"I have this memory of killing myself, blasting my head off, and then throwing the guitar at the amp over and over." The story behind the most intense song on the most ambitious rock album of the '90s

Billy Corgan, D'arcy Wretzky and James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins

(Image credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan is not a man to do things by halves. So when his band exploded into the mainstream, selling over six million copies of their 1993 album Siamese Dream, Corgan instinctively knew that the Chicago had to go bigger next time around, pushing every artistic boundary. At the height of the alt. rock boom years, while the Pumpkins were headlining 1994's Lollapalooza festival tour, on a line up which included Beastie Boys, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Breeders, L7 and Green Day, Corgan declared on MTV that the band's third studio album would be a double album, which set alarm bells ringing at executive level at the band's record label.

"The record label went into a panic," Corgan recalls in a new interview about the making of that record, 1995's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, in the current issue of Classic Rock magazine. "They told me I was insane – things like 'career suicide' and all that stuff was thrown around. It was seen as a sign of my growing hubris; 'He’s gone mad'."

Perhaps the label big-wigs had a point, for the creation of the group's sprawling masterpiece took eight months, with the quartet - Corgan, guitarst James Iha, bassist D'arcy Wretzky and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin - ultimately recording no fewer than 57 songs, whittling that number down to 28 for inclusion on an epic collection with a running time just north of two hours.

In keeping with Corgan's vision of the record, co-producer Flood said that he wanted to the band like they sounded in concert, with the same energy and power.

"We brought in a full PA so we would play at full volume," Corgan reveals. "The old Pumpkinland, which is what we called it, had brick walls, a concrete floor with industrial carpeting and a high wood ceiling. So now we’ve turned everything up. We have a full PA. We’re playing at full concert volume."

Signifying Corgan's commitment to the record, it was rumoured that the musician played the guitar solo on what is arguably the album's most intense track, Fuck You (An Ode To No One), until his fingers bled. Corgan tells writer Joe Bosso "I don't know if that's true", but concedes that the taping of the song pushed him to his limits.

"I remember that we had a B-room, this very small production room," hew says. "I had my cabinet in this really, really small room, about the size of a closet. Even when I would sit and play in the control room, the sound from the cabinet was so loud because it was right there. Somehow I got the idea that not only did I want to play the solo in front of the cabinet to get the right kind of feedback and resonant things looping through the guitar, but at the end of the solo I wanted to throw the guitar at the amp to make some sort of statement.

"I would throw the guitar at the cabinet, which would knock it completely out of tune. Then I would go back and listen to the take and think, Oh, that sucks. Do it again. I’d tune the guitar, go back in and blast it out. I have this memory of killing myself, blasting my head off, and then throwing the guitar at the amp over and over to get the perfect kind of cataclysmic ending."

In 1995, Rolling Stone's David Fricke asked Corgan to tell him the identity of the 'You' in the song title.

"The basic thing is just fuck everybody," Corgan replied. "It’s that feeling where no one understands: 'Who the fuck are my friends? Fuck you. Fuck everybody. Fuck everything.' It’s just that thought - pure frustration."

Fuck You / An Ode To No One (Live In Stockholm/1996) - YouTube

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Read the full interview in Classic Rock magazine.

The magazine also contains features on Led Zeppelin, Michael Monroe, BB King and more.

The cover of Classic Rock 350, featuring Led Zeppelin — (Image credit: Future)

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.

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