EQ Magazine - October 2008 - (Page 16)

SIGNAL TO NOISE sorry, I’m on a tangent,” he laughs. “See, I told you. I don’t interview anymore. I’m just talking like a normal person.” It’s ten minutes into our first interview, and Billy Corgan has gone slightly off-topic. Nothing too outlandish, but he’s affable and apologetic nonetheless. The two of us are sitting on the patio outside a nondescript home studio in Los Angeles, where the audio is being mixed for a forthcoming DVD chronicling the Smashing Pumpkins’ 12-show run at the Fillmore in the summer of 2007. In two weeks he’ll travel to another studio to record “G.L.O.W.,” a new Pumpkins track for the Guitar Hero World Tour video game. Corgan also went through facial scanning and motion capture at Neversoft to become a playable character. “Digital me,” he smiles, right down to the sheen off his dome piece. There’s a lot on tap in Pumpkinland, but for the moment its chief resident is calm and centered. The loudest thing about him is a pair of bright orange socks peering over the top of his black-and-red high-top Nike Court Forces. That anybody would announce the fact that they were talking like a normal person seems strange, unless that person happens to be Billy Corgan. Frequently misinterpreted and misquoted, it’s understandable that Corgan is somewhat of a guarded interview, at least in regards to certain topics. Gear isn’t one of them. “I love talking about that stuff,” he says. “I’d rather talk about that stuff than talk about emotional stuff. So yeah, as far as you want to go down the rabbit hole. . . .” The thing is, the further down you go, the more you realize that the emotional stuff and the technical stuff intertwine like patch cables. Personalities, playing styles, tension, harmony, exploration—everything is interconnected. Riffs and rifts. Tone and atonement. The collective dynamic among Billy Corgan, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, guitarist James Iha, and bassist D’arcy Wretzky manifested itself in one of the most sonically-diverse and emotionally-complex bodies of work in rock history. As individuals, “I’m Billy Corgan tweaking his custom API console. they affected one another just as much with their absence as they did with their presence. They are torchbearers of the Alternative Nation, and their music resonates with hippies, shoegazers, Goths, shredders, and e-music experimentalists alike. “Thousands of songs have come and gone over the past 20 years, but we can count on one hand the iconic bands that are a staple in the format,” says Michael Martin, Vice President of Programming at 98.7 KYSR in Los Angeles. “We test thousands of records in a year, and Smashing Pumpkins are always near the top with multiple tracks. It’s beyond the single and beyond the album. It’s the band.” With Corgan at the helm, the Pumpkins filtered their concepts through a gamut of accredited producers, engineers, and mixers, achieving unique creative and critical outcomes for each project. The motivation, whether conscious or subconscious, remained the same: Move forward, apply pressure, don’t fake it. “Go back and read the press on us from 1989 to 1992,” says Corgan. “People had no clue who we were and where we were going. We were onto something and we followed it through, and it built up into something that sold and was popular. It had its moment, but I think once we crested that wave it was back to a level of experimentation. What we didn’t understand were the ramifications it was going to have on the band commercially. You can’t build yourself into this superpower and then say, ‘I’m going to go back to being arty guy.’ They don’t want to hear that, and I wasn’t sophisticated enough to understand that. Now I am. “The mainstream world only wants to hear you when you have your s**t together. It may take us three years to get our s**t together to a point where we can make that kind of level of work, and then we’ll show up and we’ll set the phasers to stun. I’m 41, Jimmy’s 44—we still have a good seven-plus years where we can play that kind of music that way. I think ‘Superchrist’ is a good indication that we’re still willing to light stuff on fire.” A blunt force psychedelic jam produced by longtime friend Kerry Brown, “Superchrist” is both a push to the future and a nod to the past. It’s the first fruit of a band no longer beholden to a label—Zeitgeist fulfilled their one-album deal with Warner Brothers—and rekindles a raw, brazen energy that, to Brown, was a cornerstone of Gish-era recording. “Tell me tell me what you’re after. I just want to get there faster.” — “Siva” (1991) The Smashing Pumpkins rose to prominence in the shadows of Wrigley Field on the North Side of Chicago in the late 1980s. Outfitted in cold weather thrift store threads, they delivered punishing body blows of bombastic, cinematic love-rock, their pop appeal perfectly shaded behind a treacherous wall of sound. Destiny handed them an alternative pedigree, but their cover material—“Sookie Sookie” (Steppenwolf), “The Joker” (Steve Miller Band), “Venus In Furs” (The Velvet Underground)— exposed deep roots that would inform their future recordings. 16 EQ OCTOBER 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - October 2008

EQ Magazine - October 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Punch In Smashing Pumpkins Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Cakewalk Sonar 7 Steinberg Cubase 4 Studio Meets Stage Gear for the Studio and Stage Sounds Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - October 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.