BILLY CORGAN SAYS JAMES IHA IS “A PIECE OF SHIT” & JIMMY CHAMBERLIN IS A “FUCKING LIAR”
Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan is interviewed in the new issue of NME Magazine, and he was quite candid about his dislike of former Pumpkins guitarist James Iha. He also discussed why Chamberlin left the band, and elaborated that money was a reason behind Chamberlin leaving. He was complimentary of D’arcy. Here are some excerpts.
[Jimmy Chamberlin] said in his statement on leaving that he “couldn’t just cash the cheque”…
“See now, here is a perfect opportunity for me to bury Jimmy as a fucking liar. But I won’t. That’s a lie. That statement’s just a flat-out lie.”
Do you still feel any rancor towards other band members about the way it ended?
“Uhhh… I’m OK with Jimmy. We don’t have a relationship at the moment, but I mean, I have no ill will. I want to see him do well. James Iha I think is just a piece of shit. I think he’s one of the worst human beings I’ve ever met in my life. And D’arcy, she’s sort of, in her own way, sort of an innocent.”
Those photos that were released when she was arrested for missing a court date last year suggested she wasn’t really in a good place
“Yeah, it’s terrible. But she’s not a bad person. And I don’t hold any ill will towards her, even though I’ve had to deal with fucking lawsuits and stuff like that. If there’s any fucking culprit in this it’s Iha. But y’know, he was there at the right time in my life, we did do good things together, I think he is a good musician when he gives a fuck, which most of the time he doesn’t. And that’s about it.”
LOL. the past sucks
Billy Corgan is a piece of shit.
Bilco needs to shut up
Man, I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to play in a band with Maynard over Billy. Shut the f- up for once Corgan.
i met all of the pumpkins back in the day and james iha was a FUCKING DICK. billy was soooo nice. my friend and i were in the front row geeking out and he had the security guard give us backstage passes…. we got to hang out and take pictures , darcy was really sweet too. but there was tension between the band even back then…. they were all separated. james iha was a fucking dickhead though. i asked him to sign my poster and he took a marker and just scribbled all over it and destroyed it….. asshole.
@heather
Totally, same with me. I met the Pumpkins in 2000 and Melissa was adorable, Jimmy was ultra-friendly and Billy, despite being the most wanted was really cool, even after a couple of hours of shaking hands/signing autographs…
Meanwhile, Mr. Iha had chosen a seat as far as possible to the fans and refused systematically to talk to us or to even look at any fan.
Ok, Billy is harsh on this one, but my feeling is he is right. James seems cold and kinda thankless. I felt let down.
Anyway, old news, Billy’s made his opinion about James clear in the past. If the media asks, Billy answers. I live with it, no problem.
Billy makes the music. And he proved his point with Oceania: He doesn’t NEED any of the “original” members to make great music.
This guy’s got a lotta drama with past band members. Sounds like PJ drummer controversy…
I don’t care. Oceania is the tits.
I like my rock star eccentric! haha !
Billy’s team here!!!
More seriously, the jab towards Jimmy could have been avoided, we all know that JC has a huge place in BC’s heart. Sometimes his mouth speaks too much. I love him though.
He speaks his mind time after time. Nothing wrong with telling the truth as he saw it at the time.
It was his band and he has to take responsibility for the members if they were like this.
Agree with ”is he one?” Billy’s king. Much more sympathic than James. Who cares about Iha?? Oceania ROCKS!
Oceania is average at best, it’s not up to the standard of Billy’s stronger songs like ‘Widow Wake My mind’, ‘Spangled’ or ‘(Come on) let’s go’… I’m not even really that in to earlier stuff like ‘Rat in the cage’ but I think I like that song more than this Oceania stuff. Maybe it’s a grower?
I met Iha in 2000 and he was very personable, kind, and funny. (He also drew on the picture I asked him to sign, but it was in addition to his signature and they were funny cartoon characters, bunny ears, etc.) Maybe you guys saying shit about him are the ones that are fucking dicks? Maybe he was just having a bad day when you met him? The world may never know. What we do know is that Billy Corgan has a history of maligning 99.9% of his former “coworkers.” Is the problem with all of them, or with the source?
Wow, does Billy Corgan ever shut up? Everyday I visit this site there’s a story of him saying something stupid. All he wants is attention and he’s not going to get it because he’s a has-been.
Billy is so insecure.
Billy should get his own reality show……ON MTV
I met James, along with Billy and Jimmy Flemion from the Frogs in ’94. It was instantly apparent that James didn’t give half a sh*t about his fans. Maybe he was having a bad day, but I’ve heard that from others so many times since. He just doesn’t care. Billy and Jimmy, on the other hand, were talkative and joking a lot. They actually seemed to appreciate that we were huge fans of their bands.
None of the guys in Smashing Pumpkins mean shit to me, but especially Billy Corgan. So my message to Corgan is, “Go Fuck Yourself”!!
With all of the hatred for his old bandmates I feel that maybe he should play with them. Not dissing Oceania because I think it’s a good album for what it is and it’s grown on me a little more. But just think if he reunited with all 3 original members…we’d probably get more kick-ass heavy rock songs like XYU, Ode To No One, or Silverfuck!
The stark contrast between his interviews and his new music amazes me. He sounds so bitter and full of angst in his interviews yet oceania sounds like he was on a prozac trip.
Stay classy, Billy. You literally look like a penis.
Not metaphorically?
Sounding like a prozac trip is the way Bill thinks he might make some cash–giving the people the half-assed warmed-over shit they want.
And word to the wise (meaning current SP members): he may be complimenting you now, but later the crap will hit the fan–every time BC talks to the press, too!
Corgan finally puts out a halfway decent album, and then decides to overshadow that by being “honest” aka being a total dick. I like SP, but Corgan’s ignorance is frustrating beyond belief. His own negativity fuels the fire that burns him. If only he’d actually listened to the rational fans that posted on his facebook instead of getting all butthurt and lashing out.
Billy burying James publicly time and time again does nothing but make himself look bad.
James might be a piece of shit, but you don’t see him taking ANY jabs at Billy.
It all just seems like a publicity stunt to get attention.
Billy – Let your music do the talking and just shut up about your obvious insecurities. Oceania is great, and it doesn’t require some publicity stunt like shit talking about Iha to gain listeners.
Zeitgeist owns Oceania’s ass… Nothing on the new disc compares to songs like ‘Stars’ or ‘Neverlost’, the new stuff doesn’t even compare to weaker SP tracks like ‘She Knows’ or ‘Rat in the Cage’… I’m not a huge fan of Pumpkins though, they were never as good as their grunge counterparts like Nirvana and Mudhoney.
“Stay classy, Billy. You literally look like a penis.”
That made me laugh out loud man, cheers!
The thing is that all of his trash talking may overshadow the music he just released for some. It also opens him up to fierce criticism, because if you keep dishing it at every opportunity, you better be ready to keep taking it.
Billy should say his piece, then shut up. These constant rants should be in the form of getting things off your chest to your closest, most trusted friends only. And if he doesn’t have anyone trustworthy like that, then express it in his music and let that speak for itself.
I think Billy Corgan is a fucking asshole honestly. Out of all the grunge rock bands that have made a come back in 2010 to now, from the Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains to Soundgarden and the Foo Fighters, the one band that HAS NOT kept it together is THE SMASHING PUMPKINS. One original member in the band just cannot put the past behind him and try to bring back some good fresh music, instead he has to go on a public rage everywhere in the media and protest some type of music injustice. As if fans of the Pumpkins really care about what Billy Corgan has to say about his bandmates from 20 fucking years ago!!! THEY DONT , THEY JUST WANNA HEAR SOME GOOD MUSIC OK?? Todays Smashing Pumpkins will NEVER LIVE UP TO THE HYPE AND CREATIVE ENERGY OF YESTURDAYS SMASHING PUMPKINS ( THE GISH ERA – THE SIAMESE DREAMS ERA – MELLON COLLIE ERA )
Give it up Billy Corgan, your dreams of fixing the past are over. EITHER MAKE GOOD MUSIC NOW or quit altogether ok?? WE DONT CARE ANYMORE. THE TIMES HAVE CHANGED. NO MORE PETTY ROCK STARS COMPLAINING ABOUT THEIR PAST OK???
@MAYAN CALENDAR 2012
LOL . Dafuq you think you are ? Just because you don’t like their music anymore doesn’t mean it is everyones case. Smashing pumpkins still have lots of fans . I went to see them in paris in 2008 and they fucking killed it ! They almost played 3 hours !
i am so tired of seeing SP news…this site is perfect for me except this shit
[...] Billy Corgan seems to subscribe to the notion that if you don’t have anything nice to say, then … say it to the international press? The singer hasn’t held his ex-Smashing Pumpkins bandmates in the highest regard since the original lineup’s final split back in 2000, and he definitely throws another log on the fire of drama that is the band’s post-split relationship in a new interview with NME. [...]
Billy Corgan, Slash, Axl Rose, Courtney Love and Dave Grohl should start a new rock band
CALL IT THE SMASHING PUNKS
Billy Corgan on Rhythm Guitar, Axl Rose on Lead Vocals, Slash on Lead Guitar, Courtney Love on Bass, now all we need is a good drummer
so how about Dave Grohl on drums?
Imagine that for a new band
the chemistry and drama between Billy , Slash, Axl, Courtney and Dave would be funny as hell.
[...] a recent interview with The Grunge Report, the Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman unleashed when asked about his previous bandmates, in [...]
I’ve met James twice, both times he was a dick. So i agree with Billy.
[...] a recent interview with The Grunge Report, the Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman unleashed when asked about his previous bandmates, in particular [...]
I met James and Billy once at a signing. James was nice (after I mentioned hie solo record) Billy was ok. I have a feeling he may be right about James but everyone has bad days. Billy just talks so much we forget about his good days. I am team Billy “shut-up and play” Corgan.
Billy may be going a little far but he did offer both James and D’arcy to rejoin the band in 07. D’arcy couldn’t cause she was an addict so that was okay, but James didn’t join just cause.. Still i wish they could reunite one day, Mayonaise is my most favorite song ever!!
what the fuck has mayonaise to do with Iha??? bill wrote the song dude.
Why do so many people think the band would be better with the old crew, Billy wrote everything and they couldn’t realize they had such a good thing and screwed it up.
Ya no es lo mismo con los nuevos integrantes, eso solo me hace pensar en que billy es disfuncional ya que smashing pumpkins ha perdido su escencia
eso era lo que los caracterizaba que eran extraños, raros. misteriosos y
hacían muy buenas rolas aparte de que progresaron musicalmente, sinceramente creo que hoy en día ya no suenan como antes y aunque Billy haya hecho la mayor parte del trabajo en los viejos tiempos no quiere decir que él sea lo único que los fans necesitemos. Oceanía suena a lo que el quiere y la verdad todas las canciones se me hacen iguales cosa que no pasaba antes.
This is really pathetic seeing so many people cursing Billy Corgan. I hung out with the band a number of times and even met up for drinks a few times. Iha is a piece of shit. He is a cold, two faced arrogant prick who probably was raised into that personality. I have a number of Japanese friends who sometimes have introduced me to the worst kind of humans I have ever seen in the form of angry and ultra-repressed Japanese men. He seems to fit snugly into this model of psychosocial twistedness.
And more than anything else people need to understand that Corrigan is a sensitive man who as a result of being beaten by his step-mother since he was five until his teens has a apprehension to being angry or mean to others. But, then again he is straightforward and forthright about what he thinks. But, all within the confines of being an honest human being.
Additionally, he wrote EVERYTHING that was written for The Smashing Pumpkins. He did the work. He put in the time. And before he was a working musician he put in the years and endless hours of musical practice and style formation.
Leeches are bad. But, half-leeches are the worst. They serve a purpose but in so many ways take far more in ways that are more hidden than they ever give. He should have asserted his position. But, that is the type of guy Billy is: Nice and tolerant.
Too bad half of you do not know the definition of those words.
Assholes.
@Anders Clausen-Oxstierna:
“I have a number of Japanese friends who sometimes have introduced me to the worst kind of humans I have ever seen in the form of angry and ultra-repressed Japanese men. He seems to fit snugly into this model of psychosocial twistedness.”
What a way to generalize Japanese men and throw them under a bus. *SMH* I’m Japanese (American) and I definitely don’t fit the description you described. Anyone from any race can be a “CLASS A” douche bag, just saying…
Anyways, I’m not hear to defend Iha or whomever because well, I don’t know them in person so I can’t judge on what I see from the media, nor from individual encounters but I think Corgan from now on should just shut up and ignore the questions on the past the Pumpkins, it’s former members and focus on the Smashing Pumpkins of “NOW”. Why fuel the fire? It just makes him look like whiny nutcase that is gripping the past that he obviously still has issues with. Just let it go man.
I do have to say this though, I’ll be honest. I did chuckle a bit when I saw the header: Billy Corgan says James Iha is ” A piece of shit”. LOL. WOW, how do you REALLY feel Corgan!
i met james iha in 2006 in nyc at an atm machine lol..he was so nice n took a pik with me n helped adjust my camera..very sincere n self-concious that he hadnt shaved n i told him he looked fine lol…guess every other time he was a dick must of been something or someone that pissed him off lol…luv u james!!!!
Corgan a ‘mega whinner’ of its own class….uhuh
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