Former Smashing Pumpkins Bassist D'Arcy Breaks Her Silence
Posted by Benjy Eisen on Jul 15th 2009 9:50AM

As if reading from the script for an imagined episode of 'Where Are They Now?' one-time Smashing Pumpkins bassist D'Arcy Wretzky dialed the request line of Chicago station Q101 last week and spoke to evening-commute DJ Ryan Manno. The ensuing conversation was entirely unexpected -- on both ends -- but Manno took the opportunity to ask Wretzky straight-up, "What are you doing with your life?"

After all, it's been 10 years since Wretzky quit the band -- although frontman Billy Corgan later said she "fired for being a mean spirited drug addict, who refused to get help" -- and she admits that she's barely done any interviews since. So why now? As you can hear in the online stream of the conversation (via Q101) spilling her guts was not exactly Wretzky's initial intention. She really just wanted to ask Manno about Davy Jones and to find out more about the Silversun Pickups.

But since he asked, Wretzky said she's been keeping busy by mending fences and picking up "horse poop" on a farm in Michigan where she lives with her fiance. She misses Chicago but she doesn't get out much anymore and basically never goes to concerts.

"Any musician is like 'You can only push it down for so long, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to [do it again]," Wretzky told Manno. "Singing was my first love, but twice a year I get laryngitis and I lose my voice completely. I don't know why. But the stress, everything ... the business is just nasty."

Surprisingly, she had only one feisty comment about her time in the Smashing Pumpkins. Not surprisingly, it was about Corgan. "Billy has a really unusual voice," she said. "I just wish he'd pay more attention to his pitch."

Now that's a comment worth waiting a few years for.

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If anybody cares, Coztansa is in a new band:
http://www.myspace.com/groverclevelandband

I've always had a thing for female bass players...

Auf Der Mar FTW.

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Just chillin' like Garret Quillin.

Tal Wilkenfeld

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@audioidkid