Livewire article - February 1997

Print interview with Rivers Cuomo
Publication	Livewire
Published	February 1997
Interviewer	Vinnie Penn
Interviewee	Rivers Cuomo
Title	Geek God of Love
Sub-title	Weezer vocalist Rivers Cuomo probes he's just as wild as the next rock frontman
Format	Print
External link	Archived via Weezer Media Archive
References	See where this article is referenced on Weezerpedia
This material was initially documented in the Weezer Media Archive.

Geek God of Love Author: Vinnie Penn (Livewire) Published: February 1997 Weezer vocalist Rivers Cuomo probes he's just as wild as the next rock frontman They sing about "Buddy Holly", but for the benefit of Beavis and Butthead. One took guitar lessons from the axeman for Fate's Warning, but quotes Jim Croce in the latest record's line notes. They lifted said record's name Pinkerton, from the opera Madame Butterfly, but share their band name with one of The Little Rascals. Weezer may be a living, breathing contradiction of sorts, but they sound good doing it. "(Pinkerton) has a concept, but it's hidden," front man Rivers Cuomo says. "And there's another side to it that's just fun. There are a lot of interesting details (in the music) that you can look at if you want. But, I don't want it just to be a message or these little details, I want there to be this basic rocking quality to it, so you can listen to it in a kind of brainless Beavis & Butthead fashion. Because I like to listen to music like that." But, that hasn't always been the case. "I was a Fate's Warning devotee," Cuomo admits. "Their songs are really complex, and were really hard to figure out. I took guitar lessons from Jim Matheos. I met him back stage at a concert they were playing, and I told him how much I worshipped him and that I'd love to take lessons, and he said it was cool. The thing that I really loved about Fate's Warning, though, was the melodies. But, my tastes have changed since." Those tastes have veered toward opera, at least to the extent that the new disc is named after a character from perhaps the world's most renown one. Not everyone gets it, however. The quirky quartet was hit with a two million dollar lawsuit by a Delaware based security company called Pinkerton Security, but has since had any legal restraints lifted. "Pinkerton is the ultimate macho rock star kind of guy," Cuomo explains of the Pinkerton Weezer's second effort is named after. "Actually, he's a U.S. sailor in "Madame Butterfly", and he goes from port to port, hooks up with various women and uses them, and then goes to the next port." And so it goes Pinkerton, the record. Each song is a different port, each woman in question another topic for Cuomo, guitarist Brian Bell, bassist Matt Sharp, and drummer Pat Wilson. "Pink Triangle" is a garage jam about falling in love and wanting to get married, and then discovering that the other party is a lesbian. The disc's first single, "El Scorcho", is itself a crash course in Weezer: rough around the edges, a slammin' chorus, and Cuomo kicking the whole thing off with "God damn" (the same two words that initiated "The Sweater Song", the first single off the band's eponymously-titled debut for Geffen Records). "We meant to record a single version for that, without the 'God Damn', but we forgot," he admits. "I probably would have said 'hot damn' or 'gosh darn'." And Weezer is certainly the only band that could pull off a "gosh darn" in this age of angst. Not only are they demi-gods of garage rock, but they've almost single-handedly created what some may call "geek rock". "I like the music to be 'rock out with your cock out' kind of music," Cuomo states, dispelling the entire "geek" theory. "I want it to be music that you don't really have to think about. You can just enjoy it without really thinking about what's going on or the message or the story or anything like that. But, at the same time, if you wanna do those things, you can." Their tip of the Strat to who may be the Godfather of Geek Rock, "Buddy Holly", is a prime example of what Cuomo strives to create. "(The song) has nothing to do with Buddy Holly," laughs Cuomo. "It's about a girl. That song is particularly twisted and hidden. It's actually a really violent, gruesome, and kind of sad song, but it is hard to tell. You have to listen closely to the lyrics and you'll hear that it's pretty...gross." Gross or not, the song was a huge hit for Weezer, and the accompanying video clip for it - as directed by MTV author Spike Jonze - earned Cuomo and the rest four MTV Video Music Award, and two Billboard Music Video Awards. "The song definitely wouldn't have been as popular (without the video). I'm very glad that it got us out there, but I don't feel like the video really says anything about the song or me as a person. So, it's kind of strange. I feel like a little bit of a faker," Cuomo confesses. The singer/songwriter assures that there will be no faking it this time around. While the first tour had an admittedly strange effect on Cuomo, he is relatively certain that the band's present road trip will be different. He, Bell, Sharp, and Wilson are even compromising in the video arena as well. "It's funny, when we were touring for the first album I didn't tap into my inner Pinkerton at all," he says. "I totally withdrew and didn't go out and meet anybody. I just stayed in the bus and moped, basically. I don't know what happened, but I just go really freaked out. Anti-social. That's not the case now, though. "("The Good Life") is basically me saying, 'I wanna go back on tour and this time I wanna have fun'. We did a video for 'The Good Life', too. So, we kinda had to compromise. For example, the 'El Scorcho' video was just us performing, and the second video off the record is more "MTV's style. The song, "The Good Life", is, too. One of the more polished tracks on Pinkerton. "The Good Life" has an immediately addictive riff, and finds Cuomo straying, albeit briefly, from his tales of woe regarding a variety of eccentric women. "El Scorcho" found the front man confronting his fetish for "half Japanese girls", and the resulting chaos of that particular relationship. "Actually, 'El Scorcho' is more about me," Cuomo says. "Because at that point I hadn't even talked to the girl, I didn't really know much about her. The song is more about my shyness and inability to say 'hello' to her." Yet, "I asked you to go to a Green Day concert/You said you never heard of them/How cool is that?/So I went in your room and read your diary," Cuomo croons in the tune. "That was a slight exaggeration," he laughingly admits "I didn't have access to her room, but I had access to some of her writing, and I took it and read it, and actually put some of the lines in the song. See, I can't say too much about the song because I don't want people to know who it is, 'cuz she would get really pissed off." Ironically enough, the non-sequitor style of lyricism lends itself to the band try-out nature of the music. The majority of Pinkerton follows this pattern, most effectively on "Scorcho" and the record's cranked-up opener, "Tired of Sex". "This is ourselves, how we sound naturally, rather than go over and over and get it perfect. I mean, there's nothing on the record that the entire recording that you hear is all one take. We go back and do different things at different times." he attempts to illustrate. Pinkerton is produced by the band themselves, which pretty much goes to show that Weezer know what sound they want to put forth. Their 1994 debut was produced by ex-Cars driver Ric Ocasek, and while Pinkerton is in many ways more of the same, it is undoubtedly rougher and a bit more negative, as far as lyrics are concerned. I once referred to Weezer's music as nothing more than "slacker swirl". That still may be the case to some extent, but it they keep going in the direction they're aimed for with Pinkerton, it may soon change to "slacker snarl".