The Smashing Pumpkins Song Tommy Lee Called A Big Challenge

With the task at hand this big, the product must be even bigger. What do I mean by that? Well, it’s not a walk in the park to find drummers that get the job done, not to mention finding a drummer to fill in the shoes of Jimmy Chamberlin. So, the Smashing PumpkinsBilly Corgan decided to work with Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee; controversial or not, Lee knows how to bring the drum sound to the forefront, and you can hear it in ‘Monuments to an Elegy.’

Change is hard for most people, especially when they are obsessed with the original. However, not everything can stay the same forever, and there needs to be room for trying new things. The motto should be ‘You will never know unless you try,’ right? Corgan did precisely that and decided to work on their 2014 album ‘Monuments to an Elegy’ with none other than Tommy Lee. The drummer shared his experience working with the frontman while speaking to Stereogum in 2020.

“Man, talk about a challenge,” said Lee before sharing the road bumps he encountered as a drummer coming from a different background and not being as comfortable with progressive rock. “Billy came to this studio and brought me some demos to listen to, and I loved the music. But it was a big challenge for me.”

“Because in the prog-rock drum world, the time signatures constantly change, and the feel of songs changes sporadically,” he explained. “It’s not your straight-ahead four-on-the-floor thing. I love a challenge, though.” Although it was difficult to get the hang of it right off the bat, Lee was ready to take on the challenge, and most argue that it was a job well done.

The Mötley Crüe drummer shared that the recording process was yet another challenge, as Billy Corgan wanted an uncut take where everything remained raw. Lee added, “Billy doesn’t believe in editing with Pro Tools or taking the best of two takes to make one great take. He wanted a top-to-bottom uncut take that encapsulated the energy and feel of everything. [Corgan said] ‘That’s magical; that’s it!’ He was adamant about that stuff, so we were on the hunt for the magical take, which took some time.”

He continued, “Especially as the drummer — you’ll think you have the perfect take, but in those last few bars at the end, you ran out of energy, or you space out and play the wrong part. ‘F*ck, we gotta do it all over again.’ But it was a great learning experience for me.”

In the end, all nine songs in the album had Lee’s signature, and Corgan was more than happy with the final product as the frontman praised the drummer for turning the band into ‘Supersonic Pumpkins.’ That must be the biggest compliment for the Mötley Crüe drummer, right?