The Smashing Pumpkins members Billy Corgan, James Iha, Jimmy Chamberlin, and Jeff Schroeder expected legendary producer Rick Rubin to reject the idea of recording most of their new song ideas, with the expectation of only recording one new single before The Shiny and Oh So Bright tour. Corgan discussed the recording of the band’s upcoming EP’s in a new It’s Electric interview with Lars Ulrich.
“We finished tracking with Rick Rubin, we did eight new songs for the Pumpkins. The first time me, James, and Jimmy worked together in 19 years.”
He discussed the creative process.
“Pretty similar, kind of like, ‘Does anybody have any ideas?’ Then we decide what we’re going to work on, then we hit the ground running, and then it’s a free for all.”
“I brought in a few ideas, but I also have learned to let it be what it’s going to be. I don’t know how it is for you, sometimes if you think, it’s got to be like this, instead of just letting it be whatever it’s going to be, sometimes you get closer to where you hoped it would be if you don’t try. If you say it’s got to be so heavy, then you’re sitting there trying to write dumb riffs.”
“It’s hard to explain to people that haven’t been through that, especially long album processes because sometimes there’s a story in there, but you’ve got to really mine it out. In this case, it came really quickly. We did 16 demos in 3 weeks, and then I played Rick what I thought were the best songs, hoping he would pick one, and he picked all 8.
Then he said let’s go to the studio, it was at his house, then he made me play him all the songs I’d rejected. Then he changed his mind on one song, so he took one song out of the B-pile and put it in the A-pile, and took one song out of the A-pile and it back in the B-pile. Then he said okay let’s record 8, and we’re standing there with our eyes blinking. We thought we were just going to do a single. Rick is like, let’s just try it.”
