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EW After the Pumpkins broke up, why did you form Zwan [which featured guitarists David Pajo and Matt Sweeney, bassist Paz Lenchantin, and Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin]? Were you eager — maybe even desperate — to re-create the band feeling?
BC It's the classic thing where you unconsciously re-create a situation to try to fix it. It was a stupid move with good intentions.

EW Why did it implode?
BC Sex and drugs and junk. Tick off the list: heroin; band members having relationships; one of the band members sleeping with the producer's girlfriend while we were making the album and continuing to do so after we made the album. You don't trust the person next to you. I'm on the bus. I send an e-mail 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 e-mail that another girl sent me. I mean, that's the kind of stuff we were dealing with. [''Pretty much everything that he said has been exaggerated and blown out of proportion,'' Pajo responds. ''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.]

EW How quickly did it fall apart?
BC It was fun up until making the album [Mary Star of the Sea]. Then 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 you don't want to order $100 of lobster every day? I mean, like, bad. But then it was too late. It was already public. The album was going to come out. So I did what I always did: Try to make the best of a situation. I start covering up. Put on a good face. And honestly, as God is my witness, I'm glad the thing didn't sell, because if it had sold then it would have been really tough. I would look like I was insane to walk away from something that I'd just built.

EW Are you at least proud of the album?
BC I can't listen to it. It's like a nightmare for me now. It just reminds me of the 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.

EW Which of your two bands is more likely to reunite?
BC 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 and D'Arcy [Pumpkins guitarist James Iha and bassist D'Arcy Wretzky] are good people. They might be misguided people, but they're good people. I completely believe in them as human beings, no matter what they do, no matter what they say. I stood on stages with them and watched us change the world, change people's thinking, rock f---ing big-time. You can't take that away from me. That's locked in my heart.


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