KROQ INTERVIEW
Japan
1998
dj: there are two but it is just easier to label them as one.
j: james
d: d'arcy
b: billy
c:caller
dj: we're in the studio with a little bit of delay. say hi to the
smashing pumpkins. right here.
dj: i'm sorry did somebody say "word"?
dj: now what are you guys doing in japan? you have a show there i guess.
dj: yeah.
dj: speaking of cheap trick, was that very cool playing in the same
venue?
dj: i know...i talked to the guys in cheap trick last month and they
told me that there's some vibe in that place, more than a concert hall.
an energy, there's something going on and i guess the japanese fans are
legendary for how much they love their rock n'roll and everybody seems
to enjoy they play there.
dj: alright so we've got billy there and i heard a little bit of d'arcy
and we were wondering if today is the day we were actually going to hear
james speak because we've never been privy to that before.
dj: oh it was word. all i know is the last time i saw you guys was at
that last batman movie premiere and james ran about as fast and far away
from us as he could when he saw us coming with a microphone, so i didn't
know if we'd...haven't talked to us.
dj: well listen guys...
dj: that's alright. no problem. congratulations on adore, i don't know
what your expectations were for it but it certaintly seems to be well
received around the world, huh?
dj: you kow i read some interviews talking about the pressure everybody
else seemed to be putting on you with this new album and trying to
figure out what direction you were going,make sure it's the right
direction for the follow up, and...how annoying is that?
dj: what was your plan when you went into the studio to make this new
record? was the goal originally to make something completely different
or did it just work out not sounding like your other records?
dj: oh really.
dj: interesting.
dj: and was the original goal to take out a lot of the guitars that you
had on the last project, cause you don't have a tremndous amount of
guuitars on this one.
dj; alright what is it?
dj; is that righ? well that explains it then. wow. that's a surprise to
us. well this is a tremendous album. i'm sure you uh...did you guys care
whether it was a #1 album or not cause i know that master p ripped you
off there for a week.
dj; well you have to. tell us what the tour is like, everybody in l.a.
is excited. the tickets are going on sale here on saturday, the shows at
universal amphitheater coming up next week. what kind of show are you
putting together? is it a pretty good mix of old and new or are you
predominatly doing the new record or surprises or new songs or what?
dj: really?
dj: and you kinda did this album with out the idea of a major tour in
mind, right?
dj: well i know that a lot of people were suprised when the announcement
was made that it was universal amphitheater. you certaintly had your
pick of venues here in southern california. why'd you choose a place so
small?
dj: universal...get there early...batman right? we had a cjance to see
you at universal a couple years ago when you played the kroq acoustic
x-mas show and man that was a treat to see a band like yours that close
and personal especially at this stage in your career. you guys are in a
recording studio right now or radio station or what?
dj: we got a chance to hear you warm up a little bit and it sounds like
you're ready to play.
dj: alright here's what we'll do. let's take a quick break and come back
in about 3 or 4 minutes and you guys can play a song for us live.
dj: alright, groovy that's what i like to hear. sp live in tokyo japan
when we come back.
dj: it's 8;24 now on the world famous kroq. we're talking live in tokyo
with the smashing pumpkins who are ina recording studio. hey guys can
you here us again?
dj: is that right? that's what i've heard, yeah.
dj: well we've got james, d'arcy, billy, wjo's playing drums for you
this morning?
dj: ok good. alright.
dj: kenny aranoff one of rocks legendary drummers...uh the smashing
pumpkins by the way are as we've mentioned tickets are going on sale at
10 and they're coming to town next week, but we've got them for a few
inutes this morning on satelit. we'll try to includeyour phone calls. so
if you wanna call right no 1-800-520-1067 if you have any questions that
aren't dumb or trite we'll try to pass them along to the band.
dj: are their any questions like that?
dj: billy is that you playing the piano on this album and i just heard a
minute ago playing?
dj: it is you on the album, i see. people don't think of you at the
piano playing pretty little songs sometimes. it's surprising to
reconcile your previous image with what we're hearing on this record,
but it sounds terrific. what are you gonna do for us frist this morning?
dj: great let's hear it. live from tokyo japan it's the smashing
pumpkings on the world famous kroq.
j: word, word.
d: you know we sound better with delay...more delay.
b: we're in the valley, actually in the valley.
j: yes.
b: we've taken this country by storm.
d: we got to play live at the budakhan (funny voice).
d: absolutely.
j: it's pretty awesome.
j: uh...yeah.
b; there's something about well oiled sump wrestlers backstage.
b: it just gets you going before the show.
d: you couldn't hear him he was just speaking.
j: i was just speaking. i said word.
j: i was just...frightened of microphones and technology at that point.
b: he heard your names were bark and mean.
j: i didn't know it was you though.
b: um...we're happy with it, uh not everyone we know is, but we're happy
with it.
d: they're only hurting themselves.
b: totally annoying. supper annoying.
d: completely different from this.
b: yeah. the goal was to do something different but um, you know we
wanted to make sure it was in the spirit of how we've always made our
music which is just to to be ourselves and not worry about trends and
whose cool and what's up and what's down and ...and now that we've
become this rock band now we're supposed to continue to play a certain
type of rock n'roll wich is not how we started because we did the
opposite of what everybody was doing 10 years ago and then we ended up
being a big band but now that we're a big band we're supposed to stay
the same...it just gets confusing.
j: uh...yeah we...we actually talked about it before mellon collie. that
mellon collie would be our last major rock opus.
b: you gotta tell them the secret.
j: thet, the...what's the secret?
d: it's even a secret from us.
b: we're gonnareveal a little unknown fact right now.
b; jimmy chamberlain played all the heavy guitars.
j: yeah, that's well...we give props to master p.
d: predominantly NEW...we've just been shocked and so enthusiastic about
how well received it's been by the audience. the audiences been amazing.
b: it's by far the est recieved album as far as playing live...a new
album playing live with people going crazy for it.
d: literally...the most fun shows we've ever played.
b: by far.
d: we didn't think we'd tour at all.
b: yeah um. the idea is to just be crazy for 4 months and then go to the
studio, so far it's been incredible. we've been doing all these weird
like gogenheim
b: it's so late here and i'm so confused (funny voice) uh today we
played outside of this college.
d: on a TRUCK!
b: but the idea for america is to pretty much just do the album and then
maybe in the encore, u know, if we get one, uh we'll do some old songs,
but pretty much we're just gonna do the album.
j: uh, we didn't want a...
b: master p's at the forum.
j: master p's at the forum (tries to start again) i can't comment after
that, i mean we'd already done an arena tour before and um this really
isn't like an arena rock album although the way we've kinda been playing
it now it's a lot more electric but uh we wanted to keep it a little
smaller just mor eintimate, not like a 100 seat club, but theater size.
b: that's the perfect venue for this record.
d: i just wanna go on the rides.
d: recording studio.
d: we're on a TRUCK!
d: you weren't supposed to hear that.
j: groovy.
j: word, word.
d: you should see the traffic in tokyo, if you think it's bad in l.a.
j: there's no diamond lane over here.
b: no carpool.
j: uh...this guy.
j: no! kenny aranoff
d: some bald guy.
b: i'm waiting.
b: ummm...no i'm not playing piano tonight...tonight but...uh..that's me
on the album yeah.
b: this is the first song on the album it's called to sheila.