Corgan hears sound for next record, plots more album box sets
September 19th, 2008 by jjbtags: gear, flood, gish, billy corgan, interview, releases
Thanks to a partnership with Nxtbook Media, EQ Magazine’s October issue — including a massive profile of the Smashing Pumpkins — is available for viewing online. Writer Richard Thomas traces the band’s entire career (sans the interstitial Zwan/solo period), listing gear and recording techniques used in the studio from Gish through “Superchrist” and incorporating interviews with Billy Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlin, Butch Vig, Flood, Alan Moulder, Bjorn Thorsrud, and Roy Thomas Baker. Here’s but a tiny sample of the extensive historical material:
“Flood felt like the band he would see live wasn’t really captured on record,” says Corgan. “So a lot of Mellon Collie was tracked by the band at deafening volumes. I mean deafening. There was so much SPL [ed. wut?] in the room that it was physically uncomfortable. Your ears, your emotional resistance, would wear down.”
Flood also discovered that Corgan was a much better singer pitch-wise when he didn’t use headphones, so he switched Corgan up to a Shure SM58 and had him sing in front of open speakers.
There are essentially two pieces of forward-looking news, both found near the end of the dozen-plus-page exposition:
“I know the next record is going to be really psychedelic,” says Corgan. “I don’t think the Sabbath influence is going away anytime soon, but I’m thinking more late ’80s/early ’90s English shoegazer mixed with ’60s psychedelia and ’70s funk. I can hear it in my head, but that doesn’t mean it’ll ever get out of my head.”
What, no ’00s or ’50s influences? (And did he say, “funk”? Haha…) The other item:
[P]reparation [is ongoing] for the release of a Gish boxed set, which may include everything from demos and B-sides to revisited versions of old songs. The group also has archived performances of their first 40 shows, warts and all. As they have no label contract in place, the size of the boxed set is to be determined, which is good news for superfans, as Corgan is no stranger to releasing Herculean sets of material. The Pumpkins will also embark on a small-scale tour to support the release, which means Gish songs, Gish gear, and intimate Gish-sized venues. Need more message board fodder? [ed. blog fodder, actually plz] Corgan plans to give each and every Pumpkins album the same treatment. [ed. kthx]
September 19th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Fascinating article so far, and I’m only a few pages in.
I think this has piqued my interest in the band more than anything else since the “reunion.”
September 19th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
a psychedelic influenced album? yeah! i can´t wait!
and a gish tour at small venues? it´ll be a time travel…gish is my favorite album…until now…to hear these songs live would be a dream!
September 19th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
The genius in him never stops….
2009 is going to be better than 2008……….
September 19th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Anyone think “funkified” will make an appearance?
My favorite cover of theirs was “Run, Shaker Life”. The way he describes the sound for the next album sounds like that cover. If so, I’m excited. If it sucks, least we get access to all the vault material and stuff in general. Can’t really lose too bad.
Wonder if it will be an “American Idiot” style resurgence for the band. I can already hear critics going, “…the band has returned to its roots”. Well, sorta.
September 20th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Finally! I remember him talking about wanting to do this kind of thing back in 2000. And I’m a big fan of the Cure deluxe edition rereleases (w/ an extra disc of demos & live tracks for each album)… making each album a “box set” would be even better!
September 20th, 2008 at 9:28 am
But Billy Corgan can be such a jerk - the Lollapalooza thing where he was screaming at the Beastie Boys - i guess everyone loses it sometimes. You can read about it in Spin magazine (Walla gets interviewed) - http://digital.spin.com/spin/200805/?pg=87&pm=1
September 20th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Walla is a douche, his band sucks too. So Corgan is in a bad mood at a concert and that’s reason to disown his creative output? We should all throw out our Bob Dylan records then.
management &
September 20th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
The Walla interview was in a much nicer emag than the EQ mag uses (the nextbook thing - god it was painful to load and fuzzy to read). Turns out Spin uses “Texterity” emag and going to their site I found lots of other music magazines - Playback (?) - but basically pretty cool. Now I don’t think Beasties are so bad and now after reading the interview mabe im a little more simpathetic.
September 20th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Man, I have been a life long Pumpkins Fan since Gish.
I have been loyal to the band since day one and have virtually everything ever released - yes, even the most recent stuff, which a degree of it can be argued to be lack lustre.
Personally, I think the orginal band members need to create a scenario to let by-gones be by-gones, and get the hell back together and DROP AN ALBUM FOR REAL, an album that encompasses the signature pumpkins sound from Siamese/Mellancollie era will all members each providing the chemistry for a truly authentic pumpkins album.
Listen - I am a loyal supporter until the end - I have spent my hard earned dollars on every release. It can be argued by many that today’s Pumpkins songs are really missing that old sound. I think its time again to throw away the beat-machines, keyboards, grow some hair again (even if only a little bit) and get rockin like its 1991.
I think this band, which is one of my favorites of all time, still have the potential to do it again - what I mean by do it, I mean 10 million + albums sold. They just gotta put the past behind re: strained relationships, and get a 1 album deal on the go for the four of them, spell it out and get down to business.
If any of the band members suggest that they are ‘better’ without a paritcular member (one of the four original), its bullshit.
It kills me to say this - The pumpkins will never have a blockbuster album such as Siamese/Mellancollie era style if they dont go back to their roots. All the drama surrounding Iha Darcey and the gang is just silliness and teenage shit. If I were to encourage the members to think about something, I would ask them to reflect on the past and ask yourselves what you had back in the day all together before the hype and success, what was it that bonded you as friends…take a look at some old picks… - go back and get it –make that 12 track album for your truest fans. Spend some quality time mixing and mastering it with a legend and let it rip.
The pumpkins situation can be comparable to the RHCP situation without John Frusciante or STP without Scott Weiland…its the chemistry that is needed along with focusing on early roots.
This has been a difficult post to write because I am such a huge fan.
September 20th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Re: Walla, I just happened to come across a great Mencken quote:
September 20th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Life Long Fan –
I fear the original lineup will never reunited because there is just too much hatred. Corgan has made them look like fools by continually rubbing in the fact that they rarely contributed to the songwriting and studio recording, and he feels that he does not need them to make ‘Pumpkins’ music anyway. If they got together again to try to ‘DROP AN ALBUM FOR REAL’ what would happen - would they sit on their thumbs again in the studio while Corgan and Jimmy do everything? Why would they want to drop everything in their lives for that?
knows strange
September 21st, 2008 at 11:41 am
Besides, it is definitely not advisable for Billy to grow back hair. Look at that photo of him on page 16. He would have hair like my dad!
September 21st, 2008 at 9:10 pm
I think my brain exploded when Flood said “I love recording at 15 ips NAB, but with Dolby SR, because it adds just a whole different dimension to the sound. Apart from the obvious benefits of Dolby, if you tweak the Dolby unit really, really, well, it’s like adding an Aphex and dbx sub-harmonic bass enhancer on every channel.”
sitting Elberfeld
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:52 am
Are you guys writing for punk.bz now?
[ed. link deleted]
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Avery: Are you guys writing for punk.bz now?
No, they copied our material.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Fuck Chris Walla
That guy should crawl up his own ass and die along with DCFC
great article
thanks for the post