Smashing Pumpkins release new single ‘Beguiled’ and tell us about their three-part “rock opera”, ‘ATUM’

nme.com:

Smashing Pumpkins have announced a three-part album called ‘ATUM’ and shared the new single ‘Beguiled’. Listen to the track and read NME’s interview with frontman Billy Corgan below.Following on from 2020’s ‘CYR’, the forthcoming 33-song “rock opera” serves as a sequel to the band’s classic double album records ‘Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness’ (1995) and ‘Machina/The Machines Of God’ (2000).The project has been previewed by the swaggering, all-guns-blazing ‘Beguiled’, which sees the Pumpkins return to their gritty, guitar-led sound.

A special live video performance if the song was shared on the group’s TikTok last night (September 19).Speaking to NME, Corgan said the track had emerged from around “80 ideas” that eventually turned into “a bunch of different demos; a riff here, a chord change, a little vocal melody”.“And then you’d go through and say, ‘OK, these are the ones that are gonna work and seem to fit together’,” he recalled.“I do love the song; we’ve been practising it in rehearsal ’cause we’re about to do a show in a couple of days.

It rocks. It’s nice to hear it against all the other classic songs ’cause it holds up really well.”He continued: “When you decide to do a three-act, 33-song rock musical in 2022… [Laughs] you’re definitely stepping in it!

Because there’s a lot of people who believe less is more these days. I’m on the opposite side – I actually think more is more!”While ‘Beguiled’ feels like a bold statement of intent, Corgan admitted that there was “probably about seven other songs” that could’ve been used to introduce fans to the ambitious ‘ATUM’ era.“With 33 songs, I was sort of Switzerland on the whole thing,” he told NME.