Kenny Aronoff Remembers Billy Corgan Being Oblivious To Smashing Pumpkins Chaos

During a new appearance on Vintage Rock Pod, Kenny Aronoff, who worked with Smashing Pumpkins during the ‘Adore’ tour, reflected on Billy Corgan’s unawareness of the musical chaos during their time together.

The host initially reminded the drummer of Corgan’s words when the singer once admitted he made an error by bringing in extra percussion players instead of leaving it to Aronoff and the backing loops from the album. Kenny started his words by explaining how he ended up joining the band for the tour:

“Well, first of all, they were one of my favorite bands at that time. I was a huge fan. They were the biggest alternative band in the world, bigger than Pearl Jam and Nirvana. I mean, they were huge, and they had done ‘Gish,’ ‘Siamese Dream,’ and ‘Mellon Collie.’ They just recorded ‘Adore’ and I was the drummer. I won an audition to do the tour, which was huge.”

The drummer went on to reveal the problem early in the tour:

“I like those guys in the Smashing Pumpkins. I was shocked that they had two massive percussion setups to the right of me into the left of me back there. Billy didn’t hear all the noise because between the percussion and him were his Marshall stacks, and the same with James Iha, but I heard all of it, and it was like a lot of chaos going on.”

Then, Aronoff felt the need to warn the other touring members, as he detailed:

“I remember saying at one point early in the tour, I went to that percussionist, and I said, ‘Dude, can you hear what he’s doing?’ He says, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘Dude, can you hear what he’s doing?’ He says, ‘No.’ ‘Oh, sh*t. I can hear what both of you do, and it’s completely crazy.’ It’s like two lawnmowers going at two different tempos. They were both doing creative stuff, but it was so much stuff. It had a vibe to it, but it was very intense for me.”

The tour continued for nearly three months, with Aronoff appearing as the drummer for 59 shows. Smashing Pumpkins performed in 21 countries, ending in Argentina in August 1998.

You can watch the rest of the conversation below.