Kiki Wong had to be the best of 10,000 guitarists to earn her spot in the Smashing Pumpkins, after Billy Corgan opened to door to auditions from players all over the world in a bid to find the best candidate.
Eight people were hired full-time to sift through applications, which included one from our very own Editor-in-Chief, Michael Astley-Brown, and though the Jackson Rhoads-touting shredder aced her audition, mastering the alt rock icons’ back catalog wasn’t without its challenges.
“It still shocks me that I was literally living in the desert and catapulting into a world tour with one of the most influential ’90s rock ’n’ roll bands,” she says in the latest issue of Guitar World. “It has allowed me to improve as a musician and expand my musical understanding.”
She sings the praises of Billy Corgan’s “distinct playing style,” but admits that getting to grips with some of his nuances wasn’t easy.
“Learning his style was hard, but it helped me play with more feel and vibe,” she explains. “The first week of rehearsal was like a musical boot camp that taught me more than 20 years of playing by myself did.”
As to the song that gave her the most trouble, she cites Thru the Eyes of Ruby from 1995’s career-high LP, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. But it isn’t the song’s complexity that left her scratching her head.
“It was one of the more difficult songs for me to learn since there were so many effects and different harmonizing parts. The tricky part about Smashing Pumpkins’ music is the arrangements,” Wong asserts.
“It’s orchestrated well and almost counterintuitively while still maintaining musical sensibility and mainstream appeal. It’s really quite genius, but also hard to learn – and it sounds insane, but sometimes the easiest songs still get me nervous.
“One note hanging can be more nerve-racking than a whole solo because if you miss that note, you screwed up the whole part,” Wong continued. “That’s why Today (from 1993’s Siamese Dream) sometimes gets me nervous (Laughs).”
Speaking to Guitar World previously, Wong said she had given up on the prospect of touring again, but was pushed into applying for the Pumpkins gig by her boyfriend. When the chance of an audition fell before her, it was something she wasn’t going to take lightly.
“I practiced those songs in and out like my life depended on it for three weeks, she says. I watched every live video I could find on the internet of those songs from ’96 to 2023, trying to analyze every move they made.
“My heart was going 1,000,000 mph (during the audition) because almost the whole OG line-up was there. It was like looking through a glimpse of my teenage years but in real life!”
Wong had earned her stripes playing with Taylor Swift, Usher, and Bret Michaels, alongside writing and performing original material with Nylon Pink, Hellfire Heart, and Vigil of War.
At the time of joining, she had amassed 674K Instagram followers thanks to her talent and character-laced content, and that follower count has seen a healthy bump since she was announced as the band’s latest recruit.
Aside from playing in the Pumpkins proper, Corgan has also called on his new guitarist for a new solo project, Billy Corgan and The Machines of God, formed to celebrate some Pumpkin classics out on the road.
Head to Magazines Direct to grab a copy of Guitar Worldwhich also includes new interviews with and contributions from Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Bonamassa, and Cory Wong.
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