Pre Riviera Show Interview
If you would like tp buy a copy of this interview on tape, email Nikki.
Bill Wyman: Welcome to the worldwide concert broadcast of Smashing
Pumpkins
live from the Riviera Theater in chilly Chicago. I'm Billy Wyman and we're
hours away from the official release of Smashing Pumpkins' new 2 CD set,
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and we're just minutes away from
hearing the band's celebratory record release party from their hometown of
Chicago. I'm sitting here with the Smashing Pumpkins themselves...
D'arcy: In a truck, taped by the Riviera...
BW: ...Billy Corgan, D'arcy...
BC: No, we're live right before the show, D'arcy.
D: O God...in a truck.
BW: ...Jimmy Chamberlain, and James Iha. Thanks for being here you guys.
James: Well, it's our show. (all laugh)
BW: You might as well show up
D: We had nowhere else to be.
BC: We're happy to be here.
BW: So what are you, are you nervous, are you happy, are you confident,
how
do you feel?
JI: I'll tell you, Bill, we're going in a little crazy, uh...we're feeling
headstrong, we're playing confident, we're gonna play good ball out there
tonite,uh...we heard the audience is tough, we know it's a Chicago
audience...a lot of different things go through your mind...you're
energize,
but you're nervous, you're scared, but yet you're happy...
BW: I don't think you want to continue the sports metaphor in Chicago,
James, cuz Chicago doens'thave a whole bunch of winning teams right now, do
they?
Jimmy: No, the Bears are in first place.
D: The Bulls have got Rodman.
BW: Ok, I was thinking baseball.
BC: I got three words for you...We're taking it to the streets.
BW: Ok, Billy...this record is a 2 cd set...
JC: That's five words! (all laughing)
BW: ...it's a two record set...
BC: I know Jimmy, it's a joke.
BW: ...where in the course of recording this album did it become sucha
big
and epic undertaking?
BC: Um, we decided to do the double album long before we ever actually set
out to do it.
D: Long before we even started the band.
JC: We talked about it long before we though we could do it.
BW: A double album is every band's dream, I hear.
BC: It was in the DNA.
BW: Ok, is it a concept album?
BC: No.
BW: However, it's kind of, it's like, it is kind of scaled. There's two
different cds, one's called DAwn to Dusk, and another's called Twilight to
Starlight. What's the thinking behind that?
BC: Kind of a day and night thing.
BW: Hmmm...
BC: One's better for the day when you're rocking', the other...
BW: That's a good point, cuz the first album is kind of front-loader, with
a
whole bunch of hard rock tunes.
BC: Right
BW: This second album ha some very noisy stuff onit but I think the last
like five songs really takes the listener out pretty well.
BC: Right.
BW: That was the intention from the beginning?
BC: We want to put you to sleep at the very end, yes.
JC: That's the knockout punch.
JI: Right.
BW: Ok, now at the same time I do hear some conceptual sort of things. I
mean, you could look at it as the day in the life of some sort of every fan
going through...
JI: The Everyman (all laugh)
BW: Every what?
JI: The Every man
BC: We're into the Everyman
JI: The conept of the Everyman
D: We are the Everyman.
JI: We are the Everyman.
D: Especially me.
JC: (laughing) Especially D'arcy.
BW: But none of this was intentional? None of this was itnentional,
ther's no concept behind it.
BC: uuummm...you never know.
BW: Ok. The first song, we're going to play three of four songs fromthe
new album, in the upcoming minutes, the first one we wanted to play is
Here
is no why. Do i hear this correctly, there's some sort of Ziggy
Stardust-like character in there, there's some very kind of scabrous kind
of
commentary on some sort of...
JI: (laughing) scabrous...also, insidous.
BW: ...rock star.
BC: Um, no it's kind of a basic ode to like, the death rock me.
BW: O, you as a death rocker.
BC: The me that existed at 18. The black-haired misanthrope.
BW: Ok. And the sound of it is a little bit different from the Pumpkins
of
the past, it seems to me it has a real, not really classic rock styling,
but
it does seem to be...
BC: Um, a little glam...we always think of it as kind of glammy.
BW: Defninitely glam feel. Let's listen to Here is no why fromthe new
Smashing PUmpkins record mellon Colie and the Infinite SAdness and we'll be
right back.
*********************
BW: And here we are outside the Riviera Theater.
BC: Whoo! That was heavy.
BW: Just minutes before the Smashing PUmpkins take the stage.
BC: And hey, by the way, thanks for listening everybody.
BW: ...for their celebratory record releae concert here in Chicago. The
record is Mellon Colie and the Infinite SAdness, the song you just heard is
Hereis no why. What does that title mean?
BC: Don't know.
BW: Uh..ok.
JC: It used to be No, is here why.
BW: and just got mixed up in the transcription?
JC: Right.
BW: Another thing people are going to notice about this record is how epic
it is, how ambitious it is, and how diverse the music is. The Smashing
Pumpkins have always dealt in diverse musical styles but now we've got
weird
electronic songs, we've got a lullaby, we've got a country song...
D: (laughs)
BW: ..an almost country song...
BW: ...and something that almost sounds as noisy as Nine Inch Nails..:
BC: Hey, watch it...
BW: I'm thinking of Lily.
D: That wouldn't be that burlesque song would it?
BW: Yeah, that would be the last thing...
JC: Yeah, that's a burlesque song.
BW: The first use of a ukele on a Smashing Pumpkins record. I'm just
joking. Any thought about that? Is that part of the conceptt too of the
record?
JC: Yeah, we'd like to thank Tiny Tim for doing the guest appearance on
that
one.
BC: Um, no, it was a really exciting record to do cuz um we got to try all
sorts of different crazy stuff. James had his kazoo out..
JI: Yep, my harmonica, my kazoo...
BW: The other memebers of the band take vocal turns on the closing song.
JC: (in a high pitched voice ) Yes.
BW: Ok, and how was it with Flood? Did Flood help you work on the
diversity, was he a steadying influence...?
JI: No.
BC: Well, he had one of those english whips with the...
BW: How'd you come to, how'd you hook up with him?
BC: Um, we're really big fans of a lot of records that he'd done, like
Crime
and the City Solution, and Erasure and Depeche Mode and he made some really
cool records with bands that you wouldn't necessarily like all heir music
but
somewho those records seemed to stand out, and I kept picking up all these
records and noticng this guys n ames on, named Flood. So I met him at a
party and we talked and I mentioned that I'd be interested in having him
work
with us at some point and he seemed interested and we talkeda bou it alter
and that' s how it worked out.
BW: On Siamese Dream, the lead off song Cherub Rock began with "Let me out
of your scene, let me out of your scene...
BC: Now, see now, it never...I never said.
BW: ...you were kind of...
BC: Let me out of your scene, I don't understand that.
BW: What did it, what doe sit say?
BC: It just says "Let me out"
BW: I guess the implication...
BC: Out of your scene...?
JC: (lauhgs) That's on your version.
BC: Out of your scene, man? (all laugh)
BW: It seems you could read that as a critique...
BC: Sure...
BW: ...of the alternative rock world. This record seems to stay away from
all that. I mean, now that you've headlined Lollapalooza, you must feel
like
you're pretty much incontrol of your place in the...
BC: Well, we were reacting to what was like the old status quo kind of,
you
know, the bands that were probably the more early alternative bands, like
the
Mudhoneys and people like that, I mean, bands that we liked and we couldn't
understand why they had a problem with us. Sudeenly, you know, we were like
the bane of their existance and we couldn't really understand why,h aving
been fans and having followed the bands it was kindof hard for us to
understand, so it was kind f a negative reaction to a lot of the vitrolic
crap that caem out of all that, you know. So...it wasn't...it was, you
know,
it was something, you now...and plus it was some of the stuff that had gone
on in Chicago too, but you now it's great now cuz we're in a totally
differen
postion, and um, there's not much anyone can really say that can stop us
or
hurt us or keep up from being what we are and that's amuch nicer position
to
be in.
BW: I can see that, too. The next song we're going to play is 1979, and
when
you talk about um, you know, what you used to write about, now you really
seem, as you sai din the Tribune this morning, you're concentrating on
writing about you know wha tlife i slike for kids these days. 1979 I think
is a rell nice portrati of sort of ...I'mr eadingit as sort of teenage
restlessness, it seems to be, have charateristics of...
BC: Really, that's actually kind of an...this, well this songis kind of
interesting cuz it was um the last song that actually got put on the album
and we were actually going to throw it off the album and u I went home and
kind of completely rewrote the song in one night and came back the next day
and Floo djust love dit and we recorded it like prtty muchright there.
BW: And as we listen to this I thinkit has a really interesting backing
track, it's really lulling, it brings youa long, there's al sort of weird
little sound effects init, too, wher edid they come from?
BC: That's all the electronic equipment we've been using, sampling and
stuff. I think it's really, this kind of an intersting way where you can
still retain your identity musically but still encompass the new technology
available to make a different kind of music. So it's kind of like you know
it's like synthesizers without the hokey like synetsizer partsk, you now.
BW: Terrific. Check it out, 1979. From teh Smashing Pumpkins new record
Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness. We'll be right back.
October 23, 1995
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