Is it true that some songs on Siamese Dream had over 40 guitar overdubs?
“Soma” was one. There were three or four songs that had a lot of guitars and overdubs in general. That was the nature of what we were trying to do with that record. Some of the songs were overblown, dense and saturated-sounding, and that was just how they wrote. They weren’t three-minute pop songs. Some went on a journey and had a lot of dynamics. We could have easily made a stripped-down, punk-rock record, but that’s not the way the Pumpkins wanted it. Billy wanted it to sound epic. Tell us about the upcoming Jimmy Eat World record. It was an interesting experience because I’m sort of executive producing it, and the band’s been recording with Chris Testa, one of my engineers, at their rehearsal warehouse in Phoenix. We brought in a lot of gear – I have some preamps and some new mics – and just set it up. It’s a very funky space that didn’t have very controlled acoustics, but that’s what gives the record some character. We recorded a lot of the basic tracks in a big garage, and every o
