Why BILLY CORGAN of The Smashing Pumpkins Fired drummer JIMMY CHAMBERLIN
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As the 90’s ushered in a new era of rock music dubbed alternative rock or by some ‘grunge’, one of the bands that was part of this new movement were The Smashing Pumpkins. The Chicago band would first appear on to the scene in 1991 with their debut record Gish. Two years later they would become full fledged superstars with the release of their second record Siamese Dream and their follow up two disc release Melon Collie and Infinite Sadness. But fame would come at a cost with tragedy, in-fighting and out of control egos. Drummer Jimmy Chamberlin who would be vital to the band’s sound, would leave the group several times throughout his career and none was more tragic than the mid 90’s. Today, let’s explore the career of Jimmy Chamberlin in The Smashing Pumpkins.
Born to a large family of 6 kids, Chamberlin would grow up, in Joliet (Jawliet), Illinois, 35 miles south of Chicago. The drummer would grow up in a musical family with both his older brother Paul and father playing drums and clarinet and being part of jazz bands. Chamberlin admitted to modern drummer at a young age “I did have the rock ethic, though–I definitely wanted the chicks and the fast cars–but not necessarily the long hair and the twenty-piece drumkit.” By the time Chamberlin was 9 he took 5 years of lessons from drummer Charlie Adams who would go on to play for Yanni. In addition to that Chamberlin learned from his older brother and practiced up to four hours a day and took furtherlessons in high school from other instructors. Chamberlin was such a gifted drummer, that he didn’t play in any high school bands, instead playing with musicians ten years older than him with him reccalling Modern Drummer Magazine “I didn’t really every play in high school bands. I played with this garage group called the Warrior Band, which played Pat Travers-type music, and they were all about twenty-five and pretty good musicians. There I was, fifteen years old, playing Friday and Saturday nights, getting sloshed, and having to go back to school on Monday. At sixteen, I had a girlfriend who was twenty-three! But I was making $400 a week doing these gigs, and I was totally convinced at that point that music was something I was going to do for the rest of my life.”
Despite sharing similar musical interests with his father, Chamberlin had a stained relationship with his Dad, leaving home at age 15 and by the mid 90’s hadn’t even spoken to his father despite his new found fame. He would tell Rolling Stone how despite his middle class upbringing he had a bad childhood recalling “It was highly dysfunctional. “My father was really abusive. I decided early on that I didn’t want to be like him.” After graduating from Northern Illinois university, Chamberlin headed to Chicago and would split his time working as a carpenter while also playing in jazz bands. He would end up being a late addition to The Smashing Pumpkins who were originally a trio with frontman Billy Corgan, guitarist James iha and bassist D’Arcy Wretzky using a drum machine during live gigs. Chamberlin would recall to drummer magazine in 1994 his first impression of the band saying
“So I went out and saw the band – Billy, James, and D’arcy – playing at Avalon with a drum machine. Man, did they sound horrible! They were atrocious. But the thing I noticed was that not only were the song structures good, but Billy’s voice had a lot of drive to it, like he was dying to succeed. So I ended up driving from work every Wednesday to rehearse with them.”
Corgan would admit that he didn’t initially think Chamberlin was a good fit for the band pointing to his fashion, which included a mullet, pink t-shirt and stonewashed jeans in addition to his yellow drum kit. It would be Chamberlin’s persistence and the fact that he learned all the band’s songs pretty quickly that resulted in Corgan changing his mind. Chamberlin bonded with his bandmates over similar difficult upbringings with him telling Rolling Stone “I relate to him man to man, and that’s it,” Chamberlin says of Corgan adding. “I’m not the type of guy to say, ‘Oh, you’ve had such a rough life,’ because nobody says that to me, and my life has been plenty rough.”
source
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