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Billy Corgan on The Smashing Pumpkins' future
EXCLUSIVE: "The best lineup since the original"
Joe Bosso, Mon 24 May 2010, 3:31 pm UTC
Billy Corgan says the new Pumpkins lineup is, well, smashing! (© Shawn Thew/epa/Corbis)
When you do a solo, say, in a song like this, do you have it plotted out? Do you have it demoed or do you sometimes go in and wing it?
"Those I wing. I want the sound…I think when I write solos best is either they're totally worked out and they're like Brian May, where it's like perfect - like doo-doo-doot! - or if it sounds like the guitar player is figuring it out as he goes along. Lucky for everyone, they don't have to hear the 14 takes where I don't know what I'm doing. But I like it when you find that take where it sounds like the guitar player isn't sure what he's doing -"
Like he's just learning the song.
"Sort of like on the rails, you know? That's what I like about those solos, they feel kind of right on the rails. 'Do I even know what key I'm in?' kind of thing, you know? That's my mentality. I want that kinetic energy."
Now, you say 14 passes…Do you ever comp solos? Do you take little bits of take one with some of take eight?
"Yeah. Yeah, I have. But I don't play consistently enough that it's easy to do that. You know, the takes are so different, take to take. The general strategy is, I'll sort of work out a beginning, middle and end and the rest I'll just wing."
