|
Plan for world domination:
1) Release refreshingly poppy self-titled debut album
2) Follow it up with an album of difficult, dark, emotionally-twisted songs named Pinkerton
3) Disappear for four years amid rumors of breakups and breakdowns; lose your bassist
4) Return with 28 minutes of more refreshingly poppy tunes on another self-titled album
5) Pick a drug-referencing song most media outlets can't or won't play as the first single (and include gratuitous pockmarked-sumo-wrestler-butt shots in the video)
6) Sit back and have the last laugh as your tour sells out and the album debuts in the Billboard top 5
Now this formula won't work for everyone. But for über-dweebs Weezer, it's been golden. When they emerged from several years of silence this year to headline a tour, their fans came out in force. The band — mastermind/singer Rivers Cuomo, guitarist Brian Bell and drummer Pat Wilson — recorded their third album with new bassist Mikey Welsh. When it was released in May, their parched fans again turned up for the party.
Sure, everyone wants to be their best friends again, but that doesn't mean they want to explain the inspiration behind songs like "H*** Pipe" and "Island in the Sun." On the contrary, when MTV News' Gideon Yago stepped into the ring with the band, they were more psyched to talk about the difference between Elmo and emo, playing shows in clam shacks and why their next album might be 10 hours long.
***
Gideon Yago: After five years, we get a 28-minute record. What gives?
Pat Wilson: People are just generally ungrateful, I think. Come on, Van Halen 2 is, like, 27 minutes.
Mikey Welsh: What's wrong with 28 minutes?
Yago: I guess after five years, people feel like ... there are all these stories that there's all this material ...
Welsh: Well, if you do the math, it all makes sense. Five, 28 minutes. It's perfect. Ten songs.
Brian Bell: There's no filler. Just think of all those records that are 45 minutes that ...
Rivers Cuomo: Go on Napster. We recorded nine other songs in addition to the 10 on the record. Go download 'em, it's free. Stop complaining. [Laughs]
Yago: You guys just finished a promo tour. Was it good for you?
Bell: It was great meeting all the fans.
Yago: What was your favorite venue that you played on this tour?
Wilson: [A] skate park in Detroit. I can't remember the name. It was just awesome.
Bell: I think I liked playing at the boxing ring in Philadelphia.
Cuomo: The boxing ring was cool.
Welsh: We played in a little clam shack on Cape Cod.
Wilson: That was actually pretty cool.
Getting back to the clubs, selling the next album on eBay and running back to the studio... NEXT >>>
|
