Rivers Cuomo White Album Sounded Like 1994 All Over Again

March 26, 2022 Post a Comment

Weezer'southward Rivers Cuomo talks The White Album, channelling James Hetfield and his indelible dearest of guitar

Introduction: White on time

Half a decade ago, Weezer were a snobby music announcer'due south punchline.

After a series of albums that had alienated both punters and critics akin, a fund-raising campaign was launched by a modest grouping of fans who were convinced that the band were on an inexorable downward trajectory, the best form of action was to offering them $10 million dollars to intermission up.

We bet they're feeling a bit sheepish today. 2014'southward Everything Will Be Alright In The End – the band's finest record in a decade – was a shot across the bow to those who doubted the power of the band's enigmatic frontman, Rivers Cuomo, to recapture the lightning in a bottle of My Name Is Jonas or Buddy Holly, but the follow up is a full-on barrage.

Weezer'due south quaternary cocky-titled LP (or The White Album, for simplicity'due south sake) is 35 minutes of grunge-pop elation – a hugely compelling blend of 60s vibes mixed with Rivers' stock in merchandise infectious melodies, killer guitar hooks and blistering hair metal-inspired solos.

LA Boyz

Weezer formed in Los Angeles in 1992, and The White Album might be the band's most overt love letter to the highs and lows of their habitation state yet.

Its cover depicts the foursome stood in front of a Baywatch-esque lifeguard tower on a pristine sandy beach, while the album is chock full of harmonies and chord progressions that nod to that most Californian of bands, The Embankment Boys.

Despite the familiarity of those archetype California Audio hallmarks, all the same, the songs yet sound fresh and unmistakably Weezer. This fox of breathing new life into well-trodden chord progressions is something Rivers has done since the ring'southward primeval days, then we have to ask – what's his hugger-mugger?

"Yeah, I mean, you're only hearing the best stuff!" the guitarist exclaims. "Many times when I sit down to write, I utilise an old familiar chord progression and it ends up sounding really boring or really tired. And then, I don't know why, but one out of 10 times in that location'south some magic there and information technology works, fifty-fifty though you're using that same old progression."

Beach Boys progressions and infectious guitar-pop melodies are a long fashion from what Rivers had in mind when, at the age of 18, he left the ashram in Connecticut where he grew upward and headed westward.

"I moved out to LA with my heavy metal band," he chuckles. "We were all near guitar technique and playing every bit fast as possible… and nobody cared at all!"

He'd been bitten by the rock band bug as a teenager – and it scrap him hard.

"I remember I was in 8th grade when some of the other kids in class, they put together a band and they played Metal Health by Quiet Anarchism," he recalls.

My heavy metal band were all most guitar technique and playing every bit fast as possible… and nobody cared at all!

"And I just couldn't believe that kids my age were playing these real instruments and playing this song I loved… information technology just blew my mind! And so I got my own guitar shortly later that, and I started learning all the metallic songs of the day."

Indeed, metal provided the basis for Rivers' guitar education – he idolised Osculation and the Scorpions, but the biggest revelation came before he even picked up the instrument.

"When I was a child I had seen other kids buy an electric guitar and amplifier… and it didn't sound right – it didn't have distortion!" he exclaims.

"I didn't know that word 'baloney', simply I knew in that location was something wrong, because information technology didn't sound like the records I was listening to – it was all make clean! And so before I got my ain instrument, I learned what that term was – 'baloney'!

"The other affair I learned was a 'wah-wah bar'. And so whatever I did, I knew I had to get those two: baloney and a wah-wah bar!"

Death To False Metal

Afterwards turning upwards in LA with a metal band at the precise moment when everyone stopped caring about metallic bands, a rethink was chosen for. From the start, Weezer were conceived to exist the antithesis of hair-ring excess.

"In the early on years information technology was very intentional, very restrained," Rivers recalls of his approach to songwriting.

"Nosotros were putting a lid on all of our technique, and trying to play equally simply as possible – every bit if we'd just picked upwardly our instruments the week before."

Simplicity was central then, but function of the Weezer magic was always the mode Rivers' metal educational activity added a unique vibe to these catchy popular-stone songs.

We were putting a lid on all of our technique, and trying to play as just as possible

One such example is the saturated distorted rhythm guitar that has been a Weezer hallmark, from early moments such as No One Else or Getchoo, correct through to more contempo ear-grabbers Lone Girl or Do Y'all Wanna Get High?.

Tonehounds on online forums might spend thousands of words debating the precise recipe of his tone, but Rivers caption is really rather simple…

"Gear-wise, it's non much of a undercover – I just always brand sure to plough the gain all the manner upwardly, so that information technology's as distorted as possible," he notes.

"But I practice recall in that location's something in my fingers, and in the way I play, and the fashion I form the powerchords that is a little bit unique. Because sometimes I hear other people play through my gear, or I hear them play Weezer songs… and it doesn't take that exact audio."

I was very influenced past James Hetfield as a teenager – the way he plays rhythm

The idea that it'south all in the fingers is a well-worn and authentic guitar trope, simply the player Rivers credits with inspiring his unique rhythm fashion is about as far from his shy, nerdy, bespectacled persona as you can imagine…

"I was in a Metallica covers ring, and I was very influenced by James Hetfield as a teenager – the style he plays rhythm," the guitarist reveals.

"It's something deeper than [the tone], too – information technology's something similar an mental attitude, or a personality, or a spirit in him that comes out in these very subtle movements of his left and right easily. I think I really identified with that and really continued with that – and it comes out in my own playing."

Rivers' runs

If Rivers' tone is distinctive, his playing style truly sets him apart - it's difficult to recollect of another guitar player in the last 2 decades who has crafted quite so many memorable guitar hooks.

A quick mind to The White Album demonstrates that his knack for this is undiminished – Wind In Our Sails has more than cool guitar beats in information technology than virtually bands can manage in a whole album – and then how is he still doing it and then consistently after more than than xx years?

The respond, says Rivers, is to put the guitar down altogether…

A lot of times for solos, what I'll do is I'll sing it, and and then I get dorsum and figure out how to play it on electric guitar

"A trick I have, is to write on different instruments – like I'll write on the pianoforte, and yous stop upward with a different rhythm and feel to it, and a different kind of chord progression and bass line. But so I go back and play that on a mesomorphic distorted guitar! And then a lot of times for solos, what I'll do is I'll sing information technology, and and then I get back and figure out how to play it on electric guitar."

Ah aye, the solos. If Rivers' honey of 80s metal is the constant background hum of Weezer, solo fourth dimension is where he lets the shred out – burning upwards and downwards the fretboard in a flurry of hair metal-inspired notes that his guitar hero, Buss's Ace Frehley, would be proud of.

What'due south remarkable is not simply the precision and technique Rivers displays in these moments, however, only how easy he makes information technology sound. It's not by accident, either; it's a philosophy.

"There'due south a book called Effortless Mastery [by jazz pianist Kenny Werner] – it's not just for guitar, it'south almost like a philosophical book about beingness a soloist – and that was a big influence on me," he recalls.

"Like… the thought that when you're upwardly at that place on stage, it should be like shooting fish in a barrel, information technology should be effortless. And that's so different to how it was when I came up in the 80s, when it was about playing the most hard thing possible."

Pink Triangle

Reviews of the The White Album have drawn several comparisons to Pinkerton, Weezer'southward unflinchingly honest and musically dark second album. Famously, Pinkerton was almost universally slated on its release in 1996, just has come to be regarded as i of the classics of the era, and a fan favourite.

If there are any comparisons to be drawn between information technology and The White Album, however, the man responsible isn't going to make them.

"Um… no," is Rivers' curt response when nosotros ask if he sees a link between the two. His curtness isn't annoyance, however – his brain simply doesn't work that way.

I don't really think in historical terms; I'm just kinda living in the moment

"I don't really think in historical terms; I'm just kinda living in the moment," he explains. "I'grand trying to come up upwards with the adjacent idea, and then I don't spend my fourth dimension trying to build a xx-year narrative! [laughs]"

Rivers has no involvement in canonising his past work considering he's much more concerned with keeping his songwriting approach fresh.

"Sometimes I'chiliad mystified when people say that it sounds similar a 90s record," he observes.

"Take a song like LA Girlz, for case – which on the surface sounds similar a 90s B-side similar Suzanne. But if you accept the lyric sheets and put them side by side, I think y'all'd be shocked at how dissimilar it is. LA Girlz is all very new techniques to me – cutting and pasting lines from different sources, and trying to suggest a story that never happened, and that'southward very dissimilar from what I was doing in the 90s."

This notion of "cut and pasting" is very much at the center of The White Album – and information technology'south a refreshingly unpretentious attitude to take when you've sold millions of records on the back of your songwriting genius…

"I've really got into it," he reveals. "Going back through folders of hundreds of ideas and songs… and finding the very best bits and pasting them together, mixing and matching, seeing what happens. I but Frankenstein it all together, and sometimes it doesn't work, and sometimes it does – simply regardless you lot end up with the very all-time $.25.

"I call back it makes a huge difference overall on the tape and I'm really excited about it. I exercise it with music, and I besides do it with lyrics – I find slap-up lines in my journals, and in books I read, and overheard conversations… and simply paste them all together."

The album's bleak have on his prescription drug addiction, Do You Wanna Get High?, shows that he'south not entirely taking himself out of the songwriting equation – but there's a balance to be struck when crafting songs as a married father of ii in his mid-40s…

"I all the same draw on my personal feel a lot, but I'll jumble it up and I'll mix information technology with other things. If I were to write down my 24-hour interval-to-day life, it would make for a really dull album at this betoken," he deadpans.

Have Control

In a world where then many guitarists are accrue warehouses total of boutique and vintage equipment, Rivers displays a refreshing lack of gear fetishism – he uses what works, and equally long as it keeps working, he sticks with it.

That'south true of his trademark custom Warmoth S-types, and information technology'due south true of the guitar that provided the vast majority of The White Album's tones – a P-xc-loaded Gibson Les Paul Inferior.

"For some reason that'south just the Weezer audio up in the studio," Rivers shrugs of a guitar he'south been tied to on record since he used a pair of Les Paul Junior Specials to lay down much of The Blue Album all the way back in 1993.

If the sense of Weezer getting dorsum to that classic 90s sounds seems at odds with Rivers' stated desire to try new things, it's the effect of the relationship forged betwixt the guitarist and The White Album's producer, Jake Sinclair.

Jake [Sinclair] really went out and found the very rare Mesa/Boogie amp that I used back in the early-mid 90s

"Jake is very much a fan of old-school Weezer," Rivers explains.

"I call up he's the guy who's always nudging me back to a more 90s archetype Weezer audio. I'm just always coming upward with ideas and trying to be creative, and so oftentimes I'll veer away from where nosotros started. And sometimes information technology'south cool… but sometimes it'due south non… so he's there's to rein me back in!"

This 'nudging' applies to gear, too – so preoccupied was Sinclair with recapturing that early on Weezer audio ("He'southward obsessed with the past!"), he wanted to make sure the gear was just right, too, as Rivers explains…

"Jake actually went out and found the very rare Mesa/Boogie amp that I used back in the early-mid 90s – I recall information technology's called a Mk II or something [Weezerphiles believe it was really a Mk I – Ed]. So yeah, he bought ane of those and that'southward what I used for the whole record!"

Blue is the warmest colour

Presently after Weezer finished recording The Blue Album, Rivers took delivery of a new guitar. The Sonic Bluish Southward-type was put together from Warmoth custom parts, and was a unique creature.

Rivers spec'd Seymour Duncan Trembucker and DiMarzio Super Distortion II humbuckers, a monster hardtail bridge, and a built-in Black Water ice passive distortion circuit in identify of the tone control.

The 'Blue Guitar' was Rivers' live weapon of choice between 1994 and 1997, when a huge crevice on its body saw information technology retired. After this, several replacement Warmoth guitars were built, cannibalising Blueish to create four new S-types that he'south used on and off for virtually two decades.

I have no allegiance to it at all, but it wins – every fourth dimension

His favourite remains the new 'Blueish' he started using in 2000 – "the Strat with the lightning strap" as he proclaimed in Dorsum To The Shack. Merely as with all Rivers' gear, his zipper isn't nearly nostalgia – it's simply the best tool for the job.

"Every year or ii I'll do a blind test in the rehearsal room," Rivers explains. "I'll turn my dorsum and take somebody else play a bunch of unlike guitars through my amp, so I tin can't see what they're playing. I rate all these different guitars… and every fourth dimension that guitar wins for me! I take no allegiance to it at all, but it wins – every time."

Don't Allow Get

It's a tired cliché to describe Rivers Cuomo every bit an 'unlikely guitar hero' – but there is truth that his personality and demeanour is in sharp contrast to the electricity that sparks from his fingers when he unleashes them on the fretboard. And perhaps that's why the guitar still inspires him today…

"I don't experience like I accept any allegiance to an instrument or a way or a genre or anything – it simply works for me!" he explains of his lifelong beloved matter with the musical instrument.

"For some reason, if I go upwards on stage without a guitar and I'yard simply singing over a rail, or trying to exercise some other kind of music where there's not a big electrical guitar… it's okay, but it just doesn't feel correct!

"I don't know how to explain it more that. Only once I put my guitar back on and I start playing these big ability chords information technology's like, 'Yeah! This works!' [laughs] Without the guitar I feel weak!"

Weezer's self-titled 10th album is bachelor now on Atlantic Records.

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Source: https://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/weezers-rivers-cuomo-talks-the-white-album-channelling-james-hetfield-and-his-enduring-love-of-guitar-641477

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