Grunge goth overlords Smashing Pumpkins have allegedly hired a new drummer who is just nineteen years old.
Smashing Pumpkins were formed by Billy Corgan in the late 80s. Blending British electro pop with underground American rock, the band quickly earned a cult following before being snapped up by a major label.
The group’s album ‘Mellon Collin And The Infinite Sadness’ sailed the post-grunge boom, selling over twenty million copies and counting. Still the band’s defining moment, it spurred Smashing Pumpkins on to become one of the best selling American acts of the decade.
Later moving on to embrace electronic music, the band stuttered to a halt in 2000. Corgan reformed the group in 2006, with long time drummer Jimmy Chamberlain returning to the line up. Together with Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlain was the only founding member of Smashing Pumpkins to remain in the band.
However after a disastrous tour Chamberlain left the group at the end of last year. Smashing Pumpkins chose to play only new material on the tour, and their extensive noise jams were met with fury by fans.
Jimmy Chamberlain left the band to explore solo projects. Billy Corgan has held open auditions to find a replacement, with a new musician claiming to have won a space on the band’s drum stool.
A posting on the band’s website reads:
“The Smashing Pumpkins are continuing to make music after the departure of original member Jimmy Chamberlin. When Jimmy originally auditioned for The Smashing Pumpkins, he was playing in a locally touring jazz band that was playing weddings and street fairs. It just goes to show that you never know where the next big talent will come from.”
Now rumours are flying that the band have hired a new drummer, who is only nineteen years old. According to Hipstersunited Mike Byrne, the drummer for Oregon based band Moses, Smell The Roses has landed the slot.
Byrne’s MySpace page apparently reads that he was “off for another couple of weeks at pumpkin camp”.
Meanwhile Billy Corgan has blogged that he has found the “drummer of the future” and that he planned to “work with him some more before it becomes official”.
As astonishing as it seems, there is a precedent for Smashing Pumpkins’ recruitment policy. After original guitarist Bernard Butler walked out of Suede the band advertised in Melody Maker and stunned fans by unveiling a seventeen year old musician.
