Drummer JIMMY CHAMBERLIN Quits SMASHING PUMPKINS

SMASHING PUMPKINS guitarist, singer, songwriter and founding member Billy Corgan has announced that drummer Jimmy Chamberlin has left the group.

Chamberlin joined the band Corgan founded in Chicago in 1988 and played on all their albums except "Adore" (1998).

Corgan will continue to write and record as SMASHING PUMPKINS, with plans to head into the studio this spring.

In a late 2008 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Corgan said SMASHING PUMPKINS will not release any more new albums, citing the lack of enthusiasm for their 2007 comeback effort, "Zeitgeist", as one of the reasons. He said, "We're done with ('Zeitgeist'). 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." But the moratorium on albums does not mean the PUMPKINS won't record new music. Corgan explained, "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."

Corgan also said that the PUMPKINS will no longer go out on the sort of traditional tour that it recently completed, during which Corgan lashed out at the audience on several dates for their negative reaction to the more obscure set lists. The singer and guitarist said, "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 catalog. We'll be like a new band that can't rely on old gimmicks."

Corgan and Chamberlin reactivated the PUMPKINS in 2007 after a six-year hiatus with three new members. The frontman said that anyone who thought he relaunched the group for money doesn't get it: "We didn't come back for the cash, we came back to be great again. It made me mad that people thought we're done, that we don't have a future. Get out. We don't want you. We've never been that band. That happy band. We picked up where we left off. We're not the retirement band playing our old hits."