The Smashing Pumpkins would never again be the band they were when making 1995’s Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, their sprawling double third album. Some of the reasons were out of their hands – drummer Jimmy Chamberlin missed their next record after he overdosed with the group’s live keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin, who subsequently died, and was sacked. Then, soon after Chamberlin returned, bassist D’Arcy Wretsky upped sticks, never to return. The classic line-up who made Gish, Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie… were done, never to share a stage or studio again.
But, despite some of the unplanned upheaval, there was already ideas in place to leave some Pumpkins hallmarks behind when the band were making Mellon Collie…, according to Billy Corgan. Speaking about the second disc’s monumental centrepiece track Thru The Eyes Of Ruby in the liner notes of a deluxe edition of Mellon Collie… released in 2012, Corgan said it was written as a way to close the chapter on one aspect of the group’s sound. “It was in many ways the last great epic Pumpkins song,” Corgan stated. “In a way, I can hear that song now as the end of an era.”
