 Photo: Fabricio Santibáñez |
[Vote this up on Digg or Current] Chicago radio station Q101 tonight published the first public statements attributed to original Smashing Pumpkins bassist D’arcy Wretzky in more than nine years. She called the station on Thursday and spoke off the air with host Ryan Manno, who was not expecting the call. You can stream or download the call, originally posted here by Q101, below: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. |
D’arcy, who said she “never” listens to the radio, was listening before the call, heard the Silversun Pickups, and, in an apparent coincidence, inquired about the rising band that has often been compared to the Smashing Pumpkins.
D’arcy: “Another reason I called in is because — that band, what were they called, Panic Switch?
Manno: They were called Silversun Pickups, but that was “Panic Switch,” yeah. The name of the song. The band is Silversun Pickups.
D’arcy: Silversun Pickups?
Manno: You know, a lot of people say that he sounds like Billy.
D’arcy: No. He doesn’t sound like Billy. […] Billy could sound like a lot of things, but … Billy couldn’t sound that good. No! That’s not true. Billy has actually a very unusual voice. He can sing two tones at once, which is something that only the Tibetan monks can do, as far as I know. Anybody else — I’ve never heard anybody else do it, it’s the strangest thing. But, he — I really wish he’d pay more attention to his … pitch! Anyhow.
“They’re great,” she also said of the LA-based band. “They’re really good.”
After quitting the Smashing Pumpkins in 1999, D’arcy disappeared from public view, with the exception of a few days in court in 2000 on charges of crack cocaine possession. While she had already plead guilty and was ordered to spend a month in a drug education program, D’arcy, outside the court, had uttered her last words quoted by the media (until today’s): “I didn’t do it.”
Wretzky moved that year to Watervliet, Michigan, where she owns a horse farm and antique shops. She has also lived in Austin, according to fan site Netphoria.
During the call, D’arcy also discussed why she doubts she will ever return to the music business:
“I never really had the health that you need to be able … You have to be, constantly — the show must go on — Kurt playing in his wheelchair. The show must go on and I just get sick too much. I mean, singing was my first love, but twice a year I get laryngitis and I lose my voice completely. I don’t know why. But stress. Everything — stress, stress, stress. And the business is just nasty.”
D’arcy also inquired about an upcoming Davey Jones show, which she then said she would not attend because she is “spontaneous.”
“I never tell anyone I’m gonna do anything,” she said, later adding that “having said I won’t be there, I’ll probably be there. That’s the way it always works with me, you know. If I tell you I’ll be there, I won’t.”
D’arcy also revealed that an ex-boyfriend had just died.
“I love Chicago. I miss you,” she said, before ending the conversation sounding happier than she did when the call began.
