Billy Corgan has said former Smashing Pumpkins bassist D’Arcy Wretzky’s contributions “had a lot to do with” their success, despite their public feud.
Wretzky was an original member of the band and played on all of their records up until 2000’s ‘Machina II/The Friends & Enemies Of Modern Music’, but after departing the band, she became engaged in a war of words with Corgan.
In 2018, the singer said that a reunion with Wretzky would have been like “a shitty reality show”, and suggested that the bridges between them had been burned “forever”.
In a subsequent interview, Wretzky described Corgan as “insufferable” and claimed he “had a brain tumour”, to which the frontman said: “Yeah, that would fall under one of the 400 libellous and defamatory things she said that has no bearing in reality”.
Wretzky also hit out at Corgan’s supposed temper in another 2018 interview, claiming that “he thinks he’s ugly, so he surrounds himself with beautiful people”, and “he can’t sing for shit, and he knows it”.
Despite this, in a recent Substack video, Corgan spoke generously about Wretzky’s contributions to the band, saying they owed a lot of their success to her input.
“You know, I don’t often speak on D’Arcy’s contribution, because obviously what went down a few years ago didn’t leave either one of us in the best light,” he said (transcribed via Alternative Nation). “But, I’ve said it before, and I have no problem saying it again. D’Arcy had a way of kind of letting it be known – stuff that she thought was moving the band forward, or moving the band laterally, or moving the band backwards. And probably, of the four of us, her opinion about those types of things carried more weight.”
“So her contribution, kind of spiritually, emotionally, I think had a lot to do with the success of the band,” he continued. “So again, I would never take that away from her, because I really did respect her musical opinion.”
“We managed to disagree about everything else,” he added, “but in music, when we would align, it was powerful. And I think that’s what makes a great band, when the four contributing factors of a band can come together.”
“And at least for that line-up – the OG line-up – the three records we made, I mean, two of the three records turned out to be very important records. So that’s something I always hold [dear]. It’s a shame there wasn’t more of it, and we certainly did try again in ’99, but I mean, I guess in a musician’s life, nothing is truly linear.”
After Wretzky quit the band in 1999, former Hole member Melissa Auf Der Maur became the Smashing Pumpkins’ bassist until their hiatus in 2000. Since getting back together in 2006, Ginger Reyes, Mark Tulin, Nicole Fiorentino, Mark Stoermer, and Sierra Swan have all played bass in the band, while they currently have Jack Bates, son of Joy Division and New Order legend Peter Hook, as a touring bassist.
Next month, the band are releasing a 30th anniversary deluxe reissue of ‘Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness’, including a 6LP package that includes over 80 minutes of unreleased audio from the album’s accompanying 1996 tour, a hardbound book with new liner notes from Corgan, a custom tarot card set and seven frameable lithographs.
The album will also be available as a 4CD package, a 4CD SHM-CD package, and on digital formats. The Super Deluxe edition with an autographed lithograph retails for £398.00, and you can pre-order it here.
Speaking to NME back in February, Corgan touched on ‘Mellon Collie’ turning 30 and hinted at an upcoming special edition, saying they were “working with the parent label” to make it happen. “It’s weird because I can’t believe it’s been 30 years. I’m really excited, but at the same time, I’m like ‘What happened over these last 30 years?’”
