Zwan

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:Zwancoverart.jpgZwan was a short-lived "indie supergroup" that formed in 2001 and disbanded in 2003.

It featured:

Billy Corgan (vocals/guitar), formerly of The Smashing Pumpkins.
Matt Sweeney (guitar), formerly of the bands Chavez and Skunk. He has also played with Cat Power, Guided By Voices, and Will Oldham/Bonnie "Prince" Billy.
David Pajo (guitar), formerly of Slint, also the driving force behind Papa M. He has also played with Tortoise, Stereolab, Royal Trux and Will Oldham/Bonnie "Prince" Billy.
Paz Lenchantin (bass), also of A Perfect Circle. She has also played with Papa M and The Silver Jews.
Jimmy Chamberlin (drums), formerly of The Smashing Pumpkins.

Following the breakup of the Smashing Pumpkins, Corgan and Chamberlin joined forces with Sweeney to start Zwan. Sweeney recruited Pajo, and the band debuted as a four-piece in late 2001. Lenchantin completed the group in spring 2002.

Widely seen as a vehicle for Corgan's prolific songwriting, Zwan used an intricate three-guitar attack to craft a sound often compared to that of the Smashing Pumpkins album Siamese Dream, albeit more melodic and shot through with an upbeat gentleness. Zwan performed about 50 new original Corgan songs on its several brief, acclaimed tours, but released only one studio album.

1 Zwan's breakup
2 Projected Future
3 Discography
- 3.1 Albums
- 3.2 Singles
4 External links

[edit]

Zwan's breakup

In the May 27, 2005 edition of Entertainment Weekly, Billy Corgan gave his version of the reasons behind Zwan's breakup.

Q: Why did it implode?

A: Sex and drunks and junk. Tick off the list: heroin, band members having relationships...You don't trust the person next to you. I'm on the bus. I send an email to somebody and I throw my BlackBerry in my little day bag. The next day, my ex-girlfriend calls me screaming. Somebody in the group went into my BlackBerry and forwarded her an email that another girl sends me. I mean, that's the kind of stuff we were dealing with.

David Pajo denied Corgan's incriminating accusations in the same article. "Pretty much everything that he said has been exaggerated and blown out of proportion," he has said. "The drug stuff in particular. I know there was no heroin." Adds Lenchantin, "I believe that we were a really good team. I am moving on and onward. I hope that our paths will meet again in peace." Sweeney declined to comment.

In the same Entertainment Weekly article, Corgan disclosed that things went wrong at some of the very first recording sessions. "...it was like, 'What do you mean the guitar's out of tune? What do you mean I have to be there at 11? What do you mean I want to order $100 of lobster every day?' I mean, like, bad. But it was too late. It was already public. The album was going out. So I did what I always did: Try to make the best of a situation and start covering up. Put on a good face. And honestly, I'm glad the thing didn't sell, because if it had sold well it would have been really tough. I would look like I was going to walk away from something that I'd just built."

He also stated that he can no longer listen to Mary Star of the Sea, because to him it sounds like "thousands of lies upon lies upon lies. It's a shame because there's tons of music unreleased that will just sit in a box until I can stomach it." When asked which of his two former bands would ever reform, he said, "Pumpkins. You'll never see Zwan. I'll never go anywhere near those people. Ever. I mean, I detest them. You can put that in capital letters. Bad people. James [Iha] and D'Arcy [Wretzky] are good people. They might be misguided people, but they're good people."

On April 24 2005 in the Chicago Tribune, Corgan made further accusations: "The music wasn't the big problem, it was more their attitude...Sex acts between band members in public. People carrying drugs across borders. Pajo sleeping with the producer's girlfriend while we were making the record." [1]

The rest of the members of Zwan have remained mum for the most part about the breakup since it happened.

[edit]

Projected Future

Djali Zwan, an acoustic incarnation of Zwan, which also featured violinist Anna Lenchantin, was to film and record the making of a new album in the studio in the fall of 2003, with an album and DVD to be issued in early 2004. Corgan spoke with Rolling Stone about his plans: "We're going to do it Let It Be-style," Corgan says, referring to the documentary about the 1970 Beatles album. "The album would be recorded live, with the cameras rolling. When you get the DVD, you can watch the takes on the album being done."

He describes the songs he's written for Djali Zwan as "more folk-driven, rooted in traditional music. I don't want to compromise veins of material to fit into an electric band, which I often did in the Pumpkins. With Djali Zwan, I can write an acoustic song and not worry how it's going to stand up against some rock epic."

Djali Zwan made their live debut as a quartet -- Corgan, Sweeney, Pajo and Chamberlin -- at the end of 2001; Lenchantin joined the two Zwans in '02. But the roots of Djali Zwan go back to Corgan's last years with the Pumpkins, who broke up in December 2000. Corgan had been writing material adapted from old folk and gospel songbooks. From that came new originals such as "Friends and Lovers," "Love Lies in Ruins" and "Rivers We Can't Cross," all slated for the forthcoming album, which will also feature Lenchantin's sister Anna on cello.

"We're not trying to be country blues," Corgan says of Djali Zwan. "But Djali Zwan is its own thing, a totally separate band. It would be exciting if we could pull this off."

[edit]