{"id":798983,"date":"2019-08-29T11:51:15","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T17:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=878205"},"modified":"2019-08-29T11:51:15","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T17:51:15","slug":"7-things-we-learned-about-weezers-early-days-and-the-blue-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/7-things-we-learned-about-weezers-early-days-and-the-blue-album\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Things We Learned About Weezer\u2019s Early Days and the \u2018Blue Album\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Our new feature<\/a> on the birth of Weezer<\/a> and the making of the Blue Album<\/a><\/em> is just the beginning of our celebration of that album\u2019s 25th anniversary \u2014 there will be much more to come from the interviews. In the meantime, here are some highlights from the feature; read it in full here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rivers Cuomo<\/a> was such a metalhead that he hated alt-rock when he first heard it.<\/strong>
Cuomo knew metal, and had a quiet soft spot for pop, such as Madonna and Tiffany. Practically everything else was alien to him. \u201cAt first I just could not get into it at all,\u201d he says. \u201cIt sounded like garbage to me. Velvet Underground; Pet Sounds<\/em> was reissued around that time. 13th Floor Elevators, Pixies, Sonic Youth, it all sounded like noise. I thought, \u2018None of this is catchy.\u2019 But I came to love it all. Now I don\u2019t understand how I missed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Cuomo was formulating Weezer\u2019s sound, he apparently also dabbled in another genre.<\/strong>
Original guitarist Jason Cropper says that  Cuomo made an entire, never-released rap album under the name Vegeterrorists \u2014 songs about his lifelong vegetarianism in styles akin to Public Enemy and Run-DMC. \u201cRivers can drop mad beats and spit mad rhymes with the best,\u201d says Cropper. \u201cAnd if I stayed in the band, we would\u2019ve done records like that years ago.\u201d (The only released evidence of this period is a striking demo of Cuomo covering Ice Cube\u2019s \u201cThe Bomb\u201d like a one-man Rage Against the Machine.)<\/p>\n

The band name Weezer, from a childhood nickname, has deep emotional resonance for Cuomo.
<\/strong>His dad wasn\u2019t in his life much after his parents\u2019 divorce, when he was four years old or so, and he had strong, unresolved feelings about it all. He had already used the name \u201cWeezer\u201d as a label from one of his cassettes of new songs. \u201cI remember getting letters from my dad and it would always be, \u2018To Weezer.\u2019 He didn\u2019t use an \u2018h,\u2019\u2009\u201d says Cuomo, who contrary to Internet conventional wisdom, never had asthma. \u201cIt was definitely a very emotional name for me \u2014 and I don\u2019t think for anyone else. For the other guys in the band, it\u2019s just a weird word. I guess it even ties back to what I was saying about \u2018Sliver.\u2019 Just this feeling of being this helpless little kid that\u2019s abandoned, or neglected. It was definitely the right name.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drummer Pat Wilson is proud of the sacrifice he made in the early days of the band, living in a garage without plumbing.<\/strong>
\u201cI shit in a bag,\u201d he reveals, with a hint of pride. \u201cBecause I had to go! And there was nowhere to go. And I\u2019m convinced the gods of rock said, \u2018That kid\u2019s a true believer. We\u2019ve got to put the thumb on the scale for the old Weeze.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

The band had strong ideas about the sound of their debut.
<\/strong>\u201cThere was one overriding concept,\u201d says the album\u2019s engineer, Chris Shaw. \u201cThe idea that the guitars and the bass were one huge 10-string instrument. There\u2019s very few songs on the record to actually have a bass line that drifts away from what the guitar is doing.\u201d When they mixed the album, they insisted that all of the guitars be as loud as or louder than the ones on Radiohead\u2019s \u201cCreep,\u201d which is why some of the vocals are almost buried.<\/p>\n

Cuomo was hurt that people found some of the \u2018Blue Album\u2019 funny.<\/strong>
\u201cI seriously thought we were the next Nirvana,\u201d Cuomo admits. \u201cAnd I thought the world was going to perceive us that way, like a super-important, super-powerful, heartbreaking heavy rock band, and as serious artists. That\u2019s how I saw us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuomo and original bassist Matt Sharp were reluctant to include \u201cBuddy Holly\u201d on the album.
<\/strong>In Cuomo\u2019s mind, it was intended for the band\u2019s second album, which would be more keyboard-oriented and New Wave-influenced. (Weezer, of course, never made such an album; Sharp, destined to part ways with the group circa 1997, did instead, with his band the Rentals.) Sharp and Cuomo were also concerned that \u201cBuddy Holly\u201d could become the kind of Nineties hit that could kill a band. \u201cThere was a worry that it could become the \u2018Detachable Penis\u2019 of this album,\u201d says Sharp. \u201cWe had the sense that it could be taken as a novelty song, and people aren\u2019t going to take the album seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n