|
Weezer Undone?
07/14/2006 5:31 PM, E! Online
Josh Grossberg
Say it ain't so, boys.
As any Weezer fan will
tell you, the seminal alt-rock band has a habit of dropping hints about
their imminent demise between records only to resurface with a new
release.
This time, however, Weezer's bespectacled
leader, Rivers Cuomo, has announced that after 13 years and five albums,
culminating with last year's platinum-selling Make Believe, the
group's latest break may be permanent.
"Really for the
moment, we are done," the frontman tells MTV News. "And I'm not
certain we'll ever make a record again, unless it becomes really obvious
to me that we need to do one."
Cuomo, 36, discussed
Weezer's future from his in-laws house in Japan, where he and new bride
Kyoko Ito are currently spending their honeymoon.
He
said he still communicates regularly with his band mates--the current
lineup includes guitarist Brian Bell, bassist Scott Shriner and drummer
Patrick Wilson--all of whom served as groomsmen at his June wedding in
Malibu and are now back in Los Angeles. And while all of them appear to
be on good terms, Cuomo says he needs some time to focus on himself.
"All this year, I've been feeling pretty creative and
excited, so I've been writing a lot," Cuomo said. "I don't know what'll
happen with these songs--if anything--I just sort of write them and I
can't stop. I certainly don't see them becoming Weezer songs, and I
don't really see the point of a solo career. So we'll just have to
see."
Of course, devotees don't put too much stock in
such pronouncements. After all, Weezer waited five years between the
release of 1996's sophomore effort, Pinkerton, and the band's
third album, 2001's Weezer (also known as The Green Album,
based on the color of the cover, to differentiate it from the band's
1994's self-titled debut, whose cover was blue).
What
makes Cuomo's latest statement stand out from similar remarks the
eccentric musician has made in the past is that Cuomo had hit some
personal milestones. In addition to tying the knot, he finally graduated
from Harvard after attending part-time over a 10-year period. And fans
combing through the liner notes of Make Believe know that there's
a quote of a parting soliloquy from Shakespeare's final play, The
Tempest, suggesting that the end has come.
While he
might not be ready for a full-blown solo album, Cuomo has been recording
his new compositions.
"I get on my crazy Japanese bike
and ride for 10 minutes down to the mega-mall, and on the third floor
they have all these studios you can rent for five bucks an hour, with
drums and a soundboard and everything," he tells MTV. "So I go in there
and work, and when I'm done, I exit in the midst of a Japanese
mega-mall."
Some of the new tunes the "Hash Pipe" rocker
has been hashing out include "Heart Songs," a tribute to such Cuomo
influences as Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald"
and Nirvana's Nevermind, and the song "Our Time Will Come," which
he wrote in honor of the U.S. men's soccer team.
There's
also rampant Internet speculation about a Weezer greatest hits album
coming out later this year on Interscope Records, that would presumably
contain such alternative anthems as "Undone--The Sweater Song," "Buddy
Holly," "Say It Ain't So" and "Beverly Hills." But Cuomo downplayed the
rumors, saying Weezer doesn't have enough great songs to make such a
collection "worth putting out at this point."
"I'd like
to include two more amazing songs on there. And anything else would just
seem lazy to me. We'll see, though. I don't really feel comfortable with
it right now."
In other words, don't count Weezer out
just yet. And reminding fans just how such pronouncements have easily
come undone before, Weezer's official Website issued a post addressing
Cuomo's MTV interview, noting that by this point it should come as no
surprise that the future of Weez remains, as always, unwritten."
|
