Thru The Eyes Of Ruby
"I used the JCM 800 for most all of the overdubs on the record. That's the JCM at work it kicks in really heavy [at :23] during "Thru the Eyes of Ruby," That amp has a certain cut to it that sounds great."
-Guitar School - 1996
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CORGAN: I love that kind of thing, and am always looking for ways to make it happen. I use that technique in the middle eight os "1979" and in the verse section of "Love." That's one of my favorite things to do. It's also on "Thru the Eyes of Ruby". I like the way the thirds of all the chords shift around. Cheap Trick uses that technique a lot, and so did John Lennon. I don't know if I picked it up from listening to them, or if it came naturally.
One of my favorite things is to come up with a certain voicing, or chord shape, that I can slide around on the neck. That's what "Ruby" is based on. I also do a bunch of that on "In the Arms of Sleep", which is in an unusual tuning; the G string is tuned up a half step to G#.
On Pisces Iscariot, there's a song called "Obscured," which utilizes the exact same chord shape- a 1st position C shape, with the fifth, G, included below the root on the 6th string-slid all over the neck. The only problem with that, by the end of the song, my hand is killing me!
GS: "Ruby" has an amazing number of guitar overdubs; at one point, there are 56. How do you accumulate so many tracks?
CORGAN: [laughs] A big part of it is that James and I did tracking for the same song in different rooms, so that while I was working on writing and arranging, he's lay down all of these different ideas. The I'd go through them and say, "I like this; I don't like that," and I'd make suggestions. He'd get something happening and call me when he was ready. Then he'd tweak the sound and execute th part. We'd also leave spaces open for where I was going to add my guitar parts. It was very piece meal. We've done this stuff long enough so that our minds work toward a common goal, so it's not like James is going to go in some direction that ultimately won't serve the common purpose.
GS: Do the overdubs cause problems in recreating those songs live?
CORGAN: Yeah, they create a lot of problems! [laughs] We do what we can, you know. We're long past the notion of getting hung up about it. A song like "Cherub Rock" [Siamese Dream] has some really good, choice overdubs in it, but the song is just as effective live, in a different way. We just try to go with it. Sometimes we try to approximate the studio version, and sometimes we just don't give a fuck.
-1996-Guitar School
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Billy: I think "Thru The Eyes Of Ruby." In the end I think Alan [Moulder] said there were 56 guitar parts on there. "Jellybelly" had lots of guitars, too. That's your typical song with a lot of what we call "drop in" leads. That's where you're between verses and you want to play something for just eight seconds or so.
1995-Guitar World