| [LICD Review] Boston Herald |
| February 9, 1998, 11:00 pm |
Source: Boston Herald Fruit off the vine; Smashing Pumpkins' guitarist James Iha branches out with solo album, hopes to reap rewards; Pumpkin hopes album is smashing SARAH RODMAN. Boston Herald. Boston, Mass.: Feb 10, 1998. pg. 033 Abstract (Document Summary) The Smashing Pumpkins' guitarist may spew shards of feedback and conjure walls of distortion during his day job supporting leader Billy Corgan's minimelodramas, but what he really wants to do is croon a love song. Iha had been writing songs, mostly instrumentals, before forming the multiplatinum alternative rock group, but few surfaced on the band's albums. He began writing in earnest during 1996's mammoth and turbulent tour for the album "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness." The acoustic tone is deliberate, said Iha, a fan of Crosby, Stills and Nash and Gram Parsons. "It was really important for me not to do a record that was just a derivative Pumpkins record and that the songs be good," he said. "They had to be personal." Full Text (455 words) Copyright Boston Herald Library Feb 10, 1998 James Iha has been keeping a secret. The Smashing Pumpkins' guitarist may spew shards of feedback and conjure walls of distortion during his day job supporting leader Billy Corgan's minimelodramas, but what he really wants to do is croon a love song. The secret will be out today, however, when "Let It Come Down" the fruits of Iha's moonlighting arrives in stores. "It's something I've been thinking about for the last couple of years," Iha said in a recent phone interview from Los Angeles. "It was just a matter of getting enough songs." Iha had been writing songs, mostly instrumentals, before forming the multiplatinum alternative rock group, but few surfaced on the band's albums. He began writing in earnest during 1996's mammoth and turbulent tour for the album "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness." The acoustic tone is deliberate, said Iha, a fan of Crosby, Stills and Nash and Gram Parsons. "It was really important for me not to do a record that was just a derivative Pumpkins record and that the songs be good," he said. "They had to be personal." "Let It Come Down" consists mainly of positive love and relationship songs set to rootsy, folk-pop. Iha lays his soul bare on the shimmering, Byrdsy "Beauty," with a vocal assist from Veruca Salt's Nina Gordon, rocks with the jaunty Allmanesque "Jealousy" and wafts along in "No One's Gonna Hurt You." Perhaps most surprising from the soft-spoken guitarist are the vocals. Iha's somewhat wispy voice, reminiscent of both Al Stewart and Freedy Johnston, is front and center. "I knew I had to really sing out on this record," Iha said. "I wrote most of the songs on acoustic guitar, and in the arrangements I was making there wasn't a lot of distortion or loud drums to hide the vocals." He admits that a few listeners have been taken aback. "I would say about 90 percent said, `I'm surprised,"' Iha said. "The big difference in my mind is that people see me as an edgy, alterna-rocker and this is much more singer-songwriter-like and some people can't make that leap of mind, I guess." Iha said his Pumpkin bandmates Corgan and bassist D'arcy Wretzky, who sings on one track, were supportive of the solo project. But now they're all back at work on the next Pumpkins album, which will limit Iha's solo touring. Iha doesn't know an arrival time for the Pumpkins album, saying with a sigh and a laugh, "It's vague." The guitarist sounds happy just to have fed his own muse. "The main thing I wanted to do was get the record out," he said. "I hope it does well, but I don't expect it to sell as much, obviously, as a Pumpkins record." Credit: SARAH RODMAN |