TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

Thirty years after its release, Billy Corgan looks back at the making of The Smashing Pumpkins’ era-defining big, bold, bombastic masterpiece Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness.

Interview: Joe Bosso

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 double album 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 the party needed to continue, or growing up was some sort of sell-out or something.”

Indeed, the previous two years had been a heady time for the Pumpkins. Their 1993 album Siamese Dream gave them a steady stream of radio and MTV smash hits that drove sales past the four million mark. The band – which in addition to frontman Corgan, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy 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, but lambasted by others as nothing more than headline-seeking megalomaniac – found himself at a personal and creative crossroads.

He decided to go big, and that meant wielding his new-found commercial clout as a form of political capital. The new record would be released as a double CD, and the material would spread 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 says – the band recorded more than 57 songs, 28 of which ultimately made the final double album that clocked in at just over two hours.

“They told me I was insane – things like ‘career suicide’ and all that stuff was thrown around.”