Idolator

Last week, we posted news of a fake Smashing Pumpkins "leak," in which four songs that purported to be from Corgan & Co. wound up on the BitTorrent sites, despite sounding neither smashing nor pumpkin-like (if you've already forgotten, perhaps a look at our regrettably oversized picture of Billy Corgan's head will remind you). Anyway, Spin.com tracked down the fakers:

"It wasn't a PR stunt," says Simon Chatterman, multi-instrumentalist songwriter for British noise-rockers Amy Blue. "It was more of an accident. We had been toying with the idea of pissing off a few file sharers. We thought it would be funny to upload our EP as the Smashing Pumpkins and [with titles] from Corgan's poetry book, Blinking with Fists"...

"It's a bit of a phenomenon," says Chatterman, "People were still talking about the source even after it was established we weren't Mr. Corgan and crew." Still, thousands of unsuspecting downloaders may now have Amy Blue's tunes on their computers, and Chatterman a wee bit fearful. "I hope the FBI doesn't get a hold of us," he says.

A PR stunt? Who would dare accuse anyone who intentionally misled listeners by assuming a famous band name—and then calling Spin.com to talk about it being a "phenomenon"—guilty of pulling a PR stunt?

Exclusive: Smashing Pumpkins Imposters Unmasked? [Spin.com]
Amy Blue [MySpace]