some level of feedback from the audience about what they're actually connecting with.

Spinner.com: Do you regret breaking up SMASHING PUMPKINS in 2000?

Corgan: Breaking up the band was a mistake because I think it broke trust with the audience. You had an audience that was very invested in that idea — whether they were invested in the people or the idea or the songs, I don't know. Like a relationship that you break off from and then try to pick back up, it's never quite the same. It doesn't mean it can't be as good, but it has to be different. That beautiful original feeling got lost in the interim of being away. If we had said, "We just went away for seven years," it would have been similar, but somehow breaking up, there's a violence to it.

Spinner.com: Many fans said things like, "You reformed SMASHING PUMPKINS but really it's just in name." Do you think that's a valid criticism?

Corgan: Anything is a fair criticism. The question I would ask is, "Do I have the right to do it?" Based upon what I've seen since reforming the band, I do have the right. If I felt I didn't, I would sit here honestly and say, "Nah, I probably should've just left it alone." I've been making music with the intention of connecting with an audience for 20 years now, so at the end of the day I have to be accountable to me in that way. I can't not do what I believe in because somebody else doesn't feel the same way I do about it

Read the entire interview from Spinner.com.