January-February 2018 - Shangri La Studios, Malibu, CA

January-February 2018 - Shangri La Studios, Malibu, CA
Produced by Rick Rubin Recording sessions for Shiny and Oh So Bright. At first intending to record merely a single, Rick Rubin encouraged the reformed Smashing Pumpkins to record eight songs instead, re-recording half of the demos prepared at The Village Recorder.
 * Alienation
 * Knights of Malta
 * Marches On
 * Seek and You Shall Destroy
 * Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)
 * Solara
 * Travels
 * With Sympathy

You know, originally we were only going to do one song. We were just looking for something to say, “OK, we’re back.“ I think what ended up happening was the environment was so casual that we kind of relaxed and went back to almost an earlier way of working before we began taking on these big conceptual swings, starting with Mellon Collie. I think we were mimicking the inner workings of a band on its first couple of albums than say what people would have been familiar with from the mid-‘90s on.

We never lacked confidence in what we do musically. It’s just that what we do musically doesn’t always align itself with what people want or expect from us. This was as easy a situation as it gets. We had a great producer, Rick Rubin, and we had three of the original four progenitors of the band in the room. All we had to do was come up with one song. That’s a pretty relaxed atmosphere. It’s like saying to Babe Ruth, “Hey, do you think you can hit a home run?“ I don’t ever think you lose that mindset that you can’t swing for the fences.

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