DUO EX MACHINA

Billy Corgan & Kiki Wong – the Smashing Pumpkins' first and latest guitarists, respectively – discuss how bonding over Dimebag Darrell and dressing like "Rob Halford's cousin" helped turn Wong into a Pumpkin overnight

- JOE BOSSO

DURING A DUAL Zoom interview with Guitar World, Billy Corgan remembers he has a bit of pressing musical business to go over with Kiki Wong. "Kiki," I'm breaking down all these parts, so I've got to call you about some guitar stuff," he says.

"Awesome. Sounds good," Wong responds cheerfully.

No doubt this has been a constant in her life since the day everything changed for her back in April 2024, when the Phoenix-based guitarist and social media shredder was chosen over 9,999 other hopefuls to join the Smashing Pumpkins following the departure of longtime guitarist Jeff Schroeder. Given just three months to get up to speed (during which time she had to learn some 35 songs that might comprise a Pumpkins setlist on any given night), Wong was thrown in the deep end and made her debut with the band in front of 15,000 British fans at the Birmingham Arena (her second show - at London's O2 Arena - raised the stakes even higher).

"The second show at the O2 was insane," Wong says. "But I do remember feeling, when we did get up on stage, that it felt a lot better than in rehearsal. It was so much fun to be a part of it all."

During rehearsals, Corgan had a strong sense that Wong could handle the gig, but he also recognized that the concert stage would be the true litmus test. "Some people get the deer-in-headlights thing, particularly when you're up there and suddenly you have to remember 4,000 weird guitar parts," he says. "Plus, the band's loud and we're playing faster, we're playing lots of big places... That's the problem with being in an old band. We can kind of phone it in at rehearsal or just be like, 'Does everybody know what they're doing?' No one's playing with the level of intensity we're playing at live. I think Kiki probably experienced that on stage, like, 'Oh... There's that other thing that happens with them.'"