In a year already flush with fine albums by Chicago bands, perhaps the most audacious and accomplished of all is Smashing Pumpkins` ”Gish”
(Caroline).
It had to be. The 3-year-old quartet, which headlines Saturday at Cabaret Metro, has been under pressure to deliver the goods since its fourth local gig, when it opened for heavy-metal innovators Jane`s Addiction.
”It was intimidating,” says guitarist-singer Billy Corgan. ”Shows like that really forced us to re-evaluate the bedroom mentality we were in.”
A few months later, they were warming the stage for punk legends the Buzzcocks at yet another sold-out local show, and then last year drew intense interest from major-label talent scouts at several make-or-break ”showcase” gigs.
After the bids were counted, the band wound up on the fiesty, New York-based independent label Caroline, postponing its date with six-figure advances.
”We could`ve signed for mega-money, but we chose to take the hard-earned route, because I`ve seen too many bands lose on those kind of big first-album deals,” Corgan says. ”Music is about excitement, about buzz, the high that goes around it. You don`t get that kind of vibe from major labels.
”I don`t think major labels are like the Evil Empire, but I think indy labels have to use what the band is as the selling point. They can`t pound those dollars down people`s throats.”
The band prefers to pound listeners with a sound that even Corgan acknowledges can be ”pretty bombastic at times.”
While Corgan and James Iha test the limits of their guitar amplifiers, bassist D`Arcy and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin unwind ferocious, snake-like rhythms. The music ebbs and flows, slows and quickens, with organic power-a process Corgan calls ”flow arranging.”
”We tried to work a couple of songs like `Window Paine` to a
(metronomic) click trick in the studio, but it didn`t work because within four bars the song took on a completely different feel,” Chamberlin says.
”Gish,” which cost $20,000 to record, captures some of that dynamic with a clarity that is unusual for independent-label records. Commuting last winter from their home base in Wrigleyville, the Pumpkins slashed their studio costs by about half recording with Butch Vig in Madison, Wis.
”We just went ahead and did everything we wanted to do without concern of how hard it was going to be,” says Corgan, who was left exhausted by the sessions.
The effort paid off, because ”Gish” fulfills the complex emotional implications of its back cover illustration-a sacred-heart medal that was a gift to Corgan years ago.
”It`s a heart bounded by thorns, with a cross coming out in flames,”
the singer says.
”The story of Jesus is bound in such contradictions, ending in a painful, horrible death. . . . Almost every song on the album deals with those kinds of contradictions,” veering between intense hope and anger.
”It`s not a mystical record, but it definitely touches on things that are beyond the obvious. That`s what makes me want to live-things that are behind what we see. I think people just sort of accept life, and that`s why you see them veering off into the two-car-and-a-house syndrome, because to them that`s satisfaction.”
Corgan sees a similar complacency in the local music scene.
”When we got together, people kept drilling one thing into my skull-`
You`re never going to make it if you stay in Chicago`-and I chose not to believe it,” he says. ”There`s an awful lot of whining in this town from bands who, let`s face it, aren`t very good.
”The idea of the Pumpkins from the beginning was to not care about Chicago as this oppressor, but to be the best band we can, because if you`re good, the word will get out-and it did.
”There are bands here that wish nothing more than to be popular in Chicago. It doesn`t matter that they couldn`t get arrested anywhere else. To me, that`s not success.”
To avoid such traps, the band keeps putting pressure on itself to reach the next level.
”If the next record is no better than this record, then we`ve failed,”
Corgan says. ”We worked to get to this point, but we have too much pride and respect for what we`re doing to be satisfied with that. You put that kind of pressure on yourself and you have to rise above it, or it`ll crush you in your insecurity.”
