Butch Vig on Producing Smashing Pumpkins’ "Siamese Dream”

Full Interview Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U9XJdd4FlM

The album is perfection from start to finish, and still holds up sonically 30+ years later.

These stories are absolute gold. It’s funny that I never really appreciated the golden age of rock I was living through at the time until now.

Jimmy’s drumming on SD is incredible. Extremely influential for generations to come.

Siamese Dream is one of the greatest sounds ever, a defining album for the 90s

Butch Vig must've been the most in demand producer in the early 90s after producing Nevermind & Siamese dream back to back.

I was in a band that opened for the Smashing Pumpkins the first time they every played Madison, WI at O’Cayz Corral. Only 2 people came to watch show. Afterwards, I was having a drink at the bar with D’arcy, and she said, “I wish I was in a band like yours. You guys look like your having fun,” which still sticks with me, particularly afterwards since they got/are so big. You could already tell things were not great in the band.

Jimmy’s drumming on Siamese Dream is sick. Ons of my favourite drummers.

Siamese Dream has a FAT sound like no other. An all-time classic!!! Love to hear Butch speak about it. What a resumé..

As a Madison native, it's always been such a point of pride for us that Butch and Smart and Garbage were all local products. Got to meet Butch the night I got engaged in February 2003, and he was a real gentleman and had no rock-star ego going on.

One of my all time favorite albums. I love the distortion on the guitars.

probably the most emotive rock album of the 90's.

Rick getting to see Butch years before they would talk and then Butch presumably watching Rick for years before being interviewed by him is a very interesting setup.

Siamese Dream is alternative rock mastery. Every single thing about it is perfect, from the songwriting to the production. Alt rock will never reach those heights again. SD is my favorite album by far.

The dude behind the scenes of every early 90s album you loved. His approach was so analogue and tribal. Dudes a stud.

Would love to hear more from him about Garbage! I was always amazed at the quality of their sound heavy, hard guitar, but extremely crisp and clean. Such a nice change from the grunge. I could crank it way too loud on my cheap car stereo and it would still sound good.

Siamese Dream is one of the greatest records ever recorded in my opinion. Fantastic from beginning to end. Saw Garbage in Austin when they were opening for Smashing Pumpkins during the Mellon Collie tour. They sounded outstanding, way better the SP did.

Sonically my favorite album of all time! Siamese Dream!

If you have a moment with nothing better to do, here's how I discovered the Smashing Pumpkins: I was 14 years old. Back then, I used to live with my parents on the 4th floor of an apartment building. I had a friend who was a little older than me, he lived on the 2nd floor of that building. One night, when I was at his place, he had invited a few of his friends to play video games on his Nintendo NES and one of them had brought a CD that they played on repeat for the whole time. I didn't know that band. Half of the songs were songs played on acoustic guitars and the other half were songs played on electric guitars, all live versions. I didn't play video games with them, I just sat there, watching them and listening to the music and the more I listened to those songs, the more I liked them, especially one of the songs that was played on acoustic guitars. I later found out that this song is called "Disarm".  When they were about to leave, I asked the guy who brought the CD who the band was and he was so happy that someone else liked The Smashing Pumpkins as much as he did. He even let me keep the CD for a couple of days, so that I could copy it to a cassette tape. A few days afterwards, I took the little money that I had and bought the Siamese Dream album.

Please do something with Alan Moulder and/or Steve Albini. True masters in capturing and creating the most vicious sound.