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Rivers runs deep
Author: Mark A. Bednar (Record-Courier)
Published: June 26, 1997
For many bands, the song remains the same.
Musicians often build an entire career on one sound, never straying from a signature style that led the band to success.
However, fans of Weezer, which will be at Blossom Music Center Saturday, may not want to get too comfortable with the band's poppy style and melodic lyrics.
Rivers Cuomo, Weezer's singer, guitarist and writer, says that the band may take a new direction.
He said their combination of fun, breezy melodies with serious, personal lyrics can be peculiar.
"I'm beginning to worry that it is an odd combination and it's not going to work anymore," Cuomo said Tuesday in a phone interview from Holmdel, N.J. "But it definitely worked on our first two albums, and I believe in it."
The band's first release, the self-titled 1994 effort, introduced introduced the band to a mass market. Boasting the hits "Undone (The Sweater Song)," "Buddy Holly" and "Say It Ain't So." "Weezer" went on to sell more than 2 million copies.
The follow-up, last year's "Pinkerton," features the singles "El Scorcho" and "The Good Life." The Los Angeles band has just released a third single, "Pink Triangle."
Now Weezer (other members are Matt Sharp, Brian Bell and Pat Wilson) is touring in support of the release, opening for No Doubt, another California band. The tour began about a month ago in Seattle and will continue through August. The bands will perform at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls Saturday at 8 p.m. Lawn tickets, $19.50, are still available at the Blossom Music Center box office, any Ticketmaster location or by calling 945-9400. Weezer also toured in the fall in support of the album. So are they tired of touring yet?
"We had four months off that were boring and tedious," Cuomo said. "Playing again is incredibly exciting."
But Cuomo didn't exactly sit around and watch the world pass by. Instead, he continued work on his English degree at Harvard in Massachusetts.
"I didn't see any reason to drastically change my lifestyle," Cuomo, 27, said. "I like school."
He talked at length during the interview about what fascinates him in his studies. He expressed intense interest in evolutionary theories, seeking "what environmental pressures cause men to be men and women to be women."
He will receive his degree after one more year in school.
"I've been going back and forth between school and rock bands since I was 12 years old," he said.
And his time in school afforded him the opportunity to write a lot of the material appearing on "Pinkerton." In fact, the inspiration hit him while he was at Harvard.
When he's at school, he said, there's "no more applause, no more girls every night, no more fun."
"It was a combination of everything that was going on at the time...my total isolation, my living in Boston not knowing anyone, my leg." Cuomo said.
Cuomo had an operation on his leg in '95 to lengthen it. He was born with his left leg longer than his right. Doctors broke his leg and attached a brace that stretched his leg slowly, which was very painful.
He continued to tour, walking on stage with the aid of a care. He also continued walking around campus. But the main inspiration for the album wasn't just his operation and the pain he was in.
His uneasiness in discussing the topic surfaced when Gwen Stefani, lead singer of No Doubt, wanders into the interview while he's talking about the touchy subject.
"You can't be here for this," he told her with an embarrassed laugh.
"I was really lonely, and I really liked a girl a lot. And she didn't know I existed," he said. "Sublime sadness was what inspired me."
But that doesn't mean Cuomo overanalyzed his feelings.
"One out of 100 times when I sit down to write I'm just overwhelmed by some feeling, (and I try) expressing myself as clearly as I can, and it's only later that I have to face the consequences of that," he said.
Weezer's combination of a breezy sound, catchy melodies and witty lyrics doesn't really have a contemporary.
"There's something about us that's kind of weird that no one's doing."
The sound they have crafted, however, may not remain the same.
"Pop music can't contain what I feel right now," he said. "I don't know what's going to happen."
Cuomo cites several diverse influences in his work, but professes a love of late '70s and early '80s metal; in fact, the band fashions a Van Halen-like logo of a "w" for their symbol and posters of Judas Priest and Quiet Riot adorn the walls of the room pictured inside their first album.
""Bang Your Head' totally influenced my life," Cuomo said, referring to the 1983 hit by Quiet Riot.
Other influences include The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Pixies and Metallica.
Cuomo said he takes different aspects from each artist for his work.
"There's people that have influenced my songwriting and people that have influenced my sound."
While Weezer does have a legion of fans in this country, no where is their following more pronounced than in Japan, Cuomo said.
"They're rabid over there...In Japan, (fans) always stand around with gifts," he said.
Cuomo said that after the tour, the band won't likely get together until - at the earliest - Christmas time or spring of next year.
"Now it's kind of time to sit and think and wonder what the next step is," he said.
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