January 19, 2006 10:25

Smashing Pumpkins set to reform for festivals

Live dates this year looking more likely

Smashing Pumpkins are strongly rumoured to be reforming this summer for live shows – with Coachella touted as their comeback.

Singer Billy Corgan has made no secret of the fact he wants to reform his old band, and NME.COM has learned the band are set to make their comeback at the Californian festival on April 30.

Writing recently on his webpage, Corgan hinted reformation plans were coming along.

“The surprise I have in store for you all will be announced soon enough,” he said. “Hold on to your horses. After all, good things surely comes to those who wait....Don't you just love the suspense?”

Corgan remains friends with former Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlain, and is also in contact with the band’s second bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur, having collaborated with her on her forthcoming second solo album.

The first rumours of the band reforming came when the singer took out an advert in the local Chicago Tribune newspaper where he said “his heart” remains with his old band.

He wrote: “When I played the final Smashing Pumpkins show on the night of December 2, 2000, I walked off the stage believing that I was forever leaving a piece of my life behind. I naively tried to start a new band, but found that my heart wasn’t in it. I moved away to pursue a love that I once had but got lost. So I moved back home to heal what was broken in me, and to my surprise I found what I was looking or. I found that my heart is in Chicago, and that my heart is in the Smashing Pumpkins.

”For a year now I have walked around with a secret, a secret I chose to keep. But now I want you to be among the first to know that I have made plans to renew and revive the Smashing Pumpkins. I want my band back, and my songs, and my dreams. In this desire I feel I have come home again.”

Smashing Pumpkins split in 2000 after the release of their final album ‘Machina’. Following the split Corgan formed Zwan, who split after one record.