PUMPKIN TO QUIT MUSIC?

As the band prepare to split, James Iha says, "There's gotta be more to life than rock 'n' roll"...

Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha has revealed that he may quit music altogether after the band splits at the end of this year, saying: “There has to be more to life than rock ‘n’ roll.”

He also admitted the band were disappointed at sales of their last album, ‘MACHINA/The Machines Of God’.

Speaking to Canadian newspaper the Edmonton Sun, ahead of the band’s show in the city this Sunday (August 4), Iha said he was uncertain about his future, but didn’t want to become “this old rock ‘n’ roll codger”.

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On the possibility of a new Pumpkins album before the split – Billy Corgan having previously revealed that the band have written 14 new songs – he said it hadn’t yet been discussed fully by the band, and complained that Corgan puts his ideas up on the band’s website – [url=]www.smashingpumpkins.com – before telling the band about them.

He said: “I think I’d need a substantial break. Just in announcing [the split], people ask me, ‘blah, blah blah, how does it feel?’ I’m like, well, you know, it’s sad and weird and all that. But the big thing I was thinking about is that I’ve been in the band 11 years and about nine to ten months out of every year, I do the band 24-7. I don’t know. I just don’t want to do that for the rest of my life. It sounds depressing.

“I mean, rock ‘n’ roll is great, but in some sort of grand, immortal sense, I don’t want to look back and be this old rock’n’roll codger. I think there’s more to life than rock’n’roll.”

Iha also hinted that, contrary to speculation, the split was not motivated by disappointing sales of the band’s last album, ‘MACHINA/The Machines Of God’. “I think everybody wishes we had sold more records like our past. I guess when people point it out and they make it sound like your failure, what are you going to say? If you think the music’s good, which I think it is, and it’s a good record, which I think it is, I don’t know what else you can do. It’s ridiculous to try to fight the press or fight people’s opinions other than just go out there and play concerts. You can’t change the way the world works or the way time works.”

James Iha has released one solo album to date, 1998’s ‘Let It Come Down’. The Smashing Pumpkins‘ final scheduled performance takes place at London’s Wembley Arena on Saturday 4 November. They release another single, ‘Try Try Try’, through Hut on September 11.

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