The latest performance by Scott Teske and his four-year-old Seattle Rock Orchestra tackles the music of Smashing Pumpkins, specifically songs from the albums Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness—music that seems perfect for the SRO treatment with its soaring melodies, emotional highs and lows, and rich textures. We caught up with Teske in advance of the orchestra’s February 16 show at the Neptune to talk about the band’s enduring legacy, and why singing Billy Corgan’s parts are so tough. But mostly we just wanted to talk about Mellon Collie.SW: You were 13 when Mellon Collie was released in 1995. What is it about the album that’s stuck with you and so many music fans all these years later?Teske: Being a teenager, it was the perfect expression of teenage angst and that melancholy at the same time. It really speaks to the teenage experience, and for a lot of people that are my age, hearing that music and feeling those strange new feelings really got linked together. The music really pressed on those memories and emotions. To hear [the album] is very evocative of that time in my youth.”Tonight, Tonight” already has an orchestra in its arrangement. Will you faithfully recreate it, or will you perform a different version?I think we’re going to be pretty faithful. The parts are there, people know the parts, and they’re so iconic that I think for that one, we’re going to basically recreate it.Will any Billy Corgan solo material be represented, or anything from Zwan?We are sticking solely to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and Siamese Dream. We didn’t market it that way because we wanted the flexibility to do whatever we wanted, but given that they have so many records, as we went down the list of which [songs] to do, all the ones which were most known and loved and which would call for the orchestral treatment happen to be on those records.The guitars on the album are tuned down a half-step—and in some cases, the top string a full step—to give the record a heavier vibe. Did this pose any issues in your arrangements?We have done some transposing of just about every song. Some transpositions are for vocal reasons. One singer told me that Billy Corgan’s range is like that of a space alien and is mostly unnatural for a lot of other singers—both men and women. So we take things up or down for both sexes.You usually play bass with the orchestra. How has it been learning D’arcy Wretzky’s parts? Is she a good bassist?She is probably the least adventurous bass player of all the artists that we’ve covered, which doesn’t mean the parts are easy, because a lot of times she’s doubling what the guitars are doing, and Billy and James Iha are phenomenal guitarists, so those are nice parts. But because of all the key changes and because we’ve made them more natural for our string section, a lot of the keys now are not necessarily friendly for me as an electric-bass player.Do you have a favorite Pumpkins song?My favorite that we are going to perform is called “Jellybelly” and it is the third track on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. I remember putting the album on and hearing the piano track and thinking, “This is beautiful,” and hearing “Tonight, Tonight” and thinking, “Oh, that’s beautiful.” And then “Jellybelly” comes on, and that’s where we get the distorted guitars, and it just takes you to another place. I think it made even more of an impression because there were these two beautiful tracks that preceded it.music@seattleweekly.com