Legacy above finances; artistry above fame.
— Jimmy Chamberlin
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.
I want to be 'Jimmy Chamberlin, the drummer, the musician who's done many things,' not just 'that guy from the Smashing Pumpkins.'
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?
Music is my life. It is sacred.
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.
I feel really good in the teacher role.
I've always seen my drumming as lyrical anyway.
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.
People just expect you to show up, be a cartoon character of yourself, take your money and go home. But don't screw up to the point where you're gonna be out of the picture.
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.
Even though I'm a jazz-trained drummer, I cut my teeth playing rock.
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.
Part of the reason that I left the Pumpkins is because it was becoming all-consuming. Being the only member of that band who had two kids and a wife, it was a hard decision, but ultimately it was a decision I'm comfortable with.
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.'
All he wants to do is practice and that's all he does, all day long. That's what it takes if you want to change the face of music. You've gotta be committed to it.
Had I joined a straight rock band, I'm sure my drumming would be a little bit different right now.
I take my craft very seriously.
If you can get a twelve year-old kid to go listen to Thelonius Monk, what more do you want? Do you want a big pile of cash, too? That's a home run for me.
My brother was always in bands and on the road when I was a kid and he was my inspiration. He never made it with a big band, in fact he never made a record. Here he is fifty-something years old.
The lyrics came out of necessity. When we started writing the record, we started in a more fusion environment and that got boring really quick and that wasn't what we were about on an organic level.
When I'm at home I practice everyday.
It is an honour and a privilege to play music for a living, and I don't take it for granted, not even for a second.
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.
Music is always going to be only as sophisticated as the culture that consumes it.
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.
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.
I can't take days off and play like I did last night. Maybe some people can, but I can't.
I think that the jazzy approach that I have is based on the way that I hear music and in the way I play a supporting role to the other people in the band.
If you put the right things out there the right things will happen.
No one writes about the emotional things you go through.
The thing I try to do the most is to play in terms of the song and play in terms of what I'm hearing.
You start to look at it with a deeper respect and I think that deeper respect for what you do builds more self-respect.
