Jimmy Chamberlin
Jimmy Chamberlin
James Joseph "Jimmy" Chamberlinis an American drummer and record producer. He is best known as the drummer for the alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins. Following the 2000 breakup of the band, Chamberlin joined Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan in the supergroup Zwan and also formed his own group, the Jimmy Chamberlin Complex. In 2005, Chamberlin joined Corgan in reforming The Smashing Pumpkins; he eventually left the group in March 2009, though he would return again in 2015 for a summer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth10 June 1964
CountryUnited States of America
I left the Pumpkins in 2010, and I just took a year off to hang with my family and be with my daughter and my son and my wife, and just get acclimatised to being off the road. Then I started looking at what was going to be the next part of my career/legacy, whatever you want to call it.
U2 are a great band; they've given us an unbelievable body of work, and all of us musicians owe them at least something. I can honestly say that every time I have played the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, as soon as my drums are set up, I go into the beat of 'Sunday Bloody Sunday.'
I want to be 'Jimmy Chamberlin, the drummer, the musician who's done many things,' not just 'that guy from the Smashing Pumpkins.'
Even though I'm a jazz-trained drummer, I cut my teeth playing rock.
What I see for the band by the end of this year is the Complex live at the Montreux Jazz Festival. I want my guys to be comfortable. I'm certainly not in this for the money, but I'd really like to see my guys make some money off of this stuff.
I always wanted to be in this role, as a songwriter. In the Pumpkins, it was always impossible because Corgan would wake up and write five songs. He was so prolific, there wasn't a lot of room for anyone else.
Certainly in a lyrical supporting role with Corgan and company that I've worked with, so it wasn't that big of a stretch for me.
But back then the thing that saved me was the music, and it's certainly the music that saves me now. The music, my family and my friends and everybody around me.
Today's consumer is less interested in possessing things and more in experiencing them. That's something the music industry needs to get its head around. Do we even need record companies any more?
I've learned that you can call it a band, but unless everyone is contributing, it's not, really. It's pretending that it's a band.
After I left the Pumpkins, I went home and just sat around. I have a studio in my basement, and I found myself writing all these songs, just taking advantage of the relaxed situation. I wrote about 30 songs in about 30 days.
At first it was a bit daunting, but once I started to do it, the more I got into it, the more I started enjoying it and being able to say things lyrically that I would normally have to say musically.
You start to look at it with a deeper respect and I think that deeper respect for what you do builds more self-respect.
My brother and I had a real love-hate relationship with my success. There was some bitterness there that I didn't understand until recently, but I told him that if I ever did a record I wanted him to play on it.