The Smashing Pumpkins are in search of a new guitarist and all shredders are welcome to apply. The band posted the unexpected job listing to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Jan. 5.
"The application is open to anyone who might be interested," the group wrote. "Applicants may submit a resume and related materials to: SPGuitar@redlightmanagement.com."
Longtime guitarist Jeff Schroeder left the band late last year after 15 years by frontperson Billy Corgan's side. He spoke out about his departure in an interview with Guitar World.
"I don't want to say that I wasn't being challenged in the Smashing Pumpkins anymore," he said. "It's more that I feel like it's time for me to do something different artistically that is a bit different from what I've been doing."
Schroeder appeared to be on good terms with the rest of the band and was proud of what the group accomplished during his tenure.
Smashing Pumpkins guitarist Jeff Schroeder left the band last last year.
"I feel like the band is in a better place than when I joined, which feels very good and positive," he said. "Even though we went through some really rough and confusing years while trying to figure out how to be a band in this modern era, it feels positive."
Schroeder's departure came after the Smashing Pumpkins' founding guitarist James Iha rejoined the band in 2018.
Guitarists below the X post were excited, with plenty saying they’d already applied. There were also, as one might expect, a few pointed suggestions that the band audition D’Arcy Wretzky, the Pumpkins’ founding bassist who left the group under acrimonious circumstances in 1999.
And for fans of ‘90s alt-rock deep cuts, X user Patrick Lyons had a novel idea: “Stephen Malkmus has the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever.”
(For those who are unfamiliar, Malkmus’ band Pavement included the following verse on their 1994 song “Range Life”: “Out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins / Nature kids, they don’t have no function / I don’t understand what they mean / And I could really give a f**k.” The reference, vague as it was, apparently angered Corgan enough that he allegedly had Pavement dropped from the Lollapalooza tour that the Pumpkins were headlining.)
While that scenario seems unlikely, whomever gets the gig will have plenty of guaranteed billable hours to look forward to. The Pumpkins have already announced summer tour dates throughout the UK and Europe, starting in Birmingham in June, and finishing in Pireas, Greece, in mid-July. After that, the group has a half-month’s break before heading out on a North American tour with Green Day, Rancid, and the Linda Lindas. That jaunt starts in Washington, D.C. on July 29, and ends in San Diego on Sept. 28.
The Pumpkins have a glut of concert dates scheduled for next summer, including a stadium tour with Green Day.
The Pumpkins’ most recent recorded work, Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts, was released in three parts from Nov. 2022 through May of 2023. The group also recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of its breakthrough album, Siamese Dream, with a throwback show in the band’s hometown of Chicago, with Corgan’s Madame ZuZu’s Tea Shop and Art Studio retrofitted to resemble a 1993-era Tower Records.
