Weezer have gone through plenty of ups and downs over the years and took a few twists
and turns that even their biggest fans might not be aware of.
From the heights of their fame to their deep career lows, this is the untold truth of Weezer.
So here's a question, just what is a Weezer, anyway?
Even the weirdest band names seem to have some kind of meaning, but "Weezer" just sounds
like a totally made-up word.
Well, as it happens, the moniker is actually an old nickname of band leader Rivers Cuomo.
Cuomo has asthma, and when he was young, he was often given a hard time because of his
constant wheezing.
The phrase 'Weezer' itself actually came from Cuomo's father.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Cuomo explained:
"I remember getting letters from my dad and it would always be, 'To Weezer.'
He didn't use an 'h.'
It was definitely a very emotional name for me and I don't think for anyone else.
For the other guys in the band, it's just a weird word."
The frontman decided to resurrect the nickname when his then-nameless group scored their
first gig.
It was hardly a slam dunk, though.
The band subsequently went through a long meeting in which they considered several other
names, but since no one else could conjure up a better one, Weezer remained at the top
of the pile.
It's as simple as that.
Every musician has to start somewhere, but Weezer's Rivers Cuomo has gone through so
many bands in his time that you've got to wonder whether some of them are actually real.
Cuomo began his career as a high school metalhead in a band called Avant Garde, which was later
renamed Zoom.
When Zoom broke up, Cuomo helped found a group named Sixty Wrong Sausages, which eventually
became Weezer.
Among the other names considered for Weezer were Meathead, Outhouse, The Big Jones, and
This Niblet.
The most significant difference between the proto-Weezer Cuomo and the nerd rocker fans
know today was...pretty much everything.
The young Cuomo was a metalhead guitar player with a majestic glam metal hairdo and he even
sported a similar 'do during Weezer's early shows.
As he attempted to establish his own image as an artist, Cuomo went through a phase where
he seemed to imitate a number of legendary rock singers.
For example, there are early recordings where he clearly tries to sing like Jane's Addiction's
Perry Farrell and at one point, he even performed while wearing Axl Rose-style bicycle shorts.
Luckily, he grew out of that one.
Although Weezer's reputation nowadays is pretty much intact, things weren't always so rosy.
The band came onto the rock scene pretty quickly, with their alt-rock sound already fully-formed
and this made some music journalists a little suspicious.
Today, Rivers Cuomo has less than fond memories of a local paper referring to them as the
"Stone Temple Pixies."
That may not seem like much of an insult, but Stone Temple Pilots were seen as a corporate
imitation of genuine grunge bands, meaning the story essentially claimed that Weezer
were a manufactured version of the influential alternative rock group - Pixies.
It wasn't just the music media who came for Weezer, either.
Other alt-rock groups such as Pavement and Urge Overkill tended to assume that the group's
lack of legitimately independent releases, and their fast rise to fame, meant that they
were basically an indie version of the Monkees.
The Monkees, of course, were notorious for being thought of as a heavily manufactured
imitation of the Beatles.
But Weezer wasn't a brand, and the band's success wasn't the result of fine-tuning by
record company executives.
They simply didn't have time to hone their sound in nameless obscurity before a perfect
storm occurred in which everything appeared to go their way.
Cuomo reinvented himself into a hit-writing machine in an incredibly short amount of time,
and everything else just clicked into place.
So when their debut album hit, it hit hard.
That's all that happened.
In a weird way, Weezer as you know it was brought to you by none other than Keanu Reeves.
"Woah."
The band's first gig was in 1992, and they played as part of the lineup with Reeves'
band Dogstar.
Sadly, it wasn't a particularly glamorous concert, as Weezer were booked as the close-out
act after Dogstar but hey, it's still something.
The Dogstar gig, which took place in Raji's Bar and Ribshack on Hollywood Boulevard, was
a very Keanu type of place.
It was a laid-back, impromptu show, and Weezer pretty much lucked into the lineup.
Incidentally, the concert is also responsible for Weezer's name, as the then-unnamed band
hadn't really decided what to call themselves.
Turns out, bands usually need a name before they hit the stage, and Cuomo came up with
the name "Weezer," which, of course, ultimately stuck.
So, in a way, you can thank Keanu Reeves for Weezer.
Or not, depending on what you think of them.
The first true Weezer song Rivers Cuomo ever wrote was "Undone The Sweater Song."
It was also released as the band's debut single in 1994.
But even Cuomo himself has admitted that this wasn't exactly an original song.
According to the man himself, "Undone The Sweater Song" was a conscious attempt to write
a song that would evoke a Velvet Underground vibe, seeing as he was a massive fan of Lou
Reed's group.
However, several years after writing, recording, and releasing the tune, Cuomo came to realize
that he'd actually created what he called "a complete ripoff" of the Metallica song
"Welcome Home."
As Cuomo sees it, this is par for the course for his band.
He later said:
"It just perfectly encapsulates Weezer to me.
You're trying to be cool like Velvet Underground, but your metal roots just pump through unconsciously."
When Weezer made their grand entrance with the Blue Album, their alt-rock sound was so
fully formed that it's easy to imagine that Rivers Cuomo grew up with that kind of music.
But this couldn't be further from the truth.
Not long before Weezer became Weezer, Cuomo used to think that bands like the Velvet Underground,
Sonic Youth, and Pixies sounded like in his words "noise" and "garbage."
Instead, his music taste ran towards metal, with a secret fascination with Madonna-style
pop music.
Of course, it turned out that was only because Cuomo hadn't heard Nirvana yet.
The future rock star's musical tastes were irrevocably changed in 1990, when he first
heard the definitive grunge band's single "Sliver."
He immediately fell in love with the song's combination of raw sound, particular lyrics,
and catchy melody.
Nirvana didn't just act as Cuomo's gateway drug to alt-rock, either they also helped
him accept his own image.
Cobain's thick-rimmed glasses in the music video for "In Bloom" helped the Weezer frontman
be more comfortable with his own spectacles.
Neat, huh?
As Weezer fans probably already know, Rivers Cuomo is a rather peculiar fellow.
"Make my champagne bottle cork go boom."
Rock star, Harvard alum, and a man who feels perpetually lonely, Cuomo is a restless spirit
with an endless host of odd obsessions and hobbies.
For example, he's into coding, and often creates complex programs to feed Weezer's touring
calendar and to mine Spotify for tunes that inspire and improve his own songwriting.
He's also all about the life hacks, peppering interviewers with information about blocking
jet lag with orange shades, using electrolyte pills to improve your water intake, and avoiding
social media addiction by scheduling dozens of tweets in advance.
He also describes himself as "the most straight-edge guy ever," despite writing and releasing a
number of songs that reference drug use.
He also researches his own life and likes to keep tabs of it with a giant spreadsheet,
but only the years before 2007.
Obviously.
In the book River's Edge: The Weezer Story, former Weezer member Jason Cropper offers
some insight on Cuomo's nature, saying:
"It's hard to be friends with someone who is so intellectually stimulated.
The guy is really creative.
He's an artist and he's following that path really intensely."
Weezer's ever-shifting musical sensibilities are a point of contention with some fans,
who haven't been above making their feelings on the matter quite clear.
But none of them did this.
In 2010, a particularly enterprising man named James Burns was so fed up with Rivers Cuomo's
group that he offered to pay Weezer a cool $10 million to break up.
Of course, he wasn't about to pony up the money himself, no, this was a crowdfunding
deal.
Unsurprisingly, Burns said he's not much of a Weezer fan, claiming that he was fed up
with the constant media presence of a band.
At the time, Burns asked:
"Every year, Rivers Cuomo swears that he's changed, and that their new album is the best
thing that he's done since Pinkerton, and what happens?
Another pile of crap like 'Beverly Hills' or 'I'm Your Daddy.'
This is an abusive relationship, and it needs to stop now."
Weezer's drummer Patrick Wilson eventually found out about Burns' crowdfunding attempt,
commenting on Twitter:
"If they can make it 20, we'll do the 'deluxe breakup'!"
Of course, he was probably right to be unconcerned.
While a handful of people indeed pitched a combined couple of hundred toward Weezer's
break-up, the attempt seems to have petered out since then.
Ah, well.
Pretty much everyone who's familiar with Weezer and a fair few people who aren't will know
this music video.
Yeah, this is the Spike Jonze directed video for the band's 1994 single "Buddy Holly,"
which features the band playing a gig at Al's Diner, the central setting of Happy Days.
The video, along with the fact that "Buddy Holly" is an incredibly catchy song, played
a large part in propelling Weezer to fame.
But that just makes it all the more surprising that Rivers Cuomo really wanted to leave it
off the Blue Album.
According to Rolling Stone, Cuomo harbored doubts about "Buddy Holly" because he felt
it was little more than a cheesy novelty song.
However, producer Ric Ocasek recognized a good track when he heard it, and he was having
none of Cuomo's nonsense.
He managed to convince the rocker to give "Buddy Holly" a chance through constant badgering
and a number of pep talks.
Cuomo was equally reluctant about the music video as the song itself.
But while he didn't personally enjoy its gimmicky nature, he recognized the Happy Days concept
as a winner.
As he explained:
"At once I didn't like it, and at the same time, I knew it was an amazing idea, and it
had to be done."
People who dislike Weezer often point shine a light on the band's unfortunate use of misogynist
lyrics.
"What's wrong with being sexy?
I mean there's no -"
"Sexist."
"Ist."
Sadly, Cuomo has a long history of immature misogyny that comes off pretty badly in Weezer's
lyrics.
Generally, he tends to portray the entire spectrum of the female gender as either one-dimensional
objects of desire or the sources of his own pain and discomfort.
Many of the accusations focus on the group's second album, Pinkerton, which does contain
some pretty offensive lyrics.
But Cuomo did address these mis-steps before the album even came out, via a message to
the band's fan club.
He wrote:
"There are some lyrics on the album that you might think are mean or sexist.
I will feel genuinely bad if anyone feels hurt by my lyrics, but I really wanted these
songs to be an exploration of my 'dark side' all the parts of myself that I was either
afraid or embarrassed to think about before."
Cuomo himself used to dismiss Pinkerton as a sick album, and he himself was troubled
by the cult following it inspired.
As for the other protests regarding his lyrical presentation of women, in 2016, he tweeted:
"Misogyny: dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women."
Well, that just about clears it up.
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