The Item article - December 11, 1995
| Print interview with Matt Sharp | ||
|---|---|---|
| Publication | The Item | |
| Interviewee | Matt Sharp | |
| Interviewer | Jay Ramono | |
| Date | December 11, 1995 | |
| Title | MATT SHARP ...is just plain exhausted | |
| Format | ||
| External link | Archive via Google Books | |
| References | See where this interview is referenced on Weezerpedia | |
|
MATT SHARP ...is just plain exhausted "I'm really whipped. I've just been sitting in a sauna for a half-hour," says Matt Sharp. Oh, a musician's life can be really hard, especially if you're working overtime in two different bands on two different labels. Sharp, a bassist, can usually be found on rhythm patrol for Geffen Records' Weezer. But he's also the creator, lead singer, keyboardist and bassist of Maverick Records' the Rentals. Trouble is he doesn't sound like he's enjoying himself. "I'm even homeless right now," Sharp laments, curling into a ball on the couch in his penthouse suite at a ritzy Los Angeles hotel. So anyway, here's the wacky scoop on Sharp's career: "First of all, the Rentals are not a little side project, and I'm not leaving Weezer," he says as attentively as he can between an endless stream of business calls. "I wrote some songs, and I wanted to record them, so I asked some people I liked"- including Weezer drummer Pat Wilson- "to play with me." Sharp, 26, taped a bunch of songs but says he never expected anything to come of it. Yet somehow, the people at Maverick got hold of the tape and signed him. Geffen wouldn't allow Sharp to be identified as Weezer's bassist in press information for the Rentals. So to avoid legal problems, and because he generally figures the media will get facts wrong anyway, Sharp invented a new identity for himself. The story was that the Rentals' Matt Sharp was the son of U.S. Embassy employees in Prague in the Czech Republic and not the Matt Sharp from Weezer. If anyone had called him on the story, Sharp says, "I would've just said, 'I don't know what you're talking about. Sure, we have the same name, but we're two different people.'" But the truth ultimately came out, which is probably a good thing. The Rentals' "Friends of P." video could easily show up on MTV right after a Weezer video. Both bands are busy, busy, busy. "We've even got a song in Mallrats," Sharp says with cool enthusiasm. Wait a minute, Matt - Weezer, not the Rentals, has a song on the Mallrats soundtrack. "I just say 'we' to everything now," Sharp says. Then the phone rings. This time, he answers it with a seductive purr - a sign that he's morphing into yet another identity and that this interview is over. |
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