Rip It Up article - October 1996

Print interview with Brian Bell
Cover
Publication	Rip It Up
Published	October 1996
Interviewer	Bronwyn Trudgeon
Interviewee	Brian Bell
Title	Turning Japanese
Format	Print
Associated concert	Weezer concert: 10/14/1996
External link	Archived via Archive.org
References	See where this article is referenced on Weezerpedia

Turning Japanese Author: Bronwyn Trudgeon (Rip It Up) Published: October 1996 If a rock star tells you you're his lucky first shortly after the two of you have woken up he's probably lying, unless he's talking about your slot on the day's interview roster, which is exactly what guitarist Brian Bell (not the Bryan Bell from Dead Flowers, the 'i' one) from Weezer is talking to me about. He's fresh out of bed and in good spirits (I'm just out of bed and open to persuasion), on a between-touring break he's spent rehearsing in LA with his other band, TBPKAST (the Band Possibly Known as Space Twins). "I don't know if we're keeping the name or not," Brian tells me. "I'm addin' another guitar player and it's not really Twins anymore. There's four people in the band, so I'm kind of stuck. Band name, shmand name - it can always change. It's my 'other band"." While a release from 'the other band' is not expected for another year, Weezer have a couple of new releases in the shape of their second album, Pinkerton, and its first single, 'El Scorcho', out right now. My initial introduction to a combination of these two things revealed some rather un-rock 'n' roll tones to my fine-artily tuned sensibilities. For one thing, there is a rather famous Pinkerton in operatic history, namely the male lead in Puccini's Madam Butterfly - an American Lieutenant who does the dirty on a geisha girl who has borne him a child, causing her to commit suicide. 'El Scorcho' begins with the lines, "Goddamn you half-Japanese girls / You do it to me every time, and goes on to refer to a certain Cio Cio San - the name of the aforementioned geisha, also known as Butterfly. In the back-handed compliments of 'Falling for You' Rivers tells the object of his affections, 'I'm a burning flame and you're a gentle moth. Then, in what sounds like a homage to a homage, 'Across the Sea' retreads the themes of Malcolm McClaren's 'Fans', which is taken from his liberally Madam Butterfly-extracting 1984 album Fans. As if that's not enough to have you unfolding your CD cover and rolling it into a crude pair of opera glasses, check the closing track, 'Butterfly', which might as well be a thesis on the opera whose name its title paraphrases - 'Every time I pin down what I think I want it slips away,' Rivers mourns during the song's quietly brutal narrative. And all this occurred to me before I clapped eyes on the album's cover artwork called 'Kambara: Night Snow' by Hiroshige on the front, and a vaguely perceptible antique shot of a Japanese woman on the back. For his part, Rivers has referred to the album as, 'the story of my struggle with my inner Pinkerton', which all adds up to sounding rather sinister. I want explanations and I want them now. "[The aim was] not to give away anything, but you pretty much figured it out," confesses Brian. "So many people have asked me, havin' no idea, and I just say, 'Well, it's a riddle.' Isn't it obvious? "It was definitely a heavy influence from Rivers this time around, it was one of his main influences of writing these new songs. I haven't actually heard much of Madam Butterfly, except little bits and pieces of it." Still, don't be expecting anything even vaguely operatic. This thing rocks its balls off for the most part, and a lot of thanks on that part is due to the fact Brian was in on the album from the get-go this time, whereas he was recruited after the recording of last year's Weezer had begun. "If you notice any difference in the sound on this record, I think it has a lot to do with me puttin' my stamp on it, it's all over this record. It's more of a bombastic recordin' process or sound, it's not as polished as the first one." And something very rock 'n' roll you can add to Pinkerton's score is an abundance of sexual thematics. I ask Brian if he thinks this might alienate some quarters of Weezer's fan base namely, the kids. (Let me explain, I'm not talking those "Kids' who worship pop music simply because that's what 'The Kids' are supposed to do, but those actual kids who embraced Weezer's last album with the kind of lovin' arms usually saved for hugging Barney the Dinosaur with actual children.) When I clarify myself by using the example of a certain four-year-old who shall remain unnamed, Brian says it probably will alienate her, but assures the move wasn't intentional. "It's just, we've grown, and hopefully our audiences have grown up - oh, four [he laughs] - little bit, I think a lot of it has to do with our videos. If she sees our video she'll probably like it, probably still be a fan." On the subject of fans (don't worry, I'm not back on the smarty-pants Fans/Butterfly tip), listening to 'Across the Sea' got me wondering if Brian has ever received any fan letters which may have given him the urge to 'sniff and lick the envelopes, as Rivers is inspired to do by a (you guessed it) Japanese fan's letter in this song. "One girl makes the most ornate little letters," says Brian. "Like, she'd make a little booklet and bind it with little yarn, and make curtains, and must have spent literally hours on makin' this letter - like, would put glitter on the outside. Those are always my favourite, those are the ones I usually keep. I actually met this girl and she lives in LA, and she's really, really soft-spoken, and extremely sweet and nice. I think it's just... yeah, she definitely has a lot of time on her hands, but she's also extremely artistic, and for her to spend her artistic talent on me is definitely touching. "I've gotten some weird ones. I remember one was written in crayon, in orange crayon the first [line] asked me how big my penis was. Each line was in a different coloured crayon." What does a guy do - write back or call the police in white coats? "I have written a few back, yes, mainly people I've actually met. Someone I really don't know at all... 1. think we had a a general Christmas card or somethin' we sent once. I have too many friends or family to write in general. These are people I really don't know, se I don't spend too much time writing them." New Zealand fans will have their chance to get close to Weezer when they play Auckland's Logan Campbell Centre with Garageland on October 14. Citing the band Weezer have often declared their affections for publicly, Kiss, as a Number 10 on a bottomless scale for concert hysteria stakes, I ask Brian where we can expect Weezer to fall. At first he demands to know who else is playing in New Zealand on that weekend - Garbage. Ash, Everclear, I tell him, but advise I don't expect him to rate Weezer against those bands specifically. "Oh, yeah, 'cause we'd definitely be better, he laughs. "Against Kiss? We would have to probably be a six, or a seven maybe - if we have a good day." I guess Weezer would lose points for a lack of pyrotechnics. "We're definitely not as flashy." I go further out on a limb to suggest their make-up is probably not as good either. "There's none," Brian deadpans. Weezer were actually offered a Kiss support slot, but turned it down to preserve the grease-painted four's esteemed position in their childhood memories. Brian has yet to catch the Kiss tour either, and in what might prove to be his most shocking print confession, he admits, "I will live if I don't see it. I'd rather see Devo, personally." Here's hoping the rest of the band don't read this until after Brian's played with them in New Zealand, at least

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