Rivers Cuomo of Weezer Tells All

Welcome to Young Hollywood.com. Hey Young Hollywood, it's Michelle Marie and I'm here with Rivers Cuomo of Weezer.

I was next to you and you were right there next to me. Then I said go. If you're wondering if I want you to, I want you to. If you're wondering if I want you to, I want you to.

It's so, it's a tongue twister. Um, tell me about the concept behind the song.

It's a situation in my life where I wanted to make a move but I was I didn't know if I should make a move so I kind of wanted her to make a move and it was all confusing for a minute. But it turned out okay.

I know you guys recently shot the video and you guys kind of take over this whole town and make it like a Weezer ville.

It's basically like a 50's nostalgia town and it's just populated exclusively by clones of the four of us guys in Weezer and we're just hanging out, being guys, getting shaves and filling up our trucks with gas. And then one day this beautiful young woman played by Odette Yustman comes into town and we're all just blown away and we start getting distracted and accidents start happening. And then at the end of the video, I have to choose, am I going to go with this beautiful young lady or am I going to stick with my bros?

Talk about your album, Raditude. Now, I love that title.

My friend Rain Wilson from The Office came up with it. I described the album. I said, "It's high energy rock." Right. You know, like super rock album. And he said, "Raditude." So,

Is that your reaction?

Yeah, we went with that. Uh, but he didn't tell us what it meant. To me, it's like that state of mind when you're so concentrated on what you're doing, you get in your zone and suddenly you're capable of doing all these things you you had no idea you'd be able to do. That's Raditude.

Now, before you actually titled the album Raditude, did you guys think about going with a color again?

Personally, I'm sick of the colors. Yeah, like I want to I want it to be something new and fresh and never repeat ourselves. But you know, the colors are always there in case we get stuck and can't come up with a title. Yeah.

Your sound and style has evolved. You know, you came out of the post-grunge era as one of the most popular bands. And how have you stayed relevant, like, each year with the styles and the music changing, you know, over time?

I think the the key to staying relevant, it's the same thing to being relevant in the first place, is just to do what makes you excited. Not stick with what worked in the past or what your fans expect or what you think is going to be successful but just ask yourself, what do I want to do today? Now, you know, putting out Raditude and doing collaborations with musicians from other genres, like we have Lil Wayne rapping on a song. Some of our fans might get mad but we got to take that chance. We got to keep evolving and keep doing what makes us excited in the moment.

Did you think that it was something that just came up that you just decided one day, hey, I'm just going to call up Lil Wayne and see if he wants to collab with me or was something that you thought of over the over time?

I don't have a choice in the matter. I just get these ideas in my head. I don't know where they come from and I got to try them out. Can't Stop Partyin', that's one that has Lil Wayne on it. I wrote it with Jermaine Dupri. That was a real fun challenge for me because he's bringing his hip-hop ideas and I have to make them work for me. Yeah, and uh, it turned into something that I never could have written on my own but it's so beautiful and and fun and dark and it's everything all at once. It's a real pop masterpiece. I think people are going to love it.

Now, what was the one thing about Lil Wayne that you really loved that made you want to choose him for your album?

I love that, it's, to me, it sounds like he's not trying to be a gangster or or trying to be anything. He's just naturally flowing and it it's just so weird and creative and like that line when he's talking about Ninja Turtles and then he rhymes it again with turtles and it's like, "Whoa, you can't do that. You just broke about five rules of rap." But he does it.

You guys are both creative geniuses. I mean, the band and him, you guys have great synergies. Tell us more about the album.

We wrote a song with All-American Rejects and ironically, it sounds actually a lot like old Weezer. And yeah, it turns out they were Weezer fans back in the day.

Your fanbase is that it's not only evolved over the years but it's definitely become more of a wide audience. You have the older Weezer fans that are die-hard and then the new ones that all the young ones that are coming up.

Well, from the first album, Weezer was all about just writing classic songs. We're we're not trying to appeal to just a grunge or alternative mid-90's sound like we love Beatles and Beach Boys, 60's pop and we love the new sounds, electro music. And so, we're just trying to write songs that can that touch everyone's hearts.

To me, you're a style icon. I mean, you've really been able to capture, you know, the the whole thick glasses look and the V-neck sweater and now it's kind of, you know, the hipster look to today. So, do you consider yourself a style icon?

Well, looking at myself right now, I'd have to say, no. Um, just kind of rolled out of bed and wearing a tracksuit. Um,

But it's a good tracksuit.

Thank you. In the early 90's, when Weezer was first starting to get together, I was like, "Man, what's what's my look going to be? I got to figure out my look. Every rock star has to have a look." And I drove myself crazy thinking about it, so I said, "Forget it. I'm just going to wear the clothes and the glasses that I wore when I was a little kid before I ever even thought about this sort of thing."

So this has been with you for years.

Yeah, since since I was a little kid. So I I just went and looked at photos of myself when I was five years old and I tried to copy that.

Also, you have definitely explored different facial hair styles over the years. Do you think that's an art form? Is that something that you also go for with your look?

I think everything is an art form nowadays. Um, you know, a musician doesn't just play an instrument anymore. They, yeah, not just singing, it's it's what you wear, it's it's how you talk, it's how you walk, it's how you move. It's everything. So, um, yeah, you know, facial hair at times has been a way for me to rebel against what's expected of me. Um, you know, I knew that the thing that would frustrate and antagonize my audience the most would be to have a mustache. So I had a mustache for a while and yeah, it was really upsetting for a lot of people.

I saw you before, you were knitting and you have all these different hobbies that you do, you know, outside of working on the band and with with work. What other things do you love to do? What are you passionate about right now?

Well, I love soccer. I play soccer once or twice a week and besides that, like you said, I'm getting into knitting. I also like working with clay, making sculpting clay heads. Yeah. I don't know why, it's just, there's a lot for someone in my profession, there's a lot of downtime where you can't go anywhere, you can't really do anything, you're just sitting around backstage. Gives me something to do with my hands, so I'm not um, like on Twitter all the time. I need a break.

Are you are you a Twitter maniac or what?

Uh, it's well, I'm it's it's pretty fun.

What do you usually tweet about? Do you like to reveal what you're doing all day long or do you usually just talk about the album?

It's kind of like lyric writing. It's actually become like my my public post-it. So whenever I get an idea, I just put it on Twitter and then it's out there. Um, it's not It's basically any thought that comes into my head that sounds interesting or poetic or just has a certain ring to it and then I'll put it out there.

Hi, this is Rivers Cuomo from Weezer and I just want to say hi to all the Weezer fans. We're in this together. Let's do this.