“We were the first band of our generation that started to grow up,” Billy Corgan says, reflecting on the making of the Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 grand opus, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
“The band was coming off a golden moment, which was the grunge explosion. But all movements start to run out of gas, and then the gatekeepers come in and start trying to say what it really means – when they had nothing to do with authoring it.
“In our case, we made the move to grow up before anybody else, and then we were sort of singled out for criticism as far as other people were concerned, either because A) the party needed to continue, or B) growing up was some sort of sellout or something.”
Indeed, the previous two years were a heady time for the Pumpkins. Their 1993 album, Siamese Dream, contained a steady stream of radio and MTV smash hits that drove sales past the four million mark.
The band – which in addition to Corgan, Iha and Chamberlin also included original bassist D’arcy Wretzky – spent much of that year and the next on a relentless touring cycle (they headlined 1994’s Lollapalooza festival), and by the time live commitments wound down, Corgan, championed by some as one of the era’s most creative and vital music makers while lambasted by others as nothing more than headline-seeking megalomaniac, found himself at a personal and creative crossroad.
He decided to go big, and that meant wielding his newfound commercial clout as a form of political capital. The new record would be a double CD, and the material would spread the waters of what was considered “alternative rock” by embracing progressive rock, art rock, orchestral pop, folk and heavy metal.
In place of Butch Vig, who had produced Siamese Dream and the band’s debut, Gish, Corgan enlisted Flood (U2, Nine Inch Nails, PJ Harvey) and engineer Alan Moulder (the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine) as co-producers.
Over an eight-month period – “It was essentially four months of preparation and four months of recording, sort of,” Corgan remembers – the band cut upwards of 57 songs, 28 of which ultimately made the final double album that clocked in at just over two hours.
As lavish and ambitious albums go, Mellon Collie ranks alongside the Beatles’ White Album, Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk as career-defining masterworks.
Meticulously conceived and rich in every detail, its day-and-night theme contains moments that veer from almost unspeakable beauty (Cupid de Locke, Stumbleine) to ghastly horror (Tales of a Scorched Earth, X.Y.U.), with Corgan channeling a torrent of emotions. One minute he’s frozen in a kind of childlike awe; the next, he’s luxuriating in blissed-out romanticism.
Songs that reveal stark introspection give way to truly frightening sections of raw, unhinged anger in which Corgan – yes, he’s raging in a cage – gnashes his teeth and froths at the mouth. It swoons and spirals, exalts and destroys.
Released in October 1995, the album debuted at Number 1 on the Billboard 200 (it’s the band’s only record to reach the top spot), and thanks to yet another succession of hits (Bullet with Butterfly Wings, 1979, Zero, Tonight, Tonight and Thirty-Three) it stayed on the charts for well over a year. All told, the album sold a staggering 10 million copies, earning diamond certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
While the reviews were generally favorable (most critics hailed the record as a work of art), a few journalists took issue with the album’s length – the word “indulgent” was frequently tossed around.
For Rolling Stone critic Jim DeRogatis, Corgan’s lyrics were a particular sticking point. In his three-star review (which Corgan remembers as two-and-a-half stars), he wrote that the songwriter was "wallowing in his own misery and grousing about everyone and everything not meeting his expectations.”
If the record was indulgent and wallowing in a particular form of misery, well, so were a lot of other people because that’s why the record resonated
“But he wasn’t wrong. I'm still there,” Corgan says, before adding, “Jim had a particular bone to pick with me that was personal, and that went on for years. We eventually made our peace, so I laugh at it now, but he was using that as a way to basically kneecap the band before it got out of the gates.
“I’ll say this, though: If the record was indulgent and wallowing in a particular form of misery, well, so were a lot of other people because that’s why the record resonated.
“This is where critics oftentimes mistake things that hit the zeitgeist,” he continues. “If an actor plays a serial killer, no-one really believes the actor's the serial killer. But when rock stars play misanthropes, the critics can help but believe the rock star is the misanthrope.
“Capturing the zeitgeist of a time requires some sublimation of one’s personality. Mellon Collie is not my personality. It’s close to my personality, but it’s not my personality.”
He pauses. “Machina/The Machines of God [2000] is probably much closer to who I am as a real person than Mellon Collie ever was.”
The Beatles disagreed with him, but George Martin famously said that he thought the White Album would’ve been stronger as a single record. Hindsight being 20/20, is there anything about Mellon Collie that you would change today, if given the opportunity?
“I think the only sort of inner regret I have is that it's probably a touch too long. If I had it to do over again, it probably would've been a slightly better record if it was 24 songs instead of 28.”
When rock stars play misanthropes, the critics can help but believe the rock star is the misanthrope
At the time you were starting to make it, was everybody on board with it being a double album?
“Oh yeah. I’d fought all the political battles internally in the year before that. During the height of Lollapalooza, when we were touring as the headliner and the band was getting really big, I announced on MTV that our next record was going to be a double, and the record label went into a panic.
“They told me I was insane – things like ‘career suicide’ and all that stuff was thrown around. It was seen as a sign of my growing hubris. ‘He’s gone mad’ and that sort of thing. I kept saying it was like our version of The Wall or the White Album, but I never took the time to count how many songs were actually on those records. If I’d done that, you could argue it would be a really strong record if you took the best 18 songs off of Mellon Collie. I mean, that’s a very, very strong record.
“It ended up being about filling those two CDs. So yes, I’d won the battle, and yes, we were going to make a double album. We had a producer who was willing to take the journey into the murky depths of whatever this was going to be.
“Oh, but there was something else I don't think I've ever really spoken about: There was also a sense of ‘Wait… If they’re going to do a double album, they’re going to be off the road for a very long time.’ So there was that pressure – you’re giving up a lot of money by going off-cycle this long, so the record had better be fucking good.”
It’s been reported that when Flood came into the picture, he wanted to change the way the band worked. He wanted you to jam more and record that way, which resulted in a lot of basic tracks.
“His main thrust was, ‘I want to record the band I hear on stage.’ He said he was shocked by the difference between the band he heard on Siamese Dream and the band he saw on stage. It became a process of like, ‘OK, how do we do that?’ The jamming and live take approach actually wasn’t dissimilar from Siamese Dream in that we would record live and then I would erase everything and re-record everything.
“Flood’s idea, however, was that he wanted Jimmy’s drum takes to be representative of the band at full throttle, not go in there and play so as Jimmy gets a good drum take and then we’ll put music on it. No, Jimmy needs to be playing like he does in a concert, which meant the band needed to animate and push Jimmy to the edge of his capability. And then you erase the tracks and then you put music on the top of that.”
![[HQ] The Smashing Pumpkins - Live at Brixton Academy 1996 - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/x0lHxf4R9EU/maxresdefault.jpg)
How do you actually do that in a recording setting? Because you’re actually not live in concert. You don't have people screaming, and you don’t have that kind of excitement. The band is in a room by themselves. It’s kind of a sterile environment.
“Great question. First of all, we brought in a full P.A. so we would play at full volume. Imagine we’re in a room where it’s easily over 110 decibels. The old Pumpkinland, which is what we called it, had brick walls, a concrete floor with industrial carpeting and a high wood ceiling.
“So now we’ve turned everything up – I’ve got two Marshall half-slant cabinets at full power. James has two at full, and D’arcy’s got two full SVT bass rigs. We have a full P.A., including Jimmy’s drum monitors and our wedges. We’re playing at full concert volume.”
Logic would dictate that yes, that would certainly change the way you played and recorded. It sounds like an overwhelming experience.
“Well, it’s a lot different from putting your amps in a room, wearing headphones and playing along to Jimmy to get the most pristine drum tracks. When you hear, for example, Bullet with Butterfly Wings, that’s the live take of Jimmy playing to the band at full volume. That kind of energy and ambiance could only have been created that way.”
As you mentioned, the band had now become huge, and with that success came a relentless touring schedule. By the time you got in the studio, did that kind of energy and exhilaration give way to burnout?
In the next four hours, no joke, I think I put 46 guitar parts on the song, totally on the fly
“I don’t think so. I also think it had a lot to do with the way we recorded. On any given day, we would come in at, say, 11, and we would practice for at least an hour. Whether we were working on an arrangement or a new song, we would practice as we would as if no-one was in the building. Then, if we had something we felt was worth recording, we would go ahead and endeavor to record that, however many takes that might require.
“There would probably be a lunch break, and then we’d go into recording mode. Now, the band’s responsibilities were about one-10th as vast once we were in recording mode as they were when we were tracking. So although they might be in the building, once practice was over, it was mostly me working with Flood on a guitar sound, a guitar part or an arrangement or whatever. I was full-time, and the band were kind of part-time.”
Because you were shouldering so many of the responsibilities, did you ever feel as though you were stretching yourself a little too thin? Did you ever feel as though you were losing your focus?
“Let me answer it this way: first of all, we pushed the record back, which alarmed the record company because they had hard release dates that were involving typical record company stuff.
“It was going to be their big record of the year, so they were really counting on it coming out. It reached a point where there was a hard, fixed date, like, ‘You will turn in this record whether it's done or not. Here’s your hard date out.’”
No pressure, right?
“There’s the pressure of that, sure. By the way, there was a ton of stuff that was unfinished when that verdict came down. Now, we were running two rooms at CRC Recorders, which is now defunct. Alan Moulder was working in one room with other bandmates, and I was working in the main room with Flood and flitting back and forth between the two rooms, depending on what work was going on.
“I remember walking in when James had been working on the guitar parts of Thru the Eyes of Ruby. I might’ve been in a bad mood, but I just didn’t like what was happening. I let Flood know that we were at a stalemate on the song, and he looked at his watch and said, ‘You’ve got four hours to figure it out, because otherwise we’re going to have to kick the song off the record.’ In the next four hours, no joke, I think I put 46 guitar parts on the song, totally on the fly.”
It’s been written that you recorded 70 guitar parts on the song.
“Who knows? There was a lot of layering, so maybe that pads the number of parts. My point is, not only did I have to make up the parts that I didn't have, but I had to record them over a seven-minute song.
“At the end of the four hours, I had to present it all to the producer and have him go, ‘OK, good. Let’s move on.’ That’s the atmosphere this was recorded in, which was like, ‘Go now. No time. Yes or no?’ It’s also worth pointing out that we worked 86 days in a row to finish the record.”
That might cause some burnout.
“Yeah.”
The song 1979 is regarded as a classic. Is it true, however, that Flood initially wanted to drop it from the record?
“No, that’s not true. What happened was, it was tabbed early on as a potential single, which threw a shadow over the song, like, ‘It better be great.’ Well, every time the band tried to do it, it sounded like really bad B-level Rolling Stones. We would go out and play it, and I’d look around like, ‘This just sucks.’ Jimmy would say, ‘OK, what do you want me to play?’ Everybody was convinced that was the beat.
“We had this whiteboard Flood had made – you know, drums, bass, guitars, vocals. He looked at the board, and 1979 had nothing checked off. Then he looked at his schedule, and we were literally two days from the end, and we had to fly to L.A. for mixing.
“He said, ‘OK, tomorrow is the day. If we don’t finish this song, it’s off the record.’ It was the right decision, but I was thinking, ‘How can I drag it out even further?’ I guess I would've made the case that we could have worked on it in L.A. while the mixing was going on.”
So what did you do to save the song and make it more than just B-level Rolling Stones?
He said, ‘OK, tomorrow is the day. If we don’t finish this song, it’s off the record.’ It was the right decision, but I was thinking, ‘How can I drag it out even further?’
“Well, a few things happened. I went home that night knowing I reached this kind of crossroad, and I needed to make up my mind on something. That’s when I reframed the song in my mind and I recorded an acoustic demo. I changed something about the arrangement with the vocal, but I don't remember exactly what it was. I basically finished the song. It was done and it sounded great.
“The next morning, I played Flood that version of the song, which I think we recorded – it was just acoustic and vocal. Flood said, ‘OK, great. Now what are we going to do?’ We all agreed the demo had something, so Flood said, ‘Why don’t we just redo the demo?’
“We had the Alesis drum machine. I recreated the exact beat with the exact same sound, including the click. If you wanted the click in, you’d press some button and it would go on top of the beat. That’s what gave it this kind of drive. We tried it without the click, but it didn’t sound the same.
“OK, we made up our minds – we’re using the drum machine. We had the drum machine, and let’s call it a sketch of me playing the song. Now what the fuck were we going to do? We’d cast our lot into this particular ocean. The next thing was, ‘What's Jimmy going to do?’ I said, ‘Well, what if he came in playing on the chorus?’
“Flood was great at setting up drums really fast, so he threw up a kit and had Jimmy play along to the song, and I would just kind of go, ‘Jump in here and play.’ And then, ‘OK, stop.’ We got the arrangement to where it was like it could work, but when Jimmy would try to track it, he would invariably drift. This was pre-Pro Tools, basically.
“I had Jimmy play for two minutes, and I’d listen to where his beat swung intuitively with the drum machine beat. I took those two bars, dropped it into an Alesis sampler, fucked up the sound, then flew it back in.”
The phrase “chasing the demo” comes to mind.
“Well, the strength of the song is in its simplicity, but the mode we were in was simplicity was the last thing on our mind. What’s funny about it is, it’s become a very influential song. It was recently used by Jessie Reyez in an interpolation, which is a great version. I think it was so modern in its approach, but we weren’t trying to be modern. We were just trying to find a version that sounded good to us. We ended up just letting it be what it was instead of trying to make it something that it wasn’t.”
Fuck You (an Ode to No One) is one of the most bruising songs you ever recorded. Is it true you played the solo till your fingers bled?
I have this memory of killing myself, blasting my head off, and then throwing the guitar at the amp over and over to get the perfect kind of cataclysmic ending
“I don’t know if that’s true. I remember we had a B room, this very small production room. I had my cabinet in this really, really small room – it was about the size of a closet. Even when I would sit and play in the control room, the sound from the cabinet was so loud because it was right there.
“Somehow I got the idea that not only did I want to play the solo in front of the cabinet to get the right kind of feedback and resonant things looping through the guitar, but at the end of the solo, I wanted to throw the guitar at the amp to make some sort of statement.”
As one does.
“I would throw the guitar at the cabinet, which would knock it completely out of tune. Then I would go back and listen to the take and think, ‘Oh, that sucks. Do it again.’ I’d tune the guitar, go back in and blast it out.
“I have this memory of killing myself, blasting my head off, and then throwing the guitar at the amp over and over to get the perfect kind of cataclysmic ending. Whether or not my fingers bled, I don't remember.”
- Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is out now via Virgin.
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
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