Jeff Schroeder of Smashing Pumpkins has released his first ever solo track ‘Haenim’.
Schroeder has been the guitarist for Smashing Pumpkins since 2007 replacing co-founder James Iha. He is featured on the four albums from ‘Oceania’ (2012) through to ‘Cyr’ (2020).
During lockdown he was forced to do his own thing and looked no futher than his neighbourhood, Koreatown in Los Angeles. “It was kind of like ‘If we don’t embrace it, this stuff will be forgotten,'” he says.
The track ‘Haenim’ connects Schroder, a Korean-American, with his Korean roots. “Much of my life, my existence of who I am, is because my mom was born there, and was from that generation,” he says. “‘Haenim’ really connects me to that culture.”
For “Haenim,” Schroeder recorded at The Cave Studio, a Los Angeles using bassist Arion Salazar and drummer Shane Graham. Georgia-based artist, Heeya So, added vocals remotely.
The song was written by Shin Joong Hyun, an influential Korean rock ‘n’ roll guitarist, and initially appeared on 1973’s Now, a psych-folk LP released by a teenager named Kim Jung Mi. “The song is about finding a certain type of spiritual rejuvenation out in the countryside—being refreshed and renewed by the experience of being close to nature,” Schroeder says. “I really liked what it was about, particularly considering what the world has gone through for the past year.”
More solo work is on the way. “What’s influenced me more than anything is an internal spiritual journey,” he says. “You realize at a certain point in your life that you have all these experiences within yourself—all these tastes and likes that I have, and things that I enjoy—and then there’s part of you that has to translate that and present it to the world.”
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