Pumpkins add original member for summer tour

Brian Mansfield | USA TODAY

"Heavy on the classics, heavy on the rock and heavy on the attitude."

That's how Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan describes what concertgoers can expect from his upcoming co-headlining tour with Marilyn Manson.

"Those shows are about 75, 80 minutes long, so you don't have a lot of time to get into the nuances," he says. "It's like punch to the head, punch to the head, punch to the head, thank you very much."

And there's an added bonus for Pumpkins fans: Original drummer Jimmy Chamberlin will rejoin the band for the group's tour with Manson.

Chamberlin, who hasn't played with the group since 2009, will be behind the kit when the group begins The End Times Tour July 7 in Concord, Calif.

Corgan reached out to Chamberlin recently when an arrangement with another drummer fell through.

"We suddenly found ourselves in the situation of not having anybody lined up," Corgan says. On the group's first acoustic tour, which will wrap Thursday in Minneapolis, the band's configuration does not include a drummer. "We knew we could do the acoustic tour with some backing tapes and drum machines, stuff like that, but we're also looking at the Manson tour in three weeks."

Chamberlin's intricate parts on '90s alternative-rock staples like Bullet With Butterfly Wings and Tonight, Tonight limited Corgan's options when it came to finding a drummer on short notice.

"You can't just grab somebody and say, 'Play drums on this Smashing Pumpkins song,'" he says. "Jimmy's drum parts are so incredibly technical and nuanced that it's a very rare class of people that can step in and play."

Chamberlin, who now runs a tech company called LiveOne in Chicago, says Corgan called him about the challenges of filling the drum chair. "He asked if there was any way I'd consider coming back for the tour," Chamberlin says. "It's a great opportunity not only to celebrate the music, but to celebrate the friendship and the legacy."

Corgan and Chamberlin haven't made any plans together beyond the 24-date tour, set to end Aug. 9 in Nashville. "That's the only way it works for me," Chamberlin says. "I've got a commitment to LiveOne; that remains my priority right now."

Corgan expects the Smashing Pumpkins to have a fluid lineup going forward, its musicians dictated by the requirements of each release or each tour. "I want to run a business more like it's an open door," he says. "It's so great, because Jimmy and I are able to engage strictly on the road ahead – what songs are we playing, when do we start rehearsing."

To get ready for the tour, he says, "I've been working in my studio on some of the new stuff, then re-acquainting myself with some of the old live arrangements. It's not as easy as falling off a rock, but when you've done it for 20 years, that muscle memory never goes away. It's kind of in my DNA, having written a lot of these drum parts."

Touring in a mostly acoustic setting without a drummer has created some unexpected benefits for Corgan, however. "By just simplifying everything into songs, whether it's new songs or old song, my audience has been enjoying my catalog in a way they haven't been enjoying it on the rock side," he says. "In many ways, this is a truer representation of what they liked about the band, because of their attraction to the songs more than, let's say, my prog-rock."

Those shows also have allowed Corgan to present Smashing Pumpkins songs in unique ways. At one recent performance, the band ran through a bit of every song from Gish, its 1991 debut, in about three minutes. "That's the world we lived in, right?" Corgan says. "We joked around the other night, somebody recorded it and it went viral."

Once The End Times Tour finishes, Corgan and the Pumpkins' other core member, guitarist Jeff Schroeder, will head back into the studio almost immediately. "We hope to have this next album out at the beginning of next year and a single out by the end of this year," Corgan says. "So we're on a really hectic schedule."