Introducing One Song: The Smashing Pumpkins "Cherub Rock"

This week we're sharing an episode from one of our favorite podcasts, One Song. You'll hear hosts Diallo Riddle and Luxxury tackling “Cherub Rock” by The Smashing Pumpkins.

The guys go deep on the early 90’s indie rock scene, band frontman Billy Corgan’s quest for musical family, and the Pumpkins’ complicated relationship with the indie rock community.

On each episode of One Song friends Diallo Riddle (Emmy-nominated star and creator of HBO Max’s South Side and IFC’s Sherman’s Showcase) and Blake "LUXXURY" Robin (Music Producer & TikTok creator) hilariously break down one song from the pop music canon that you know - or need to know - but have never heard quite like this. Listen and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin Luxury. Today's song is from one of the greatest
bands in alternative rock history and one of the best
albums of the nineteen nineties.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's right, t'alla.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
And if you've seen this band perform live recently, chances
are they close their set with this epic rock anthem.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
That's right. It's one song, and that song is Chair
Up Rock by the Smashing Pumpkins. I'm actor, writer, director,

(00:56):
and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter and musicologist Luxury aka the
guy who Whispers and.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
On the Internet.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
So hey, we're going back. We're putting on our flannel shirts.
We are watching Seinfeld in real time. It is the nineties,
and I think we have to just embrace our alternative
rock IIDs, that's right. This is the episode where we're
talking about, isn't it. Yeah, yeah, all eight Yeah, we're
talking about Smashing Pumpkins. And before we dive into the song,

(01:26):
let's scale back a bit. I know that the Smashing
Pumpkins are huge for both of us, but what music
memories do you have of the Pumpkins and how have
they influenced you.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
I just want to say this is one of these
bands that it was a moment in time that really
did a lot of like I was gonna say damage
to my psyche, but like it's just impacted me greatly.
The sound, the lyrics, everything about them was really important.
I'll never forget the first time I heard them. I
was a proud member of the sub Pop Singles Club,
which was the record label Subpop that you know Nirvana

(01:56):
and mud Honey. Yeah, and I literally submobed a.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Maker of T shirts worn by middle aged Dan exactly
the airport exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Well at the time, you'd get like a seven in
single every month and get in the mail, and that's
what I got. And Tristessa came to send nineteen ninety.
It was their first single, and I loved it immediately.
Let me play a little bit. This is what I
would have heard Little Little Luxury in nineteen ninety.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
That's a very cool song. You've got that. Yeah, Little
were like, oh, I like this, I like this.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
This was like I'm a drummer in this moment, and
I'm a drummer in my college band, and that's Jimmy
Chamberlain on drums, and I'm immediately a huge fan of
Jimmy Chamberlain. The way he opens that song and is
We're going to get into Jimmy Chamberlain later the episode,
but he's a very special musical influence.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Usually when you talk Smashing Pumpkins, it's a lot about
Billy Corgan, but we're going to talk about all these
wonderful members in the group.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, you're also a big special I have a.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Fan smash, a Puckus fan. When you said, hey, let'sen
just match your mother's episode, I was like, yes, please listen.
Simeon's Dream is the is one of those CDs that
you saw in everybody's dorm room if you were a
college kid in the nineties. I was there. I saw
those CDs. I was more of a melancholy fan, full
of full disclosure. I saw the album art and I
was like, oh, you know, I know I like today.

(03:18):
You know that was my song off of Siamese Dream.
But I was like, let me check out more from
this band. And my favorite Smashing Pumpkin story is that
I was driving down Sunset Boulevard, like right after I graduated,
and the Virgin Megastore used to sit on the corner
of Crescent Heights and Sunset. It's funny how much space.
CD stores used to take it right. Oh.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
I used to the Virgin Megastore in New York. That
was a big destination, the stations.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
You could listen to CDs all day. But I'll never forget.
They had blocked off the road and I was like,
what's going on here? And I saw a band setting
up on the rooftop. No way, and I seriously I
parked on like Laurel, right next to the Laugh Factory,
and I walked over and I was like, oh my gosh,
it's smashing pumps is on the roof of the Virgin
Megastore and they played this whole big concert with songs
from Siamese Dream and Melancholy, and I think a door

(04:06):
had just come out, and like the streets. We filled
the streets of that big corner. If you've ever been
in LA that's like a really big corner.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
It was this like a beatles like YouTube things.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
I don't know how spontaneous it was. Maybe the word
had gotten out, like it was a pretty huge crowd
of people, but like the sun was going down over
the hills and like Billy and James and Jimmy and
Dark and it was that was when I realized, you
know what, my my fandom of this band is above
some other bands.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're real special band. Agree, that's so cool.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Well, I mean just leaping ahead a little bit, like
when I started making music myself. So many influences, you know.
At the time, there were a handful of things that
like I knew I was trying to do, and some
things that later on I'm like, oh, I was thinking
about this band. Smashing Pupkins were definitely front and center
for me. There was something about the sound being this
combination of epic rock, bomb bass frankly, and then like

(04:59):
the bombas is a big the no and then I
love the unabashedness. It's like, let's put bombast in this.
That's what he wants on a bash at bomb bass.
He It's a goal of his at a time when
that was not what people it was. It had fallen
from favor and it was it was an unusual choice.
We're going to talk about that a little bit later.

(05:21):
But I was also kind of wanting to do a
similar thing and San Francisco early, you know, two thousands,
where I was like, you know, there's a lot of
indie stuff that was broken beat was happening and kind
of obscure, and I was like, no, I want to
like swing for the fences and have these.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Big guitar crunchy rips and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
And I kind of had a similar experience where like
my scene didn't really embrace me. San Francisco in the
early two thousands was not super kind to lecture embracing. Well,
you know, we can get into some theories I have,
but I definitely felt some identification with Billy's kind of sensibility.
And part of why I wanted to do this song
is because it is about this exact phenomenon of like

(05:59):
the gatekeepers in the indie rock community and the gatekeepers
on MTV, and his feeling of like screw you guys,
Like this is the music that's real to me and
that's coming naturally and that I want to make even
if it doesn't seem cool to you guys.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, I love that. I love that he was going
at the gate keepers, by the way, they were on Virgin. Yes,
a very first record industry job after college. You know,
my first record label job was at La Face, my
second one was at Virgin. You know, this is right
after college, and so I actually have a ton of
pristine smashing pumpkins.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Do you really?

Speaker 1 (06:31):
I really do? Like, you know, like the so Melancholy
was a double CD, so I have like the four vinyl?

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Are you serious? I was again drooling with ND Smashing.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
As a double vinyl because as it was a single CD,
but they really wanted that one and eighty gram you
know how much vinyl.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
This is like sort of an obscure, kind of an anecdote,
but like the moment this record came out was the
moment I had held held off for years on CDs.
I was like, what a garbage technology? Remember long boxes
and all that. I hated it, But in this moment,
I was like I was at college and I was like,
it's it's I didn't have enough room to always be
carding around and like I made the conversion with Siamese

(07:12):
Dream Yes, And I regret it to this day that
I don't actually have it on vinyl and I had
Gish on vinyl. A big regret in my life is
where did that vinyl go? The fact that you have
all this vinyl, I'm very very.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
Forget that we ever discussed this, and maybe there'll be
something for you come toss.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
I do have birthday coming up.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
It's true, but listen. Yeah, Smashic Pumpkins is literally one
of the most successful rock bands of all time. They've
sold thirty million albums. This song is off of Siamese Dream.
It went four times platinum and Melancholy Infinite Sadness and
actually Diamonds it sold ten million or more.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Copirazy. That doesn't happen anymore, No, it really doesn't.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
It was literally like the second they came up with
that certification.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Here used it again.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, it's like the ultimate humorous but people used to
pay for art. Smashing Pumpkins has had one number one hit,
seven top ten hits. They've been nominated for eleven Grammys
and they won too. They won nineteen ninety seven for
Bullet with Butterfly Wings great song, and they won in
nineteen ninety eight for the End Is the Beginning? Is
the end? I don't know the choice?

Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah, yeah, visual choice, bouncy.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
That sounds like they became friends with the Grammys.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah, people like you've been screwing us for years.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Hey, what song do you want to be nominated for?

Speaker 2 (08:31):
You gotta give us one. Just pick a song. We'll
take it. Song, We'll take it homey.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
And will win Best Hard Rock perform.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
It's a fine song, but it's not like one that
is in the pantheon.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
And by the way, all the success very much deserved
by the Pumpkins. I mean, if you think about their hits,
it's nineteen seventy nine, Bullet with butterfly Wings, Disarm Today,
my own personal favorite, Tonight Tonight. And when we were
preparing this episode, we had a listen. We had a
vigorous back and forth about which of these songs that

(09:01):
we would do. But you know, in some cases we
didn't have the stems. Hello Tonight, Tonight could not find
you anywhere. In other cases, it isn't necessarily the song
that we wanted to discuss. I personally love nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
I love that song too, Yes your Poets and I'm
meant yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
And this is one of the things we discussed. It's
not the most smashing pumpkinny. It's it's kind of a
little outlier. That's a little bit of an outlier. Latrie
help us understand what led to that wonderfully distinct smashing
pumpkin sound.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
A really unique thing about Billy Corgan in this moment
in nineteen ninety three, when when this record is being
made and when this song comes out, is that he's
bringing his heavy metal background to indie rock, to a
post Nirvana world where heavy metal judas Priest and accept
and like all Rainbow, all of these seventies hard rock
bands and Queen and Boston, all of these bands he's

(09:53):
actually aiming to emulate. He is aiming to bring back
their bomb bass and they are huge rock guitar walls
of sound and epic noss and the voice. All of
it is a conscious effort to bring something that had
been kind of lost in the eighties. It's like a
throwback to the seventies and he's like, the world is
ready to hear this again. And it's a real risk

(10:15):
because in indie rock circles, like in this Nirvana world
where there's pavement in Sebado and Sonic Youth, that is
not cool.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
Right, And I mean, like, I think you kind of
get into what I was going to ask, which is
what makes his sound different from somebody like Soundgarden.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah, And that's a great question because I think in
Billy's mind he was thinking the same thing. I think
Billy had something about Soundgarden as a band in his
mind that he was competitive with them and wondering why
they got kind of more indie cred and by the way,
subpop band originally, then they got signed to A and M.
But in his mind he was wondering the same thing,
how come I can't do what Soundgarden does. One obviously

(10:51):
distinction is that he doesn't have Chris Cornell's voice, so
he can't sing like Chris Cornell did. But I think
another thing that I thought about this a lot. I
think Soundgarden was able to inject a little bit of
a wink and a nudge of irony, which was a

(11:15):
big thing culturally in the early nineties. Sure absolutely, and
Kirk Cobain would do the same thing when they would
take a whailing guitar solo. It was a little bit
of a wink, wink, nudge nudge. When Billy Corgan takes
a guitar solo, there's no it's without guile. It's like
I'm swinging for the fences. I am Brian May two
point zero, I'm Richie Blackmore two point zero, And I
think to a lot of people in that moment in
the community, it's like, bro, that's just not cool.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
You know what's interesting about what you just said is
I'm thinking about a song like today where the lyrics
are really positive, but he's clearly in a bad place.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, you know, and that is a sarcastic song actually, So.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
That actually is some yeah, right, irony, sarcas, whatever you
want to call it. So he wasn't anti irony, but
I do get where like he wasn't ironic in the

(12:12):
way that some of the other bands of this era are.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
It's so perfect that you brought that song up because
Billy tells the story about how that song was actually
a turning point in his inner turmoil. And again, this song,
Terra barc We're gonna get very deep into it. It
is about this what I just described, his feelings towards
the hipster community, hipster's unite, as he sings, But that
was one of the last songs he actually wrote for
the album. He was still wrestling with it earlier in

(12:37):
the songwriting process for Siamese Dream. He writes today, and
he says how that was a moment that he was
able to reconcile these opposing forces of coolness and uncoolness
that he was feeling about his songwriting he was recognizing
that it just wasn't being accepted in Chicago's you Know,
Hipster Worlds and MTV's Hipster one hundred and twenty minutes

(12:58):
whatever they were being played. But he felt some disrespect
for in his way. But he says about found a
quote about the song today. He felt that it captured
his essence as these are his words a core boy
from fucking Chicago. He goes, I reached a point where
there was a direct conflict between what I was trying
to be and who I really was. I was trying
to be this person who is cool, eternally rocking, and

(13:20):
yet I was writing this dumb song Like today, I'd
reached a fork in the road. Do I throw this
in the trash and try and pursue some kind of
ideal that I can't live up to, or just accept
who I am? And in this song he does that,
and interestingly, to your point, he finds some irony that
had been maybe previously lacking from the rest of his work.

(13:40):
It starts to be kind of more of a balance
with the bomb Bast, which is unabash hit bomb Bast
and a little bit of a self awareness maybe seeping
in about how it is perceived and he doesn't care.
He's starting to just not care. He's letting go of
caring what the gatekeepers think.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
If it's possible, I want to take a step back
and talk about the founding of the group. Billy Co
founds the band in nineteen eighty eight in Chicago with
guitarist James Zha. Not too long after that, they recruit
a drummer and a bassis. Let me ask you, as
an expert of the band, what's the dynamic of the
band in these early days.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
So I think in the early days you have to
understand that the band Smashing Pumpkins in Billy's mind has
always been kind of an entity that is a band.
But to the rest of the world, it mostly kind
of seems like Billy and whoever is around, because there
are shifting members of the band. We have Darcy on
bass and then she's gone in Melissa Aftermarf from Whole
replaces or et cetera. And Jimmy Chamberlain is in the

(14:39):
band and then he is gone and then he comes back.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
I will say, you know, this is like during a
period where you know, I'm listening to music constantly and
I know what bands look like like nowadays, Like I'll
hear about a rapper for a full year before I
ever find out, Oh that's losif hurt, Like it'll take
me some time. But back then I knew the Smashing Pumpkins.
It is ironic. I thought they were like one of
the most diverse bands of the period, Like, you know,

(15:04):
you've got an Asian guy, yeah, and a cool you
know girl, Like they just seem like a more of
a mix of people than just like five or six
white dudes.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
My speculation I've listened to There's a lot of Billy
Corgan interview footage out there, and there's a lot he
talks about this stuff a lot over the years, and
I think there's some things that are consistent in some
things that change. So this is me speculating from what
I pieced together. I think he's always wanted a tribe
a home because he came from a broken home. His
parents were divorced when he was three, and he was

(15:35):
shounted off to his great grandmother and then his grandmother.
His dad got remarried, but his stepmother was abusive and
his mother was not well, so he couldn't really live
with her. He has this looking for a home miss
in his childhood that really lasts his entire life until
recent days, where he's happily married now, so everything ended well.
But in the band days, it seems like he's trying

(15:56):
to put together a new family, but it's difficult for
him to hold on to them, and he's also very controlling,
so he will record a lot of music and then
kind of replace parts and we'll be getting into that later,
which has the effect of pushing away these family members.
So the bandness, I think, feels like a very carefully
cultivated thing to build a tribe, to build a family,

(16:17):
to be part of something. But just like the scene
at large that rejects him the band, he has this
push pull and yeah, he's back to being alone within
the band.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Not to mention, well, I mean.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Look good, sugarcoated. He also has a reputation for being
extremely hard to get along with.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
I mean, but which is the cause in which is
the effect? Is hard to say that that is true.
I don't want to push that aside, but you know,
I have a lot of empathy for him. He has
such a vision, he has such a sound in mind,
and he's also coming from such frankly a dark place
that he's got a lot to express and only he
knows how to express it. And listen, I can speak
from personal experience, like without that troubled background. I also

(16:53):
know that it is tricky sometimes to like navigate between
like are you my collaborator? Are you the person that's
executing my vision? If you are, how do I make
you feel good about it?

Speaker 2 (17:01):
And stay?

Speaker 3 (17:02):
It's really tricky stuff, And the story of Smashing Pumpkins
is I think very much Billy wanting a family, musicians,
wanting to be in this tribe, and it being a
really tricky thing from one album to the next, from
one year to the next.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, I think what you're saying is true, And there's
a lot there's a lot of quotes out there that
back up everything you're saying. Billy's quoted in the La
Times of saying, quote, I don't have the proper indie credentials.
I didn't play in some seminal band where five people
bought the record. Yeah, oh man, he says, I wasn't
a roadie. That kind of rags to Rich's story. And
I think you actually have a quote too from Rolling Stone.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
This from nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
You know, kind of right when the song is coming out,
I'm like the fugitive running from the one armed indie
rock community. If I continued on the path I was on.
In other words, this is this moment where he's making
this decision. Do I keep on trying to win the
approval of these people, or do I just do what
I want to do, which is big, bombastic rock. If
I continued on the path I was on, which was
being overly conscious and worried what the indie rock hierarchy

(18:01):
was going to think of our new album, we were
going to fail.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
So Billy is a thoughtful.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Maybe overthinking person, but obviously it goes into the music,
and it goes into the lyrics, and it goes into
the song in a really big way.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
For me personally, He's an example of somebody who it's
almost like Morris and the Smith's like, I love that music. Yeah,
I don't have to really make my peace with the
man behind the curtain.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
You don't have to, I think. I Actually it's interesting
because I've been recently. I just listened to his more
recent interviews and comparing them to the old stuff, and
he's come a long way. But there's also some questions
swirling about his political affiliations, which I haven't quite landed myself.
You know, we don't need to get into but I
do think that at the time, what he was dealing
with was, Look, there's this famous song by Pavement, right,

(18:45):
we got to talk about the Pavements song day, Let's talk.
In nineteen ninety four, Pavement puts out a song called
Range Life, which includes this lyric I'll play it for
you and then I'll I'll read the lyric in case
he missed it. Smash's Nature Kids.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
They don't have no function. I don't understand what they
mean in Rocket Thank you fuck. We should have included
this in our beef episode.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
Hey you right, it's a beef trip. That's a real
beaf track. I mean, out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins.
Nature Kids, they don't have no function. I don't understand
what they mean, and I could really give a fuck.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Now.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
This is nineteen ninety four, Pavement being maybe the ultimate
like indie rock cred band, and personally speaking, I was
not a Pavement fan like this represented a type of
music I couldn't really get behind.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
At a friend, a black friend who was really into Pavement, okay,
and and got me to you know, I would listen
to it when he would listen to it, but it
wasn't quite my thing.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
It's more lyrics driven, I mean, musically, it's not really
important what's happening in the music.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
It's not for saying.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
It's more than coming from like a Bob Dylan tradition.
It's more coming from or Elliot Smith or Leonard Cohen.
It's like the lyrics are while we're here. It's not
even melody matters lesson music. So I wasn't into it,
and Pavement was not into smashing pumpkins and smashing pumpkins,
and Billy, I should say, hearing this song was not
very happy himself. The result of this song coming out is,
according to legend, he told the Lollapalooz organizers that the

(20:13):
Pumpkins would pull off the bill they were going to
headline that year if Pavement were also on the bill.
What So he was bitter. He was, like, this song
really got to got under his skin.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Never find out about your heroes. Yeah, it always stretches
a little petty when people pull their muscle.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Like well, so, but here's a good question. You mentioned petty.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
Like at the time, what he said in Rolling Stone
was I think that this is Billy Corgan referring to
that lyric I displayed for you. He said at the time,
I think it's rooted in jealousy. It shows true pettiness
to your point. So who's the pettier one, the one
who puts the song out or the one who reacts
to the song about them?

Speaker 1 (20:46):
Right? I mean, I'm not even a Pavement fan. If
he's just being honest in the lyric, then I'm sort
of like cool with that.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
But I think, well, wait, if someone proud a song
saying Diallo really.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah, I'm not gonna be like, if you ever have
an interview with that guy, there ain't no more one song,
you know. I think that that's I don't love it
when artists do that kind of stuff, Like I think, like,
just on to him the song, you know what I mean.
But like you know, and Billy Corgan has a connection
to Courtney Love and whole as well. Can you tell
us what that's about?

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (21:17):
Well, actually technically everyone knows this, but Billy Corgan was
first to date Courtney Love.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, And famously, as he's told the story himself. I
think he kicked her out and then she went down
the street, according to the story he tells, and saw
a Nirvana show and started dating him. Whether it's like
literally the same night or whether it's a little exaggerated,
but like she basically went from Billy to Kurt. And
this maybe fuels a little bit of how Billy Corgan
sees the world in this moment, because Nirvana, clearly, you know,

(21:48):
is the indie Darling of nineteen ninety one and onward.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
And rightfully so, and rightfully so.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
And it should be noted that their first record, Gish,
was produced by Butch Vig, and it came out first.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
And guess what else Butchvig was working on in that
same time period.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
I can guess never Mind was released just four or
five months after Gish, the first Smashing Pumpkins record. So
Billy is feeling maybe left out of something bigger happening
to someone that's right next to him, which.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
Big one of my favorite guys from the nineties, and
I'm a huge Garbage fan. I think the stuff that
he did with a Shirley Manson the crew was outstanding.
But Corgan is he gets back with Corney, I believe,
and yes, he co wrote five songs with Courtney on
Hole's album Celebrity Skin, which is one of my favorite
and listen, I'll admit it, I'll take the heat. I
think Celebrity Skin is a great album.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
No heat, I malib I love that.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
I love that song. And I actually remember exactly where
I was at. I was at a party the very
first time I heard the title track Celebrity Skin.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Oh make me out, I'm all I want to be.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Day.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
I just forgot how much I love that sick baseline.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, so also I love it, But I also hear
now so clearly how the guy who co wrote Celebrity
Skin could have also written Bull of a Butterfly Wings. Yeah. Yeah,

(23:23):
we're tearing up the studio. The music. The music has
that effect on us.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Can I just say this is not one of my
favorite songs. And part of it is because I talk
this go ahead I feel like and I've heard and
interviews him sort of allude to this corowaway this. I'm
pretty sure he wrote this because he thought he was
supposed to write it, like he was told to write
another hit. Not dissimilar to some of the Tara Brock
type anthems from Siamese Dream because it's very smashing pumpkins

(23:50):
by numbers, like right down to the part where he
it's just him with no music behind him.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
My rage gium still just reading a came despite my
rage gia still just reading a cad.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
I heard that this was the first song of the
Melancholi sessions. Ironically, tonight, tonight, probably my favorite song was
written during the Siamese Dream sessions. Oh really, and he
just he actually, while they were touring Siamese Dream, he
like booked some studio time and had the band go
in and actually record that song while he had all

(24:29):
these ideas running through his head. But I believe that
Bullet is the first from Melancholy, and the last from
Melancholy is nineteen seventy nine. And then it almost didn't
make the album. But when I think it's the producer
known as Flood told him, hey, I don't know about
this nineteen seventy nine. It doesn't sound like you guys.
You should leave it off that He saw that as

(24:49):
a challenge and went back into the studio for four
more hours worked on nineteen seventy nine, and then when
flood hurt. The next morning, he was like, uh, yeah,
I was wrong. You should put this on the album.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
Ninety kids.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Great song. It is in my like B list of favorites.
I don't dislike it, but again, as a Jimmy Chamberlain fan, yeah,
as a fan of the drums in this band as
much as the guitar, it's a little bit like, Man,
I wish they'd let us rip.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
On nineteen seventy nine. And I know that we have
a lot of listeners, you know. I talked to folks
and when I told them we were doing Smash Republicans,
a lot of them were like, nineteen seventy nine, Listen,
we love that song. I do think that we just
wanted to do something that felt a little bit more
like the band's signature sound. But like nobody's taking anything
away from it. And by the way, it's their number

(25:47):
one song, so oh yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
We understandable that you'd want us to break it down.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yes, but we want to talk about cherub Rock. So
cherub Rock is on the Smashing Pumpkins' second album, Siamese Dream,
released in July of nineteen ninety three. It was their
first single off the album, and that's only because Billy
fought the label hard for it to be the first single.
That's right. For purely commercial reasons, this might have been
one of the times that lay was right because they
wanted the first single to be Today. Today turned out

(26:12):
to be the second single, and Today is the single
that broke the band big. But the album Siamese Dream
is a wonderful picture of the band at that moment.
I mean, there's so much going on. Corgan is depressed
and suffering from writer's block. You've got things happening within
the band, like James eh and Darcy are in and
out of a romantic relationship, Jimmy Chamberlain is battling a

(26:35):
heroin addiction, and the whole band is just there's a
lot of infighting going on.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
And in Billy's own words, this is an interview who
gave a few years later. He said, this is referring
to the moment where they went into the studio for
Siamese Dream. They had just come off this tour for
a gish selling out everywhere we go. Everything was cool, fine, dandy.
Then in his words, suddenly, boom Nirvana. We went from
being seen as future stars almost to has beens. People
were saying, well, if you were so good, this would
have happened to you. So Billy is in a deep depression.

(27:01):
As he said in another interview, I was suicidal plotting
my own death for about two months. Everything you said
about the breakups and the heroine, this is a dark,
dark moment with a lot of pressure and a lot
of confusion. We alluded to the breakthrough, so we've already
kind of with the song today. So he breaks through
and then these songs get written in the album is amazing,
but in this moment before they get started on this

(27:22):
very long drawn out process, they're in the studio for
three or four months with like twelve fourteen hour days.
It's a difficult album to make, and but a lot
of great art comes out of challenging times.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
That's all true. And listen, after the break we will
dive into how the song Chaeri Brock was actually made
and does this song feature James Zha Darcy and Jimmy
Chamberlain or not. Stay tuned for the answer after this

(28:01):
welcome back to one song Luxury walk us through cher
Brock tell us how did this song get made? Well?

Speaker 3 (28:07):
As we mentioned, this is the signs stream sessions. It's
it's circa nineteen ninety three and we are in Atlanta
with the band this fashion Pumpkins, and the band is
there together. It's all four members. It's Butch Vig who
is the producer. And yeah, I mean you can watch
some great old interview footage where there they are very bored.
These are long days. They are tracking guitars like there.

(28:28):
Some songs have like forty guitars in them, like stacks
and stacks. They are rehearsing, They're getting many takes of
Jimmy Chamberlain playing drums. It seems very grueling. It seems
like this record was a very long, laborious labor of love,
but laborious.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Nevertheless, it almost seems like Billy Corgan brings you into
his family and then torture. Shit.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
Maybe maybe it's a little bit of a shadow of
what he experienced himself.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
So this song, though, to be clear, is it's a
one hundred percent Billy Corgan composition, And as we go
through the instruments, we'll talk about who actually was performing
these parts because it might be a little surprising. So interestingly,
Billy wrote this song pretty quickly. He says, I wrote
Tara Brock and half an hour. I heard it one
day while I was driving up the road. It was
one of the last songs I wrote before we did

(29:13):
the album. The thing is, there's parts of me that
wonder what would have happened if I spent four hours
writing it and not done something else. So it's interesting
his dichotomy between like being somebody who spends hours and
hours and hours like tracking guitars one at a time
and getting that perfect sound, but his songwriting process, it
sounds like he really quick, aims to be quick. The
quicker the better. Yeah, it is the first song. It
opens the album, and it's a pretty epic tune starting

(29:38):
with and kind of based around Jimmy Chamberlain's ridiculously cool
drum part. So he might be my favorite living drummer,
and he is a powerful rock drummer, but he's got
this incredibly light touch. So he's his influences when he
talks about them, and some great interviews out there, he's
always mentioning like Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. You know,
I can see that John Bottom's in the mix too,

(29:59):
But like Jazz is a huge part as a drummer.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
You can tell, you can tell by his versatility. Yeah,
and some of the and some of the fills that
he used, you could totally see that being like, you know,
like and now playing with Paul white Man, here comes
Jimmy Chamblin.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Well, without further ado, let's listen to some of the
isolated drum tracks from Chera Brock. First, I'll play the part,
and then I will play where it comes from, and
then he gets a little more intense and it does
the same thing but louder, and he does that Jon

(30:40):
Bonamy kind of fill there. And Billy Corgan has gone
on the record with how he was inspired for that
part by this that is by Tor and the snow
Dog by Rush from their nineteen seventy five album fly

(31:02):
by Night. So I'll just play for you Chera Brock
again with the guitars, so you can you know, having
heard Rush, you'll hear the entire piece. Now listen, just
the fact that Billy Corgan is referencing Rush, who might
be the like in nineteen ninety three ninety two, especially
the least cool band for this group of like his
cohort of Pavement and Nirvana. This is a band that

(31:24):
mud Honey used as an insult against their labelmate Soundgarden, saying,
you guys sound like Rush, Like it's the worst thing
you can say to anybody. And yet everyone secretly, especially
the drummers in this world, love Rush because Rush is
one of the great musical bands, and from a drummer's perspective,
Neil Peert is one of the greatest living well at
the time living drummers sadly passed away recently. But anyway,

(31:46):
I think it's quite funny that there's a rush. It's
not quite an interpolation, but so really cool connection there
and a funny one little tongue in cheek. This is
part and parcel of the song's DNA, which is about hey,
screw you gatekeepers, Hey screw you hipper than thou hipsters,

(32:09):
and which is a word that literally he uses in
the song. We'll be hearing shortly, so there's that bold
Rush reference, and then we have a little more Jimmy
Chamberlain love to deliver. Let's hear some more of what
he does in this song. He describes what he's doing

(32:36):
as a conversation between the high hat and the ride,
and there's all these ghost notes like the way he
thinks about how to make a drum part to me
is so it's so musical, and so it's about supporting
the song and it's just a beautiful thing to listen to.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
And let's start adding stuff back in.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
So you can hear it in the context of the song.
The lightness of touch is what I keep coming back to.
How he manages to be heavy and strong and forceful
and authoritative as a drummer, and yet there's like lightness

(33:13):
going on. There's like an airiness to the hyats being
a little open, and the ghost.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Notes on the snare.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
I don't know, man, just my drummer brain gets so
turned on by everything he does, so inspired by it. Absolutely,
And here's the huhy part. So I'll play that for you.
Then I'll add some instruments back in. There's another one
of my favorite moments.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
It's funny because.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
I like that a lot. Well, yeah, what do you
like about that?

Speaker 3 (33:44):
I mean, I'll play with some context and let's get
into it. I have, by the way, spent many hours
of my life playing along to this record, just air
jarming along to it, so I know where every little moment,

(34:06):
every fill is and if I were to try and
sit down and it, you'd be like, that does not
sound like Jimmy Chamberlin. You are playing the parts, but
you are not playing them the way he does it,
which is very interesting. This is just a snare fill.
And look, we've come off of an episode recently where
we were talking about the Tears for Fears. I mean,
it's a drum machine. But by contrast, where because it's

(34:27):
a drum machine, the sound is the same, it's just
a little bit louder. When the film comes in dot
dot dot do at the beginning, I've head over yells
here is by this is the opposite of that. This
is a great drummer who's carefully selected his snare and
the snareheaded, the miking and everything, and the way he
plays this snare fill is extraordinarily artful and specific. It's

(34:54):
just a little moment, but it's got so much sauce
in it.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, and it definitely asks to the emotion of the song.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
Oh absolutely, this is kind of a similar moment. This
is I'll add in the vocals so you can hear
where this is.

Speaker 4 (35:07):
Li. So so what's interesting, and it's relevant to this point
is that in the studio.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
I'm already kind of given the secret away. But the
band performs as a unit of four. They lay down
the drum tracks. That's how this record was made. Jimmy
Chamberlain needed understandably for their to feel like a band,
So they all performed all the songs together, and then
they erased all the musical parts that weren't the drums,
and then Billy went in and re recorded those parts.

(35:42):
But while this was happening, Jimmy Chamberlain's musical drumming brain
is hearing what is happening in every instrument and reacting
to it in a way that only a drummer of
his caliber can because all the little subtleties of when
what the vocals are doing rhythmically, and it is enhancing
them in some ways, giving them space to shine, in

(36:04):
other ways duplicating the same rhythm maybe. So all of
these choices are so part of what makes him a
very incredible and artful drummer.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Absolutely and specifically a rock drummer. You know, because I
think that you know, we've talked about on the show.
My earliest appreciation for drums was Animal from the Muppet Chef,
and then from the beatles, and then I got into ato'

(36:32):
eights and drum machines. It's interesting because hearing you talk
about the emotion of these drums, that occurs to me.
Most of my drum appreciation, even as a drummer myself,
came from the effect that it gave you. You know what
I mean, and you know, not to beat a dead horse,
but I think that when the drum pattern changes a lot,
you know, that's something I get really excited about, you know.

(36:55):
But then again I like that bunk and a lot
of times their songs are for.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
Hey, they're both satisfying in different ways. Sometimes there's like
a one bar loop or a half bar loop in
daft punk.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Or a two bar loop.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
The satisfaction comes from it being repetitious and it kind.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Of a drone can put you in a train, a trance.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
I was gonna say, it's it's almost you know, to
go back to the Black Church. Like. Part of the
reason those songs are always like that wasnotic. They're trying
to whip you up in song.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
And then by contrast this song, by the way, it's
not only is the drum part changing from moment to moment,
because the human drummer Jimmy Chamberlin is playing it, but
also the tempo's kind of rushing and slowing down. Suddenly
there's no click track in this. This is played to
Jimmy's internal metronome, which during the song kind of gets
a little faster and then slows.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Out a little bit. Jimmy's internal metrono, and also Billy's
emotional state given where he is in the song, whether
he's on the verse or whether he's on the chorus.
H you know, I love the bass in this Songea,
and I feel like there's a story here because the
basis is usually darcy, is it not.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, in the early nineties there's this phenomenon of like
the female bass player and in otherwise male band. You've
got like Kim Dial and the Pixies. You've got another
Kim Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth. We had Debbie Googe
in My Bloody Valentine was one of two. We have
Tina from the Talking Heads. There this sort of legacy
of like.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
The game was one of my favorite right right.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
I think that Billy was kind of wanting that visually,
but in the studio he didn't need it so much.
I don't know that Darcy was really giving him what
he needed. Jimmy has explicitly talked about how Darcy's rhythm
wasn't really working for him as a drummer. She was
a little Nike not where he was in terms of
the beat. So they performed in order to get Jimmy's
drums down. But then the bass was erased. The Darcy

(38:36):
Retzki take was erased, and Billy went in and this
is what he played. And just one more thing on
this issue, Like Billy, like he does with so many
things we've we have learned on this episode, wrestled a

(38:58):
lot with the decision to replace the bass parts, and
in fact, in later years he expressed regret over what
he did by taking them off the track. He said, look,
musicianship and technical vision are finding good, but at some
point you cross the line. No matter how good numb
you got, you got, you cut away the gut of
your band. And he has really rustled over the years
with like how to make these other members of the
band feel like they're in a band and not the

(39:20):
Billy Corgan experience. And I think he's really got a
dynamic of like he wants to control the sound he
wants to control everything, but he doesn't want to control
everything and does it's a real push pull.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
With him through the entire career of the band.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Yeah, because Darcy wasn't happy.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Well, listen, we like this band. Yes, every story that
we're hearing makes it sound like it's really hard to
work with Billy Cory. Yeah. I think, and we can
probably imagine why James and Darcy and Jimmy why why
the band does eventually wrote.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
Their own They come and go and actually James, both
James and Jimmy are back in the current touring.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, iteration of it's like, okay, well, you know, we're
not under any illusion of who this guy is and
he has great ideas.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
Yeah, and they know their place. They aren't considered I hope,
I mean your place. I mean, look, the facts are
the facts, and they aren't songwriters, so they're not making
the untold millions that Billy has made on the publishing.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
It's tough when one guy has all the publishing and
is making a mass sum of money and you're more
than the right. Can we go out on tour because
I wouldn't mind like paying the rent, Like that's not
to say anybody in this band is suffering like that,
but like still, I think we can understand where that
makes conversations awkward.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yeah, it does.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
There is a power and balance, let's just put it
that way. Billy kind of holds all the cards in
terms of what happens with this band. But he has
been loyal and loyalty. He's talked on the Howard Stern
Show about how loyalty coming from this broken background, how
in him trying to create this family. He does place
a lot of importance on being loyal and having loyalty
and the fact that he is currently literally on tour

(40:56):
as we make this episode with James and Jimmy again,
he is really trying to keep this family team now
with Darcy. Darcy unfortunately is out of the picture. Okay, Yeah,
there have been some leaked text messages that you know,
it sounds like she's a little bit in a difficult
spot recently in her life. But I think Billy has
tried to make it work, and for various reasons, it didn't.
But we do love you, Darcy.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
If you're out there, yeah, and if you want to
give your side of the story, call us tell me
about the guitarist because they are such a part of
the signature Smashing Pumpkins.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
Sound absolutely, my friend. Well let's see, let's start with
the pumpkin chord. The song begins with this big wall
of guitars and then on the top of it. This
is a big part of the sound of this band
is you will frequently have a big wall of sound,
maybe riffing, and then melodically on top there's something that
almost sounds Indian. It almost has this raga feel to it,
and it's it sounds well.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
In fact, it's.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
Funny you should say that because Billy has talked about
how he wants to did this experiment where he played
Black Sabbath in the one room and Rabbi Shankhar in
the other room, and that actually is a perfect metaphor
or an analogy, whatever the right word is for for
the sound of the Pumpkins. They have this big riffy
underpinning and then on top of it this beautiful melodic
sound which is coming from basically playing an oc the

(42:09):
same note as an octave up and down the fret
and that's what we're about to hear. He calls it
the pumpkin chord, but he's borrowed it from Jimmy Hendrix,
and I'll play after I play this, I'll play the
Jimmy Hendrix song that I think he was thinking of.

(42:29):
And what I'm specifically referring to is that duh. So
that's a melody, but he's playing it on the octave,
so it's two notes of the melody, one lower, one higher,
and it just thickens up the sound and again creates
this kind of Indian raga feel mixed with I mean,
I think that's what Hendrix is doing, and I'll say
that sounds very.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
I can definitely hear the Jimmy Hendrix influence on that
once you isolate it.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
So this Jimmy Hendrix song uses that same way of
creating the melody.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
It's not uncommon.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
In fact, both Billy corgan And says we got this
from Hendrix, but he probably got it from West Montgomery.
It's a thing you do on guitar, but it's also
a very distinctive sound, and here's a song where.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Jimy Hendrix uses it. So Jimmy's doing the same thing.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
He's got the octave and he's playing the melody, but
it's got a thicker tone and it's got a little Indiana.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
Who would have thought that Wes Montgomery was the link
between Jimmy Hendrix smashing pumpkins and Doja Cat So so cool,
kind of crazy, so cool.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
That was Third Stone from the Sun, by the way,
from are you experiencing?

Speaker 1 (43:37):
Yes, yes, give us more guitars.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
So, like I said before, this record has some insane overdubs.
One of the tricks of recording and mixing a big
stack of guitars is you've got to find room for
all of them where they just become this big mess,
this big They're all in the same frequency range, so
you have to cut the frequencies and do this and
do that. So many many hours in the pre pro
tool era went into doing that for this result, which

(44:03):
I think was worth it because it arguably changed the
sound of alternative radio. I mean, that just does something
to my serotonin.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
It's great. I'm gonna do something that, uh, some of
our listeners, it sounds a lot like this to me.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
I want to fly away, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
I look, you can.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
Sim Look, I'm just gonna say this riff riffing, riff,
rock like crunchy guitars that have catchy riffs, meaning the
guitar is playing a figure, like a kind of a
melodic figure that you walk away humming.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Right.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
I think that jim this goes back to Jimmy. It
goes back so like the Kinks. I would say, right around, yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
But specifically play the part you just played again, just
right before I played the Lenny, just play that part.
Oh oh oh yeah. I mean like I'm just saying
that I think that Lenny. I'm not saying he stolen guys.

(45:32):
Oh my god, I'm so scared. But I do think that,
like there's just I think everybody to a certain extent
is chasing Jimmy when I hear that fuzzy guitar that
you can like totally hum along to. And I don't
know that I give it. I don't know if I
love the Kings. I don't know if I hear that.
When I hear the Kings, I definitely hear that. When
I hear Jimmy, I hear what you're hearing. I think
in part there's some shared chords going on there. These

(45:53):
are Circle of fifth CE chords going on. They're in
a slightly different order. And if you add to.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
That the sound of the guitar, Yeah, fuzz guitar, and
then maybe there's maybe a rhythmically similar thing, although I
think the Lenny's a little faster.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Look.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
All of these things evoke a similar I would say
shared source. I was a shared group of sources, which
is they have some shared records in their collection. I'm
sure Lenny, they both have late Beatles records.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
They both have King the nineties guys, So there's still
retro happening in the nineties. I do feel like in
the nineties a lot of groups were going back to
the bands in the sixties quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (46:26):
Well, Lenny certainly is one of those guys, right.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
Well for sure, And like you said, Billy's going back
and listening to old bands. I think you know, they're
all listening to old bands in the nineties in ways
that I think crime bands are not listening to bands
in the sixties. So you know, by the way, the
sixties was really having a moment because the Beatles have
the anthology CD comes out with Free as a Bird

(46:48):
and some new material. Austin Powers is in theaters. I
just feel like even some of those garbage songs, they
were like redoing can't seem to make you mine. By
the seeds, you know, garage, Yeah, garage and fuzzy sort
of like want to be Jimmy. All that stuff was
really back in the night.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
Well, you're right to make that connection, because besides the
Jimmy Hendricks chord I, the prior record Gish was very visually,
certainly and even sonically, there's a lot of psychedelia coming
into them.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
To play there.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Yeah, And funny that you mentioned it too, because in
the solo which I'll play it for you now, Billy
in the liner notes talks about how part of the
influence for this was a different sixties song, and I'll
I'll play you the solo first and then I'll play
you what he alludes to being where he got some
of the idea for the solo, which, by the way,
this guitar solo at one point ranked number ninety seven

(47:38):
and Guitar World's list of the one hundred greatest guitar
solos of all Time.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
So, without further ado, let's play it.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
I mean, that's only that's part one of the two
part solo. But like right there, there are some crazy
sounds going on.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
So cool.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
So reading from the liner notes in the twenty eleven
to share this record, Billy says, quote the solo is
uncorked down from the gentle glades of Itchi Coop Park.
So this is his wink and nudge to those of
us who know the Small Faces. He's talking about this
moment from this song. This is Small Faces, Itchy Coop Park,
nineteen sixty seven. And listen to the sound he's I

(48:26):
think referring to the flange sound, which at the time
was unusual.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
This, I mean that had to blow your brain if
you were listening to that, you know, smoking pot, yeah,
smoking grass in nineteen sixty seven.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
I still the sound of us a flange is still
so exciting to me.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Like the surly run filter. Yeah, you know, like these
are all These are also of my favorite.

Speaker 3 (48:59):
Things because we love to play the parts that you
wouldn't notice necessarily in the mix. I've got a few
of those really delicious things in the guitars, just a
couple of quick things. I never noticed this until I
was in the stems. But right after that guitar solo
a little after, we get this sexy moment, and basically

(49:23):
what that's doing is it's echoing the let me out.
So I'll play it in the mix, right around the guitar.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Let me.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
So that guitar is kind of echoing the let me
out another little delicious detail that you will forever hear
when you listen to the song from now on, that

(49:53):
little like it almost there's another Jimi Hendri's thing by
the way that sounds like the beginning of Purple Haze.
I think, yeah, so those are just some really fun
guitar sounds. Again, they spent many, many hours coming up
with different sounds and tracking layers and layers of guitars, layers,

(50:13):
layers and layers.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Would you say were the number of layers? There was
like sixty layers.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
Well, they're up to forty on some song. I don't
know how many were on this song, but I hear
lots and lots.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Of Obviously, it would not be Smashing Pumpkins without the
vocals of a certain Billy.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Corgan William Patrick Corgan.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
What can you play us from Billy's vocals that will
ignite and excite.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
This Let's start from the top, freak.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
O, giv him, doesn't matter what you buy, Lead him
now what's going on there? Because I think what I
hear is, you know there's one layer where it's just
him singing it, yeah, kind of like this and the
like it's just whispers, right.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
That could be, that could be. I don't have it separated,
but I'm hearing what you're hearing. There are definitely some layers.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
There's some layering going on, and he.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
Talks about how he likes like Ozzy's doubling technique has
a very distinct That was.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Gonna be my question, like, because even if he's not
copying somebody, there's obviously like sort of like an approach
of a previous artist who he's like, Oh, let's let's
do it in that style.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
Yeah, And doubling is definitely a common thing across the board.
But I think he specifically liked the way that the
Ozzie vocals were doubled. And I think I hear some
of that in there.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
Mental wounds, not.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Like a bit shame I'm going after on a crazy tray.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
So Billy likes Ozzy and Jimmy. He likes he likes Jimmy, Ozzy,
Jimmy and Billy.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
And you can hear him like his singing style is.
Of course, he's got kind of two modes. I don't
think I think he would agree with my assessment that
he's not necessarily a technical singer, as he said, as
I mentioned earlier, he's not.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Chris now to him, but that I said, you're probably
dead to him. Honestly, let's keep going.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
Let's assume that.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
But yeah, you're right, there's another that's like the sort
of like verse Billy and then there's the chorus.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
But who goes a loud Yeah, like that was a
perfect imitation. Billy's singing style is I think perfect for
this band, not Chris Cornell. It is probably a good
thing that he has, like an imperfect voice, like it's
he is straining and he's breathy, and these are characteristics
of his personality and it works.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
It works for the band.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
It's one of those things where if you've got the
most technically proficient, amazing singer.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
We always use Shaka Khan as an example.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
Chaka Khan and Smashing Pumpkins would be a completely different band.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
It wouldn't have the personality of Billy.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
Corgan, Billy Corgan, Anthony Keatus like some of these people,
well Anthony Keats in particular. I feel like anybody can
sing pretty much, but that's sort of what makes him
endearing to the.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
Daring is a good word.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
Yeah, it's very approachable, Like this isn't something we couldn't
all do ourselves.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
But that's when we're billy vocals. This is fun.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Well, here's that chorus we were talking about.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Else.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
It's a very distinctive sing.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
I like how you went like minor there, like you know,
the harmonizing, Yeah, you know, definitely gave you that sort
of like that, that that fun and dark appeal.

Speaker 3 (53:27):
Yes, yes, and there's layering. You can tell that there's
a low octave and a high octave he's doing in there.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
I love the way it all comes together.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
It all comes together. This is that's that's the magic
of music like this. When you hear a vocal isolated
like that, you're like, I'm not sure what this is
attached to, but it works with those major guitars and
jimmy and drums. This is a perfect match of all
these sounds. Look, let me play for you. This is
one of my favorite lines that probably hooked me into
the song because in the moment it was happening. And then,
as I mentioned later on in life, this like battle

(53:57):
for the gatekeepers versus me, Like the gatekeepers aren't accepting me,
what's going on?

Speaker 2 (54:01):
This is the line you come alive for the big fat.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
By the way, hipster's was not it doesn't mean what
it means today. Like I feel like post two thousand
and three electro clash, like hipster became ironically so big
of a question thing like that you I wanted to
be and you know, but I think by the nineties,
I feel like hipster was definitely pretty much uniformly Padora.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Well, it's funny you said that too, because the word
hipster to me, I first heard around this time when
I visited my friend at University of Chicago, who himself
was telling me about how the scene in that area was,
like there's a suppressive scene. There's a band called Urge Overkill,
one of my favorites, and they were the absolute cool kids.
And as you as fans of music of that era

(54:56):
may remember, Liz Fair did her exile on Guyville album
about the hipsters of Chicago, and my understanding from the
inside was that Urge Overkill was part of this group
that she was railing against on this album, and the
word hipster came into my vocabulary in Chicago. So it's
just interesting to like listen back and be like, you're
right in nineteen ninety one, who hipster.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Words don't mean the same as it would have meant
in two thousand and five or even twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
It's music scenesters who are opinionated and judge and keeping
it down.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
There's an orthodox kill and everybody, everybody in the music
scene is judgy, like these guys think these guys are
too pommon, these guys think these guys are underground and
can't sell five records. So everybody's kind of pointing that
that's spider Man.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
But roc Ha is this real, real lineage of orthodoxy,
Like like I should say, post sex pistols, punk rocks
started to codify there are rules you can do this
but not that, and then there's little scenes like the
DC scene and the like.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
There's like a million subgenres.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Yeah, there's there's a lot of rules.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
And I think Billy was like, I don't know these
rules and I'm just making the music.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
That I like.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Being judge too.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
He's judging about the judgers, though.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
I love your Billy defenses. But the more you talk
about and the more I'm like, no, He's kind of
It's like that thing where like you reil against corruption,
and then you join the system, and then you too
become corrupt. But that is neither here nor there.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
I hear what you're saying, and you're right. You're giving
me something to chew on. And that's what I appreciate
you and our friendship.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
That's why we do the show. I mean, that is
so important to defining the Smashing Pumpkins sound. Well. Look,
this band has been super successful. Their songs have been
used in many movies and TV shows, including the HBO
series Girls, which used today and the End is the
Beginning is the End, which was in the I think

(56:48):
you know essential Batman movie Batman and Robin from nineteen
ninety three favorite Batman shut Out to Clooney. It was
also featured in Guitar Hero three, right.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
Which is a big thing because you know, these video
games introduce a new audience to the band to the song.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Yeah, but you know, just speaking really quickly about visuals
in the band, I don't think you can talk about
Smashing Pumpkins without talking about out their music video.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Yeah, some great Their music videos are.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
Outstanding, And I just want to call to from roughly
this period forward. First off nineteen seventy nine, I think
one of the most beautiful lyrical music videos.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
You know.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
He was literally like nostalgic. Yeah, it's nostalgic, and they're
supposed to be driving around like suburban Chicago, and yet
you can see the Hollywood Hills in the background, so
like it's that classic thing where people try to shoot
la for somewhere else. And of course Billy's in the
backseat of the car and the other members of the
band show up in various scenes. But I want to
pay special attention to Tonight Tonight because this video had

(57:47):
a huge effect on me. Ever, the directors of both
nineteen seventy nine and Tonight Tonight are Jonathan Daton and
Valerie Faris. They were on Misters Show with Bob and David,

(58:09):
one of my favorite shows of all time. They direct,
you know, amazing material to this day. And also the
puppetry in Tonight Tonight is by a guy named Wayne White,
and he is a genius. He won three Emmys for
his work on both the set and the puppets of
wait for it, Peewee's Playhouse, which, if you know anything
about me, there are a few pieces of art of

(58:31):
any kind that mean more to me than Pee Wee's playoffs.
I mean, Paul Rubins, rest in peace. You are a sweet,
sweet soul Tonight tonight. You know, when they saw the
album art for Melancholy, Daanan and Ferris were like, why
don't we make this video the way that they made
early silent films. So that's why it looks the way
it does. And it's in my top three, And I

(58:53):
don't even know what else is in my top three,
but this video is in my top three. And they
shot at like those early silent films, And if you
think about those early silent films being made, like these
are the earliest moving pictures, that's like the beginning of
the nineteen hundreds. This video comes out at the end
essentially the nineteen hundreds. So it's a perfect bookend in
some ways of what pop culture you know, starts off

(59:15):
as at the beginning of the century and where it
ends up at the end of the century. It's just
an amazing video. And I'd even say just as like
a writer and just as a human, like it's such
an emotional song, Like you know, it starts silent, it
flares up and then you've got lyrics like we'll crucify
the insincere tonight, you know, the indescribable moments of our

(59:36):
life Tonight, the impossible is possible tonight.

Speaker 3 (59:40):
Like it's such a perfect opener for an album, for
a double album experience. It's like welcome to it like
a stage, welcome to our show, welcome to our play.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
A little bit right, It's just one of those songs
where you know if I'm in the right mood, and
that song starts off and those soaring strings, just everything
in that song just worked really right for me. So
I would be remiss if we did an episode about
Smashing Pumpkins where I didn't mention that song, those lyrics,
which I think is just wonderful, like where you believe

(01:00:24):
is the legacy of Chera Brock and the Smashing Pumpkins.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
Look for me, Chara Brock was and the Smashing Pumpkins
and Siamese Dream this record in this moment, it's really
important to me personally for all the reasons we talked
about today. It made an impression on me that this
person wanted to make a sound, even if it wasn't
the cool sound of the moment. That's a great message
and I hope that resonates to this day. Obviously the
landscape has changed in the music industry, but I think

(01:00:48):
this idea of like you have an idea in your head,
but you're not sure if it's cool, that's pretty universal.
That feels pretty timeless. So when I think about this record,
there's the sonics of it, which these big guitars always
been talking about the sound of Billy Corgan, the band itself,
and their legacy. That's obviously a big part of this song,
and it's to answer your question, it's legacy. But I
also think this message is a really interesting one, and

(01:01:10):
part of why I wanted to do the song was
to remind people of the what Billy.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Was trying to say.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Look, I think the line beware all those angels with
their wings glued on, he's just talking about how like
you think that this is going to change your life
if you cowtow to what people want you to do,
but it really won't. Look what's inside and do what's
true to you. So I think that message still resonates
for me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
I like that a lot. Okay, Luxury it Stein for
one more song. This is the segment where we share
a deep cut or a hidden gym with You, the
one Song Nation, and with each Other. Today, I'm going
to go first and my one more song is SR
Smoothies Inside of You. This is a song I used
to play often, and unfortunately I don't think that it's
one of those songs that's made the transition from vinyl

(01:01:54):
and CDs to MP three, so you might have to
go digging for it. But it's called inside of You
parentheses OGU twenty forty remix. I found it on YouTube,
this SR Smoothie inside of You.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
Johnson.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
It's got a very slow build, but trust me, by
the time you get to the end, you'll be like, oh,
I know why he chose that song. And it also
has a lot of cool drum changes that come in
as well.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
Awesome for my one more song, I'm just thinking about
Rush and I'm thinking about Billy Corgan in the like
late seventies, early eighties. I'm just picturing the man listening
to this song thinking about his alienation, because this song
moved me when I was a young, alienated.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
Disaffected youth.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
It's subdivisions from Signals nineteen eighty two, classic song about
being lonely as a kid. Be cool or be cast out?
You know that message really resonates when you're thirteen.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Everybody really corgan who also taps into that part of
our brain will crucify the insincere tonight. As always, if
you have a song you want to suggest for one
more song, you can find us on TikTok or Instagram.
You can find me on TikTok at d'allo riddle or
on Instagram at Diallo. That's right on Instagram at Dallo.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
And I am Luxury.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
On TikTok that's luxx ry xx and Instagram you can
find me just the luxx ry part.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
You don't need to add the xx at the end.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
You can also find us on YouTube these days and
search one song podcast on YouTube and you can see
our lovely faces as well as like some visual clips
to go along with.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
These complete episodes.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
Yeah, if you like the podcast, go rewatch it with
looking at Us this time. Yeah, the entire episodes, And
if you've made it this far, I think that means
you like the podcast, So please do not forget to
give us five stars, leave a review and share with
someone you think might like the show, because it really
helps keep it going.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
All right, Luxury help us in.

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
This thing, well, I'm producer, DJ and songwriter and music
cologist Luxury.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
And I'm active writer to writers sometimes DJ d'allow.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
And this is one song I'll see you next time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
This episode was produced by Jonasanti, with engineering from Marcus Ham.
Additional production support from Casey Simonson and Abou Kamara. The
show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Steine, Bryan Smiley,
Eric Eddings, Eric Wild, and Leslie want