Billy Corgan regrets disbanding the Smashing Pumpkins in 2000 - insisting fans have lost trust in the reformed group.

The band had spiralled out of control by the end of the '90s amid reports of in-fighting, drug use, and diminishing record sales leading up to the split.

Corgan reunited the group in 2006, and hired 19-year-old Mike Byrne to replace drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, who quit earlier this year. But the rocker admits he's discouraged by the revamped line-up.

He tells Spinner.com, "Breaking up the band was a mistake because I think it broke trust with the audience. You had an audience that was very invested in that idea - whether they were invested in the people or the idea or the songs, I don't know. Like a relationship that you break off from and then try to pick back up, it's never quite the same. It doesn't mean it can't be as good, but it has to be different. That beautiful original feeling got lost in the interim of being away. If we had said, 'We just went away for seven years,' it would have been similar, but somehow breaking up, there's a violence to it."