Photo by Heather Kaplan

Most of William Patrick “Billy” Corgan’s new solo album, Ogilala, is performed by the man himself and a string quartet. There is one surprising exception, however: Corgan’s former Smashing Pumpkins bandmate James Iha.

According to a new interview with Rolling Stone, Iha recorded two tracks with Corgan for the Rick Rubin-produced effort. While one called “The Processional” made it onto the final LP, the other one “will likely be a B-side,” Corgan said.

The collaboration marks the first time the pair have worked together since Smashing Pumpkins’ 2000 album Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music, though they also performed live together a handful of times last year. But don’t think that plus Iha’s presence on Ogilala brings us any closer to a full-on Smashing Pumpkins reunion. Corgan told RS,

“[A reunion tour] has been knocked about. There’s certainly gears that turn and things get waved around, but until it’s inked, I’m in the dark as much as anybody … But I’ll say this and I mean it: If we never play a note together again, that’s OK. I’m way, way more interested in the fact that we have peace with each other. I’ve reached the point in my life where I’m not in a hurry to get to anything. If it’s there, great. If it’s not, cool.”

Corgan also revealed that the opening track to Ogilala, “Zowie”, is a tribute to David Bowie. “It was written around the time that David had passed and I was thinking about him a lot,” Corgan revealed. “I was lucky that I got to work with him a little bit. I was really struck by his passing. You almost have to take a step back and be like, ‘OK, that’s the end of a journey. What does it mean? How do we evaluate this artist now that there’s no more?’ It sort of closes the circle.”

Ogilala is out October 13th via BMG. For more insight on the effort, including why Corgan’s releasing it under his full name (“At some point, ‘Billy’ just gets kind of weird. First of all, I’m 50 years old…”), read the full RS story here.