Zeitgeist Re-Release DVD Transcript:
Lovingly transcribed by lapis
JC = Jimmy Chamberlin
BC = Billy Corgan
RTB = Roy Thomas Baker
<TARANTULA>
JC: The singular vision of this record was impact and how to put together a body of songs that's like a gut punch and that really resonates with people. A loud kind of example of thundering sonic terrorism. Something that's visceral. Zeitgeist is our kind of raising of the flag.
<(COME ON) LET’S GO>
BC: I think we had sort of about 3 interlocking visions. One, we wanted to make a Smashing Pumpkins record that people wouldn't on first listen go, "uh... this isn't what I wanted". Generally from talking to people on the street it was obvious they wanted a rock record. So, I said, "If we're going to make a rock record, we just want to make an exciting record". A record you would put in and the first listen you go "Oh, this is pretty cool, I like it". We weren't trying to make some grand declaration. We weren't trying to repeat the high points of our past. It was more like a "hello".
We were also making sort of a general political comment about what it's like to live in an emerging facist country in what's supposed to be freest nation on earth.
On the other end, what's it like to pick up your friendship, my friendship with Jimmy... to look back on your life at 39-40 years old and still be in the same band? What does that perspective give you? What can you say that's reminiscent, sentimental, not sentimental? What can you offer? Why even have Smashing Pumpkins 2007-style? Is it even relevant anymore? Does it mean anything? Is it relevant without the other band members present?
So you deal with all these issues in one kind of hopper and take it all on at one time.
<DOOMSDAY CLOCK>
JC: We lived in a house out in the desert in north Scottsdale which is kind of the more affluent part of Scottsdale. We lived on a 5-acre ranch that used to be a horse property.
BC: We just decided let's get together for awhile. That's why we chose Scottsdale, Arizona as a place just removed from everything. It would just be him and I and see if we felt that the foundation of the band was still there to go ahead and make another Pumpkins record... uhm, before we would reach out to other band members and/or sort of even get into the organizational aspect of what it takes to make a record. The first period that we worked we worked together about 6 weeks and the first 3 weeks it sounded like we were just oscillating through different periods of the band, like Pumpkins-93, Pumpkins-98... but it didn't really feel organic to the time frame that we were in and it took about 3 weeks before we actually started feeling like we were making new music that you could even remotely classify as Smashing Pumpkins.
<7 SHADES OF BLACK>
BC: A normal day in Scottsdale pretty much entailed getting up around 8 AM. We were eating a lot of cereal. Occasionally Jimmy would make breakfast pancakes. Jimmy's very good at making pancakes, blueberry pancakes. So we'd have breakfast and then right after breakfast we would start working.
JC: We had the drum kit and the guitar rig set up in what was the dining room of the house. So, the whole house was just kind of like our version of delta house I guess. It was like from where we played the couch was only a few steps away where you could kind of lay down and watch videos... or wrestling, or whatever the heck we were doing.
BC: It's kind of funny because I didn't realize it until I got back close to Jimmy on a daily basis, but we spend a lot of time talking about music which I think is fundamentally part of the process. Working together is one thing, but I think we spend a lot of time sort of downloading like, "well what ya' think about that?" and "maybe we should try this" so by the time we'd walk into practice the next day... So breakfast we'd sit around and say "oh that riff's not that good", "oh we should try that", "that's too slow"... So it becomes like... practice starts at 8 AM at breakfast, you know.
<BLEEDING THE ORCHID>
BC: Once we made the decision that we should just work him and I together then the decision became very overtly that we would go back to recording how we'd pretty much always recorded, which was Jimmy plays the drums and Billy does whatever else needs to be done... whether it's piano, voices, bass, guitar...
Most people are shocked and I'm shocked that it worked out this way. That pretty much 97% of what you would hear off any Smashing Pumpkins record is pretty much just Billy and Jimmy. People have a hard time believing that, but I think when they heard Zeitgeist, I think then it started to become obvious that that's really what had happened.
JC: Going home from that I think we had about 18 or 19 demos and then I think when we finally did the final demos at the end of February I think we had about maybe 30 ideas?
<BLEEDING THE ORCHID>
BC: Suddenly we found ourselves moving from the rehearsal space to be with an old friend at his house with pool, and kids, and a very comfortable situation, and uhm... and working in a very small environment. Basically like a little submarine with one room that Jimmy could put his drums in. And so we went about an earnest sort of demoing out all the ideas that we had come up with in Scottsdale and in Los Angeles.
I'd committed to the idea that I wanted to walk out of there with vocals on the songs where in Scottsdale we pretty much just had instrumental demos. So I would spend hours, like say to Jimmy, "Okay, you know, we're at a point now where I have to put some vocals on this, so go sit by the pool for an hour." And I'd go in this other part of the building and sit for an hour and quickly type up some lyrics and do the best I can to put even together one set of lyrics. And go and sing the lyrics and then maybe the next day go back and fix them. So, it was sort of like what we would normally do in the studio but all kind of condensed into one month in preparation to get ready for recording. 'Cause we wanted the recording process to take less time... figuring if I already had all the lyrics and all the vocal parts worked out then all we'd have to do is just go in and record... Which of course turned out not to be the case, but that was the intention.
<STARZ>
BC: The great irony of working at Cary's is that he actually possesses the very same 24-track reel-to-reel machine that we used to record our Mellon Collie album. So it's almost like a bizarre sort of coincidence that we're back using the same machine that we made our biggest album on. And, we've kind of... it ended up being sort of a good luck token so we actually, when we went into the studio we actually brought the machine with us. So some of Zeitgeist is recorded on the same Mellon Collie machine.
I have to say it's really difficult to do analog recording these days because almost every studio has completely gone pro-tools. Engineers would look at the tape machine like it was a dinosaur from another, you know, eon.
JC: There's only so many tape machines left, you know... I mean, people are using pro-tools. So I mean, it's probably one of the last tape machines in existence that's actually being used.
BC: Most studios don't even have tape machines anymore. If they do, they are covered full of dust and the engineer working there who's 22 only knows how to work pro-tools so it's actually become very prohibitive to use this old format.
JC: Every tape machine kind of has its own sound. And that machine certainly had that Mellon Collie kind of dark, kind of thuddy, drum sound that you can hear on that record. It was more of a cosmic full circle type thing.
BC: Ultimately we made the decision pretty much to self-produce. The only person who lasted through the process from what we had originally intended and asked and whose role grew during the process was Roy Thomas Baker.
<THAT’S THE WAY (MY LOVE IS)>
RTB: I was working over at the Village mixing The Darkness record.
JC: Very famous studio, Tusk, Asia, Steely Dan, lot of big kind of 'cocaine' records were done in the 70s and early 80s.
RTB: And we were actually put in contact with each other by Jeff Greenburg who is the CEO of the Village.
BC: "You should work with Roy Thomas Baker", and the first words out of my mouth were "Isn't he crazy?" and "Would that be a good idea?". And he said, "He was actually in here just working on The Darkness record. You should listen to the record he did a great job." So 2 hours later I was on the phone to Roy saying, "We really should get together and talk about this."
JC: I talked to Billy he was like, "I talked to Roy today... super cool... you're going to love him." And I was like "Great, well let's have him come down." I mean, the stories we had heard about Roy pre-talking to him were always like, just bad... bad limo as we say... you know, cocaine and Rolls Royces, and just out of control and just kind of this madman.
BC: I'm often misclassified, so maybe they are too. And of course I found that out about Roy. All the stories I heard about Roy were not true, and he turned out to be probably the best person I've ever worked with day in, day out.
<FOR GOD AND COUNTRY>
RTB: Obviously I was very, very, aware of the Pumpkins' past stuff. I wasn't 100% aware that Billy and Jimmy were thinking about reforming the Pumpkins. I wasn't aware of that. I just knew that they were camped out, and they were writing, you know, some songs... and that's how I got involved.
BC: Working with Roy Thomas Baker is like going to like a master class. Like you think you know what you're doing and then you figure out like the difference between what you know and what you don't know. And his knowledge from working in the recording side of the business for... I think at this point's almost 40 years. It's just... you know, it's like sitting at the feet of a guru. I mean, if you really love recording and you really love what it means to make a great record... even if it's just hearing about how you put together a song like 'Bohemian Rhapsody', which from a listener-end is such a mystery because there's just so much going on. It's really a great honor to work with somebody like that.
JC: And the more we talked to him, the more engaged he got, and the more excited we could hear his voice getting, and the more it just started to reveal itself, like opening the curtain on a great Shakespearean play... I mean, it was all just revealing itself bit by bit by bit.
RTB: I was very intrigued with Jimmy and his playing and the way he had his drums set up. Because he set up his drums the same way that I pan my drums which was very unorthodox. You know, the 2 smallest tomtoms are left and right instead of being next to each other, and all that sort of stuff.
JC: With Roy it's like 'anything goes' and as a musician there's kind of rules, like there's a way the drums should sound, blah blah blah... With Roy that stuff goes all out the window. He's like, he's just 'try anything', he's like a kid in a candy store. HOLY SMOKES! The man has arrived! It was instantly one of the greatest experiences of my life.
<POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCES>
RTB: Billy is really, really precise. And the thing that I like about Billy specifically, but actually the pair of them, is that they're excessively, excessively, professional. They have an amazing work ethic. These guys, they walk in totally original. Original style of playing from the pair of them, and original ideas, and original concepts of ideas.
JC: There's really no bum notes with Roy, it's just about whatever floats your boat, whatever gets you going, that's the best thing for the situation.
RTB: Well, the way I make records as a general rule is I'm one of the few producers that's actually a very, very, good listener. So what I do is I get together with the artist and work out exactly the aspirations of the artist and also the direction in which a record should go. As opposed to going "you should do this record..." I've never been a sort of like a dictatorial-type producer anyway. I've always tried to get the best out of the artist by having it... having THEM, say "this is the way we see ourselves, how do we go about this?"
JC: When you get to sit down with Roy Thomas Baker and talk about 'Bohemian Rhapsody', and The Cars, and some of the other great records that he's done, and he's telling jokes about living in a castle in Switzerland with Freddie Mercury and ... you're instantly living that rock "thing" that they had in the 70s. You know, what it's all about, the 747 that says "Queen" on the side, the castle with the moat...
<UNITED STATES>
BC: It stressed Jimmy out to do the drums day after day every day for about 3 weeks. It definitely got to him because it gets too microscopic, and he's not the type of drummer that plays well under the microscope. But it was one of those things, "Look, this is the way it's going to be and once you're done you're done, and then it's my problem." And so I had to sort of talk him through that end. Ultimately, he had to talk me through the other end. Which is, you know, "We're almost done. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel."
RTB: He doesn't need or want a click track. He's not like one of these guys, "Oooh, I play with a click". He's totally freeform but still in time. And slowing down when you need to slow down and speeding up when you need to speed up. He's very, very good.
<UNITED STATES>
BC: That drum take is 9 minutes and 51 seconds long and it's a single drum take. And it's one of his great moments recorded. I mean it's absolutely stunning. It's one of the great things I've ever heard out of anybody!
<NEVERLOST>
RTB: Masses and masses and masses of equipment. There's walls and walls and walls of guitars. There was a 40 foot long table which was about 5 foot in depth, full of every conceivable guitar effect ever, ever made. Dating back to when guitar effects started. These are talking about old fuzz boxes from the 70s and things like that. It was very funny, it never stopped coming in. "Wow, I found this Hammond Organ on ebay!" and then the next thing you know this brand new Hammond Organ will appear that's totally without a scratch on it which has been in someone's closet for 400 years.
<THAT’S THE WAY (MY LOVE IS)>
BC: "Okay, we're going to do this guitar part." I pick the guitar I think that is remotely going to be closest, "Nope, that's not the right guitar." Then we might bring down 5 guitars from upstairs where all the guitars were and try 5 different guitars and settle on one. "Okay that's the right guitar."
Then, decide "Is that the right cabinet?" I've got maybe 6 or 7 guitar cabinets. So then we might go through any number of 6 or 7 guitar cabinets to find the right cabinet to now go with the right guitar.
Once all that's done, then I begin the process of say recording the guitar part, which would last anywhere from an hour to 6 hours or something. Until I'm satisfied that I've got the guitar part done.
After I do that, then it'd be like, "Okay, let's do the vocal." Then we got to set up maybe 10 different vocal mics to see which mic best works on my voice. After we do all the vocal testing then we may say, "okay, look, we are going to start tomorrow fresh", and set it aside. Then we might go and work on some other overdub on the song we were just on. Which begins the process all over again. "What's the right guitar? What's the right pedal?" And this is how it goes day after day.
Same thing for bass, "What's the right bass?" And so the minute we're ready to go then I'm recording. There's no break between the spec. end of it... which is which is the right equipment to use. There's nobody there to do that job for me. I have to do that job myself because I have to be the one to make the decision.
<BRING THE LIGHT>
BC: At this point we've made roughly 6 Smashing Pumpkins albums that you could call stand-alone albums. And every album has pretty much been the same. And I spent a lot of time in those years wondering why isn't it different? And for whatever reason that's just the way it worked out. I can't think of another way to do it.
JC: I think there's other ways to work. I think there's a way you can do less songs and not get so caught up in the kind of long-haul submarine submerges and you don't see land for 6 months. But as far as making a record like we made, no that's it. I mean, that's the way you got to do it, you got to work 12 hours a day. You got to work 6-7 days a week and you got to just not let up until it's perfect. And it's like if there is another way to work I wish somebody would tell me because you know it would make my life a lot easier. But I really don't think so. I think that's the way WE know how to make it right. And I don't think there's any other way for US to do it. Other than taking the time in Scottsdale. Taking the time at the Alley. Playing, playing, playing for hours and hours and hours... until you get to the point where you're re-languaging things, you get so bored with things that you just move on. The new things sound better than the old things. That's the only way I know how to make a great record.
BC: Somebody of course, would logically say, "Well you could just get other musicians to come in and play parts that you want." And at times I've actually thought about doing more what the Beach Boys used to do which is you hire these great studio musicians and you sit there like orchestral and say, "You play that. You play that." Maybe someday I will do that, because I can just be a composer. But I haven't found another way yet, no.
JC: I had always thought after the band broke up... I'd always thought that we at some point would get back together. I mean, as far as like our musical relationship went we never really were that far apart. I mean, we were always working together. So, to get back together to do Smashing Pumpkins... uhm, it was always kind of in the back of our heads. It all means something. I knew that the intent was so pure, and the music was so... everything was so altruistic. The band now is killing! I mean, the band is like... It's the best band I've ever been in. It's crazy! It's crazy how that stuff works out.
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