Weezer

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Weezer

Rock band

The early nineties rock world enamored with long dirty hair, angst-ridden screeching, and power chord riffage, the Los Angeles quartet Weezer offered a fine antidote to what was known as grunge. Often annoying-ly tagged “nerd-rock,” Weezer, featuring main singer/songwriter Rivers Cuomo, seemingly came out of nowhere in 1993, with catchy pop songs extolling the virtues of Kiss, surfing instead of driving to work, and a girlfriend that resembles Mary Tyler Moore. If one could call it pioneering, Weezer were some of the first to make music for those irony obsessed junior high schoolers who hung the Saturday Night Fever LP sleeve in their lockers and enthused about “Schoolhouse Rock” in between classes ad infinitum. The perfect soundtrack for those whose sentences generally start with the phrase “Do you remember when.”

Carrying big dreams of being a rock star, Cuomo packed up and moved at age 20 to L.A. from his native Connecticut. A failure at first, Cuomo hooked up with other Eastern expatriots Matt Sharp, Patrick Wilson, and Jason Cropper in 1992 and had their first rehearsal on February 14th of that year. Playing around L. A., incessantly, the band started to attract a following of people perhaps frustrated with grunge bombast and ready for some pop music. Weezer’s power pop sounds actually were quite a change from the presumed personal taste of the band, who featured eighties metal types Quiet Riot on the inside of their first album and had a logo clearly inspired by Van Halen as well as a healthy obsession with original Kiss member Ace Frehley. Bassist Sharp told Rolling Stone, “He had the best of the four Kiss solo records.” The band were signed by DGC, David Geffen’s then new label who also released Nirvana’s Nevermind, in 1993 and went to New York to record their first album with ex-Cars frontman Ric Ocasek. During recording for the first album guitarist Cropper was replaced by Brian Bell. Cropper returned to L. A., got married, had a daughter, and continued to work on musical projects.

Self admittedly “sucking” when they first started playing together, Weezer, upon signing with DGC, toured the United States and Europe for over a year to promote the first album. The exhaustive touring schedule, coupled with the countless gigs the boys played before being signed, helped bring the band closer together. With improved musicianship and Cuomo’s extremely catchy songwriting the band started to catch fire very quickly. Drummer Pat Wilson commented in Rolling Stone, “None of this was even imaginable ever.… We looked at it as a fatalist thing from the get-go.… It was like ‘I’m gonna fail because 99 percent of all records do, and what makes me so special?’” Long tours and songwriting aside, the band was also helped by the Spike Jonze directed videos for the LP’s first two singles “Undone—The Sweater Song” and their biggest hit “Buddy Holly” which intercut the band into actual scenes from the 1970s television sitcom Happy Days. A third hit, “Say It Ain’t So,” was also culled from the self-titled album which ended up selling about two million copies worldwide.

Following the surprise success of their first album, the band took an extensive break. Cuomo, easily the most introspective member of the band, began an undergraduate program at Harvard. The rest of the band all pursued other musical projects, the most notable being bassist Matt Sharpe’s band The Rentals. Releasing their first album, Return of the Rentals, on Madonna’s Maverick label in late 1995, they scored a minor hit with the odd “Friends of P.” Brian Bell and Pat Wilson also had other projects going; Bell’s Space Twins, who released one 7 “single on World Domination records and Wilson’s The Special Goodness. Brian Bell was also involved in the band Carnival Art before joining Weezer.

Finally regrouping in 1996, Weezer released their second album Pinkerton. Not as immediately catchy as the first, due to the band producing the album themselves, Pinkerton can be seen as a slightly more mature direction for the band. Mature, though, doesn’t necessarily sell records and some of the bands young fans probably felt alienated by tunes like “Tired of Sex” and “Pink Triangle” which tells of Cuomo’s crush on a woman who

For the Record…

Members include Brian Bell (born December 9, 1968 in Knoxville, Tenneesee) guitar, vocals; Rivers Cuomo (born June 13, 1970 in Conneticut) guitar, vocals; Matt Sharpe (born September 22, 1969 in Arlington, Virginia) bass, vocals; and Patrick Wilson (born February 1, 1969 in Buffalo, New York) drums.

Formed in Los Angeles, 1992; released first album on DGC, 1994; sold two million copies worldwide by 1995; Matt Sharpe’s other band The Rentals released first album on Maverick, 1995; Weezer’s second album released in late 1996; band played benefit for longtime friends Mykel and Carli who were killed in an auto accident in 1997.

Addresses: Record company —DGC Records, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10019.

happens to be a lesbian. The album sold moderately well though, and the first single “El Scorcho” got some rotation on MTV and modern rock stations. The band also toured to support the album which sold out at many dates. The greatest publicity for the album actually came from the court case surrounding it. The Pinkerton Detective Agency, with over 100 years in the business, objected to the band’s use of the name “Pinkerton” seeing it as infringing on their name and reputation. Obtaining a restraining order against the band and DGC, the order was overturned when U.S. District Court Judge John G. Davies decided in favor of the band who explained that far from being a reference to the detective agency the title was actually in reference to Cuo-mo’s favorite opera Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, whose villainous lead character also shares the name. Pinkerton Detective Agency still pursued the case however, refiling the injunction and seeking $2 million in damages.

Tragedy hit the band after the release of the second album. Two longtime supporters of the band, Mykel and Carli Allan, with their younger sister Trysta, were killed in an automobile accident following a Weezer show on July 8, 1997. The two sisters had followed the band since their start and ran the fan club and official web page. Shocked and saddened by the event, Weezer held a benefit concert for the family which also included the band That Dog who were longtime friends of the band and also had a fan club run by Mykel and Carli. A memorial fund and a tribute CD were also planned with contributions from Weezer, That Dog, and Black Market Flowers among many others.