Whatever happened to The Smashing Pumpkins bassist D'Arcy Wretzky?
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I’ve had several people request this topic. By the way guys use our request form in the description box to let us know what topics you’d like to see us cover so without further adeau, let’s talk about whatever happened to The Smashing Pumpkins Bassist D’Arcy Wretzky.
Growing up in Michigan, D’Arcy Wretzky would be the middle child of three sisters gravitating towards punk and post-punk music.
.Wretzky would tell Addiced to Noise about her upbringing “My mother always played music when I was growing up. We always listened to the radio. My mom played instruments and myself and my sisters were always encouraged to play instruments. I played classical violin for about 9 or 10 years. And oboe ] and I was in choir and everything. It was just always a part of my life. I've done so many different things. I have done a lot.”
In high school she played in a handful of cover bands before moving across the pond to France to join a band that had already disbanded by the time she was set to join. She would head to Chicago with little more than her bass guitar and move in with her sister, join a band and a few months later meet the Billy Corgan who changed her life.
Corgan would come across Wretzky when the frontman was 20 and it was initially an argument over the pair attending the same rock concert that saw Corgan criticizing the band that performed that night. Corgan’s first words to the bassist being and i quote "You're full of expletive"). According to rolling stone . Despite getting off on the wrong foot Corgan and Wretzky shared similar tastes in music with her telling the Flint Journal "I listened to his tapes from the band he was into prior (to the Pumpkins) and I really liked the music they were doing. I wanted to be doing it, too. I loved it."
Despite musically being on the same page, there personalities clashed right off the start with Corgan telling Spin magazine
Well, when I was 20 and met D'Arcy, my whole thing was A, music, music, music, 24-7. And I couldn't understand why D'Arcy wasn't music, music, music, 24-7. D'Arcy was like, "I have to have a life. It can't be that way." And at the time I couldn't respect that.”
The band would round out their lineup with guitarist James I’Ha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. The band would release their first album Gish in 1991. It was during the making of the album and tour that I’Ha and Wretzky became romantically involved and subsequently broke up.. I’ha would tell rolling stone “It was really bad,”. “All the normal stuff that would happen between a boyfriend and girlfriend who had broken up after a long time was happening, only we were stuck together. Under normal circumstances we probably would have said…, I’ll never see you again,’ but since we were forced to be together, we eventually got over it. I still feel pretty close to her.” Wretzky would marry Catherine drummer Kerry Brown in 1993. w. They formed Scratchie Records, which has released singles by the Chainsaw Kittens and others.The band’s sophomore record 1993’s Siamese Dream made the band superstars, but with the new found fame came its own set of problems.
Corgan’s controlling style would lead to tensions within the group as he would play most of the guitar and bass parts on the band’s first two albums albums as Wretzky would contend that corgan did this since he could nail the tracks in fewer takes. Adding to the tension was Corgan’s openness to discussing the band’s problems out in the open with him telling SPin in 1993 about playing the guitar and bass parts “I gave them a year and a half to prepare for this record ... yet they continue to keep failing me."Add Jimmy Chamberlin’s substance abuse issues and the band was a powder keg, ready to explode.
During a 1994 piece on the band, Rolling Stone would interview the whole band including Wretzky and the bassist who always seemed press shy was no different hiding her attitude towards Corgan telling the publication My mom always told me,” “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” The publication would go o