It's Halloween in Chicago. James lha is sitting at home on one of his infrequent days off from his band's six-month tour of North America. lt is now eight years since Smashing Pumpkins took one half of their name from a seasonal vegetable, but the significance of today's date isn't lost on the band's sardonic guitarist. Ask him for his plans for his night off and he smirks, "I'm probably going to get a little pirate outfit, and run around the streets trick or treating the local kids."
It's been a strange year for Smashing Pumpkins. Most people thought that Billy Corgan had completely lost it when he originally announced that the band's next record would be a double album - "The Wall of my generation" - and madder stljl when he decided to call it Melion Collie And The lnfinite Sadness. The title, however, didn't deter peopie from buying the album when it was released last autumn, and it has now gone on to sell five million copies and become the biggest-selling double CD of all time.
Of course, it helped that the Pumpkins were prepared to spend the tail-end of 1995 and the whole of 1996 criss-crossing the globe on the uitimate rock tour. "Every year that goes by, I lose the motivation to play rock," Billy Corgan said of his reasons for doing both Mellon Collie and the tour. "There's a power with physical, visceral music that is very much connected to being young and, as I get older, I move further away from that desire to play as intensely and loudiy as I have. I realise that this is a fleeting moment, so why not do a double album and go out and play three-hour shows?"
The resuit was quite a spectacle. When the Pumpkins brought the tour to Europe last spring, they played a 40-minute acoustic set, foilowed by two-and-a-half-hour's of heavy-duty rock, while their two London shows also featured lha's highly personalised rendition of The Prodigy's 'Firestarter'. However, it was in Europe that things started to go seriously wrong. At Dublin's Point in May, a 17 year-old fan, Bernadette O'Brien, was crushed to death in the moshpit. Then, two months later, on 12th July, the Pumpkins' touring keyboard player, Jonathan Melvoin, was found dead in New York.
Now, almost four months after that black morning in Juiy, James lha isn't keen to recall any of the details. "it wasn't a good day," he says simply. "lf I said anything eise, it would start to sound like taboid-type stuff and I don't want to get into that. lt was just a horrible day."
On a more positive note, lha reckons that the same events have brought the remaining Pumpkins closer together. "We had to kind of reassess things," he says "because we just realised how something like Jimmy's drug problem could literally explode the band." Do you miss having Jimmy around?
"Yeah. I mean, he's been with the band since the beginning but at the same time we've taken a few pointers [Chamberlin had to go into rehab during the recording of Siamese Dream in 1992] and he just can't be in the band anymore."
Is anyone still in touch with him?
"No, we haven't been in contact."
So you don't know what he's doing now?
"I think he's in a halfway house, but I could be wrong."
What was the first show without Jimmy in Las Vegas like?
"Well, we were rolling the dice, so to speak."
What numbers did you come up with?
"Sevens! No, it was okay. Jimmy's style wasn't exactly Matt's style, but he's a good enough drummer that he can basically pull off those parts. lt is a little different without Jimmy playing; in some ways it's better, in some ways it's worse. But in terms of playing an arena, it's not all that different. People don't really notice - the subtleties in an arena are like a sledgehammer."
The only break in the Pumpkins' North American tour is their visit to London for the European MTV Awards. Unlike Nick Cave, who toured with the Pumpkins on 1994s Lollapalooza, and who rejected his nomination for Best Mate artist [on the grounds that "my muse is not a horse and I am in no horse race..."], lha doesn't see anything wrong with award ceremonies. "I respect Nick Cave's viewpoint," he says, "but it's all relative to your perspective. I mean, we wouldn't have shown up if we were so disgusted by MTV, but they play our videos, we want to promote the album, so we'II accept the awards. lt's not like we're advertising for a taco commercial." Although the Pumpkins picked up seven MTV awards at the American version of the event in September, they were overshadowed - in the British press at least - by Oasis. lha has currently been listening to the Rolling Stones' Rock And Rolt Circus and says that Oasis would be top of his list, along with Soundgarden, to play in a 1996 re-creation of that event. "I like Oasis a lot - not that they'd play with us. I just get the feeling that English bands are very anti-American at the moment. I mean, the whole reason why America hasn't really bought any English bands' records in the last ten years is because none of them can write songs but Oasis obviously can. The genesis of most English bands is that they read Melody Maker each week and they feel that they have to be very rock'n'roll. Like, this week, Robbie brushes his teeth with a different type of toothpaste. Who gives two fucks about stuff like that? lt's just the insular English music scene." Despite the success of Mellon Collie, the Pumpkins have been pretty much absent from the British music press this year. "Basically, you always read the same stuff about us," sighs lha. "If they're going on about Billy and the band feuding with each other, they write, 'Billy walks into the room and suddenly there is a feeling of tension' - it's bullshit and I just don't care anymore."
After their current tour finishes in January, the Pumpkins plan to take a long break - though, lha says, "the three of us are definitely, as of the moment, going to do another record. I don't know what it will sound like maybe it's time for the Metal Machine Music album! I think the big difference is that we'II probably use a lot more samples and drum loops and a lot less guitars."
Iha also plans to record a solo album - "it will be a lot quieter and a lot more singer- songwritery" - and focus on Scratchie, the label that he and set up last year, whose roster includes Chainsaw Kittens and The Frogs. Until January, though, it's back to the road. Was there a point this year when lha considered giving the whole thing up?
"Not really," he says. "I got kind of grossed out at times, but it's just like any job - there are moments when you hate it and hate everything that's going on around you. But after being in the game for so long, we're becoming so reticent that in general we shrug things off and are just like, 'well, whatever'."
You'll be ready for a full lobotomy come the New Year then?
"Yeah!" James lha laughs. "Actually, I sent a fax of my touring schedute to somebody and at the bottom of it I pencilled in a final date: Undisclosed Asylum - Shock Therapy. That's beginning to sound about right."