Jeff Schroeder

Jeffrey George Schroeder (born February 4, 1974 in Los Angeles, California) is an American rock musician, who became a guitarist with the Grammy-award winning alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins in 2007. He is on leave from his Ph.D. program in Comparative Literature at UCLA, where he specializes in Asian American Literature.

Early days and The Lassie Foundation

Jeff started taking formal lessons on guitar playing from David Koval (Dakoda Motor Co. and Breakfast with Amy) when he was twelve, and when he was eighteen he joined band The Violet Burning, only to become a guitarist and one of the founding members of a shoegazing band The Lassie Foundation from Southern California few years later, who described their style as “pink noise pop”. He played guitar on three full-length albums and toured with band since 1996 before the band went on hiatus in 2006. He mentions I Duel Sioux and Pacifico as his band’s favorite albums; he had maximum creative time on the latter. His other side project is The Beat Concerto with friend Eric Campuzano. He joined the Smashing Pumpkins’ touring lineup in 2007, but also recorded for the new Lassie Foundation album in late 2007 and early 2008.

The Smashing Pumpkins

On April 6, 2007 rock rumor webzine Buddyhead reported that Jeff Schroeder was the new rhythm guitarist for The Smashing Pumpkins, replacing James Iha in the new line-up. It was confirmed that Schroeder was a member of the band at their first show on May 22, 2007 at Le Grand Rex in Paris, France. He has since appeared in the music videos for “Tarantula” and “That’s the Way (My Love Is)”, though he has yet to contribute to a released Pumpkins recording. Band frontman Billy Corgan performed all guitar parts on Zeitgeist and the 2008 EP American Gothic, the latter of which was recorded after Schroeder joined.

Influences

In a 2003 article, Jeff cited Ace Frehley, Jeff Beck, Slash, Pete Townshend, Brad Laner, Lee Ranaldo, Thurston Moore, Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd, Carrie Brownstein, J. Mascis as his most prominent guitar playing influences.