Smashing Pumpkins guitarist talks with Exponent

On a Tuesday morning in his native Chicago, the Smashing Pumpkins' guitarist had a lot to say about touring, fame and his new album. James Iha is used to giving interviews; he's been doing it for the past 11 years. Just after the release of the band's first album, "Gish," the Pumpkins have been hounded by the media because of their meteoric rise to the top of the music industry, their court cases and their backstage dramas.

Exponent: In that the music scene has changed so radically in the last two years, is it strange for you as a band to come into it now?

James Iha: Well, it is what it is. I don't really think about it that way. I am really thinking about making a good record and touring.

Exponent: You started out touring in a lot of record stores. Why did you choose to start there rather than just launch into a regular main tour?

Iha: Well, I guess we just wanted to meet the people.

Exponent: How has it been going without a manager in that you are handling your own touring and press and releasing the album?

Iha: We've been through a lot of managers, so I guess at this point we feel like we know what a manager does. We just have other people to help us with it. Billy (Corgan), our singer, has been really involved in that.

Exponent: Why did you choose to come to Purdue?

Iha: In general, I think it's good to play colleges. I mean, we've always had a really good college following from the beginning. I think it's good to play out in front of people after being cooped up in a studio for a long time and just playing in general just because we haven't done a full-on concert tour so this will be it.

Exponent: What was different about recording for you as opposed to the recording during "Adore"? What was different about this time?

Iha: Recording was good because it was the original members playing. And it was good to play as a band and, you know, we just set up the way we used to — drums, bass, two guitars and just practiced and arranged and recorded that way.

Exponent: Was the feeling a lot different having Jimmy Chamberlin back?

Iha: Yeah, yeah. He's great and it was pretty fresh for us, you know — not playing with Jimmy for a while and him having not played with us — to just get in a room with him and play.

Exponent: How is it with Melissa having joined the band? Does she add a new dynamic?

Iha: Melissa is great; she plays well and gets along with everyone, and she's sorta been through it all so she knows what it's like to be in a big band.

Exponent: How did you welcome, or did you welcome, the more heavy guitar on this album as opposed to what you guys were doing on "Adore"? This is so take-no-prisoners.

Iha: It think that was the way the songs just kind of came out. (Laughs) It would have been strange if there weren't heavy guitars. They just suited the guitars.

Exponent: How involved were you in creating the sound of this album?

Iha: I was pretty involved; I did a lot of playing, (laughs). And we did a lot of just working — working out guitar parts, the sound of the guitars, the sound of the whole thing. It's part spontaneous and it's part really well-crafted layering of guitar parts and keyboards and things like that. So I think it's a really good balance of just our basic rock sound and really, like, craftsmanship of the overall sound.

Exponent: You always have, as a band, been very influential as far as being a very heavily guitar-sounding band. Where do you feel as though that comes from?

Iha: We've had our influences from before, but now it's kind of like our own thing. And I have bands like U2 and R.E.M. and heavier bands like Jane's Addiction and Zeppelin, just anything really.

Exponent: I read an interview and Billy (Corgan) was eluding to the idea that this was the last album. How do you feel about that?

Iha: Kind of every album is the last album, so I'm not really thinking about that really.

Exponent: Your band is characterized by drama both on stage theatrically with music, costumes, makeup and off stage where there are always goings on in the news and court systems.

Iha: It is what it is, and it's pretty typical of any kind of family. We've been together for 11 years and having to play it out under public scrutiny is just sort of strange, but that is the way it is.

Exponent: There's been a lot of conjecture that this album was released so quickly after "Adore" because you weren't really happy with how that went.

Iha: It didn't seem like it was released too quick. I think it was good that we returned to our original sound, but I didn't think it was that short of a time after the last record. I don't get too caught up in it. (Laughs)

Exponent: Is there anything you want to say to the students of Purdue University when they rip open their paper to find this interview?

Iha: Ahhh, I don't know, what message for the youth of America? I find that it is a really strange thing to be in a position to always, like, please people and sort of, like, give these big, bold statements because I am not really like that, personally. Few people are and we're sorta asked to give those kind of statements. I don't know, the older I get, I guess the more I know, the less I know. There's my big, bold statement. I think it's really true because people are so different. I don't know. Stay in school; write another paper. (Laughs)

Exponent: I guess that we're in college so we're doing pretty well already.

Iha: Yeah, I went to four years of college and I thought it was good for me. Of course, what I went to school for, I never actually ended up using.

Exponent: You could design the cover of something. Why haven't you ever gotten into that?

Iha: (Laughs) Art is a whole other world. I really only have time for music, and I have all these other interests and I really only have time to dabble in them. And it's hard to be good when you are just dabbling.

Exponent: Do you think very much about or deal with your level of fame?

Iha: No, not so much. I think when you are younger, you are a lot more self-conscious of the adulation and the press and that kind of stuff, but lately I don't really read the articles. I don't sit there and watch reruns of us on MTV or anything like that. I think it's good to get out there and play the album but as far as, like, all the press and everything that comes with it, it's not like a game to me anymore. Or, it is a game to me, but it is a game I don't really want to play anymore. I just want to play music and play it for people and not really get caught up in the media game of it.

Exponent: You'd like to be more of a musician and less of a celebrity?

Iha: Yeah, yeah, basically — you know, 10 years, 20 years from now. And now, that is what people are really going to remember — that and some crazy photos you took. Whatever the media game is, it is strange.

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