The year was 1991.
Grunge was in full effect. Radio was dominated by Nirvana, Pearl Jam and a million carbon copies.
But a band called Smashing Pumpkins, with the poetic idealism of it’s frontman Billy Corgan, would carve out it’s own space in a flannel-covered landscape. The album was Gish.
With a clear vision of what he wanted, Corgan joined Butch Vig as a co-producer on the band’s debut disc, Gish. The group started recording in December 1990 at Smart Studios in Madison, Wis. Vig told EQ Magazine, “[Corgan] wanted to make everything sound amazing and see how far he could take it; really spend time on the production and the performances. For me that was a godsend because I was used to doing records for all the indie labels and we only had budgets for three or four days. Having that luxury to spend hours on a guitar tone or tuning the drums or working on harmonies and textural things . . . I was over the moon to think I had found a comrade-in-arms who wanted to push me, and who really wanted me to push him.”
The band powered through the recording sessions in record time, but the pursuit for perfection took its toll. Wretzky stated that she wasn’t sure how the band survived it and Corgan told MTV that he suffered a nervous breakdown trying to finishhttps://loudwire.com/smashing-pumpkins-gish-anniversary/
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