Whatever you might expect the first solo album by a Smashing Pumpkins member to sound like, it probably wouldn't be anything like the music on James Iha's Let It Come Down. 'With the help of producer Jim Scoti (whose credits include Tom Petty, Bobbie Robertson and Whiskeytown) and a tasty studio ensemble made up of old and new friends, Iha has created an album of earnest, engaging songs that are refreshingly free of trendiness and irony.

The laid-back feel of this solo effort (the first by any Smashing Pumpkins member) has a lot to do with the band I'm in". Iha explains. "The Pumpkins tour a lot and when we're not on the road we're in the studio. I play electric, saturated, distorted guitar every night. When I go back to the hotel or home on a break, I don't want to play through a Marshall stack I'm sure a lot of these songs are reactions to that sound."

Iha's own music has evolved gradually and naturally during the last several years. "I'd always Mitten instrumentals, liked to make up my own chords," he says. Then I started learning how to sing and eventually began wanting to do my own songs, sing them and arrange them the way I heard them in my head. On my album I tried to make the songs believable and able to stand up with just my voice and acoustic guitar.

The album was recorded in Iha's home studio in Chicago. "It would have been no different recording In a real studio than in my basement," Iha says. "I have all the same equipment, old mics, weird guitars, old amps fairly retro, but not entirely.

Scott's sonic approach, James says, Is "immediate honest and doesn't hide anything. Jim's really musical even though he doesn't play an Instrument. He knows what he likes and what doesn't work. He really helped me shape the record in the right direction. The songs are like a marriage of electric and acoustic, all Eight and feeling good, and very organic."

For contributors, James asked his Scrathie Records partner Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne, Ivy) to play piano, and tapped Matt Walker (former Pumpkins touring drummer, now in the band Cupcakes) and Matts bass playing brother, Solomon Snyder, as the rhythm section. Scott, meanwhile, called on pedal steel and lap steel specialist Greg Leisz (Matthew) Sweet, k.d.lang), along with Neal Casal (harmony vocals, electric guitar and John Ginty (Hammond B-3, melodica). This talented ensemble, whose members shared an understated virtuosity and dedication to the song rather than flash functioned as the contemporary equivalent of the now-legendary early-70's units that played on those timeless singer/songwriter albums by the likes of Jackson Browne and James Taylor. The tight and nuanced performances of this studio band delighted Iha, who reveres the recordings of such '70's icons as Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young, Gram Parsons and the Band.

Those artists really inspire me", he says. "I love the sound and feeling of their records. But at the same time, 1 didn't want my album to sound retro or stylised, and I don't think my songs sound like those people. I don't try to write Neil Young songs or Robbie Robertson songs because I can't - my voice, my limited vocabulary of acoustic guitar chords or chord voicings are kind of odd. I just wanted all the songs to be upfront, melodic, honest and direct.

Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt sang on one of the tracks called Beauty, he adds. "When I played her some of the other songs, she said, "I don't want you to take this the wrong way, sounds like a record my parents listened to. James' soft laugh suggests that he was pleased by Gordons' remark.