Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman Billy Corgan says new album Oceania will be a make-or-break moment for his band.
The Pumpkins, who have been releasing single tracks online as part of their Teargarden By Kaleidyscope project, will put out a full album Oceania, later in 2011. Corgan says how it is received will define the future of his band.
Corgan told Billboard: “If we’re able to get that sense that something is happening again and get people to rally behind us a bit, I think the next three, four years will be very interesting for the band. I think if [Oceania] basically hits the same wall a lot of the other stuff has hit, we’re going to have to step back and really evaluate where we’re going, because it’s a tremendous amount of energy to put out to just feel like you’re throwing a pebble in the ocean.”
Corgan acknowledges that he overestimated the impact that releasing music straight to the Internet. He says the traditional album release of Oceania is needed to have a real impact.
“I just saw we weren’t getting the penetration in to everybody that I would have hoped. We have 1.3 million followers on our Facebook page, right? So you think you put a song up and 1.3 million people are going to see it, but only if they’re looking at the exact moment it goes up. They’re not necessarily searching and their friends aren’t necessarily going to tell them about it. I just saw that we weren’t reaching the sort of casual person who still gets their information from traditional sources. So I thought, ‘What do I need to do?’ And then I thought; ‘OK, I’ll go back to making an album.’”
Of Oceania, Corgan says it features “some of the most melodic work I’ve ever done, but somehow it rocks pretty hard, too. It’s probably the most open-sounding album I’ve ever made. The general description I’ve heard from people who have heard it is that it reminds them of the Pumpkins in the way they like the Pumpkins, but somehow it sounds new.”
Oceania will be Smashing Pumpkins’ first “proper” release since 2007’s Zeitgeist. Smashing Pumpkins start a 12-date U.S. tour in November 2011 and plan to tour the rest of the world in 2012.
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