Weezers Rivers Cuomo: Like a lot of the other bands around that time, we were a little uncomfortable with the sound of our first album… – Guitar…

It stands to reason that, as one of the bands that helped pioneer and define it, Weezer are synonymous with the boom of bubbly and buoyant, ultra-melodic pop-rock of the late 90s and early 2000s. But while thats where the Californian quartets mainstream esteem may have peaked, its undoubtedly today that Weezers flame burns the brightest.

Since roaring back to life from their second hiatus with 2014s ripping and rousing Everythingt Will Be Alright In The End (on which they treated old-school fans to an onslaught of booming hooks and earwormish choruses), theyve struck gold with everything from doughy 60s-revering surf-rock (on 2016s White Album) to polarising avant-garde pop (on 2019s Black Album) and even tongue-in-cheek covers of yesteryears cheesiest FM hits (on 2019s Teal Album).

But as they near 30 years of their reign as the rightful kings of pop-rock, its become crystal clear that Weezer have, until now, only scratched the surface of their powerful and polychromatic potential. Even for a band as unpredictably quirky as them, nobody could have foreseen Weezers 2021 output: an introspective, orchestral-backed album of ballads and Broadwayesque showtunes, and a slamming, shred-heavy bombshell of 80s hair metal-channeling rock anthems the admirable efforts of a band that is truly unhinged.

And then theres Weezers 2022 slate because if two career-defining, critic-stunning albums isnt enough for one year, how about four? Starting shape as a mental exercise to keep frontman Rivers Cuomo sane as he trod along through last years pandemic-incited lockdown, the Seasons saga quickly blossomed into an ambitious four-disc epic, taking Weezer to a quadrant of very distinct, individually inspired corners of their musicality.

This is Weezers age of recklessness: theyre doing what they want to do, living their wildest musical dreams and embracing the most whimsical corners of their imaginations all with absolute creative authority. As he gears up for one of the biggest and busiest chapters of the Weezer story, we caught up with Rivers to vibe on Van Weezer and OK Human, what we can all look forward to from the Seasons project, and everything else going on with one of rocks most idiosyncratic characters.

Were only halfway through 2021, and its already been one of the biggest years in Weezers history. Whats the vibe like on your end?Well, I just get so absorbed in whatever Im doing that I kind of forget about everything else. So I could answer a lot of about the Fall album right now Im probably going to struggle on Van Weezer [laughs]. It doesnt exactly feel hectic, but theres just so much material thank goodness for modern technology and spreadsheets. I dont know how people did it before they had technology to help them keep track of everything.

Some of the stuff on Van Weezer goes back to the days before this band even existed, right?Yeah. I dont care when something was written or what its from, I just want the best possible bits; I just want to put it all together and make a great song. It doesnt matter where any of it came from. Im pretty agnostic about that stuff a lot of times, I forget when something was even written. I just go searching through my Dropbox folders and go, Okay, I need a great verse, give me a great verse Okay, heres a great verse! And Ill get to a point where I realise, Oh wait, that was from, like, 25 years ago!

Whats the method to the madness when it comes to how you save, collate and draw from your stable of ideas?Ultimately its just what feels right, but I do have tools that help me narrow down the field. I just made this really cool app called Demolisher its this big panel with all these switches I can flip, and itll search through all my thousands of demos to give me exactly what Im looking for. Depending on which switches are flipped, it will give me, like, only choruses that start on the one chord in major key, between 120 and 130 beats per minute, and that are a particular genre and then Ill be faced with ten options instead of 1,000. And then its just a matter of trying them all out and seeing which ones feel the best for a song.

And you developed the app yourself?Yeah! I love all of that stuff! Thats half the fun right there. I got into computer programming in 2015, and I spend hours on it every day. I just love it. But even before that I had spreadsheets, and before spreadsheets there were notebooks and graph paper. Im just always trying to keep track of everything.

How many albums worth of viable song ideas would you say you have?I dont know I guess the time-consuming part is putting them all together, that would be the limiting factor to figuring that out. Theres a lot of pieces in there. Obviously I have my phone with me wherever I go, and several times a day an idea will pop into my head and Ill record it in a note, and then it automatically gets uploaded to Dropbox, and then there are scripts that go in there and analyse tempo and put other tags on it, and then its easy to filter and sort.

I like that youll sometimes use the fans as a sounding board, like via your forum Mr. Rivers Neighbourhood.Yeah, its really great! I just love their tastes so much theyre so similar to my own tastes, and they share a lot of my core values. So sometimes when Im working on something, if Ive gotten distracted or confused by other forces around me, I can see what the fans reactions will be and go, Oh yeah, thats what I like! [Laughs].

Lets riff on Van Weezer pun intended. Where did the idea for this record come from? Have you always had a soft spot for 80s hair metal?Yeah! I mean, thats what I grew up on. I never wouldve called it hair metal at the time, though, it was just metal heavy metal. Thats what real music was to me when I was a teenager. Thats how I learned to play my instrument, by learning how to play heavy metal songs. But right around the time Weezer got together, just about all the musicians in LA did an about face we all went from being metalheads to alternative guys, so we changed our guitar sound, we cut our hair, and we made our first album. But all those heavy metal instincts are still in there, in our souls and in our fingers, and theyve just been waiting to come out all these years.

So why was now the right point in time for that to happen? I know the initial rollout plan was very closely tied to the Hella Mega Tour was it a bit of a chicken and egg scenario?Yeah, thats exactly right. We actually were working on OK Human first, and wed mostly finished working on that, but just as we were wrapping that one up our manager called and said, You guys got booked on the Hella Mega Tour with Green Day and Fall Out Boy. Its going to be Monsters Of Rock all over again, youre going to be shredding stadiums all around the world. And we were like, Uh oh! We just made this introspective singer-songwriter album with pianos and an orchestra! Thats like the worst kind of album you could put out before a tour like that. So we put OK Human on the shelf and said, Alright, I guess its time to unleash the beast! Because yknow, if were going to go out every night and have to compete with Green Day, weve gotta bring some serious rock riffage.

I read on a forum that Van Weezer went through some changes after it got delayed. Is there any truth to that?I guess the change was just that as we were finishing up on Van Weezer, the Hella Mega Tour got postponed because of the whole lockdown situation, and we realised that Van Weezer was the worst type of album we could put out during a quarantine. We couldnt even be in the same room together, let alone go out and promote a rock album. So we put Van Weezer on the shelf and focussed our attention back on OK Human. I dont remember going back and making any significant changes to Van Weezer, though do you remember what you heard?

I think the big thing was that some of the tracklisting got changed around.Yeah, I mean, Im gonna tweak up until Well, even til after the album is on shelves. But it was nothing major taking an old song off, putting a new song on, that kind of thing.

Do you think theres potential for Van Weezer to not just be a one-and-done sort of concept?Yeah. I mean, were very responsive to the people in front of us every night when were playing. We want to get that applause, so whatever people are responding to, thats what were going to gravitate towards.

What guitars were you jamming on in the studio for this record?Well the album is called Van Weezer, so obviously everyone is going to focus on the Van part when were talking about it because thats the new thing, thats the interesting thing but really, half of it is still classic Weezer. So in the spirit of that first part, I did try out a couple of crazy 80s guitars, but it seemed to be overdoing the schtick a little bit. So I just ended up going back to the same guitar Ive always used, since the Blue Album, which was Ric Ocaseks late-50s Les Paul Special. Thats the meat of the record right there.

What is it about that LP Special thats made it your ride-or-die?Well, I never use it at a show, because its actually kind of delicate. But something about my right hand and my pick crunching into those strings, on that guitar with that pickup, jamming a powerchord through an overdriven amp It just sounds like music. Its an unmistakable sound. Its thick, but its punchy at the same time.

Are you much of a pedal-head as well?Not at all. In fact, going back to our first album, I dont think theres a single effect on anything. Sometimes people will go, Oh, were doing The Sweater Song, its got that cool, clean riff lets put a flanger on it, lets put some chorus, lets do this and that But its like, no, you dont need any of that. Its already built into the riff, just play the riff!

Do you find that going straight into an amp helps you capture that raw, authentic Weezer energy?Yeah. The spirit is in the notes. Its not so much about the sound of them, I just want to get the notes across to the listeners ears.

Which I suppose is how OK Human works so well as a Weezer album despite there not being a single riff on it. Where did the idea for that record come from?The idea originally came from the producer, Jake Sinclair. I went over to his house one day, and I wasnt expecting to start a project I was going over to say hi, but he said, Oh, Ive got an idea for your next album. You should do something like Nilsson Sings Newman, this obscure album from the early 70s. He gave me a copy of it and said, The jist of this is you sitting down at a piano no guitars and write totally personal, non-commercial, weird, quirky, Rivers/Weezer songs; then well back you up with a full orchestra instead of distorted guitars. And I was like, Woah, that sounds like a lot of fun! I wasnt used to writing on a piano, so it was a real new experience for me.

Did that songwriting process take you very far out of your comfort zone?It was pretty darn comfortable, actually. It was incredibly fun! I love classical music, I love Beethoven and Bach and all of that stuff. Im a total amateur, but I love trying to explore that side of music composition. So I wouldnt say I was creatively out of my comfort zone at all but technically speaking, for sure. I had to practise quite a bit. We recently played a concert with the LA Philharmonic Orchestra at Disney Hall, and I practised for three weeks straight every single day, practise, practise, practise so I wouldnt make a fool out of myself in front of these amazing musicians.

What was it like working with an orchestra for the record?Sadly, I had no contact with them. Because yknow, mid-pandemic and all, if youre not absolutely required to be there, you cant be there. But I would pop in on Zoom and check it out, and it was an incredible thrill. Id never heard my music played by an orchestra before, and I was just blown away. I had a lot of the basic ideas for their arrangements, but I had just pumped them out on a piano. To hear them all played back by a full orchestra Its such a thrill.

The lyrical themes on OK Human feel so timely. Did the concept for the record grow as it came together?Yeah. There actually wasnt an intended concept to begin with it was more just like, Write whatever youre going through on any given day. Just whatever happens to be troubling you. And dont write for anybody else. So thats just what I did, so I guess it ends up sounding a bit like a day in the life of Rivers in the middle of a pandemic.

Do you think theres potential for an OK Human tour with an orchestra behind you?I sure would love to do an orchestral tour! But it seems so incredibly expensive theres just no way we could pull it off, unfortunately. But hopefully well come up with something. At the bare minimum, maybe just a few special concerts like the one we just did at Disney Hall. Maybe we could do one in Sydney at the Opera House. That would be amazing!

Have you thought about how some of the back catalogue might translate to an orchestral setting?At the concert we just did, we did OK Human in full and an additional six songs, and we got the same arranger and conductor to rework those songs for the orchestra. I played an acoustic guitar and Pat [Wilson] was still on the drums, but it was basically like OK Human versions of classic Weezer songs And a Toto song [laughs]. I havent heard the concert back yet, but to be standing in the midst of an orchestra, hearing Island In The Sun It was so beautiful.

Speaking of what youve got coming up in the pipeline, are there any plans to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Pinkerton this year?It hasnt been discussed not yet, at least. I did recently uncover a song from 1995 which was written right around the same time as El Scorcho. Its a song I never demoed I never recorded it, but I had it written down, and I only just recently made a demo of it. Right now its slated to come out on the Winter album in December of 2022, but maybe we could put it out later this year as a little gift for the fans in celebration of Pinkertons anniversary. And maybe well do some Pinkerton shows later in the year its all up to the pandemic.

When I was growing up, my exposure to Weezer was through songs like Island In The Sun, Buddy Holly, Beverly Hills those really catchy, or for lack of a better word, safe kind of songs. So when I got around to hearing Pinkerton, it was so unexpectedly rough and angsty and evidently it was the same for people in 99, hot on the heels of the Blue Album. Was that part of the intention, to really dismantle what people knew of and expected from Weezer?I dont think we intended to be unsuccessful [laughs]. I think we all thought it was going to be a huge record, honestly. But like a lot of the other bands around that time, we were a little uncomfortable with the sound of our first record. Thats not exactly who we were when we were playing in the clubs. We were much rougher and more aggressive we werent meant to be this polished, major label alt-rock band. So we kind of swung back the other way and produced the next record ourselves, and that was a lot more true to what we thought Weezer was supposed to be.

Youve done that a few times since throughout the Weezer timeline, to varying degrees of success whether thats making a pop record like Raditude or going really experimental on the Black Album, or working with a 38-piece orchestra on OK Human. Do you see a value in subverting fan expectations every so often?Not really. Its basically me just wanting to try something I just get excited to try new things. Im not really thinking about how the fans are going to react.

Theres not a balance you have to strike between passion projects like OK Human and fan-service projects like Everything Will Be Alright In The End?Everything Will Be Alright In The End was definitely a case of us saying, Hey, what if we made an album just for the straight-up hardcore fans? But I guess as the years go by, nothing seems to really matter anymore. We can do whatever we want, and it doesnt really change the course of this giant ship that is Weezer its just going to sail on into the distance.

I think Weezer is one of the few bands that can truly do whatever the f*** it wants and get away with it, because thats just the core ethos of Weezer.I mean, its not like that for other bands?

To a degree? Most bands dont have fanbases that expect the unexpected in the way your average Weezer fan would.Sure. I guess AC/DC is the big counter example, right? You pretty much know exactly what youre going to get from a new AC/DC album. It would be really trippy if they just totally changed it up and dropped a pop album.

Imagine if AC/DC did a record like OK Human.I mean, Id check it out! An introspective piano-orchestral album with their style of vocals on top? That would be wild.

What can you tell us about the Seasons project youre working on right now?I actually just finished doing some stuff for the Fall album. There are four albums in the series, and each one is based on the season its named after. Each record has a predominant emotion that I have in mind as Im writing. Spring is on the happy, chill side, and Summer is indignant, youthful rebellion. Fall would be anxiety, and then Winter is sadness and loss. In terms of the sound, Spring is kind of like Island In The Sun, and Summer is kind of like a crunchy Beach Boys I guess a bit like the Blue Album. Fall is the most risky direction of all thats going to be dance-rock, like Franz Ferdinand. And then Winter is all 90s singer-songwriter, a bit like Elliot Smith.

So will that be the next project to surface after Van Weezer?Itll start on the first day of Spring 2022, when the first album comes out. Im excited for people to hear it!

Is all your creative energy focussed on Seasons, or are you still tinkering away on other bits and pieces?I have a few other projects which are just starting to pick up steam, but they involve other collaborators and forms of media, so its a very slow process Im just waiting for my role to kick in. So Ive given myself this four-album project to tide me over. Theres some kind of musical drama that Im working on at the moment called Buddha Superstar. I dont know if its going to be a Broadway show or a movie, but apparently thats going to be, like, a five-year process.

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Weezers Rivers Cuomo: Like a lot of the other bands around that time, we were a little uncomfortable with the sound of our first album... - Guitar...