Billy Corgan Clarifies Smashing Pumpkins Break Up Rumors

Smashing Pumpkins main-man Billy Corgan explains an ominous statement he made last week about the band's fate being tied to the success of their new album 'Oceania'.

Billy Corgan and his mostly new line-up of Pumpkins have been feverishly working on the 44-song project 'Teargarden by Kaliedyscope'  for the better part of two years now. What started out as a song-at-a-time release schedule, was put on hold as the band prepares the album within 'Teargarden...' -- 'Oceania'. Last week, Billy Corgan explained the reason for the change in format and his attitude towards a full album release:

"I just saw we weren’t getting the penetration in to everybody that I would have hoped. I mean, we have 1.3 million followers on our Facebook page, right? So you think you put [a song] up and 1.3 million people are gonna see it — but only if they’re looking at the exact moment it goes up… I just saw that we weren’t reaching the sort of casual person who still gets their information from traditional sources. So I thought, ‘What do I need to do?’ and then I thought, ‘OK, I’ll go back to making an album.’"

His following statement regarding the success of 'Oceania' (which Corgan is hopeful will be available in some form by November) was widely misconstrued as a possible death sentence for The Smashing Pumpkins:

"I think if [Oceania] basically hits the same wall a lot of the other stuff has hit, we’re going to have to step back and really evaluate where we’re going, because it’s a tremendous amount of energy to put out to just feel like you’re throwing a pebble in the ocean."

Most reports on the interview with Billboard cited his comments as a dark cloud over the future of the band. Corgan recently did some clarifying in an interview with Crestfallen.com:

"I would say those reports are irresponsible. We are very happy together as a band and as friends, and there are no plans to disband, nor any discussions about disbanding. My point was if Oceania is not well received, it would be time to change our focus as a band. I have plenty of projects that have been sitting on the shelf for a while that I’d be more than happy for us to get into. That said, Oceania is a record we are very proud of and we hope people feel about it as strongly as we do."

The Smashing Pumpkins will be road-testing some of the new material as well as firing through select classics from each of the band's previous albums on their current tour, click here for dates.