[DaveKShape]

Afterward, Corgan fired Chamberlin — though the drummer halfheartedly suggests that he might have quit. Until he had his first child seven years ago, Chamberlin was a heroin addict — Corgan first fired him in 1996 after touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin died while partying with him on tour one night. Chamberlin is sober now, but Corgan is convinced that his character hasn't changed, that he is fundamentally "unhealthy." "Jimmy is a destructive human being, and people who are destructive break things," Corgan says. "I don't see me reaching the highest levels of my creativity if I'm unhealthy and if I have unhealthy people around me. Every time Jimmy didn't show up for a week in the studio, I made it about me. Any time James Iha was off in a corner somewhere not paying any fucking attention, I made it about me." After Corgan told Chamberlin he was out, the drummer "unloaded" on Corgan, unleashing 20 years worth of pent-up insults. "So I was like, 'Fuck you,' " Corgan recalls. " 'Go ride around in a white van for the rest of your life.' "

Chamberlin becomes apoplectic when he hears Corgan's account. "In the middle of the last tour, Billy said it was the agent's fault, then it was the band's fault, then it was the fans' fault," the drummer says. "Yes, in the past, I was a destructive human being. I was a complete drug addict and a complete loose cannon, but I've taken responsibility for my life.

"In the grand scheme of things," he adds, "it doesn't really move the needle that much anymore. It's a few gold rec*ords and a bunch of money. Who cares? I have a wife and kids, I'm completely happy." He has started a new band, called This, and he doesn't see the point of spending months painstakingly recording music anymore. "Music is such a small part of people's lives now," he says. "People don't sit around like they did in the Nineties and stare at album covers and think about Kurt and Billy. I fucking hated the Nineties."

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/n...ature-20110103